Thread for complaining about the new semester.

[Geminex]

Not all of it is bad. Oversimplified and too specific, but not horrible.

Then again, perhaps you shouldn't follow said advice. At best consider Machiavelli's worldview and description of how politics works.

[katiuska]

Originally Posted by batgirl

Maybe it's just me, but I find that while I'm taking difficult classes (Anatomy and Physiology and Microbiology), the material at the beginning of the year is super easy. I was warned that A&P would be really hard, but really, we're going over stuff I learned in high school. I expect it will get harder, but at the rate we're moving we'll hit that point at the end of the semester.

Also, while my microbiology professor is a genuinely nice guy, he has the most monotonous voice I've ever heard. Not only that, but he starts off talking normally, and then moves to mumbling at the end of his sentences/points. A 15 person class in a room made for 100 does not give us the best acoustics.

The only problem I've had is that they seem to assume everyone's taken college chemistry and I never have. Also, on the day of my A&P test last week, the train had a problem and it took like half an hour for it to occur to them to drop us off at the nearest platform so we could catch trains that were actually moving. I missed most of it, but I managed to scrap a B out of the time I had left, so it turned out all right.

Your class schedule is nearly identical to mine, though. What sort of career path are you working on?


I've been having some problems with the university re: my classification and they didn't respond to any of my attempts to contact them before classes started. (Background: I took two classes there last spring as a graduate student. Because the undergraduate and graduate colleges function independently, I have to be admitted as a postbac by the undergraduate college to be classified as such, and until then I'm still a grad student.) So I finally got in touch with them the second week of class, and it turns out that the problem was that they couldn't tell where I'd got my bachelor's degree (even though that's the only transcript with 100+ credits and says in capital letters that I earned a degree, but whatever). I'd only paid the rate they should charge and not what they did charge, so they dropped me from my classes, because they do that, and I've had to get myself manually re-entered into all of the classes. I'm still waiting for Microbiology and the Microbiology lab, and today is the last day to do this, so I have to spend today finding out what the hold up is; the registrar claims they haven't gotten anything and the professor claims he submitted the request.

What makes it even more fun is that right now I can't access the lab online, which is the only way we're able to obtain and submit assignments.

Meanwhile, one of the classes I took last year didn't transfer toward my Master's degree, so I've been locking down a summer class that will. That was annoying, but it's done now.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Geminex

Not all of it is bad. Oversimplified and too specific, but not horrible.

Then again, perhaps you shouldn't follow said advice. At best consider Machiavelli's worldview and description of how politics works.

It was hidden- it wasn't supposed to be outrageously bad, subtle. And the consideration of Machiavelli's worldview is what encourages the view that it is satire/purposefully wrong because it is completely different from everything else we know about Machiavelli. Unfortunately a lot of people base their views of Machiavelli on the Prince which is silly.

[Viridis]

Anyone know a good resource for learning things about Calculus? Neither my current teacher or book are very clear or helpful.

[batgirl]

Originally Posted by katiuska

Your class schedule is nearly identical to mine, though. What sort of career path are you working on?

Physician's Assistant. I'm actually just taking these two classes as pre-recs so I can start my masters in the fall.

It's funny, there are no requirements for my A&P class, so no one is expected to know more than high school anything. I mean, we spent some of last class going over the periodic table and what each number in each box means. She then decided to draw a Hydrogen atom on the board. I have taken college level chemistry, organic chemistry, biology and biochemistry. She's drawing atoms. I wondered if she heard my jaw drop on the floor.

[Pip Boy]

My school's science teacher, Mrs. Thompson, is some kind of demon raised from hell itself to make humans suffer. She has absolutely no idea how to teach science, and even I'm more qualified to teach the class than she is. She also has a voice that sounds like a choir of screaming babies. Since I put in an official complaint to the school about her last semester, the cheeky bastards have decided to put me in 3 of her classes, so now literally half of my school day consists of being in a room with a teacher I hate and plan to get fired in the near future.

[katiuska]

Originally Posted by batgirl

Physician's Assistant. I'm actually just taking these two classes as pre-recs so I can start my masters in the fall.

It's funny, there are no requirements for my A&P class, so no one is expected to know more than high school anything. I mean, we spent some of last class going over the periodic table and what each number in each box means. She then decided to draw a Hydrogen atom on the board. I have taken college level chemistry, organic chemistry, biology and biochemistry. She's drawing atoms. I wondered if she heard my jaw drop on the floor.

Ah, that makes sense. I'm taking them as prereqs for a nursing program.

Microbiology's an upper-level class and most of the students are bio majors, so it's probably reasonable for them to assume that most people have had molecular biology. I'm coming at it sort of out of order (this is my first semester back and nobody teaches Chem I in the spring), but I deal. A&P is much more basic--not THAT basic, but I think in most places it's an early-program class.

Though they do expect you to pick up a lot of information in a short amount of time. The lab has been running us through the bones and each of their individual structures, which I'm told they WILL drill into you several times before you get out of any vaguely medical-related program. The massage therapist at our table is an old hand at this, but the rest of us are totally lost.

[Magus]

My student teaching has had so many problems, including switching schools after just a couple of weeks and then the school I was transferred to only having like three days of school out of seven due to winter storms and their President's Day weekend vacation. Technically I'm still ahead on the work and everything, it's just disorienting. I seem to have less to complain about than most of you, though, since I'm nearing the end of college.

[CelesJessa]

Right now the only class I really like is my animation class (which is probably a good thing, since it's my major).

Drawing 3 is particularly annoying. There's a girl who sits next to me who I'm starting to think is a little... unusual. The type who is telling you WAY TOO PERSONAL THINGS before you even know their name. I'm just trying to draw here and she's going on about all of these touchy subjects. And she likes to poke me and I don't like people in my personal space (unless they're people I like, of course.)

AND THEN one of our nude models, I don't think it's intentional but SOMEHOW no matter where I'm sitting in class he finds a way to sit, like, front and center right in front of me so it's always like "OH HELLO THERE". Maybe he likes messing with people and notices when I switch chairs after he chooses his pose (Okay, besides the obvious, front and center is just not always the best angle to draw anyway.)

And THEN in my video art class we're watching all sorts of weird controversial stuff that seems intent on making me feel uncomfortable. Although one of them included dudes making out so.....

...Hehe I'm amused, my worst class story involves me getting to look at naked people a lot. My classes are awesome.

[Wigmund]

I have three more years left to obtain a Physics major. I've finished off (or will finish off at the end of this semester) all my fluff credits except for my foreign language. I tried Russian my freshman year - but I've decided that Spanish is the way to go...don't have to learn a completely new alphabet and Spanish is a common language here.

I've figured out when I can take my various Physics classes, but I'm debating whether or not to throw in a Chemistry and/or Computer Science minor on top of everything else. It adds significantly more classes, but it should make it easier to get a decent job out of college.