My classes are.... frustrating.
I had my first bio lecture on Wednesday. I looked around the room, saw that there were a good number of older-than-college-age people there and was glad to see that I wasn't even the oldest one there. There are tons of left-handed desks so I was happy about that too (yes, I am left handed, and yes, it is hard to use the righty desks).
Then the actual class started. We spent about half the class going over the syllabus, which I was annoyed about since we had already recieved it by email a couple days before, but you know, not a big deal. Then the professor asked for kids who were in their first semester out of high school to raise their hands. Only about 70% of the class did. The professor then asks the rest of us to bear with him for a few minutes. He changes the slide on the power point to one titled:
This is NOT High School
I almost got up and walked out of the room. Seriously?!?!?! Do the kids who just got out of high school even need to see this slide? He was just making the point that no one is checking up on them to make sure they go to class, do the readings, do the assignments, etc., but if they don't do them they will fail the class. Good grief.
Then we finally had five minutes where we actually discussed biology. The lecture on Friday wasn't much better, it was a simplified, glossed-over version of the reading. I have a feeling this is going to be a frustrating class.
The first chemistry lecture was similarly frustrating. Remember those old overhead projectors from elementary school? The teacher still writes on those while she's lecturing. I find that sort of endearing actually. BUT, we went over the difference between the English and Metric systems, which I can understand for maybe high school chemistry but all of us in the class have presumably already taken high school chemistry. And then we talked about the difference between a meter and a kilometer. And a centimeter and a meter. And a millimeter and a centimeter. And how to convert fahreinheit to celsius. And the abbreviations of common elements, like how oxygen is O and hydrogen is H.
OMG, shoot me. Or throw a brick at my head. Something to stop the inanity.
Maybe it will be better in a couple of weeks after we start getting into meaningful content? The frustrating part is that I have to keep going to classes to get homework assignments, and I'm too much of a goody-goody to just skip class. I might have to start a drinking game. Take a drink every time the chemistry prof has to review the abbreviation for carbon. Take a drink every time the bio prof has to remind us that we aren't in high school.
I hope the semester won't be as long as it seems like it will be right now.
10 comments:
OMG, Mira! I was even ready to walk out of the class when you mentioned that!!!! Holy COW!! I think I would have had to after the Farenheit/Centigrade conversion, just to get the heck outta there!!! You mist have dug your fingernails into the desk.... Did you console yourself with some yummy ice cream, afterwards, at least??!!!
Hang in there.. and I sincerely HOPE it gets better.............
Wow, how dumbed down are college classes now?!? That is so awful. I'm sorry you have to sit through that!
Wait, where exactly are you doing this drinking game? In class? Haha. I'm just imagining you with a big ol' thermos of "water." Cue the Chem prof "boy, that girl sure is thirsty!" Hehe. Sorry it's suckyville for now, but here's hoping it gets better(more interesting) soon!!
Always remember Mira, you are not in high school anymore... and stop sniffing your eraser! :P
I always liked the first day of classes, because I knew I would have to do minimal (if any) work. I don't know if we'd spend the whole time going over the syllabus (which was rarely available to us ahead of time), but we never actually jumped right in on the first day. Thankfully.
I don't know how to convert Fahrenheit to Centigrade anymore (I did at one time) so that would have come in handy for me! But I can do basic rough estimates after all the French weather reports.
I'm glad everyone else is outraged too, because I tried to make a joke about the whole not being in high school thing anymore to someone in my bio lab, and I don't think they thought it was funny. Ooops. Looks like the drinking game will be for lab rather than lecture, which will be extra special fun.
Shannon - to convert celsius to fahrenheit the simplified way, you multiply the celsius value by two, then take away a couple of degrees, and then add 32.
For example, 10C doubled is 20, take away a couple makes it 18, add 32 gives you 60 degrees fahrenheit.
The reason you take away a couple degrees is that in the real equation you multiply C by 9/5, and I don't have time for that. It's almost two, so you just fudge the result a little bit.
I knew the formula involved some sort of fraction with 5 on the bottom! I pretty much do the simplified way in my head without even thinking about it.
You really inspired me on writing a post about my own adventures at university. I literally chocked on my Coke (Diet, obviously) when I read:
He changes the slide on the power point to one titled:
This is NOT High School
Oh. My. God.
Mind you, I'm taking a second year class and the teacher still had to mention that playing video games or looking at porn on their laptop during the class will not be tolerated.
He was serious. I guess it happened (and I can see it happening...).
Come on, guys, grow up!
We had the appropriate use of laptops talk too, and of course the fact that phones must be off during class. Didn't prevent the girl sitting next to me from playing with her Blackberry last week!
Did you ever imagine that university students in the US were so immature?
Oh, that just reminded me! There was this girl at Middlebury. She wasn't in my class, but apparently she was always on her computer, chatting with her boyfriend and playing on Facebook. And then she'd ask the profs really stupid questions that were already answered. This girl is like 30, so it's not just the youngsters!
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