So, this being my first actual semester in college (although I'm technically in my second semester thanks to transfer credits), I have learned a lot about just how horrendously time consuming classes can be if you miss a week and a half because you got food poisoning from going out to a shady restaurant... (which is why I've been MIA for about a month), but I've also had a chance to really enjoy my academic advancement as well as the large amount of people I interact with every day and the variety of organizations I am begining to involve myself in.

Now, this topic is obviously not just an update of myself (I've done that once before), but an open invitation for everyone to talk about how they're academic lives are doing, and for our somewhat more... mature memberst to give us advice and share their experiences with us.

First semester huh? Well im a 5 yr senior (almost done, but i will prolly go back for grad school )but technically i had enough credits to be considered a senior 2 years ago. One thing that i learned in first year, dont skip classes, it puts you behind and my GPA shows it despite the fact that the last 2 years i have been a dean lister with straight A's.

Also, i found that reading material fully really doesnt give you heads up. Books are full of both helpful and useless information. With practice you will learn which is which and learn to briefly glaze over reading to get the full importance. Learn to do this and you save ass loads of time. Some of my peers still do all assigned reading which amounts to about 1-2hours more work a night for them.

Lastly, have as much fun as possible. Once school gets out, it wont be so easy to party and hang out with friends whenever you want. So enjoy every minute of it.

Is it june yet? I got the worst seniorites.

As being in my first year of a doctorial program, I have to agree with everyone else. Don't miss class, externalities tend not to affect you when you are the sick one. Just remember, there is no difference on a final low A and high A. In grad school, passing is good enough.

One more thing I've experienced personally and I think is a good piece of advice is this; don't go to a college that you won't take advantage of fully, there's a reason why there are so many diferent options (at least in the US and in Mexico), so look for the one that's best for you and start planning towards it at least by the end of your Junior year in Highschool (or your local equivalent).

I'm a sixteen year old junior in an American highschool, prolly enough said right there. I'm taking American Sign Language II (It's not called that due to being egotistical, it's called that because sign language really DOES vary country to country.), Algebra II, and Collision Repair.

A lot of people raise their eyebrow at the last one there, but it's a pretty good class. Being a girl obviously, a lot of people think I'm crazy for taking it. Plus, I'm the only girl in my class this semester; who knows, maybe this next nine weeks I'll be lucky and not be alone for once! But other than that I get along with most of the guys in there. Except for two sophomores from my own school; it's rather sad when you get along better with the other school that goes to a vocational technical school along with yours.

However, due to this class I now hate mustangs, despise the color yellow, and the smell of various types of filler make me hungry for some reason I just can't place.

Note: Do NOT eat any types of filler as it will literally clog up your rear end depository system and it may also kill you.

But it's a pretty good class all the same. ^__^


ASLII is also a decent class, however this year it's a complete drag due to us having more freshmeat - I mean, freshmen than usual in there and them all being obnoxious little cows that don't stop mooing. >.> I know, I know, I was a freshman once upon a year, but I wasn't loud, obnoxious, or acting like the other kids in class should bow down to me.

However, the title of Obnoxious Cow is not reserved totally for the freshmen, oh no. There are two juniors in my class - one an ASLIII and the other ASLII - are complete cows to me because I couldn't remember two "simple" signs. Number one: I never use the word 'ever' in my daily signing exercises. Two: How am I supposed to remember signs I never use?!

It's a fun class though, my teacher is awesome. She's 64, but I swear to god she's got more energy than my hyperactive cousin Maura. >.> Two or three years ago she broke her elbow after dropkicking a SNACK MACHIIINE. It was... weird, to say the least, especially when she told us how her doctor in the ER asked her what she rated the pain as.

"2."

*blank stare*

"What?"

"I'd rate this a thirteen, ma'am."

Her elbow was literally shattered into pieces, yet she hardly felt it even though all the pieces were digging into her muscles, fatty tissues, and the inner layer of the dermis. She really doesn't feel very much pain, she said stubbing her toe was worse than breaking her elbow. O.o

As for my math class: I hate math therefore will not discuss. >__>;

Just out of sheer curiosity, where are you studying? because you seem to have a very interesting array of classes...

Also, just for kicks, I might as well post my schedule:

Calculus.- MTWRF 2:00pm-3:00pm 5 Credit-Hours
Chemistry.- MWF 11:00am-12:00pm 5 Credit-hours
LDRS.- TR 12:30pm-1:45pm 3 Credit Hours
Calculus Co-sem.- TR 3:30pm-4:45pm 1 Credit-hour
Chemistry Co-sem.- TR 5:30pm-6:45pm 1 Credit-hour
Chemistry Recitation & Lab.- R 8:00am-12:00pm Part of Chempistry class, no separate Credit-hours

As I have said before, my thurdays were spawned by Satan.

I'm just your regular ol' highschool kid, Legend. XD My school actually had a ton more interesting classes on campus, but due to the mysterious 'budget cuts' (which I still think are totally lies and just other teachers having complained so much about them not getting enough students) we no longer have driver's ed on campus, no more German or Japanese language classes, there's probably more but I don't know what. The vocational technical school in question is actually more or less geared toward graduated students looking to enter the workforce fairly soon after school, not immediately but close to it, and it's got a ton of classes.

Computer Class
Law Enforcement (covers the basics of being a police officer, goes clear through forensics and the justice system too and they occasionally stage mock trials. I wanna watch one. XD)
Autobody Tech (which is the basic car knowledge class)
Collision repair (which is where we fix how cars look, basically. I can't weld yet. >__>;)
Welding
Carpentry/Building
Nursing
Electronics
Driver's Ed (I don't get it either)
??? (Basically taking care of little kids, I don't know what it's called.)

There's probably a couple I missed but that's the gist of the classes. The highschool's your typical highschool except for the sign language course, and the only reason they even had it to begin with is because my school had quite a few deaf kids. As a result teachers wanted to learn how to be able to talk to them with signing, and kids wanted to learn too. So, bing! American Sign Language.

.

Only 15 credit hours?

This year is the first time i dropped under 17. Lucky dog.

I decided to take it easy my first semester, next semester on I'm taking at least 18 and I'm taking summer courses this and next summer.

Also, I'm doing only one Major with Two Minors, so my final Credit requirement is 140.

Hahahah. For my major as of right now, i already have 220 credit hours. Only one minor.

Damn, where are you studying again?

University of oregon.

Sage advice. University is a time you'll never get back. Enjoy it for what it is. Don't overload your schedule (like some stupid Emi I know did to graduate early and regret it for the rest of her life).

If somebody else is footing the bill then take all sorts of courses to really be sure you get a degree in something that will help you get a job you actually want. If somebody else isn't footing the bill then spend some time first interning in a few different environments to really see what you want to do.

Hang out with classmates and other friends as much as possible, and keep on top of what their phone numbers/emails/addresses are because if you don't keep up, you'll risk losing them forever.

Another reason to keep a constantly updated list of numbers/e-mails/adresses is because if you do by the time you graduate you will allready have a contact list filled with other young proffessionals that could possibly turn out to be your most valuable business contacts (business classes are your friend).

Im in uni atm, in england.

Nuff said. Its going alright, im a fresher, or a first year, i dont know what you call it over there, and its alright so far, a bit heavy sometimes.

I'm just taking a couple of classes on the side at Purdue while working full time.
I don't really want to go back to school, but if they're going to pay the tuition I'll take advantage of their generosity.

Besides, the kind of work I do every day will eventually be performed by machines as technology continues to advance. In the years to come, production workers will basically have two choices: Become highly educated and skilled and learn to operate and fix the machines, or quite possibly lose their job.

Imma Junior in high-school

taking
US History Regents/World at War(studying WW2)- because i need a fall back class
Math 3- I hate math with a passion because of my teacher
AP English- I'm good at it
AP Biology- I need some challenge
Health- Were do babby come form?
Food Prep/Gourmet Cooking- Imma be a chef
Italian- I'm a natural apparently

I packed my schedule this year and last year so next year I'm taking 4-5 out of 8 classes then I can just leave its sweet

are you planning on taking any AP or Other such College credit courses?

I only planned on those two APs though my Italian counts as a college course this and senior year, Woo! I get 4 credits for this year and another 4 next year and I get 6 from AP Bio as long as I pass the class(which is difficult)

Nice, and where do you plan on going after high school?

Either the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park or Johnson and Wales in Providence

A friend of mine applied to the Culinary Institute but ended up going to CSU for the first two years because of costs (out of state tuition is insane).

Glad I live in New York

well, it's not just NY that has ridisulous out of state tuition, Florida Tech is nearly $80K a year if you're out of state (main reason I didn't go there).

The fact that my friend lives here knocked off like 15k from Cornell

3 times more for out of state versus in state tuition here in oregon. Wonder how they justify that.

I think all the traditional colleges do that. Purdue had me down as a nonresident, which more than doubled my tuition until I had it fixed.

It's because if you're in-state you and your parents have been paying state taxes for a while and therefore at least part of the cost has been indirectly payed... also, that way they make more money.

Tuition fees pay for a small, marginal percentage of the cost of running a university. The majority of it comes from two sources:

Grants (Federal and other money)
State taxes

Hence out of state tuition being so high because you've never paid state taxes in that state.

My father was always a professor and for a long time was department head. He spent the majority of his time writing grant applications. Long, arduous, and boring. I'd have probably wanted to be a college professor my whole life had it not been for seeing that side of it.

Reminds me: AP is the deal! Because I took AP Spanish and got a 5 my minor was almost done when I started College. I had to take a spanish social linguistics course which I loved to death anyways, a Teaching Spanish course which was also fun, and some shit spanish lit course and done! 3 courses = minor complete!

Which gave me all sorts of time to start and Education degree I never ended up pursuing because I accidentally ended up with a Japanese degree (those jpn courses were just supposed to be for fun damnit!)

Well I am taking:

HS 8016 : The epistemology of knowledge
HS 8116 : Healthcare Financial Management
TS 5331 : Project Management Fundamentals

I hate the epistemology of knowledge class. It is too related to counseling in the way it is taught and the professor can't make any correlations to business. She also over emphases subjective philosophies over objectives ones, to the point of saying post-modernism is superior to post-positivism. Having a specialization of health care management makes a huge difference.

I like healthcare financial management. The work is similar to my career and I have taken two other courses in the past on similar topics.

Project management fundamentals is a cakewalk for a PMP like me.

Wow Masakatsu, your courses would have been really useful for me. I work for the NHS and I used to work for a private contracting provider of care. My university degress does me absolutely nothing. I really want to get up into the analytics side of healthcare as well. I love number crunching and divining the whys and therefores to plan for the most efficient, practical future.
So ya, I wish I had your foresight. What led you to going for this degree?

A mixute of experiance and opportunity. I work at a hospital in Systems & Programming as a Systems Analyst I, which should be II in March for a 11.78 percent raise. I got my bachelors at Brenau University in business admin and decided to go for my masters at the same school. When I enrolled, they had just started an online MBA with a grad cert in Healthcare Management. So I took the extra classes online. I also decided to take the four extra electives needed for the advanced management studies grad cert. This led to me taking IS Management (a waste in my opinion), organization theory & analysis, topics in advanced management (consulting), operations management, decision analysis, and research project in addition to my program's core classes. My research project turned in to an article that my advisor and me have in press at Nursing Management. I finished this degree in May of this year.

I decided to continue on to my Ph. D. at Capella University, continuing my Healthcare Management work. I am also taking the IT Project Management grad cert for the ticket punch. I am probably just going to extend my work on my research project for my disertation, focusing on a region instead of a single hospital.

So, masakatsu... how do you pay for all this?

He's a crack dealer

Hey, we do what we have to, to survive.