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At 12/13/08 10:08 PM, Earfetish wrote: I am in my last year of uni at Lancaster studying English Language and Creative Writing.

I'm minoring in that stuff. Are they forcing the 'Literary World View' on you too? The one where Genre Writing is evil stuff and should never be written by anyone with any amount of self respect?

At 12/13/08 10:17 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: I'm minoring in that stuff. Are they forcing the 'Literary World View' on you too? The one where Genre Writing is evil stuff and should never be written by anyone with any amount of self respect?

uh no. The Creative Writing part, despite being half my mark, is quite limited - just workshops where we write and then criticise each other's writing, so I guess we largely focus on honing down words and criticising characters or their motivations. As far as English Language is concerned, we're more being indoctrinated into 'the English language changes all the time and that's totally fine, describe deviancy but don't condemn it' kinda mindset. I've learnt a few interesting things but all I've really got out of it is an improved ability as a writer; English Language isn't particularly thrilling. I know quite a lot of technical things about written English and spoken English but very rarely is it useful. Maybe studying politeness was useful.

I also think, who the fuck cares if I never make it as a writer, it is actually what I'm really interested in and, despite that people who are studying Criminology or Sociology or Politics write far more interesting essays and people who study Engineering or Maths or Physics or Biology are actually coming out with decent knowledge that will improve the world, and understand exceptionally interesting stuff that I could never hope to, at least I've got a combined major with Creative Writing which is pretty good, half my work and marks are on Creative Writing (almost all my marks this year) and it's really what I love doing, ever since I was a little kid I've loved writing. It's really nice to hone it and since I've always liked it it's good to be doing a kinda more intensive course about it where you come out with useful opinions on your pieces.

So fuck English Language.

Also I've got a dissertation due in next term that I've barely started.

Yeah, workshops are fine. We do those too, but the last professor I had moderating them assigned a novel to read a week and we rarely workshopped eachother's work. Plus there were 12 of us, so it was really only 2 chances to get workshopped. Kind of lame.

And yeah, I know how you feel about writing. I remember being in 3rd or 4th grade and reading about people who knew what they wanted to do their entire lives and I was trying to write a novel all the way back there (woo! 3 pages). Also, I thought it was silly to know what you wanted to do your entire life because I hadn't wanted to write before that age. But now, looking back it is kind of like I've always known, but unfortunately I've also realised I'm not the best writer out there. Recognizing good writing is easy, writing it is difficult and I'm better with computers.

So I went the Comp Sci degree and Creative Writing as a minor. Worst comes to worse and I just write anyways on the side and try to publish something by doing most of my writing on the weekend for years at a time. Then if I become famous or something? great, I can retire and write books. Otherwise I've got something else I enjoy that I can do.

At 12/11/08 12:22 PM, 36Holla wrote:

At 12/11/08 10:03 AM, life wrote: Anyone here majoring in psychology?

I used to be, and then I realized that I couldn't afford Grad school and that you can't do anything with out at least a Masters in Psychology anyways so that was out.

My girlfriend did a Masters in Psychology and then went into social work and got the hell out of it. Now she's getting her masters in teaching, but she's doing it the right way. Sure, masters are expensive, but if you can get a job with the school or get high enough grades they will pay you to go the school. You'll get a stipend and the education will be free. It will be just enough money to live in a dorm and acquire food, books & other supplies you may need, but not enough for other activities. Beats loans though.

The main thing is writing really good applications, keeping your grades up and getting that job at the school.

At 12/13/08 10:07 PM, Corky52 wrote: Well I thought I did decent in my Economics exam, but apparently I didn't do well enough as I have failed the class. That means I get to retake the class again next year sometime. Oh well, I'm shooting for a different teacher and I think I will be fine. That or I might try to find an online class and transfer the credits over.

Wow...you sure are taking this pretty well. Lord knows if I had to repeat a class that I disliked, I would be pissed as shit.

But how does one go about transferring credits over from an online class? I thought that most colleges tended to shun online course credits.

One thing about college is that you certainly have a messed up sleeping pattern. You can go to bed at anytime, yet still wake up at like... 7 AM everyday... at least, that's how I am.

At 12/14/08 09:47 AM, Tluck-Person wrote: One thing about college is that you certainly have a messed up sleeping pattern. You can go to bed at anytime, yet still wake up at like... 7 AM everyday... at least, that's how I am.

Hahaha - I wasn't like that at all, unfortunately. I learned after my first semester in college that I simply function better later in the day. So I would usually roll out of bed 15-20minutes before my first class at 11am.

And even with the late start on the day, it would still feel terrible climbing out of bed because I usually stayed up late the night before doing work/screwing around. I wish I had the special body clock that didn't let me sleep all day - but I clearly don't. I would be able to sleep 12 hours every night if I let myself, no matter what was going on around me.

At 12/14/08 09:36 AM, Timmy wrote:

At 12/13/08 10:07 PM, Corky52 wrote: Well I thought I did decent in my Economics exam, but apparently I didn't do well enough as I have failed the class. That means I get to retake the class again next year sometime. Oh well, I'm shooting for a different teacher and I think I will be fine. That or I might try to find an online class and transfer the credits over.

Wow...you sure are taking this pretty well. Lord knows if I had to repeat a class that I disliked, I would be pissed as shit.

I guess when you know your going to fail for a very long time that your just prepared for it to happen and when it really does happen your just like, "Meh, I already knew that." Like I said, the teacher was very strict. We only had 4 grades the entire class and they were all exams. If you did bad on one exam you could fail the class just like that. He didn't give an attendance grade, a curve, extra credit, quizzes, or homework that you could do or anything. Just 4 exams. That's pretty strict grading at an introduction level course.

But how does one go about transferring credits over from an online class? I thought that most colleges tended to shun online course credits.

I don't know about that. I will get to talking to my adviser, but I know that they encourage some people to take statistics online or in a different school rather than our college and then transfer them over because its suppose to be one of the hardest classes they have. I say they don't know what's hard because I just had that class and my final grade was an A-.

At 12/14/08 09:47 AM, Tluck-Person wrote: One thing about college is that you certainly have a messed up sleeping pattern. You can go to bed at anytime, yet still wake up at like... 7 AM everyday... at least, that's how I am.

My sleeping hours are normal at college. I'd go to bed around midnight or a little later and wake up around 6:30 or 7 everyday. Here at home though I go to bed around 1 in the morning and wake up around 10.

I finished my last piece of coursework for this term earlier on today. Feels good not to have any more work to do from now until January.

At 12/14/08 07:41 PM, NEVR wrote: I finished my last piece of coursework for this term earlier on today. Feels good not to have any more work to do from now until January.

PART-AY!

woop woop woop

At 12/14/08 08:17 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote:

At 12/14/08 07:41 PM, NEVR wrote: I finished my last piece of coursework for this term earlier on today. Feels good not to have any more work to do from now until January.

PART-AY!

woop woop woop

Not in yet, I'm still finishing my last chapter, my very last chapter.

All of my finals were cake though, so I guess suffering through this is required.

At 12/14/08 08:17 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote:

At 12/14/08 07:41 PM, NEVR wrote: I finished my last piece of coursework for this term earlier on today. Feels good not to have any more work to do from now until January.

PART-AY!

woop woop woop

Way to rub it in - jerks!

I still have two more finals to suffer through, and you guys are probably already enjoying a couple dozen pints of holiday cheer.

At 12/14/08 10:18 PM, Timmy wrote:

Way to rub it in - jerks!

I still have two more finals to suffer through, and you guys are probably already enjoying a couple dozen pints of holiday cheer.

Yeah guys. No reason to rub it in anyones face here. I mean not all of us are done with our finals and everything.

I mean I'm done and I've done nothing, but relax and everything. But not everyone can be as lucky as us. ;)

I just got another grade back. So far I have two A's, a A-, and a E (fail).

At 12/14/08 10:53 PM, Corky52 wrote: I mean I'm done and I've done nothing, but relax and everything. But not everyone can be as lucky as us. ;)

It can't be helped if you push me into a mental break down and my finger slips while it hovers over my key board and you get banned. It simply can't be helped. I don't want to do it, but if I go crazy I can't be responsible for my actions. Nosireeee.

And what I meant to say was that my life has been filled completely with stress since I've been done. Constant working, constant money worries about next semester, hoping that I get my friend from high school as my roommate, my mother is having surgery tomorrow, I found out that I didn't get a job that I applied for down at college, and just the fact that I have to take that class over that I failed is killing me inside.

I've got my one and only exam this thursday. I promised myself I'd get studying today, but I found this disk of Heroes of Might and Magic lying around so...
anyway, this exam sucks because it takes 4 hours and we don't get breaks.

I'm going to die

At 12/14/08 08:38 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 12/11/08 12:22 PM, 36Holla wrote:

At 12/11/08 10:03 AM, life wrote: Anyone here majoring in psychology?

I used to be, and then I realized that I couldn't afford Grad school and that you can't do anything with out at least a Masters in Psychology anyways so that was out.

My girlfriend did a Masters in Psychology and then went into social work and got the hell out of it. Now she's getting her masters in teaching, but she's doing it the right way. Sure, masters are expensive, but if you can get a job with the school or get high enough grades they will pay you to go the school. You'll get a stipend and the education will be free. It will be just enough money to live in a dorm and acquire food, books & other supplies you may need, but not enough for other activities. Beats loans though.

The main thing is writing really good applications, keeping your grades up and getting that job at the school.

My roommate keeps telling me that grad school is the smart way to go and he also told me about getting job with the school as well. But up to this point, I have not prepared at all like I'm going to grad school so I feel it may be too late to apply for next year. I've decided to test out the job market (as rocky and horrifying as it is) when I graduate but if things don't look good after a certain amount of time, I think I would consider going back to get a Masters.

People keep saying to me that they're not worried about me getting a job at all though and frankly sometimes I have a hard time believing them because of how the economy is but I think I'll be fine. I don't think the entire force of it is going to hit me until next semester either when I'm actually applying to those jobs, but if I can get something early on with a bit of promise, I think I'll be in good shape.

So I'm in one of the many computer rooms around my university this morning, at 8:20am, printing off my coursework to get it in comfortably within the 1pm deadline today. By sheer chance, I meet a guy I know off my course in the computer room. I ask him how his coursework went.

"Oh, yeah it's not bad, I've just finished the introduction." He replies, well aware of the 1pm deadline, and seemingly without a care in the world.

I was speechless.

He's really good at English and writing essays, though, so hopefully he'll still do alright.

Ah, winter break. How happy I am to see you. Gotta say I'm enjoying this one much better than the one week that I got in grade school/high school. What's great is that nothing is left over, and everything is just done with this semester. I don't have to worry about a continuation of everything when I come back like I did in high school. It's just time to start new, and that's what's nice (seeing as my GPA will be about a 2.3... ugh.. Horrible first semester. I plan to pick it up for the spring semester.

At 12/15/08 05:07 AM, NEVR wrote: So I'm in one of the many computer rooms around my university this morning, at 8:20am, printing off my coursework to get it in comfortably within the 1pm deadline today. By sheer chance, I meet a guy I know off my course in the computer room. I ask him how his coursework went.

"Oh, yeah it's not bad, I've just finished the introduction." He replies, well aware of the 1pm deadline, and seemingly without a care in the world.

That's insane. If I sit down and have all my sources ready, I might be able to do eight pages under the best circumstances using tons and tons of citations in MLA format. How many pages are you suppose to write?

At 12/14/08 11:10 PM, Corky52 wrote: And what I meant to say was that my life has been filled completely with stress since I've been done. Constant working, constant money worries about next semester, hoping that I get my friend from high school as my roommate, my mother is having surgery tomorrow, I found out that I didn't get a job that I applied for down at college, and just the fact that I have to take that class over that I failed is killing me inside.

That's the spirit! Sound down trodden about it all and I won't feel like killing you!

Apologies if that seemed dickish, I wouldn't really ban you for that.

At 12/15/08 05:07 AM, NEVR wrote: So I'm in one of the many computer rooms around my university this morning, at 8:20am, printing off my coursework to get it in comfortably within the 1pm deadline today. By sheer chance, I meet a guy I know off my course in the computer room. I ask him how his coursework went.

"Oh, yeah it's not bad, I've just finished the introduction." He replies, well aware of the 1pm deadline, and seemingly without a care in the world.

I'm doing something similarly stupid at the moment. I've got to finish a 8ish page paper by 7pm & be all packed and ready to leave the premisise and I only have the intro which is about a page done, which is why I'm logging off newgrounds now and not logging back on all day!

I'll probably leave aim up, but that's it.

Sorry I haven't posted here in a while, it's been a pretty hectic week for me. But thankfully I'm all done now, today was my last final. Overall I was happy enough with them, Biology was quite a bitch (it was the hardest by far AND negative marking applied) but other than that no real complains.

At 12/14/08 11:10 PM, Corky52 wrote: And what I meant to say was that my life has been filled completely with stress since I've been done. Constant working, constant money worries about next semester, hoping that I get my friend from high school as my roommate, my mother is having surgery tomorrow, I found out that I didn't get a job that I applied for down at college, and just the fact that I have to take that class over that I failed is killing me inside.

Ouch man, that bites bigtime, hopefully that'll all work itself out.

At 12/15/08 05:07 AM, NEVR wrote: So I'm in one of the many computer rooms around my university this morning, at 8:20am, printing off my coursework to get it in comfortably within the 1pm deadline today. By sheer chance, I meet a guy I know off my course in the computer room. I ask him how his coursework went.

"Oh, yeah it's not bad, I've just finished the introduction." He replies, well aware of the 1pm deadline, and seemingly without a care in the world.

The almost blasé attitude some people have towards college never ceases to amaze me.

This happened to me two weeks ago: my friend Taz and I were on our way to take our final Computers exam (which due to several midterms was only worth 50% of the final grade) when he got a call from some guy he knows who was in the same module. After the phone call, he told me that this idiot had missed all the midterms through his own laziness, and had called -bearing in mind this was 10 minutes before the exam started- to ask "Is there an exam on today?"

Seriously, how disinterested do you need to be for that situation to occur? As it turned out, he missed it, meaning he'll get a nice 0% in a module which anyone with basic Microsoft Office knowledge could easily get a B in.

At 12/15/08 08:36 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

Apologies if that seemed dickish, I wouldn't really ban you for that.

Ha, I know man. I was just playing along. Even though everything that I said was completely true except for the fact that the failed class isn't bothering me that much. I have to come back in the summer once or twice anyway to make up for changing my major and not having a couple of classes count.

I officially have all of my grades back. A, A, A, A-, E. Hmm, it didn't really affect my GPA any so that's why I'm not really bothered by it.

At 12/15/08 03:03 PM, Corky52 wrote:

I officially have all of my grades back. A, A, A, A-, E. Hmm, it didn't really affect my GPA any so that's why I'm not really bothered by it.

Wow - congrats man. Now you just need to make up a positive meaning for that "E" when you tell people your grades (Excellent? Explicitly Good? E-mazingly High Grade?).

Right now I'm still studying for my morning exam tomorrow. It starts at 8:30 and is 4 hours long - I'm considering just staying up, taking it, and then passing out for the rest of the day. It's one of those tests that you never really feel all-the-way ready for, no matter how much you study.

Sigh...I miss written finals.

So, I wrote a 30 page portion of my thesis in 2.5 days. I feel pretty good about that. And I've managed to judge 6 of the writing contest entries.

Unfortunately, I have surgery in the morning and am only going to get 3.5 hours of sleep.

See you all towards the end of the week. My right hand will be demobilized for a bit. Feels good to be done, I feel less likely to snap at people.

I graduated 2 years ago from the uni and I haven't landed my dream 100K job as junior executive vice president of finances at GM yet. Seriously only go to college if you are 100% proof iron-clad positive you will get a job that requires a minimum of the college degree you obtained. I learned the hard way.

I got asked to an interview at Lancaster, but it's on the same day as my mechanics exam.

You think they'd plan the interview so it doesn't clash with a maths exam, since I imagine most physics applicants will be doing maths. I mean granted, it's mechanics 2, which is further maths, but I'd bet a good number are doing the further as well.

Can we also come to this thread to ask things about college and college life?

Because I am a little curious about some college-related things.