College

Posted by death on Sept. 14, 2011, 6:40 p.m.

i'm a college boy now. it may have only been 3 weeks i've been in Valenica College in Orlando but i'm already starting to notice things that bug the hell outta me and somethings that i like.

what i hate:

- online requirements; numerous professors require me to check their college site to find out what the homework is for the day. that's ridiculous. first off it's just unfair to people like me who don't have home internet and work 30 hours a week. i don't have time to check this stuff and because of that i have already had to turn in a big assignment late because the professor DOES NOT mention the assignments in class… i can't even understand it.

- tons of homework; mostly only from my math classes, the professors give out huge bulks of homework due in very little time, when i have very little time as it is. i find my self staying up until 2 am to do homework and than having to get up for work at 8 am. yes, it's important to study and practice math to pass the exams but doing 60 problems all on ONE CONCEPT is not necessary. if i understand the concept, than i will succeed in every problem involving that concept. doing it 60 times will not change my understanding of it. i practically never get any problems wrong.

- attendance policy; i'm not sure how it is in other colleges but this one has a very strict policy. if i miss 3 meetings of a class, i get withdrawn from the class and have to pay the FULL PRICE (as opposed to the cheaper price for local residents) 3 fucking days and your out? that's a bit harsh. i don't think attendance should be FORCED, i think it should be suggested. in the end, it's just a way for the school to get more money off of the students who may have had scheduling issues. however my biggest problem with this policy is that the class meetings are not important for the most part, these professors have very brief lectures and don't really give a whole lot of information. they TELL us to read, they TELL us what homework to do, and that's it. so what's so important that i would miss if i didn't show up?

- college prep classes; whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? why do material that i already did in middle school? this is insanity!

so to sum that up, the school punishes people who can't afford internet and don't have a lot of time. what a great way to support the students.

what i like:

- no hand holding; in highschool i actually had teachers YELL at me for not turning in homework. here, if somethings not done, no big deal. it's nice to be treated with respect.

- direct help from the math department; there's a room in the math department where you can get direct help from professors for math homework open 12 hours a day. that's a great service. though i personally never have problems with math, i don't need it but it's still cool.

- material; there isn't a second wasted in class. we're always doing something and actually learning or discussing. highschool annoyed me with many classes through out the month that would be wasted on doing nothing, or something we already did.

well that's all i really got for now. post about your college, i wanna see if this is common in america (or even world wide) or not, also post the college you go to!

Comments

Kenon 13 years, 2 months ago

Oh god 60 problems in a math class?

You're in an easy one. Wait until you get into upper division :)

death 13 years, 2 months ago

not per class, per concept, usually my professor blazes through 2 sections of a chapter in 30 mins, so mostly i gotta go home, actually read the material and do the on average, 100 problems of homework but yeah i have heard it gets even worse, so my point will only grow stronger.

Kenon 13 years, 2 months ago

Yeah, actually, the number of problems doesn't get worse, it's what the problems become.

When you can say "Yeah those 7 problems took me 25 hours of work" THEN you know you're in a fun class.

blackhole 13 years, 2 months ago

When a single problem takes up an entire page even when you compress everything as much as possible, you'll start wishing you had 60 problems of the same thing over and over again.

That said I almost never attend classes in my college, but that's because most of them are online. Even so, the professors usually at least mention the assignments in class. Unfortunately in the modern world its basically expected that you have internet access. Colleges have never been kind to poor students.

KaBob799 13 years, 2 months ago

My college has switched to a more strict attendence policy this semester, but not that strict. It's more of a "if you miss a ton of days you're probably gonna fail anyway" deal.

blackhole 13 years, 2 months ago

I attended my AMATH 351 class exactly once last quarter and got a perfect grade in it.

Alert Games 13 years, 2 months ago

heh. your college sounds like my highschool, and your highschool sounds like my middle school.

my attendance only helps me to study and everything, so i always go. only missed the first day of each class :)

Moikle 13 years, 2 months ago

I hate how the curriculum in England is made so that your skill in a subject is irrelevant to your grade. The only thing that matters is how good you are at writing about it. Sure this is fine for courses like sciences or maths, but what about the practical and creative subjects like art+design?

Moikle 13 years, 2 months ago

I was just using that as an example, in fact, I will probably be dropping art this year.But also ICT pretty much only focuses on spreadsheets and databases :(

LoserHands 13 years, 2 months ago

What do you mean by relevant?