mr. tran is getting closer to the end
hopefully you found the last entry entertaining because this one is going to be less so...it's time to write more about my college classes...this goes all the way back to fall of 2006 which was my first quarter of senior year...that means i'm almost done writing about this stuff...just two more after this one and then you won't have to read/skip over these entries anymore...
since it was my last year of college, i needed to finish taking all of my GE requirements...one category was social sciences and i avoided all the typical classes like asian american studies because i don't really like learning about people...instead i took classes like macro and microeconomics which fell under that category (and i've already written about)...i had to comb through our course catalog for awhile to find a class that interested me and didn't involve a writing component and finally settled on introduction to archaeology...
in this class, we learned about different ancient peoples, what kind of tools and stuff they used and left behind, how all that stuff can be preserved, how modern day archaeologists dig up that stuff and what all that stuff can tell us about the people who left them behind...the topic was somewhat interesting...if i didn't have to take notes and try to remember everything, the lectures would have been enjoyable...but alas, we had to be tested and the tests were my biggest complaint about the class...the problem was that they weren't written by the professor but by his TAs...usually, tests are based only on what was presented during lecture and the text book could be ignored...unfortunately, the TAs decided to include questions culled from our text book which i wasn't expecting and couldn't answer...luckily, no one else in the class could answer them either...i believe there was only one midterm which meant the final was very important...i was left with no other option than to read the entire 300 page textbook the day before the test which turned my brain into mush...but it must have helped because i ended up getting an A...
my next class was regulation of cell function...this was an upper division bio class that was required for my major...to be perfectly honest, i don't remember anything about this class...i imagine it involved a lot of stuff about enzymes...i must have hated the class since i ended up getting a B as a final grade...i didn't really like all the microbiology classes i had to take...the purely genetics ones were better...i guess i don't like learning about things that you can't really see...partly why i don't like chemistry either....
my third class was introduction to ecology, another upper division class required for my major...now i like ecology...if i had to redo college, i would have chosen a major in the evolution and ecology department instead of the microbiology arena...this class dealt with a lot of stuff i had already learned in previous years of schooling but more in depth...how organisms interact with each other, how organisms interact with the environment and the history of the earth and how it recycles its materials...a decent chunk of time was spent on climate change which was kind of depressing...one new thing i learned about was global dimming...among all the pollution we pump out into the atmosphere are small particulates which water droplets can form upon...this leads to more cloud cover which reflects more sunlight back out and cools the earth...this counteracts the actions of global warming which sounds good at first but also means that global warming is a lot worse than what is seems....also bad is that since the nineties we've been cutting back a lot on the pollution that leads to global dimming so global warming is going to keep trucking along without the dimming to hold it back...anyway, my professor was a very charismatic and animated lecturer...when he talked about a serious subject, he would lower his voice down to a whisper and then suddenly talk in a loud, booming voice to add a dramatic effect...i tend to do well in classes i like which is probably why i ended up getting an A+ as a final grade...
my last class was greek, roman, and near east mythology which was another GE class under the arts and humanities category...i picked it because i was always interested in mythology ever since i was a kid...i liked this class because lectures were like story time...we showed up and our professor just retold all the myths without delving into deeper meanings or history...it was all about the stories and very little extra stuff...and there were some weird ass stories...like one where a god has sex with a boulder...or another where one god wants to have sex with a goddess and chases her around and ends up ejaculating on her leg...so she brushes the semen off and that semen grows into another god...good stuff...since i liked the class, i actually read the textbook which was a rarity...so i read the book, i listened in class and i took copious notes which meant everything was ironed well into my head and all the tests were very easy resulting in an easy A for this class...
usually textbooks have way too much information so the professor picks out what's most important in their eyes...my professor in this class really wanted to cover everything which surprised me...i thought i had enough pages left in my notebook but halfway through the quarter it looked like i wasn't going to make it...i didn't want to start writing in a new one since i didn't want my notes split between two books...the only option was the write progressively smaller and cover more areas of the page...here's a picture of my notes at the start of the quarter and then at the end...i kinda had a serial killer journal thing going on...
i always talk about how lazy i am, yet i attend every lecture and take all these notes...the reason is because i really am lazy...i know taking good notes now means i have to study less and get to slack off and do nothing later on...so instead of procrastinating and then cramming, i just do those steps in reverse (for the most part)...it's much less stressful in that order...
since it was my last year of college, i needed to finish taking all of my GE requirements...one category was social sciences and i avoided all the typical classes like asian american studies because i don't really like learning about people...instead i took classes like macro and microeconomics which fell under that category (and i've already written about)...i had to comb through our course catalog for awhile to find a class that interested me and didn't involve a writing component and finally settled on introduction to archaeology...
in this class, we learned about different ancient peoples, what kind of tools and stuff they used and left behind, how all that stuff can be preserved, how modern day archaeologists dig up that stuff and what all that stuff can tell us about the people who left them behind...the topic was somewhat interesting...if i didn't have to take notes and try to remember everything, the lectures would have been enjoyable...but alas, we had to be tested and the tests were my biggest complaint about the class...the problem was that they weren't written by the professor but by his TAs...usually, tests are based only on what was presented during lecture and the text book could be ignored...unfortunately, the TAs decided to include questions culled from our text book which i wasn't expecting and couldn't answer...luckily, no one else in the class could answer them either...i believe there was only one midterm which meant the final was very important...i was left with no other option than to read the entire 300 page textbook the day before the test which turned my brain into mush...but it must have helped because i ended up getting an A...
my next class was regulation of cell function...this was an upper division bio class that was required for my major...to be perfectly honest, i don't remember anything about this class...i imagine it involved a lot of stuff about enzymes...i must have hated the class since i ended up getting a B as a final grade...i didn't really like all the microbiology classes i had to take...the purely genetics ones were better...i guess i don't like learning about things that you can't really see...partly why i don't like chemistry either....
my third class was introduction to ecology, another upper division class required for my major...now i like ecology...if i had to redo college, i would have chosen a major in the evolution and ecology department instead of the microbiology arena...this class dealt with a lot of stuff i had already learned in previous years of schooling but more in depth...how organisms interact with each other, how organisms interact with the environment and the history of the earth and how it recycles its materials...a decent chunk of time was spent on climate change which was kind of depressing...one new thing i learned about was global dimming...among all the pollution we pump out into the atmosphere are small particulates which water droplets can form upon...this leads to more cloud cover which reflects more sunlight back out and cools the earth...this counteracts the actions of global warming which sounds good at first but also means that global warming is a lot worse than what is seems....also bad is that since the nineties we've been cutting back a lot on the pollution that leads to global dimming so global warming is going to keep trucking along without the dimming to hold it back...anyway, my professor was a very charismatic and animated lecturer...when he talked about a serious subject, he would lower his voice down to a whisper and then suddenly talk in a loud, booming voice to add a dramatic effect...i tend to do well in classes i like which is probably why i ended up getting an A+ as a final grade...
my last class was greek, roman, and near east mythology which was another GE class under the arts and humanities category...i picked it because i was always interested in mythology ever since i was a kid...i liked this class because lectures were like story time...we showed up and our professor just retold all the myths without delving into deeper meanings or history...it was all about the stories and very little extra stuff...and there were some weird ass stories...like one where a god has sex with a boulder...or another where one god wants to have sex with a goddess and chases her around and ends up ejaculating on her leg...so she brushes the semen off and that semen grows into another god...good stuff...since i liked the class, i actually read the textbook which was a rarity...so i read the book, i listened in class and i took copious notes which meant everything was ironed well into my head and all the tests were very easy resulting in an easy A for this class...
usually textbooks have way too much information so the professor picks out what's most important in their eyes...my professor in this class really wanted to cover everything which surprised me...i thought i had enough pages left in my notebook but halfway through the quarter it looked like i wasn't going to make it...i didn't want to start writing in a new one since i didn't want my notes split between two books...the only option was the write progressively smaller and cover more areas of the page...here's a picture of my notes at the start of the quarter and then at the end...i kinda had a serial killer journal thing going on...
i always talk about how lazy i am, yet i attend every lecture and take all these notes...the reason is because i really am lazy...i know taking good notes now means i have to study less and get to slack off and do nothing later on...so instead of procrastinating and then cramming, i just do those steps in reverse (for the most part)...it's much less stressful in that order...