its a familiar tune so see if you can name that song...
that ever familiar feeling of nerves concerning school. Usually it only come about closer to exam time, or possibly in the middle of winter term when i feel myself being warn thin. This time however it is only the second week of school and already when i look at my schedule i feel slightly overwhelmed
THERE IS JUST SO FREAKING MUCH READING TO DO THIS YEAR!!!
which i guess is fair, i mean every year i move up a level and every year they up the anti (is that how you spell anti, as in a bet?)
but reading is not my strong suit. learning, listening, applying, all things i excel at. Reading for hours on end has a tendency to slow me down. I am still one of those people who has not mastered speed reading as i like to sound the words out in my head like a narrative so as to give myself time to really think about what is being presented to me. My manor of reading allows me to excel on things like comprehension but is sure to set me back in a competition on quickness.
So my classes this term are...*drum roll*
Stats 3000 - the necessary evil that i originally attempted over the summer but then dropped in place of abnormal so that i could have some semblance of a summer. I feel that though this will be a difficult class it will not be my hardest as we are going at a relatively ok pace and the fact that i already covered the first 3 chapters in the short time i did have it over the summer
Applied Social Psychology 3000- one of my FAVORITE professors has come out of retirement to teach 1 last time. This course is his baby and instead of the usual format he is going to have open discussion and simply share with us what he has learned over the last 40 year about the subject. His personal study of interest, Tests and Contests, according to him life is made up of limited resources and there are only two real problems in this life, you either want something and you don't have it or you have something and you don't want it and to solve these problems life puts us through a number of test and contest.... i will be posting more about what i learn from this on here as i think it is a valuable life lesson that we all potentially can take something from.
OH!!! and the best part of this class.... No midterm and No final!!! how does he get away with this? It is his last year teaching and in his own words "what are they going to do? fire me?" Instead every week we are expected to keep a journal where we are to write 2 page entries about what we talked about in class/the readings and how we can see this in application in real life. The journal and its content will be worth 100% of our final mark. I must admit that because of the unusualness of this approach i am a little apprehensive but as i said one of the areas where i excel is application so here goes nothing
Then coming in as what could be considered intellectual relief is my one and only non-PSYC course
Mysticism 2000- This is a religion course that seems promising in its subject matter but with a RIDICULOUS accompanying reading load. For the first day of class i was suppose to have some odd 100 pages of a book that is not even in at the bookstore yet because the publishers don't have enough of it under my belt already. 100 pages might not seem that much to some but when it is a summary of great text of every major religion that has been around on this planet for the last 5000 it is not light reading. However, it is fascinating. This is a course that speaks directly to my soul, the laid back prof and his seemingly endless personal references of knowledge is breath taking to be around. This one also has an accompanying weekly journal that i am expected to keep (which in a way is nice because it forces me to keep on top of the readings but at the same time is a double egded sword because sometimes there simply isn't enough time in a week to digest 100 pages and write a review for, especially on weeks when i have other things due) with a final exam at the end. Oh yeah and there is a massive research paper that goes with it that is also due at the end of the term.
Then there is my final and possibly scariest class
Social Psychology Seminar - this class is basically the prep class for writing my thesis either this summer or next year and DEAR GOD I AM SHITTING MY PANTS ALREADY. By the end of the fall term we are suppose to have written one experiment 20pages, 1 questionaire that we have to actually hound the halls of Carleton for first year students willing to give my their time to fill it out (it is just like phone surveys except your marks depend on this going well and the rejection you get is in person instead of buffered through a phone), write 2 full length critics of professional experiements that have been chosen for us, and work in a group of 4 (i hate group work) to create another experiement that we later in the winter term have to carry out. PLUS an insane amount of reading due each week which will guide us through the projects and no time in class will be spent on!
this class is twice a week for 3 hours and frankly is making me wonder if i am actually cut out for Honors. I could have graduated by now with a regular BA, this is all the extra stuff that is necessary if i want to go onto Masters....
and in all honesty looking at this years schedule i am really not sure if i do any more
i suddenly feel like i have gone from big fish in a small pond to small fish in a big pond. Everyone in my class is as smart or smarter then me, i am no longer special and truth be told i dont like it.
it may not be the prettiest thing to say but it is honest. At least i know that if i am at this level and forced into doing group work i will at least be surrounded by other people who have had to put in as much effort as i have and thus have weeded out most of the slackers, but still.
I am spooked. It is not that i think that i can't accomplish all these ridiculous tasks, it is just the appraisal as to how much work would be involved for me to actually do them well... and it seems like a lot, like a hell of a lot.
i guess i should really stop complaining and start on some of those assigned readings i was talking about...
but instead i think i will walk the dog and think more on my plan of attack, because that is one thing i can tell for sure about this term, a lot of planning is going to be needed to make it through to the other side
THERE IS JUST SO FREAKING MUCH READING TO DO THIS YEAR!!!
which i guess is fair, i mean every year i move up a level and every year they up the anti (is that how you spell anti, as in a bet?)
but reading is not my strong suit. learning, listening, applying, all things i excel at. Reading for hours on end has a tendency to slow me down. I am still one of those people who has not mastered speed reading as i like to sound the words out in my head like a narrative so as to give myself time to really think about what is being presented to me. My manor of reading allows me to excel on things like comprehension but is sure to set me back in a competition on quickness.
So my classes this term are...*drum roll*
Stats 3000 - the necessary evil that i originally attempted over the summer but then dropped in place of abnormal so that i could have some semblance of a summer. I feel that though this will be a difficult class it will not be my hardest as we are going at a relatively ok pace and the fact that i already covered the first 3 chapters in the short time i did have it over the summer
Applied Social Psychology 3000- one of my FAVORITE professors has come out of retirement to teach 1 last time. This course is his baby and instead of the usual format he is going to have open discussion and simply share with us what he has learned over the last 40 year about the subject. His personal study of interest, Tests and Contests, according to him life is made up of limited resources and there are only two real problems in this life, you either want something and you don't have it or you have something and you don't want it and to solve these problems life puts us through a number of test and contest.... i will be posting more about what i learn from this on here as i think it is a valuable life lesson that we all potentially can take something from.
OH!!! and the best part of this class.... No midterm and No final!!! how does he get away with this? It is his last year teaching and in his own words "what are they going to do? fire me?" Instead every week we are expected to keep a journal where we are to write 2 page entries about what we talked about in class/the readings and how we can see this in application in real life. The journal and its content will be worth 100% of our final mark. I must admit that because of the unusualness of this approach i am a little apprehensive but as i said one of the areas where i excel is application so here goes nothing
Then coming in as what could be considered intellectual relief is my one and only non-PSYC course
Mysticism 2000- This is a religion course that seems promising in its subject matter but with a RIDICULOUS accompanying reading load. For the first day of class i was suppose to have some odd 100 pages of a book that is not even in at the bookstore yet because the publishers don't have enough of it under my belt already. 100 pages might not seem that much to some but when it is a summary of great text of every major religion that has been around on this planet for the last 5000 it is not light reading. However, it is fascinating. This is a course that speaks directly to my soul, the laid back prof and his seemingly endless personal references of knowledge is breath taking to be around. This one also has an accompanying weekly journal that i am expected to keep (which in a way is nice because it forces me to keep on top of the readings but at the same time is a double egded sword because sometimes there simply isn't enough time in a week to digest 100 pages and write a review for, especially on weeks when i have other things due) with a final exam at the end. Oh yeah and there is a massive research paper that goes with it that is also due at the end of the term.
Then there is my final and possibly scariest class
Social Psychology Seminar - this class is basically the prep class for writing my thesis either this summer or next year and DEAR GOD I AM SHITTING MY PANTS ALREADY. By the end of the fall term we are suppose to have written one experiment 20pages, 1 questionaire that we have to actually hound the halls of Carleton for first year students willing to give my their time to fill it out (it is just like phone surveys except your marks depend on this going well and the rejection you get is in person instead of buffered through a phone), write 2 full length critics of professional experiements that have been chosen for us, and work in a group of 4 (i hate group work) to create another experiement that we later in the winter term have to carry out. PLUS an insane amount of reading due each week which will guide us through the projects and no time in class will be spent on!
this class is twice a week for 3 hours and frankly is making me wonder if i am actually cut out for Honors. I could have graduated by now with a regular BA, this is all the extra stuff that is necessary if i want to go onto Masters....
and in all honesty looking at this years schedule i am really not sure if i do any more
i suddenly feel like i have gone from big fish in a small pond to small fish in a big pond. Everyone in my class is as smart or smarter then me, i am no longer special and truth be told i dont like it.
it may not be the prettiest thing to say but it is honest. At least i know that if i am at this level and forced into doing group work i will at least be surrounded by other people who have had to put in as much effort as i have and thus have weeded out most of the slackers, but still.
I am spooked. It is not that i think that i can't accomplish all these ridiculous tasks, it is just the appraisal as to how much work would be involved for me to actually do them well... and it seems like a lot, like a hell of a lot.
i guess i should really stop complaining and start on some of those assigned readings i was talking about...
but instead i think i will walk the dog and think more on my plan of attack, because that is one thing i can tell for sure about this term, a lot of planning is going to be needed to make it through to the other side