so, so, so
So much for an interesting subject line. I know it's late right now...or early, depending on whose standards you're using. And, my brain is scattered all over the place, probably because of the time. I've just been really really busy as of late, with the new semester starting and all, that I'm only online to take care of important--as in pressing--emails and quickly read up on some journals. I've had my schedule changed about three or four times in the past three weeks, with the final results being:
American Culture 207: Faith & Society: When Religion Influences Individual, Local & National Matters in U.S. Public Life
Economics 102: Introduction to Macroeconomics
Biology 120: Seminar on the Biology of Evolution
Asian 220: Introduction to the Study of Asian Religions
Sociology 122: Intergroup Dialogues (my particular one is on Race and Ethnicity)
And I'm fairly content with my schedule. Some of my instructors are going to take a while getting used to. I'm not particularly impressed with my Econ professor's lectures. Unlike Econ 101, he does not use guided powerpoint lecture notes. Instead, he writes general terms down on the overhead projector. He also is not a very good public speaker in general. "Did I do that right? Am I talking about that next? I don't have my pens." It's almost as if he is not very confident in himself, which is a strange notion seeing as how he has been teaching Macro for so many years. On the other hand, I really do find the topics that we're studying to be interesting because macro relates directly more to policy than micro ever will. My GSI (graduate student instructor) for Econ is the first foreign GSI I have had yet. He's from Korea, and he speaks English fairly well. I don't feel that he's a very confident instructor at all, especially given a slight language barrier. I always get the gist of what he's saying, but there may be specific instances where I wish he would repeat what he said. He also doesn't explain the homework solutions very well, but I guess it's not as easy that way as it was in Econ 101 because many of the answers for 102 are much more based on reasoning and are not always straight up math.
The American Culture class is interesting, and it wasn't on my roster originally. I signed up for it one or two days into the semester, thinking that it sounded very interesting. It's not a very organized class, but I feel that the professor is good: he's articulate and quite knowledgable about the subject. It is not a very challenging class in terms of workload, but there's always a good size amount of reading (interesting, however) to be done for it. Although the lecture hall seats about 100 students, we still have small group discussions with the classmates around us, so that also is a way to make such a large class into smaller ones. Also, the professor is my first ever black instructor, and regardless of race, he seems to be an excellent instructor.
I'm a little disappointed in my Biology seminar. I thought more of the focus would be based on the debate between creationism and evolution, but it apparently has not been and will not be. Although there are only 16 students in the class, it doesn't help any. Most of the course will be based on the book by Earnest Mayr called What Evolution Is. It's a pretty basic bio book, but there are still many different concepts that I don't know that Mayr is discussing. The professor isn't very helpful, either. And I don't think he likes me too much. He has a terribly mono-tone voice. Luckily, the class is more about reading the book and asking questions, raising points, in class, so he doesn't do all the talking. I think I would die otherwise.
Asian 220 is probably the class I am most disappointed with. I thought the class was going to be more about how the different Asian religious folk practice their religions. Instead, we've been reading tales relating to early Hindu literature. Thankfully, there are two or three of my hallmates who are in that lecture with me, so it's more bearable. It's also a lot a lot more work than I had predicted, to the point where I find this class being one of the first or second in terms of work demanded. The professor is alright, and when some of the readings go way over my head and I cannot comprehend them, he usually does make a little more sense out of them. Still, I've had better lecturers, and again, I'm disappointed that he doesn't have guided lecture notes with powerpoint presentations. He doesn't even bother writing anything, but rather, he just shows us a bunch of images of Hindu gods and goddesses. I hope I find Buddhism a little more interesting. Oh, and the reading is dreadfully repetetitve, too. Many of the DIFFERENT articles he assigns talk about the SAME things, so I don't quite understand what the point is and why we can't just read one. Fortunately, my GSI for the class is pretty cool, and I think that he'll make the class more interesting. He really seems to like what he's doing, even if it is teaching undergrads and he's a practicing Buddhist for 10 years!
I should go to sleep now. I understand this was a random entry...and I do plan to update on a regular basis from now on given time.
zaijian
American Culture 207: Faith & Society: When Religion Influences Individual, Local & National Matters in U.S. Public Life
Economics 102: Introduction to Macroeconomics
Biology 120: Seminar on the Biology of Evolution
Asian 220: Introduction to the Study of Asian Religions
Sociology 122: Intergroup Dialogues (my particular one is on Race and Ethnicity)
And I'm fairly content with my schedule. Some of my instructors are going to take a while getting used to. I'm not particularly impressed with my Econ professor's lectures. Unlike Econ 101, he does not use guided powerpoint lecture notes. Instead, he writes general terms down on the overhead projector. He also is not a very good public speaker in general. "Did I do that right? Am I talking about that next? I don't have my pens." It's almost as if he is not very confident in himself, which is a strange notion seeing as how he has been teaching Macro for so many years. On the other hand, I really do find the topics that we're studying to be interesting because macro relates directly more to policy than micro ever will. My GSI (graduate student instructor) for Econ is the first foreign GSI I have had yet. He's from Korea, and he speaks English fairly well. I don't feel that he's a very confident instructor at all, especially given a slight language barrier. I always get the gist of what he's saying, but there may be specific instances where I wish he would repeat what he said. He also doesn't explain the homework solutions very well, but I guess it's not as easy that way as it was in Econ 101 because many of the answers for 102 are much more based on reasoning and are not always straight up math.
The American Culture class is interesting, and it wasn't on my roster originally. I signed up for it one or two days into the semester, thinking that it sounded very interesting. It's not a very organized class, but I feel that the professor is good: he's articulate and quite knowledgable about the subject. It is not a very challenging class in terms of workload, but there's always a good size amount of reading (interesting, however) to be done for it. Although the lecture hall seats about 100 students, we still have small group discussions with the classmates around us, so that also is a way to make such a large class into smaller ones. Also, the professor is my first ever black instructor, and regardless of race, he seems to be an excellent instructor.
I'm a little disappointed in my Biology seminar. I thought more of the focus would be based on the debate between creationism and evolution, but it apparently has not been and will not be. Although there are only 16 students in the class, it doesn't help any. Most of the course will be based on the book by Earnest Mayr called What Evolution Is. It's a pretty basic bio book, but there are still many different concepts that I don't know that Mayr is discussing. The professor isn't very helpful, either. And I don't think he likes me too much. He has a terribly mono-tone voice. Luckily, the class is more about reading the book and asking questions, raising points, in class, so he doesn't do all the talking. I think I would die otherwise.
Asian 220 is probably the class I am most disappointed with. I thought the class was going to be more about how the different Asian religious folk practice their religions. Instead, we've been reading tales relating to early Hindu literature. Thankfully, there are two or three of my hallmates who are in that lecture with me, so it's more bearable. It's also a lot a lot more work than I had predicted, to the point where I find this class being one of the first or second in terms of work demanded. The professor is alright, and when some of the readings go way over my head and I cannot comprehend them, he usually does make a little more sense out of them. Still, I've had better lecturers, and again, I'm disappointed that he doesn't have guided lecture notes with powerpoint presentations. He doesn't even bother writing anything, but rather, he just shows us a bunch of images of Hindu gods and goddesses. I hope I find Buddhism a little more interesting. Oh, and the reading is dreadfully repetetitve, too. Many of the DIFFERENT articles he assigns talk about the SAME things, so I don't quite understand what the point is and why we can't just read one. Fortunately, my GSI for the class is pretty cool, and I think that he'll make the class more interesting. He really seems to like what he's doing, even if it is teaching undergrads and he's a practicing Buddhist for 10 years!
I should go to sleep now. I understand this was a random entry...and I do plan to update on a regular basis from now on given time.
zaijian