Bring On The Classes
I've officially gone to every class I'm taking this semester. My thoughts...
73-100 Principles of Economics: HUGE CLASS. Also huge recitations. Taking it with a good CS buddy of mine (Taerim) whom I miss having class with, so that's amazing. Class itself seems pretty meh. I've heard Ferrera isn't the best teacher. Hopefully the material isn't too difficult. Probably will just be a sit back, do your work, take your test, leave type of class. Kinda annoyed that we have to buy some sort of program just for half our homework, but it comes with an online book, so I guess it's worth it. Prediction: most annoying class, best class to pal-around in.
82-192 Elementary Russian II: Ack, I've forgotten everything. x_x Almost everyone from Elem Russ I is back (with the exception of a voice major, Hans, and some other kid, Bernard, and the addition of Sean Stangl). Familiar settings are nice and something I'm not used to. Teacher speaks almost exclusively in Russian. I... better get my act together. I'm realizing more and more that speaking and comprehending really aren't my strong points. However, writing and reading aren't so bad. I'm more on the translating side than the interpretation side. (I blame four years of Latin.) Tuesdays/Thursdays are awkward because instead of eleven people in class we have just five; a bunch of students had conflicts on T/R, so the teacher added make-up courses a bit before our assigned courses on M/W. Being one of five is a little intimidating... also assigned 15-minute Russian chats with a TA I don't know is pretty intimidating as well! But I think a bit of intimidation might be what I need. Prediction: most challenging/stressful/intimidating class.
85-211 Cognitive Psychology: Lots of wait-listed people, lots of majors, people from every year. Seems like there will be something for everyone in this class. They have a section about language (the last section) and the teacher seems to specialize in the psychology behind spoken language, so I'm pretty excited by that aspect. We'll be learning cool things like ways to super-memorize lists and numbers. I'm also sort of excited to be in experiments. They probably won't be all that cool, but that's a fun little requirement. Most exciting though--three exams, one final, you get to drop one... I might not have to take the final! :D Prediction: most unrelatedly interesting class.
76-296 Russia's Demons: It's like an English course only about cool stuff. Russian Demonology sounds badass and with my backgrounds in Latin/Greek mythology I think I'll really enjoy the class. Lots of reading... it's secretly the good thing for me because I'm way to lax about assigned reading, so torturing myself to get it done is a good way of learning. Also some writing. I'm sort of excited for class discussions. We have all sorts of artsy/humanities people--actors, creative writers, industrial designers, English majors, historians, etc. Surprisingly there are only a few people majoring/minoring in Russian.
80-280 Linguistic Analysis: Semester three with twerner. He's a cool guy, so I'm pumped for that. A lot of friendly faces, but also some new ones. Based on the discussion today, this class is going to be like Meaning of Language in that we analyze what a sentence means in terms of truth values and conditions, entailment, implications, etc. However, there's none of the DRS bullshit--this is more of a pragmatic approach rather than a syntactical one which I definitely prefer.
In other news, I believe I've found myself a job! I applied to two places on-campus looking for admin/clerical assistants. The Institute for Complex Engineered Systems (ICES in Hamburg Hall) got back to me and someone wants to talk to me tomorrow morning. I believe this means she'd like to meet me to make sure I'm competent and hammer out a schedule--I doubt I'll be strictly interviewed for an office bitchery job. Hopefully I'm not jumping the gun and making an ass of just me...
73-100 Principles of Economics: HUGE CLASS. Also huge recitations. Taking it with a good CS buddy of mine (Taerim) whom I miss having class with, so that's amazing. Class itself seems pretty meh. I've heard Ferrera isn't the best teacher. Hopefully the material isn't too difficult. Probably will just be a sit back, do your work, take your test, leave type of class. Kinda annoyed that we have to buy some sort of program just for half our homework, but it comes with an online book, so I guess it's worth it. Prediction: most annoying class, best class to pal-around in.
82-192 Elementary Russian II: Ack, I've forgotten everything. x_x Almost everyone from Elem Russ I is back (with the exception of a voice major, Hans, and some other kid, Bernard, and the addition of Sean Stangl). Familiar settings are nice and something I'm not used to. Teacher speaks almost exclusively in Russian. I... better get my act together. I'm realizing more and more that speaking and comprehending really aren't my strong points. However, writing and reading aren't so bad. I'm more on the translating side than the interpretation side. (I blame four years of Latin.) Tuesdays/Thursdays are awkward because instead of eleven people in class we have just five; a bunch of students had conflicts on T/R, so the teacher added make-up courses a bit before our assigned courses on M/W. Being one of five is a little intimidating... also assigned 15-minute Russian chats with a TA I don't know is pretty intimidating as well! But I think a bit of intimidation might be what I need. Prediction: most challenging/stressful/intimidating class.
85-211 Cognitive Psychology: Lots of wait-listed people, lots of majors, people from every year. Seems like there will be something for everyone in this class. They have a section about language (the last section) and the teacher seems to specialize in the psychology behind spoken language, so I'm pretty excited by that aspect. We'll be learning cool things like ways to super-memorize lists and numbers. I'm also sort of excited to be in experiments. They probably won't be all that cool, but that's a fun little requirement. Most exciting though--three exams, one final, you get to drop one... I might not have to take the final! :D Prediction: most unrelatedly interesting class.
76-296 Russia's Demons: It's like an English course only about cool stuff. Russian Demonology sounds badass and with my backgrounds in Latin/Greek mythology I think I'll really enjoy the class. Lots of reading... it's secretly the good thing for me because I'm way to lax about assigned reading, so torturing myself to get it done is a good way of learning. Also some writing. I'm sort of excited for class discussions. We have all sorts of artsy/humanities people--actors, creative writers, industrial designers, English majors, historians, etc. Surprisingly there are only a few people majoring/minoring in Russian.
80-280 Linguistic Analysis: Semester three with twerner. He's a cool guy, so I'm pumped for that. A lot of friendly faces, but also some new ones. Based on the discussion today, this class is going to be like Meaning of Language in that we analyze what a sentence means in terms of truth values and conditions, entailment, implications, etc. However, there's none of the DRS bullshit--this is more of a pragmatic approach rather than a syntactical one which I definitely prefer.
In other news, I believe I've found myself a job! I applied to two places on-campus looking for admin/clerical assistants. The Institute for Complex Engineered Systems (ICES in Hamburg Hall) got back to me and someone wants to talk to me tomorrow morning. I believe this means she'd like to meet me to make sure I'm competent and hammer out a schedule--I doubt I'll be strictly interviewed for an office bitchery job. Hopefully I'm not jumping the gun and making an ass of just me...