2nd week of classes is done
I have officially completed two weeks of class at Massey University. Here are my general thoughts on them:
Chinese Cultural World - taught by a Canadian woman who is a bit biased, and really bad at public speaking. Her Chinese language is fine as far as I can tell, but her understandings of other issues and historical context from a world view are somewhat limited. example: she called English a Romance language today, which makes me distrust her commentary on liguistics related to Chinese as well. At least I will be learning about China, although the instructor may not have much to do with it.
Making NZ: A Survey to 1914 - taught by a team of Kiwis, but one of them is also really bad at public speaking so his lectures pretty much suck. Also, everyone in there is either American or a deer-in-headlights frightened freshman so no one has anything wise to contribute to the discussions since we either don't know what we're talking about or don't talk at all. Hopefully people will start warming up a bit, and the other lecturers are pretty good so far.
Chinese Film and Civilisation - taught by an American guy who is also a terrible public speaker, not to mention that he didn't exactly make a good impression since he was 45 minutes late to the first day of class so most of us had left by then. The first film we watched, Yellow Earth, was pretty interesting though, but the prof didn't really bring much insight to it so it would be about the same if I just watched it on my own. Again, perhaps it will get better.
Psychology as a Natural Science - both the prof and the lab TA are Kiwis, as are all the people in my lab section. The guy is pretty charismatic and is into showing video clips in his PowerPoints, which makes things interesting, and the topic is pretty interesting in general, so this should be a decent class. Also, i think its fairly unusual to have a lab with an intro psych class, so that should be pretty fun.
Notice, though, that i have NO food science classes. Unfortunately, the scheduling just didnt work out, and frankly, this is a chance to take a bunch of random humanities classes that i never had a chance to do at the U of M anyway. It should be fun. Plus, i have no class on fridays which definitely facilitates the whole traveling thing.
Tonight is the international potluck where we are taking green jello (its the state dessert of Utah!) and tomorrow is bridge jumping and outdoor Hamlet, so this weekend should be pretty fun-filled.
Chinese Cultural World - taught by a Canadian woman who is a bit biased, and really bad at public speaking. Her Chinese language is fine as far as I can tell, but her understandings of other issues and historical context from a world view are somewhat limited. example: she called English a Romance language today, which makes me distrust her commentary on liguistics related to Chinese as well. At least I will be learning about China, although the instructor may not have much to do with it.
Making NZ: A Survey to 1914 - taught by a team of Kiwis, but one of them is also really bad at public speaking so his lectures pretty much suck. Also, everyone in there is either American or a deer-in-headlights frightened freshman so no one has anything wise to contribute to the discussions since we either don't know what we're talking about or don't talk at all. Hopefully people will start warming up a bit, and the other lecturers are pretty good so far.
Chinese Film and Civilisation - taught by an American guy who is also a terrible public speaker, not to mention that he didn't exactly make a good impression since he was 45 minutes late to the first day of class so most of us had left by then. The first film we watched, Yellow Earth, was pretty interesting though, but the prof didn't really bring much insight to it so it would be about the same if I just watched it on my own. Again, perhaps it will get better.
Psychology as a Natural Science - both the prof and the lab TA are Kiwis, as are all the people in my lab section. The guy is pretty charismatic and is into showing video clips in his PowerPoints, which makes things interesting, and the topic is pretty interesting in general, so this should be a decent class. Also, i think its fairly unusual to have a lab with an intro psych class, so that should be pretty fun.
Notice, though, that i have NO food science classes. Unfortunately, the scheduling just didnt work out, and frankly, this is a chance to take a bunch of random humanities classes that i never had a chance to do at the U of M anyway. It should be fun. Plus, i have no class on fridays which definitely facilitates the whole traveling thing.
Tonight is the international potluck where we are taking green jello (its the state dessert of Utah!) and tomorrow is bridge jumping and outdoor Hamlet, so this weekend should be pretty fun-filled.