First Week of Class
YAY I RE-UPGRADED MY ACCOUNT. My beautiful tetrajet icon is totally boss. Fly away, my triangular beauties. Shine like the crazy stars you are. Pizza in style.
This is all boring stuff, feel free to ignore.
Classes of this semester are as follows: Biochemistry, physics 2, lab for physics 2, genetics, and tree biology because it looked fun. I'm happy to say that unlike last semester, everyone this semester speaks clear English. Don't get me wrong; foreign people are great. They have experiences outside my realm and outlooks that differ from my own, and that's valuable to any field. However, it becomes quickly counter-productive in science/math courses when you have barely any idea what they're saying and then on top of it they're using complex science lingo or mathematical notations in confusing as fuck handwriting (this happened with an Asian prof teaching physics last semester who kept drawing the letter X in such a confusing way it took me ages to figure out that's the symbol he meant).
I really need letters of recommendation for further learnings probably this summer, and I've barely thought about it yet, so I'm sucking right the fuck up to professors in hopes I can impress a few enough that they can say something nice. Otherwise I dunno what the hell I'm gonna do. I think letters of rec are kinda unfair because it assumes everyone is doing research, or constantly needs to go get help. Because I don't see why else students in classes of several hundreds would all make an impression. The message it sends to me is that they want you to prove you can suck up to teachers for the sole purpose of getting letters so those teachers can make standard statements about you not being awful or something. I really can't imagine any of those letters saying anything besides X STUDENT IS A VERY NICE RESPONSIBLE INDIVIDUAL WHO IS MOTIVATED AND PROFESSIONAL. But whatever. If that's what they want, that's what I'll provide.
Also, goddamn it still amazes me how much textbooks cost. I managed to get everything used that I could (some books had new editions and they required them), but they were still like $180 apiece. HUNK OF PAPER. I'd be so quick to look for textbook torrents if I had a severe dislike of reading textbook info on a screen.
This is all boring stuff, feel free to ignore.
Classes of this semester are as follows: Biochemistry, physics 2, lab for physics 2, genetics, and tree biology because it looked fun. I'm happy to say that unlike last semester, everyone this semester speaks clear English. Don't get me wrong; foreign people are great. They have experiences outside my realm and outlooks that differ from my own, and that's valuable to any field. However, it becomes quickly counter-productive in science/math courses when you have barely any idea what they're saying and then on top of it they're using complex science lingo or mathematical notations in confusing as fuck handwriting (this happened with an Asian prof teaching physics last semester who kept drawing the letter X in such a confusing way it took me ages to figure out that's the symbol he meant).
I really need letters of recommendation for further learnings probably this summer, and I've barely thought about it yet, so I'm sucking right the fuck up to professors in hopes I can impress a few enough that they can say something nice. Otherwise I dunno what the hell I'm gonna do. I think letters of rec are kinda unfair because it assumes everyone is doing research, or constantly needs to go get help. Because I don't see why else students in classes of several hundreds would all make an impression. The message it sends to me is that they want you to prove you can suck up to teachers for the sole purpose of getting letters so those teachers can make standard statements about you not being awful or something. I really can't imagine any of those letters saying anything besides X STUDENT IS A VERY NICE RESPONSIBLE INDIVIDUAL WHO IS MOTIVATED AND PROFESSIONAL. But whatever. If that's what they want, that's what I'll provide.
Also, goddamn it still amazes me how much textbooks cost. I managed to get everything used that I could (some books had new editions and they required them), but they were still like $180 apiece. HUNK OF PAPER. I'd be so quick to look for textbook torrents if I had a severe dislike of reading textbook info on a screen.