College is hard
School lately has been pretty rough. First off, Northwestern works on a quarter system, so each course is about 10 weeks long, so there's a lot of information crammed into a short amount of time. Last quarter, I could easily breeze through some classes because I took a summer program here where we studied some of the basics of early engineering courses. So, in a way, this is the first time I'm really going to school.
Besides taking the usual 4 classes per quarter, I'm also attending a career development seminar and taking a Chemistry tutoring session each week. That's not to say that my Public Speaking class doesn't let us out until 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and my lab session every Wednesday does the same. Then, I have to work 8-10 hours a week at my part time job (well, there goes my Friday and Saturday afternoons, there.)
I don't think there are many people studying to be engineers here, so I'll elaborate on what kind of classes I'm taking. This is only at the college I'm at.
As a freshman, the first two quarters are very general. I have to take Chemistry (or any other science course, but most of the majors require it), Math (the one I'm taking now is the last required level. Yay for being a math nerd!), Engineering Analysis (basically Linear Algebra, Physics, just concepts we engineers must know), and an elective. Two of the quarters, we need to take Engineering Design and Communications, which is basically a project-based class. It was interesting; I made friends there. But now, Public Speaking is another requirement, and while I've been doing my best to be comfortable around my classmates, I'm still worried that my speech won't be as good. (Maybe I'll post how that went in a later journal.) My mother told me how one girl in her speech class had such a huge phobia that she failed many times at that class, and only passed because the professor, who was the head of the department, allowed her to tape herself at home. Eep.
Math and EA have now become classes with week-long assignments. With math, we have a hard problem to solve for Wednesdays (thank goodness for Nicolas!), and EA has book problems (I find them fun)...and a programming question. We have to use MATLAB (a program engineers use) to solve it. I loved programming class in high school, and I was a fast learner with MATLAB, but last week, I interpreted the question incorrectly and got some points off, and this week....grah, how am I supposed to make the contour function work?
Good thing there's the spooky idea of...tutoring! I never went to tutoring in grade school, mostly because the school I went to was okay, and my parents did their best to make sure my sisters and I were ahead of our class. In high school, I went to friends for help. Now, I have to go to actual sessions to understand some things. Like molecular orbital theory. Anyone care explaining how do you know which orbitals and bonded to which? Or something?
I'm just hoping I'll have time to spend with my online friends. They're the people I'm closest with...
Aw, ****, I have to practice piano too.
Besides taking the usual 4 classes per quarter, I'm also attending a career development seminar and taking a Chemistry tutoring session each week. That's not to say that my Public Speaking class doesn't let us out until 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and my lab session every Wednesday does the same. Then, I have to work 8-10 hours a week at my part time job (well, there goes my Friday and Saturday afternoons, there.)
I don't think there are many people studying to be engineers here, so I'll elaborate on what kind of classes I'm taking. This is only at the college I'm at.
As a freshman, the first two quarters are very general. I have to take Chemistry (or any other science course, but most of the majors require it), Math (the one I'm taking now is the last required level. Yay for being a math nerd!), Engineering Analysis (basically Linear Algebra, Physics, just concepts we engineers must know), and an elective. Two of the quarters, we need to take Engineering Design and Communications, which is basically a project-based class. It was interesting; I made friends there. But now, Public Speaking is another requirement, and while I've been doing my best to be comfortable around my classmates, I'm still worried that my speech won't be as good. (Maybe I'll post how that went in a later journal.) My mother told me how one girl in her speech class had such a huge phobia that she failed many times at that class, and only passed because the professor, who was the head of the department, allowed her to tape herself at home. Eep.
Math and EA have now become classes with week-long assignments. With math, we have a hard problem to solve for Wednesdays (thank goodness for Nicolas!), and EA has book problems (I find them fun)...and a programming question. We have to use MATLAB (a program engineers use) to solve it. I loved programming class in high school, and I was a fast learner with MATLAB, but last week, I interpreted the question incorrectly and got some points off, and this week....grah, how am I supposed to make the contour function work?
Good thing there's the spooky idea of...tutoring! I never went to tutoring in grade school, mostly because the school I went to was okay, and my parents did their best to make sure my sisters and I were ahead of our class. In high school, I went to friends for help. Now, I have to go to actual sessions to understand some things. Like molecular orbital theory. Anyone care explaining how do you know which orbitals and bonded to which? Or something?
I'm just hoping I'll have time to spend with my online friends. They're the people I'm closest with...
Aw, ****, I have to practice piano too.