experiences
So, this has been a crazy year. I thought being a grad student was going to be a walk in the park. I mean, by now, I know what I'm doing...and I'm only taking three classes. How bad could it be, right?
For starters, I'm almost positive I want to be a lawyer...at the very least, I'm really sure. As soon as I got to school, I got determined to take the LSAT September 29th. I signed up and started a Kaplan course roughly 10 hours a week. Add in about 7 for studying. This has been my top prioritym
I'm a TA...not a fake TA like I'm used to, but I'm in charge of 90 students. On top of that, they're not really prepared for this course. It's a pretty big problem actually. Generally, discussion sections go well. I'm a TA for my favorite teacher at U of I, who I had three upper level statistics courses with. He's been having a hard time with this group, as have I. I realized being a teacher is much harder than I thought it was going to be. I hold office hours by appointment. The second week of classes, I had 15 e-mails asking me for appointments. These people are all after the grade, expect the teacher and I to do their homework for them, and are aweful with calculus and ALGEBRA. I think the perfect mix of students in a class would be students who are not totally disinterested in the material/ NEED the course to graduate and are not from the other side of the spectrum, smart but only interested in getting all of the points.
Needless to say, I love it. I love what I'm doing, and this is one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my entire life. Yesterday, one of the students interrupted my discussion section and asked if we could go over something else. I said the purpose of discussion was to cover what we had done over the course of the week. Another student agreed, and the two students together tried to make the whole class take a vote, claiming that this material was "easy." I asked them if they had any problems they wanted to go over, and they handed me an old homework. That's not what discussion is for. Office hours are to go over homework problems. I was not going to let a vote happen, people don't understand this material! Why should I cover something else, let alone something from old homework that was due the second week of class. FYI, the solutions are posted on the website as well.
Then, the kid came up to me after class and started yelling at me. He also backed me into a wall after everyone left. Seriously, does he think I'm going to take this?
I have my first asian teacher at U of I. It's not like that's a bad thing, but the problem is that I don't understand her at all. Lectures are practically useless, and it's just a bad class. I can't drop it. I can't take it next semester with a new teacher. I have to stick with it.
My two other classes are great. I'm taking a finance benefits course, which is amazing. I think benefits law would be a specialty I could really enjoy. My other math course, an advanced special tops in probability is also great.
I've decided I don't hate U of I. I just hate the College of Business. Pretty much everything this year is going really well for the most part. I really like being in LAS and working with the math department. Everything is just much more intense than I could have imagined.
I'm also not taking the LSAT in September. I'm not happy about it, but I'm just not ready. I think I am going to take it in December.
For starters, I'm almost positive I want to be a lawyer...at the very least, I'm really sure. As soon as I got to school, I got determined to take the LSAT September 29th. I signed up and started a Kaplan course roughly 10 hours a week. Add in about 7 for studying. This has been my top prioritym
I'm a TA...not a fake TA like I'm used to, but I'm in charge of 90 students. On top of that, they're not really prepared for this course. It's a pretty big problem actually. Generally, discussion sections go well. I'm a TA for my favorite teacher at U of I, who I had three upper level statistics courses with. He's been having a hard time with this group, as have I. I realized being a teacher is much harder than I thought it was going to be. I hold office hours by appointment. The second week of classes, I had 15 e-mails asking me for appointments. These people are all after the grade, expect the teacher and I to do their homework for them, and are aweful with calculus and ALGEBRA. I think the perfect mix of students in a class would be students who are not totally disinterested in the material/ NEED the course to graduate and are not from the other side of the spectrum, smart but only interested in getting all of the points.
Needless to say, I love it. I love what I'm doing, and this is one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my entire life. Yesterday, one of the students interrupted my discussion section and asked if we could go over something else. I said the purpose of discussion was to cover what we had done over the course of the week. Another student agreed, and the two students together tried to make the whole class take a vote, claiming that this material was "easy." I asked them if they had any problems they wanted to go over, and they handed me an old homework. That's not what discussion is for. Office hours are to go over homework problems. I was not going to let a vote happen, people don't understand this material! Why should I cover something else, let alone something from old homework that was due the second week of class. FYI, the solutions are posted on the website as well.
Then, the kid came up to me after class and started yelling at me. He also backed me into a wall after everyone left. Seriously, does he think I'm going to take this?
I have my first asian teacher at U of I. It's not like that's a bad thing, but the problem is that I don't understand her at all. Lectures are practically useless, and it's just a bad class. I can't drop it. I can't take it next semester with a new teacher. I have to stick with it.
My two other classes are great. I'm taking a finance benefits course, which is amazing. I think benefits law would be a specialty I could really enjoy. My other math course, an advanced special tops in probability is also great.
I've decided I don't hate U of I. I just hate the College of Business. Pretty much everything this year is going really well for the most part. I really like being in LAS and working with the math department. Everything is just much more intense than I could have imagined.
I'm also not taking the LSAT in September. I'm not happy about it, but I'm just not ready. I think I am going to take it in December.