One step closer
Orientation for the non-trads was today. We met the rest of the group for this year, as well as some from previous years who came just to introduce themselves to us. It's weird, because most of the existing ones are older and have children, but most of this year's group are regular age and have children. In fact that's the only thing making them non-trads is the children. I'm trying very hard not to be judgmental and wonder what exactly the hell a girl who has a baby at 17 or 18 is doing at a prestigious private school, but it's difficult because to me, the good sense that gets you accepted at a prestigious private school is the same good sense that keeps rampant peen0rs from infecting you with parasitic growths when you're barely grown yet yourself.
So while they think that being older than the regular students means we might not identify as much with them, the irony is that I don't/can't identify with my group because hello, I live the life of an 18 year old just as much as any real 18 year old. I live with [someone's] annoying family, get no privacy, don't own a single real thing like a house or a car, don't have kids or even the danger OR desire of them, and am not married.
Heck, I don't even have a phone contract. I pay for my phone, but it's part of the multi-plan.
And yet people are telling me we don't live on campus. My advisor today told me, after I explained some of my circumstances (much more vaguely and nutshelly than above, and sans bitter diatribe) that I should contact the director of housing and ask her if there's any chance, since I don't have the same circumstances as other non-trads. All day long they kept telling us that for various situations, there were exceptions to rules often in order to fit someone's needs better. Well, I got a NEED for a freaking place to live!
And man, after hearing all the information we heard today, and all the advice we got from the administrators and especially from existing students, it is really going to suck having to commute. I neeeeeeeeeed to be in Atlanta! There's just too much going on. Our orientation leader even said that during her first semester when she had just moved here from Florida and knew NO ONE, her grades really suffered, but after she met people to study with, they got better.
The best part was we were assigned our advisors and I got the Psychology Department Chair as mine. WOOOOOOOOOT! We talked about what I already had credit for (apparently a LOT!), what I needed to take a placement test online about (Spanish), what I needed to email the professor about the lab for (Astronomy), and a practical application math class that sounds far more tolerable than a ridiculous fruity lala math that sounds like the opium dreams of autistic physicists. Seriously, I think they made it entirely up. Sine and cosine? On what loan? Ba-dum-CHHHHH!
So while they think that being older than the regular students means we might not identify as much with them, the irony is that I don't/can't identify with my group because hello, I live the life of an 18 year old just as much as any real 18 year old. I live with [someone's] annoying family, get no privacy, don't own a single real thing like a house or a car, don't have kids or even the danger OR desire of them, and am not married.
Heck, I don't even have a phone contract. I pay for my phone, but it's part of the multi-plan.
And yet people are telling me we don't live on campus. My advisor today told me, after I explained some of my circumstances (much more vaguely and nutshelly than above, and sans bitter diatribe) that I should contact the director of housing and ask her if there's any chance, since I don't have the same circumstances as other non-trads. All day long they kept telling us that for various situations, there were exceptions to rules often in order to fit someone's needs better. Well, I got a NEED for a freaking place to live!
And man, after hearing all the information we heard today, and all the advice we got from the administrators and especially from existing students, it is really going to suck having to commute. I neeeeeeeeeed to be in Atlanta! There's just too much going on. Our orientation leader even said that during her first semester when she had just moved here from Florida and knew NO ONE, her grades really suffered, but after she met people to study with, they got better.
The best part was we were assigned our advisors and I got the Psychology Department Chair as mine. WOOOOOOOOOT! We talked about what I already had credit for (apparently a LOT!), what I needed to take a placement test online about (Spanish), what I needed to email the professor about the lab for (Astronomy), and a practical application math class that sounds far more tolerable than a ridiculous fruity lala math that sounds like the opium dreams of autistic physicists. Seriously, I think they made it entirely up. Sine and cosine? On what loan? Ba-dum-CHHHHH!