Education Update
Gotta love summer classes. It seems such a simple task - condense a normal class into 7 weeks....and you're done. But oh-ho-ho how they trick you. They sucker you in and make the class ridiculous. And this can be done in more way than one. For instance, online classes.
Now I know what some of you may say. "Hey Adam, online classes are so cool and easy!" Wrong. The guy who gives the lectures has an accent that is nothing short of a mix of Australian and Southern (think Louisiana type). Annoying as hell. It's nearly impossible to pay attention to the guy for more than about 5 minutes. Note-taking can be a pain in the ass, too. With one exception, it's fairly easy, actually. (I know I'm contradicting myself here, but bear with me a moment) Since the lectures are online and on a video .pdf, I can pause, rewind, skip thru, or completely rewatch lectures. That is pretty cool. But here's the major flaw. Finding time to actually watch the damn things. Believe it or not, I actually do have a life and am doing things other than this class this summer - for example, my other class.
Now this class has been a royal disaster. I'm an economics major and these are both economics courses, but I'm about to tell you something that sounds extremely non-economical. I commute back and forth to this class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with an hour drive each way. Sounds real counterproductive, yais? Well, truth be told, I actually did my due diligence and worked the numbers and found out that I would be saving money by commuting, as opposed to finding a place to sublease for the summer. So the commute is pretty rough, but that's not the only drawback. The class is taught by a Grad student TA whose voicebox apparently did not fully develop as he went through puberty. It's not that he's still a high-pitched pipsqueak, but rather his voice breaks a lot and doesn't have a normal tone. Listening to him is like listening to an old scratched up record. There are times when I just plant my head on the desk and stop trying. It's not fun.
Having said all that, I really must say that I kinda like this summer setup. The timing of the classes really is a nice perk. I'm getting 6 credits done in 7 weeks. Well, hopefully. Which brings me to my next point.
I just finished the round of midterms. The in-class midterm was not bad. But it paled in comparison to the online midterm. This class has had a number of fiascos from the start, the latest of which was the difficulty of the midterm. The midterm was open-note, open-book, open-everything, and we had 4 hours to complete 19 questions. This seems like a no-brainer, right? Again, wrong. The asshole TA decided to include a number of questions that were never covered on any of the lectures, notes, or in the book. My response: What? I went to a certain message board to see if anyone else was having this much difficulty with the class. The feedback was overwhelming. People complaining (and rightly so) left and right. I was relieved to know I'm not the only one. So I ended up finishing the midterm, but completed only 15 of the 19 questions. The other 4 were un-answerable, so I wrote in some BS and tried to complain/explain why I hadn't finished. I've yet to receive my score.
I don't like to speculate on my scores of tests, quizzes, etc. I simply set myself up for failure. It happens every time, too. I guess high, and get a low score. Or I guess low, and still get a low score. Epic failure. So I've just stopped. I have no expectations, and whatever I get will be a reward for me. Unfortunately, I really do have to do well in these courses, so I'm hoping I came through in the clutch. No predictions, though.
So in the end, do the summer courses pass or fail? In (hopefully) every sense of the word, they pass. The speed at which the course is completed vastly outweighs any negatives I've encountered thus far, regardless of how severely the negatives may piss me off.
Now I know what some of you may say. "Hey Adam, online classes are so cool and easy!" Wrong. The guy who gives the lectures has an accent that is nothing short of a mix of Australian and Southern (think Louisiana type). Annoying as hell. It's nearly impossible to pay attention to the guy for more than about 5 minutes. Note-taking can be a pain in the ass, too. With one exception, it's fairly easy, actually. (I know I'm contradicting myself here, but bear with me a moment) Since the lectures are online and on a video .pdf, I can pause, rewind, skip thru, or completely rewatch lectures. That is pretty cool. But here's the major flaw. Finding time to actually watch the damn things. Believe it or not, I actually do have a life and am doing things other than this class this summer - for example, my other class.
Now this class has been a royal disaster. I'm an economics major and these are both economics courses, but I'm about to tell you something that sounds extremely non-economical. I commute back and forth to this class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with an hour drive each way. Sounds real counterproductive, yais? Well, truth be told, I actually did my due diligence and worked the numbers and found out that I would be saving money by commuting, as opposed to finding a place to sublease for the summer. So the commute is pretty rough, but that's not the only drawback. The class is taught by a Grad student TA whose voicebox apparently did not fully develop as he went through puberty. It's not that he's still a high-pitched pipsqueak, but rather his voice breaks a lot and doesn't have a normal tone. Listening to him is like listening to an old scratched up record. There are times when I just plant my head on the desk and stop trying. It's not fun.
Having said all that, I really must say that I kinda like this summer setup. The timing of the classes really is a nice perk. I'm getting 6 credits done in 7 weeks. Well, hopefully. Which brings me to my next point.
I just finished the round of midterms. The in-class midterm was not bad. But it paled in comparison to the online midterm. This class has had a number of fiascos from the start, the latest of which was the difficulty of the midterm. The midterm was open-note, open-book, open-everything, and we had 4 hours to complete 19 questions. This seems like a no-brainer, right? Again, wrong. The asshole TA decided to include a number of questions that were never covered on any of the lectures, notes, or in the book. My response: What? I went to a certain message board to see if anyone else was having this much difficulty with the class. The feedback was overwhelming. People complaining (and rightly so) left and right. I was relieved to know I'm not the only one. So I ended up finishing the midterm, but completed only 15 of the 19 questions. The other 4 were un-answerable, so I wrote in some BS and tried to complain/explain why I hadn't finished. I've yet to receive my score.
I don't like to speculate on my scores of tests, quizzes, etc. I simply set myself up for failure. It happens every time, too. I guess high, and get a low score. Or I guess low, and still get a low score. Epic failure. So I've just stopped. I have no expectations, and whatever I get will be a reward for me. Unfortunately, I really do have to do well in these courses, so I'm hoping I came through in the clutch. No predictions, though.
So in the end, do the summer courses pass or fail? In (hopefully) every sense of the word, they pass. The speed at which the course is completed vastly outweighs any negatives I've encountered thus far, regardless of how severely the negatives may piss me off.
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