FF Student Lounge

curses · #1 10-06-2009, 02:28 PM

OK, there's a bunch of us now who are in school/back in school/teach. So welcome to the FF student lounge. Pull up a comfy chair (this is one lounge that has enough of those!) and chat about school stuff! How are your professors this semester? What do you think about your current workload? Need help on assignments? :ff:

is here for all of your scholarly needs.

Unfortunately there's no Pizza Hut, Subway, or small coffee shops in this lounge. We don't even have vending machines.

curses · #2 10-06-2009, 02:30 PM

I'll start off by saying that I'm loving my principles of photography class after one day. I have a great teacher and there's several students in the class that are as interested as I am* in participating. It's going to be tough but worth it. The hardest thing for me is honestly going to be juggling a full time job and school too, but it'll be worth it in the end.

*read:loud

Waluigi · #3 10-06-2009, 02:35 PM

I applied for grad school to start in the spring of next year. Haven't heard back yet, though. If I don't get in, I guess I'll delete my post from this thread.

ChuckF · #4 10-06-2009, 02:37 PM

My initial anxiety has devolved into a kind of automatonic tedium. Practice exams next week so we'll see how that goes.

Still no real job offers to justify a gtfo :brooding:

Demimonde · #5 10-06-2009, 02:44 PM

Five English classes. I will repeat FIVE ENGLISH CLASSES. Oh and did I mention that they are all, save one, upper level? My advice to any new students is to find out all potential prereq's ASAP, and register early. It took me two semesters to get a seat in Textual Analysis, which they never make enough classes for because really, who wants to teach that? So now all I have left is English. :workload:

Some really great profs this semester and all great classes, with the exception of my Creative Writing prof who I want to hit upside the head. Ooo! OOOooo! or get a hobo clown with a big hook to walk in the door of the class and drag her ass out. Then Hobo Clown can teach and I might learn something. :clownlaugh:

ETA: Oh, and good luck to Naruto. I hope you kick that test's ass today.

jujufactory · #6 10-06-2009, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waluigi

I applied for grad school to start in the spring of next year. Haven't heard back yet, though. If I don't get in, I guess I'll delete my post from this thread.

Good Luck! I'm prepping for the GRE's right now, scary stuff!!

Waluigi · #7 10-06-2009, 04:57 PM

Thanks. I actually took the GRE two years ago, which was the last time I entertained applying for graduate school. My scores were decent considering I was out of practice with the whole school/testing thing, but still just average for people applying to engineering programs.

Download their prep software and do every practice exercise they give you. I didn't buy a book or do any other type of preparation; registering for the damn test cost enough money.

curses · #8 10-06-2009, 05:09 PM

OMG 5 english classes! Poor Demi!

Chuck, I'd hire you. That's it. No mom joke.

Good luck Waluigi!

Kael · #9 10-06-2009, 05:17 PM

My classes are early in the morning and I keep staying up too late and sleeping through my alarm. Other than that, no complaints. I'm enjoying myself pretty well, though I still have to figure out what the fuck I'm doing and settle on a Major.

viscousmemories · #10 10-06-2009, 10:23 PM

My current classes are "Analysis & Design of Computer Information Systems" and "Computer Networking". The most annoying part so far is the ambiguous expectations of the instructor in the former class, but I'm hanging in there.

This block of classes is supposed to be the last for my Associates degree, but it turns out the program they designed for me brings me in a credit short. So now I have to find a single credit course at a local community college or pay another grand for another 3 credit class at UoP. :brooding:

As a student I'm probably biased, but I wonder if we shouldn't have a whole separate forum for discussions around academia. Does that strike anyone as a useful concept?

Demimonde · #11 10-06-2009, 10:28 PM

Oh! That's an idea! Me Likey.

Ari · #12 10-06-2009, 10:31 PM

It does indeed.

Deadlokd · #13 10-06-2009, 10:40 PM

Excellent idea oh wise and illustrious leader.

My exams start this morning. In about two hours. I wish I had studied. But on the upside I'm nearly finished second year. Assuming I pass.

Ensign Steve · #14 10-06-2009, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

As a student I'm probably biased, but I wonder if we shouldn't have a whole separate forum for discussions around academia. Does that strike anyone as a useful concept?

OMG, that would be fun!

fragment · #15 10-06-2009, 11:13 PM

Good thread idea!

Nearly finished second year of my ecology degree... and exams for this semester start in 2 weeks. I've got all the big internal assessments out of the way, and so obviously it's time for me to come down with a cold. :mutter:

Good luck with exams, Deadlokd!

Ari · #16 10-06-2009, 11:32 PM

Curses: Glad you and some others are loud. While people have often been outspoken in my classes it has taken some people 5 years to get to a comfortable level of outspoken.

Plant Woman · #17 10-07-2009, 12:29 AM

Whelp, here I am. Good idea for a thread!

I'm taking the last class for a certificate, but will continue next quarter with Java, Flash Intermediate and Photoshop intermediate.

I'm also being considered for an internship next quarter at a local paper, so I am wondering if that will be something I will want to do, but think the contacts and how it will look on my resume will be worth me doing slave labor. (Actually I get paid for 5 credits at the college the following quarter.) My instructor is looking at me because she thinks I have a great talent for doing ad design. I would be using flash. I've done apprenticeships in photography years ago and it was a good leg up the ladder for me. It may depend on my financial situation next quarter. Anyone else doing this and if so what do you think of it? Anyone else want to weigh in on this?

erimir · #18 10-07-2009, 01:23 AM

Grad school for linguistics...

Just had a test today in Discourse Analysis. Supposedly an hour 15 for two essay questions and one open-ended analysis of a short sample of conversation. But the essay questions are those kind where there are so many parts to the question that unless you write like, one over-simplified sentence for each part, you don't have time, but you don't want to write something too simple because you're not sure whether you'll demonstrate understanding... yada yada. Also I can be bad at rationing time, and I'm out of practice (it's my first essay exam in 2 years) and my hand hurts. But long story short, when it was time to leave, like half the class hadn't written almost anything for the last part, and only one person left close to on time... so we got 15 extra minutes. Hopefully I did ok with that extra time... ugh.

Two more tests tomorrow! Spanish phonology... I probably shouldn't even be in this course, I didn't realize how much time was going to be spent on acquainting students with basic phonological terminology and symbols... I'm not even going to study for the test, I'm so completely unconcerned.

And World English(es)... I need to do some reading that I hadn't done already, but the class is generally easier than the Discourse Analysis, it's open book and not as linguistically oriented (but the material is very linguistically oriented, so that means he's not going that hard on it). So I'm not as worried about this one, but I do need to do some reading for it.

The other class I have, Variety in Language, is basically a sociolinguistics survey course, and I've already taken a graduate level sociolinguistics survey course (in undergrad) so I'm pretty confident in that class too.

I did a bad job of picking classes this semester, I think. But then again, if they were all as hard and as much reading/homework as that Discourse Analysis class, I would be in a bad situation, I think... haha.

But I'm reading some interesting stuff, so I am enjoying a lot of stuff.

inland wave · #19 10-07-2009, 01:32 AM

The next ten weeks will be macro and microeconomics....fun stuff.....

Shake · #20 10-07-2009, 03:00 AM

5 English classes? I'm on the way to BS degree #2 without having taken any English classes!

To explain: 1st 4-year school offered a writing exam during orientation. Pass that and you were not required to take any English to graduate. CCAF (Comm. College of the Air Force) however, did require English credits, but again allowed testing to qualify. I easily passed the test and was awarded 6 credits for English. The next CC I attended accepted the military credits, and RIT took all of the transfer credits from the CC.

godfry n. glad · #21 10-07-2009, 04:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by inland wave

The next ten weeks will be macro and microeconomics....fun stuff.....

An intro to economics class?

When I did it, I was required to take eleven weeks of macro, eleven weeks of micro, and eleven weeks of public finance.

But it was my major.

Just keep asking about that assumption that economic actors make rational decisions. Yeah, riiiiiiiight.....

Qingdai · #22 10-07-2009, 05:12 AM

I'm interested in what Ermir is reading for his World English(es) class.

I'm on the other side of the fence, except I need a few continuing education credits for my certification.

livius drusus · #23 10-07-2009, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

As a student I'm probably biased, but I wonder if we shouldn't have a whole separate forum for discussions around academia. Does that strike anyone as a useful concept?

Sure. It'll be nice to have a new forum that isn't about heinous crap. I started a Forum Admin thread so this one can stay on track.

erimir · #24 10-07-2009, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qingdai

I'm interested in what Ermir is reading for his World English(es) class.

Ermir?

Well, we started by reading information about English varieties and usage around the world... i.e. British and Irish, US, Australian & NZ English, South African, Indian English, Singapore, Malaysia, the Caribbean etc. all around the former Anglophone colonies. So, basically the spread of English worldwide over the past few centuries. Then the rapid expansion of English over the past several decades, as it not only supplanted French as the language of international communication, but has horned in on basically every territory. All that kind of stuff. We've discussed the issue of whether the varieties in "non-core" countries (i.e. English speaking countries other than the UK, US, Australia, etc. where English is spoken natively by a large majority of the population) should be institutionalized, so that say, in Singapore or India, students are taught to speak Singapore or Indian English specifically, rather than teaching student to model their speech after that of England (specifically, RP English) or American English, because for most students they will be using English mainly to communicate with other people from their own country who speak different languages, and people from other countries that don't speak English natively (e.g. Chinese or German businessmen), so is it really necessary to emulate speakers they're not even going to interact with?

We've been discussing the past week the usage of English in literature written by non-native speakers, and the implications of the choice to write in English vs. the writer's native language.

Qingdai · #25 10-07-2009, 06:53 AM

I suffer from a "i" problem.

I was wondering if you were reading literature or theory. Also I talk a lot to people in English, who are speaking it as a second language.
Just last term I figured out that cursive isn't used in teaching English in the rest of the world, so they can't read my handwriting (which is a mix of cursive and print).

So what was there a conclusion about teaching a certain type of English? I also has colleagues who thought that British phrases the Chinese learned were poor English, highlighting their poor educations or the differences between American and Brit speak.