School Rants Thread!

[TotallyUncool]

I think her positive reviews were like that. Her negative ones were more about how she was unclear or disorganized and stuff.

[long, pointless classroom mixup story] That reminds me -- My Japanese teacher (who is very nice) had given us a schedule of assignement for the semester which included pages in the Genki workbooks (we're using both Genki 1 and Genki 2). I sat down last night to do my workbook assignment using the first edition Genki 1 workbook, and quickly realized that all of the page numbers were for the second edition, which I didn't have. Duhhh...

I quickly ordered the second edition Genki 1 workbook online, but I couldn't find a concordance between the old and new page numbering, so I figured that for the current lesson, I'd have to eat the zero credit for the workbook homework (more than anything, I didn't like not having done it). So I went on and did the rest of my homework.

But when I got to class, I realized that everyone had the first edition workbook -- so at the break, I asked her what was up. It turned out that she'd originally thought they'd use the second edition, so she'd used those page numbers in the schedule. As it turns out, they're using the first edition, but she'd forgotten to change the page numbers. So she announced the error to the class and apologized. And she didn't ask us to turn in the workbook assignment today (which was good, because apparently, hardly anyone else had noticed the error, so I suspect they hadn't even done the work yet ).

And the extra money I paid for a workbook I won't need? Only $23.00 plus change, so I won't worry... [/long, pointless classroom mixup story]

[Bakajo Nono]

I bumped into my favorite professor yesterday! <3 I had him this winter for my Karl Marx class. (He's actually friends with one of the professors I have this quarter. I was wondering why their assignments seemed so similar xD). He told me I should try out the International Studies major.

I was always interested in it, and the cross-culture communication concentration was what I was always interested in when I took up journalism. The reason I didn't switch to it earlier was because at the beginning of his class this winter, he told us all that International Studies was the hardest major at DePaul and that most of the students in it dropped it xD;;; but he's seen my work and he told me I'd like it and that I could handle it.

Although he doesn't know that I spent hours and hours and sleepless nights on his papers xD;

But I mean that's what I expected from college.

I'm really excited, though.

[TotallyUncool]

Sounds interesting! What kinds of subjects does International Studies cover? I'd immediately think of a combination of culture/politics/history/economics/diplomacy, etc., but I wonder where the emphasis is...

[Bakajo Nono]

It is actually all of that. The core has classes in each of those areas and then students are supposed to take 5 classes in a concentration of their own choice, so the emphasis is up to the student.

But yeah, I mean you really hit the nail on the head. Just for example, the core classes include:

INT 204 - Culture Analysis
PSC 105 - Intro to Comparative Politics
INT 203 - International Movements of the 20th and 21st Centuries
ECO 105 - Intro to Microeconomics
INT 202 - International Conflict & Cooperation

In addition to that, you have to have taken a foreign language through the intermediate level. I'm thinking of taking Arabic, Japanese, or French. Not sure...

Probably Arabic since I'd like to work with the Islamic world and because I can already read it lol. But I miss Japanese ;.; and French is more widely used, especially in African countries and whatnot.

What I like is that it's so many different topics, but it's all interesting and important information. So even if I change my field in graduate school, I wouldn't regret having graduated college with the major I had. I mean I can't comfortably say I'd be okay with myself if I graduated with a degree in journalism or with /any/ communications degree to be honest. There's nothing wrong with the field! I still like it and really admire certain journalists, but it's so not for me.

Hey esm, I was wondering, do you have to take six classes to be a full-time student at your college? I've never even considered it because 4 classes are the minimum here and that's usually what people take. Or do you take extra classes because you want to?

[esm]

For undergrad, it's 13 credits to be considered a full-time student, and every credit after 13 is free. After 20 credits, you have to petition to take more though. Numbers of classes I've taken each semester + credits:

4 (18 credits)
4 (15 credits)
6 (19 credits, but one of the classes was an independent study class where I had nine months to work on the material, and one was a 1-credit seminar)
6 (19 credits, one 9-month independent study class)
4 (14 credits, and my GPA sucked the most here)
5 (17 credits, including 2 credits of directed research)
6 (19 credits)

I always take extra classes because I want to. I didn't do that my freshman year because I didn't know how much I could handle, and the semester where my GPA sucked, I had a 4-hour lab that met twice a week, plus I was involved with other stuff.

I finally talked to the professor who will now be my adviser for my senior project. Now to go back to thinking of a topic.

[TotallyUncool]

I usually bit off more than I could chew, and sometimes it was too much for me, but I was always glad that I did. Some of the best and most interesting classes were the ones that were strictly optional.

[Bakajo Nono]

ARGHHH *flips over table*

I told my brother about switching to International Studies and he was like "lol so you'll learn no new hard skills and have no career?"

And he HAS A POINT.

HOWEVER.

I'm getting frustrated xD I can't think of any degree that will get me a career easily, okay? Apparently to him, International Studies is one of those majors that you can get out of a book.

But seriously wrnrfkjslkdsdfnskfjnsf. Look at any list of the top majors and it's like ACCOUNTING, MARKETING, _________ ENGINEERING, __________ ENGINEERING, COMPUTER SCIENCE, YET ANOTHER TYPE OF ENGINEERING, SOME MORE FINANCE-BASED MAJORS, AND A MAJOR IN BUSINESS TO ROUND IT OFF.

I know that for my degree to be worth anything, I'll have to go to grad school. But wasn't that the plan anyway??

S i g h h h h h h h h .

Okay, okay, okay. Fdjsnflskajfl. What if I add Arabic Studies as a double major instead of just learning Arabic as a part of my IS requirement?

[esm]

I feel like other than a solid business or engineering degree, you'd need to go to grad school for the degree to be "worth anything." Of course, a solid degree means decent grades plus some work experience in the field by the time you graduate.

I don't think you learn any hard skills in any field unless you actually do it outside the classroom though, meaning it's about what else you do alongside the degree. A few years ago I went to some presentation on grad school, and this was for students of the biological sciences so they only talked about science-related programs. They said you could kind of make up for weak grades and GRE scores with other things, but with no lab/research experience (especially if it's available at your school) your chance is pretty much zero. I mean, we do learn how to do things in lab classes, we usually we do something just a few times with so much instructions that it's not like we actually learned how to do it.

Meh. I took a practice GRE test today (just the verbal and quantitative reasoning sections) and it sucked. Well, the math I did decent in, but the verbal sucked.

[TotallyUncool]

I think that for the most part, with the humanities, the only hard skills that you pick up in an academic setting are the ones that you get from working as a teaching assistant -- or from an internship. It's not as clear-cut as the sciences, where, as esm pointed out, lab and research experience carry a great deal of weight.

I have a degree in English, and to be honest, I'm still not sure what a reasonable or reasonably certain career track would be for a major in the humanities. Teaching is probably #1, followed by a variety of writing-related jobs and an even more varied group of middle-management/administrative jobs. I aimed for technical writing, because it was something that I knew I could do, and because I knew that there was a demand for it. I don't know how many other non-teaching fields like that there are in the humanities.

But the other thing is that whatever major you pick, it has to be something you can live with -- not just as a major, but as a career. How that plays out depends on both your own inclinations and the state of the economy. I really don't know the answer to that one -- ideally, we could all major in the fields that we are the most passionate about, and still make a decent living. In even moderately hard times, humanities-based jobs and even middle-management jobs may be scarce.

On the other hand, if you take a major that really goes against your grain, it's not going to work for you, either in the short run or the long run. I don't know where the happy medium is; the boundaries change depending on the people, the economic situation, and the specific disciplines.

I think there's a lot to be said for taking a double major -- one in a field with better economic prospects, and one in a field that focus on areas of interest which are important to you, and which are not covered by the first major. I know that's not always possible, but when it is, I think it can result in a very good balance.

[Bakajo Nono]

Well then. I could... I don't know. In that case, I could double major in International Studies and Environmental Studies. I've always been interested in both.

But with the IS language requirement, I'll have to stay an extra year probably, and part of me just wants to do well in college, get into a good grad school, and worry about a career after that...

Damn it, lol x.x