College sucks

[IsaacGS]

honestly I don't think i've left classes a single day so far without coming home completely infuriated.

the first day (Last friday) wasn't so bad. I found a parking spot easily enough (last year on my first day, it took me over an hour and a half and I missed my first class because of it.) I was pretty peeved when every single instructor told me they had just picked a new textbook (which means there would be no used copies and practically double the cost). I've been screwed over on text books before. A lot. but that's something I'll go into when I reach what happened today. Anyway, I have 3 classes back to back on monday-wednesday-friday, and one class that's tuesdays and thursdays (Which I just got back from at the time I write this.) I figured that it would be a good idea to save myself some trouble and just go to the bookstore once, so then I should do it after I've been to the Tuesday class. Once someone showed me the book for my politics class, I thought, "wow, that book's pretty tiny. It can't possibly be expensive." The physics book... I knew that would be. The science books are always the most expensive and I can almost 100% guarantee you that I won't even need to crack the spine this semester. Physics is something I'm very familiar with. Additionally, this is the first of two physics courses and they both use the same text (for now, I'll probably get pineappleed on this next semester) so it should save me a bit in the long run. I figured the Literature would also be pretty expensive.

On Monday, I left my house at 9:30 and got down to campus at 9:55. That wouldn't be significant except my class isn't until 11. I decided I'd go ahead and try to buy my books before I went back in and be all prepared like a good boy. The only problem is, it took me 35 minutes to find a parking spot. I thought I'd be ok, since that still left me half an hour to go shop for books.

One step inside the bookstore was enough to put that idea to rest. There were two lines, and each one had twenty-five people in it (I counted. >_>) Obviously I didn't have that kind of time, so I just went on ahead to class. I said I'd go back today and that was the end of it. Of course, now I had half an hour to kill and absolutely nothing to do during that time except for think of the rampant idiocy that had led me to these two problems.

Today, I had my tuesday class for the first time. I had needed a 4th class to get up to 13 hours, and so while this wouldn't count as part of my main studies I thought it would be interesting to take another Psychology course. After all, the lectures in the last one were fascinating, the exams were fairly easy, and there hadn't been much group work. I went to get there and once again had parking problems. I got fed up and parked in a faculty space. I had no other choice: it was be late for my first day of this course, or park in one of 40 unused faculty spaces.

Guess what my new psychology class is all about? We DON'T have lectures, we DON'T have exams, and we DO EVERYTHING in groups. Most people would probably be happy with that, but that's not what I like in a class. I know there's a lot of visual learners out there, but that's not what I need. I can listen to someone talk about it and still understand perfectly well what the point is. Not to mention I'm taking Psychology to understand other people, not myself. I've already got that down well enough.

So, wonderful, the exact opposite of what I wanted. I was still willing to deal with writing stupid self reflection papers every week and making nice-nice chit-chat with the other people whom I couldn't care less about, much less be bothered to learn their names, until it was revealed that about 30% of our grade would be coming from a Community Service project that would need AT LEAST 20 hours. Yeah, see, Community Service is something you do in high school so that the college picks you. That's the only reason. Everyone else who says they enjoy it blah blah is flat out lying. They did it for one reason, and that was to help themselves. I certainly don't see a point in doing even more of it now, especially when it's required that we do it alone. >_> I'm not even willing to talk to my peers and you want to send me out on this? Besides that, I hate this community. These are the same people who cut me off at the stop light and smashed into my car in the parking lot. They don't deserve my service, pineapple them.

By the time I got out of there I was quite apprehensive about going through with that class. I decided I was going to go pick up my books for the MWF classes anyway, because it was going to be necessary for tomorrow. Since I wasn't sure if I would go through with this Psychology class I figured it'd be ok to delay it for a day while I think over whether I intend to take it.

It's just as well. I had $360 set aside for books. I figured for 4 classes, I should be able to get all that for that much. Again, Textbooks pineapple me over. The Physics book was $160, and the Literature book was 78$. Oddly enough, the literature was actually 4 books, and it ended up costing the least. >_> The political science book, which I had thought would be so cheap, was actually a whopping $94. How on earth can this tiny little book cost so much? So, I spent 348$ on books and I've got about 12 left. X_X I couldn't get the Psychology book even if I wanted. the worst part of this is that so far I have barely used any of my college textbooks, unless there was something specific inside (such as a literature story or so on) and they never take them back at the end of the semester. Last semester I had 5 classes and ended up spending about $450 on books, $250 of which was Chemistry. they didn't take back the Chemistry or calculus books and I only got about 80$ back. Great... They said they were changing text books, but when I went in there today I saw the books I used sitting on the shelf. pineappleing scamming is what it is.

Oh, yeah, and I had a ticket when i got out of class. Then again I pretty much expected that and there's no fine for it today. Still has me pissed off because I wouldn't have had to do that if they could just get their god damn parking situation together.


So yeah. I hate this. I'm also looking for opinions on what I should do about this Psych class because I really don't want to put all this effort into a class that's not required and is going to be an extreme pain to me. Then again, if I do drop it, i'll need to pick something up to get back to 13 hours, and I can't very well think of something else.

[Schrodinger]

Organic Chemistry, Calculus [?], Human Ecology, Plant Ecology, Foreign Language [to argue that you have a language skill set when you apply for jobs], Biochemistry, Basic Statistics [always helpful], General Microbiology, Immunology, Nutrition, Genetics?

I don't know what your major is so it's hard to say.

Psychology is a nice bullshit major along the line of Communications. I apologize to any Psychology majors out there but I'm a Psychology double major and the hardest Psych courses I've taken 1. Quantitative Methods of Research, 2. Psychobiology, and 3. Psychophysiology, were easier than my Biology 101 course and Basic Stats for Research course. And my college has one of the top graduate research-oriented psychology programs so... o_o''

I mean. In the most positive light you'll get a guaranteed A in that Psychology class as long as you apply some effort.

Man, I can't believe you don't want to network. That's what college is all about. I met a lot of cute girls in my Psychology class. Too bad they just used me for academic purposes. Sigh. :<

I think I'm going to college to establish a network in the future rather than getting an education from my professors. And yes, I call it a "network" because I've taken summer courses and traded emails/numbers with kids from Berkley all the way to Emory. I don't know what I can do with that network though. But I'll think about it :D

[nannerz]

Wow that sounds like how so many semesters started for university for me...seriously. And to add to that the admin at universities are generally useless and rude.

I am also really bitter about how much of a rip-off textbooks are, especially with how often new editions come out. It's pretty much standard to spend ~$500 a semester on textbooks, I swear.

Personally for your psych class I'd drop it in as fast as I can and register for one or two other courses. I hate group work in such a settling as much as you seem to, so don't stay and make it a living hell for yourself for an entire semester. I suggest you just take one (or two so you have a better shot at ending up in a class you enjoy :P. I have done that a few times since I am not paying extra tuition after I am counted as full-time). Hopefully there are other psychology courses you can take, or anything that sounds remotely interesting/easy for an elective. I took electives ranging anywhere from math to psychology to english lol. And in the ended the ones I did drop were not due to subject but really to how the class was structured and the prof. You really can't judge a class until you've sat through a lecture.

Best of luck. I can't wait until I'm done with school.

[IsaacGS]

Organic Chemistry, Calculus [?], Human Ecology, Plant Ecology, Foreign Language [to argue that you have a language skill set when you apply for jobs], Biochemistry, Basic Statistics [always helpful], General Microbiology, Immunology, Nutrition, Genetics?

I don't know what your major is so it's hard to say.

Psychology is a nice bullshit major along the line of Communications. I apologize to any Psychology majors out there but I'm a Psychology double major and the hardest Psych courses I've taken 1. Quantitative Methods of Research, 2. Psychobiology, and 3. Psychophysiology, were easier than my Biology 101 course and Basic Stats for Research course. And my college has one of the top graduate research-oriented psychology programs so... o_o''

I mean. In the most positive light you'll get a guaranteed A in that Psychology class as long as you apply some effort.

Man, I can't believe you don't want to network. That's what college is all about. I met a lot of cute girls in my Psychology class. Too bad they just used me for academic purposes. Sigh. :<

I think I'm going to college to establish a network in the future rather than getting an education from my professors. And yes, I call it a "network" because I've taken summer courses and traded emails/numbers with kids from Berkley all the way to Emory. I don't know what I can do with that network though. But I'll think about it :D

As for "Networking" I find a lot of these people to be rather disgusting human beings. Granted I don't know anyone in my classes this semester yet, but merely overhearing other conversations during the last two made me realize that. I think I recall in one of them that the instructor asked how many people had been to court and over half of them raised their hands. >_> This wasn't just parking tickets either, at least 4 of them had DUIs.

Also I'm not into being used so that other people can get good grades. I didn't fall for that in high school and I'm not going to now. I can do just fine by myself, so they're certainly not offering me anything. In that case it's a very one-sided relationship and I see no reason to engage in that. It's not like I have much in common with them either. For this psychology class, as an example, we had to "interview" each other and get an idea of the other people. Almost every person said that they like going to the beach or mall or blah blah when they have fun. No one else said "I play video games". They just aren't my type of people and it's rather pointless to force an association that'll end once our mutual usefulness has expired.

Add to that that I'm going to transfer to a different college and I really have no motivation to get to know them.


Wow that sounds like how so many semesters started for university for me...seriously. And to add to that the admin at universities are generally useless and rude.

I am also really bitter about how much of a rip-off textbooks are, especially with how often new editions come out. It's pretty much standard to spend ~$500 a semester on textbooks, I swear.

Personally for your psych class I'd drop it in as fast as I can and register for one or two other courses. I hate group work in such a settling as much as you seem to, so don't stay and make it a living hell for yourself for an entire semester. I suggest you just take one (or two so you have a better shot at ending up in a class you enjoy :P. I have done that a few times since I am not paying extra tuition after I am counted as full-time). Hopefully there are other psychology courses you can take, or anything that sounds remotely interesting/easy for an elective. I took electives ranging anywhere from math to psychology to english lol. And in the ended the ones I did drop were not due to subject but really to how the class was structured and the prof. You really can't judge a class until you've sat through a lecture.

Best of luck. I can't wait until I'm done with school.
I wanted to take this programming class, but it conflicts with my stupid physics course... God, I love physics but the basic mechanics crap bores the hell out of me and the instructor's voice isn't very exciting. Anyway, thanks for the advise on that. I talked to my dad about it and he thinks I should stick with it because it's "what I need" and while I can see where that's coming from, this isn't necessary at all and I don't see a reason to subject myself to excess stress for no good reason.

[Fiel]

Ugh, that bothers me so much. People at college are very bland and traditional. They don't do anything unique, they just "go to the beach" or "have fun with friends" or "like shopping". Many people have had 18 years in a very unique life from everyone else. Not one of us has had the same life, ever. Make yourself a little unique, for god's sake!

[Derimed]

Ugh, that bothers me so much. People at college are very bland and traditional. They don't do anything unique, they just "go to the beach" or "have fun with friends" or "like shopping". Many people have had 18 years in a very unique life from everyone else. Not one of us has had the same life, ever. Make yourself a little unique, for god's sake!

That depends on your college, and whether you meet the right people. My friends and I had some pretty crazy hijinks in college... you just have to meet those bright personalities, and the rest will come.

Nannerz: 500 dollars is not much next to like the 30-40k in tuition you pay nowadays. Though I agree, buying them online tends to be cheaper, even if you have to wait a while.

Isaac: if you don't like a course, you should drop it within the first week and replace with another. That won't result in a W being placed on your grades.

[VladTheLvr]

Almost every person said that they like going to the beach or mall or blah blah when they have fun. No one else said "I play video games".


People at college are very bland and traditional. They don't do anything unique, they just "go to the beach" or "have fun with friends" or "like shopping"


I went to get there and once again had parking problems. I got fed up and parked in a faculty space. I had no other choice: it was be late for my first day of this course, or park in one of 40 unused faculty spaces.

LOL U BROKE THE LAW


Community Service is something you do in high school so that the college picks you
In Miami-Dade county(FL) , where my highschool is it is required for 75 hours of community service... TO GRADUATE


They said they were changing text books, but when I went in there today I saw the books I used sitting on the shelf. pineappleing scamming is what it is.

I suggest you talk to the management

This thread is full of lolz.

[nannerz]

Nannerz: 500 dollars is not much next to like the 30-40k in tuition you pay nowadays. Though I agree, buying them online tends to be cheaper, even if you have to wait a while.


True...I am in no position to complain considering here in Canada my undergrad tuition costs were only around $5000 a year and I was on a full scholarship anyway. But even then, textbook companies really exploit students when education costs enough as it is.

Well since you are sticking with that psych course, best of luck Isaac...what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. :P

[aznegglover]

What college do you go to o.0?

And I wouldn't spend that much money on textbooks.. use the people around you and get copies of the parts you need for class from theirs :D

And ya, what's your major o.0?

[GoogleSearch]

Okay, so you are upset with your college because 1) you have easy classes and 2) you don't have anyone else that likes to play video games all the time with you?

Take a step back for a second and look at the situation lol...

Also, about the "i like beaches & stuff"--a lot of the time people say these generic likes/dislikes so that they have something to talk about with other people.

And what you said about community service is just untrue. I do enjoy doing community service. It's a great opportunity to hang out with friends, AND donating time and seeing results in other people's lives is just... amazing. The feeling you get after helping other people free-of-charge that are less fortunate is unique and indescribable. Obviously you have never done anything meaningful enough to produce the sensation, which is a shame.

Anyway all the other stuff you bitched about is pretty obvious college animosities, understandable and often-felt.

[Schrodinger]

On College Administration
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[IsaacGS]

What college do you go to o.0?

And I wouldn't spend that much money on textbooks.. use the people around you and get copies of the parts you need for class from theirs :D

And ya, what's your major o.0?
now why would I reveal that? XD Anonymity is everything. :p

I haven't really picked a major yet. It's too hard to decide the rest of your life. >_> I probaby want to do something science related but there's always complicating factors. For example, I really wanted to be an Astronomer, but you can't do that unless you've gotten at least a Masters, and even then 90% of astronomy positions require you to also hold a teaching post at a university. Given that there's less than a thousand people who are Astronomers in the US, that's an extremely small amount of jobs. I REALLY don't want to teach, so that would make it pretty dumb to go and major in that. Things like this ruin all my decisions.

Okay, so you are upset with your college because 1) you have easy classes and 2) you don't have anyone else that likes to play video games all the time with you?

Take a step back for a second and look at the situation lol...

Also, about the "i like beaches & stuff"--a lot of the time people say these generic likes/dislikes so that they have something to talk about with other people.

And what you said about community service is just untrue. I do enjoy doing community service. It's a great opportunity to hang out with friends, AND donating time and seeing results in other people's lives is just... amazing. The feeling you get after helping other people free-of-charge that are less fortunate is unique and indescribable. Obviously you have never done anything meaningful enough to produce the sensation, which is a shame.

Anyway all the other stuff you bitched about is pretty obvious college animosities, understandable and often-felt.
The things you identified as my primary complaints are hardly the major ones. My big problems are with Parking and book costs...

As for the beach comment, this psychology class is (Apparently, something I didn't know at signup time) about self-realization and all that crap. If you go and lie about your interests then it completely defeats the purpose of the class then, doesn't it?

Community service, it's just not me. I did what I had to in high school and that was that. Then again if you look at it like that, your motivation to do community service is to feel good for yourself, not to help others. I know this just leads into an avalanche of reasoning cause anything can be broken down like that but really, there's a reason they give it as punishment in courts.

[Katie]

When I go to park at my school it takes 30-45 minutes to find a spot. Then, if all the spots are gone, people park up on the grass or make their own spots. You can't get into the teachers lot because you need a code and a badge. Unless you have a class at the ass crack of dawn, good luck on getting a decent spot. And it's just my luck, most of my nursing classes are at the campus that's just outside of Detroit on another campus. So by the time I get there I'm so frustrated with driving on the highway and the idiots there, that I then have to deal with idiots in the parking lot.

Paying for books suck. Standing in line, the cost, the idiots that work there and mess shit up, standing in like to return books and get $4 back for a book that cost $300.

My medical books are $75-300 depending on what they are and I usually take 12 credits at a time. Most classes of mine has more than 1 book not to mention the additional items I have to buy for the Nursing classes. If I didn't get a scholarship for my first 2 years, I don't know what I would do.

Good luck with all this. School is so frustrating.

[SuGaRnSp1C3]

I remember those days..whooo hoo thank God this is my last year!! Yeah parking is a bitch the 1st couple of weeks. People getting ticketed b/c they parked on the YELLOW line where the fire ambulance is supposed to park b/c the parking spaces were full. Yeah i hate it as well when you find out the professor is using an ENTIRE new book even though the old one has the SAME information as the new one, the only thing that changed was the pineappleing edition :f7:. Isaac, if you don't like Psychology(which i don't either)..what other electives can you take? Check your catalog.. I'm sure there's other bullshit classes, I mean electives available. What languages are you good at? I took Spanish even though I already did the requirements in High School so I wouldn't have to take a foreign language, but it's easy for me. What year are you btw??


Edit: At my University there's a shit load of gameing people, hell we even have a gaming place down the street from the university. Kicks total ass.

[GoogleSearch]

now why would I reveal that? XD Anonymity is everything. :p

I haven't really picked a major yet. It's too hard to decide the rest of your life. >_> I probaby want to do something science related but there's always complicating factors. For example, I really wanted to be an Astronomer, but you can't do that unless you've gotten at least a Masters, and even then 90% of astronomy positions require you to also hold a teaching post at a university. Given that there's less than a thousand people who are Astronomers in the US, that's an extremely small amount of jobs. I REALLY don't want to teach, so that would make it pretty dumb to go and major in that. Things like this ruin all my decisions.

The things you identified as my primary complaints are hardly the major ones. My big problems are with Parking and book costs...

As for the beach comment, this psychology class is (Apparently, something I didn't know at signup time) about self-realization and all that crap. If you go and lie about your interests then it completely defeats the purpose of the class then, doesn't it?

Community service, it's just not me. I did what I had to in high school and that was that. Then again if you look at it like that, your motivation to do community service is to feel good for yourself, not to help others. I know this just leads into an avalanche of reasoning cause anything can be broken down like that but really, there's a reason they give it as punishment in courts.

I mean if it were the first day when you "interview" each other like you said I don't know what I would say. I'm not about to open up my deepest feelings about random things on the first day of Psych class, I'd definitely do something generic that other people also like to get to know people.

They give it as a punishment because it forces them to actually donate their TIME to others. Since they don't have money or other good things to give to "society" (or, in the case of $, the gov't), comm service is the only true option for minor offenses.

[Schrodinger]

The best interview response I've ever read:
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[Congee]

Welcome to college. You get used to that stuff (parking, fees) as the time goes by. You'll find out where good spots are, and how long you'll need to find a spot.

Also, good luck with finding people who have an interest in video games. There aren't too many (that will openly admit it). But really, what are you expecting from college? I'm expecting the kinds that like to party and stuff. Stereotypes usually come from somewhere

Agreed with googlesearch for the most part.

[IsaacGS]

Welcome to college. You get used to that stuff (parking, fees) as the time goes by. You'll find out where good spots are, and how long you'll need to find a spot.

Also, good luck with finding people who have an interest in video games. There aren't too many (that will openly admit it). But really, what are you expecting from college? I'm expecting the kinds that like to party and stuff. Stereotypes usually come from somewhere

Agreed with googlesearch for the most part.
I never said anything about being angry about no interests or whatever. The first reply was asking why I wasn't doing that, and I explained why. I'm not a partier, I'm not old enough to drink, and while everyone else may be willing to drink underage, I'm not. I don't care that they do but these aren't the kind of people I want as friends. If solitude is the cost of avoiding those types of situations then I can accept that.

Last semester I had a usual area to park, but I guess it's still just the "first week" problems with everyone being there at once. an hour to find a parking spot is pretty ridiculous regardless though. It sort of reminds me of Walmart. Why have 40 registers if you're only going to use 3? Why have 60 empty parking spots for faculty if all the faculty park in a completely different lot that's significantly closer to the building? I know for a fact they reduced the number of faculty spots at least once because you can see where they painted over the words.

[Silver_ice]

well to get books cheap u can usually buy them off ebay. thats wat my sister did. the books were half off as they were not usable for the previous owners courses, and she was able to sell them too.

[Congee]

I never said anything about being angry about no interests or whatever. The first reply was asking why I wasn't doing that, and I explained why. I'm not a partier, I'm not old enough to drink, and while everyone else may be willing to drink underage, I'm not. I don't care that they do but these aren't the kind of people I want as friends. If solitude is the cost of avoiding those types of situations then I can accept that.

I never said you said anything dealing with anger or anything of the sort either. I'm saying that you'll get used to it. It's common with most places/colleges. Nor do I see the relevancy of how your response relates to mine, unless you're thinking I was stating the exact same thing as google, which I was not. I was agreeing with latter statements about how community service can be enjoyable, and how generic statements allow for ease of conversation.

However, you shouldn't have such a harsh attitude towards the new experience/people you don't like, because you will indeed need to socialize with people, even if you don't like their habits. Networking IS important. That's life, no matter how detestable your two-faced-ness will be. You have to network if you're going to do anything that involves working with others, or jobs that include promotions, etc. Unless you're going to open your own business, you're going to have to suck it up and network, or you'll probably be stuck in a dead end job because those others who have better connections and social skills will get much further, even if they're idiots. Also, it doesn't matter if you have anything in common or not. It is essential to develop connections. Even if you have nothing in common, networking allows you to expand your horizons. By closing off your willingness to meet new people, you limit yourself and your experiences, ultimately, becoming ignorant.

You don't have to do the things they do, but if you have such a harshness towards them, it'll show (in response to your "I don't want friends like that"). You obviously do care about their habits, if you're going to judge these people and say you don't want their friendship, without knowing much else about them besides their party habits, and through overhearing conversations.

Edit: Also, group work is important in helping you understand other individuals. How can you begin to understand how minds work without interaction with other individuals? You can't learn everything through textbooks and lectures.

[NoJobNoRules]

I hate the self reflecting work too. This past year we were assigned to write an essay about our favorite, realistic hero(as in parents, authority people, etc). Now, being completely honest, I don't have one. Rather then choose one and bs the thing, I wrote that I didn't have one, gave my reasons, and turned it in. Aced the paper minus a few formatting glitches that weren't clear in the first place. <_< Course, High School =/= College. But being a rebel with assignments always makes it fun, ESPECIALLY when the teacher has to talk to you outside of class. Gotta love pissing them off indirectly. :)


Isaac, we'd probably get along real well if you ignore the age difference of a few years. I usually don't talk to people that often just because we don't have much to talk about. I've learned to deal with people who I otherwise hate just because I've had to with my involvement with doing technical work for shows put on by the drama club. So many drama queens, I swear they try to outdo each other. I think there are more guy ones then girls too, although that might change this year...finally...>_<


Just try and get through it or switch classes. I went through this "Career and Family" one my freshman year because I needed to fill something. I HATED it. Didn't even fill any kind of credit for me, so it sucked even more. But, somehow, I made it. :/

I haven't looked into colleges much, but maybe try something that you might enjoy(say, computer related? :s) instead of the one class.


Also, community service is an epic fail. I have 80 hours over 2 years for National Honors Society, and then another 50 hours of tutoring for this other program(I have like 12 knocked out after a whole year <_< ).

I'm just waiting for some final thing to happen where I need even more hours or something.


Darn education, eh? If only you didn't need a degree to get a job that is really good or w/e. <.<

[Retalion]

Reading through this (and just skimming), I notice that your college is quite different, yet similar to mine.

1. Driving/parking? We all bus to school. We pay the school roughly 30 bucks a month and get a pass that lets us take transit anywhere in Vancouver free. That's 30 bucks compared to 80 if I wanted a pass that only goes to select parts of Vancouver, not to mention the 30 bucks a month is accumulated at the end and comes out of my tuition. Dunno how it works where you are, but you make parking sound like a pain in the ass (and it probably is) and it makes me glad I bus (parking is around $600/semester).

2. Book lineups. I go without books the first week of school. By the time I go to the bookstore, the lineups are reasonable. Also, I go in, take a look, find out where everything I have to buy is, then just come back in the morning when there are no line ups, get in, get out, voila. I just buy what I need right away and leave the ones I dont think I need till later. Saves money and whatnot as I usually end up with fewer textbooks as I usually find that I dont need them by the end of the semester/know I wont be looking at them.

3. Uni/College pisses me off in general. I ask myself what's the point at times. Many of the profs are ineffective at teaching, many people go in with no idea what they want to do and come out with no idea either, etc. My friend drops out half way through the year last year and got a job earning him $2000/week. That's more than a lot of people make after they graduate. What's the point of going then? >_>

I think its good that we go to school after high school and whatnot to get further education but its not structured very well in my opinion. I would like to see it altered but hey, that's just me and its probably never going to happen.

As for tutition, 30-40k is in total or per year, Quantact? I pay around 5k a year for University here.

[Gabe]

just as a comment, the thing on the first page about the people in your class not saying "i play video games" doesn't really mean anything. you could learn from them and they could learn from you... i used to be one of the generic people that liked "going to the beach" or "going to the mall to hang out" or "going to concerts" but here i am playing maplestory. :f6:

unless they are a bunch of fuckers, there's always the chance of you meeting someone new and maybe it'll turn out to be a good friendship, i think...

i understand this is a rant of sorts and believe me, i'm as anti-social as any anti-social out there but sometimes those classes with the weird fucks are pretty fun, especially when a bunch of them have been to court for DUIs :excellent: a laugh is always great.

[psychopat]

University is weird...

Doesn't matter which one you go to, it's almost a universal truth that the administration will be horrible. For example, I wound up taking 2 classes simultaneously in one semester to be able to graduate on time, just because the admin office was too stupid to make a reasonable time table. That's also a good example of why networking with some of the people is important; there's no way I would have been able to do that if I didn't know people in both classes to borrow notes and such...

The other thing that ticked me off is that there's generally 2 types of professors: the ones that love teaching and the ones that do it because it's a required evil in order to keep their funding for whatever research they're doing. In my experience, the more famous/published/highly-regarded the professor is in his field, the worse he'll do as a teacher. For example, my mom taught law at the Uni of Ottawa and got let go because she didn't publish; she only wanted to teach. I also often went to the English version of my vector mechanics course because the teacher was WAY better than the French teacher was. I'd literally walk into the French class, do the quiz, get up and walk out and go sit in the English one...

As for the video games thing, I'm surprised. My friend lived in residence and I'd say over half of the people there were playing video games all the time during the day and going out drinking at night. It was practically an open-door policy to everyone's rooms except for the few hermits. I agree that there's a lot of dumbasses there, though. It gets better as you go along because the people that overdo it tend to flunk out pretty fast or they wise up after getting a rude awakening - the first semester's grades :cool: Just realize that for a lot of people, it's their first real taste of total freedom and they haven't quite adjusted yet.

For parking, I broke down and bought private parking, immediately next to campus. The university charged roughly 600$/semester for theirs. The apartment building right next to campus, literally about 10 meters further than the university parking, cost 200$. Heck, that was almost equivalent to the price of getting a locker on campus so it was pretty much a no-brainer since a car serves as a locker pretty well too. I also learned that if a sign says 3h parking for a random street spot, moving your car between classes doesn't help unless you move it to a completely different zone. I moved mine 3 streets, got a ticket anyways and lost in traffic court because of that...:f3:

[Holypie]

True...I am in no position to complain considering here in Canada my undergrad tuition costs were only around $5000 a year and I was on a full scholarship anyway. But even then, textbook companies really exploit students when education costs enough as it is.

Well since you are sticking with that psych course, best of luck Isaac...what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. :P

other than stroke heart disease and anything else that cripples you for life...

[Cyadd]

The thing about textbooks is that you don't buy any before the first week of classes, and only after you receive the sllyabus. That way you buy the exact books you need. Is it possible to shuttle in to your school, Issac?

[GIR]

I'd imagine commuting would be a huge hassle... living on-campus, however, is both way more fun, and saves tons of time. I've been going to OSU (Ohio, not Oregon) for the past 2 years now.

As for textbooks, I never get mine until after the first week of classes just to make sure, and I get them from Amazon, which usually has used textbooks for a fraction of the cost of used textbooks at bookstores.

[IsaacGS]

Don't worry I have some good news today. :p


The thing about textbooks is that you don't buy any before the first week of classes, and only after you receive the sllyabus. That way you buy the exact books you need. Is it possible to shuttle in to your school, Issac?
well, that's what I did, and have been doing. Still, I went through on the 4th day after that and with 4 people in line in front of me it took nearly 30 minutes. I can't imagine why people would wait in lines of 20+ people.

I hate the self reflecting work too. This past year we were assigned to write an essay about our favorite, realistic hero(as in parents, authority people, etc). Now, being completely honest, I don't have one. Rather then choose one and bs the thing, I wrote that I didn't have one, gave my reasons, and turned it in. Aced the paper minus a few formatting glitches that weren't clear in the first place. <_< Course, High School =/= College. But being a rebel with assignments always makes it fun, ESPECIALLY when the teacher has to talk to you outside of class. Gotta love pissing them off indirectly. :)


Isaac, we'd probably get along real well if you ignore the age difference of a few years. I usually don't talk to people that often just because we don't have much to talk about. I've learned to deal with people who I otherwise hate just because I've had to with my involvement with doing technical work for shows put on by the drama club. So many drama queens, I swear they try to outdo each other. I think there are more guy ones then girls too, although that might change this year...finally...>_<


Just try and get through it or switch classes. I went through this "Career and Family" one my freshman year because I needed to fill something. I HATED it. Didn't even fill any kind of credit for me, so it sucked even more. But, somehow, I made it. :/

I haven't looked into colleges much, but maybe try something that you might enjoy(say, computer related? :s) instead of the one class.


Also, community service is an epic fail. I have 80 hours over 2 years for National Honors Society, and then another 50 hours of tutoring for this other program(I have like 12 knocked out after a whole year <_< ).

I'm just waiting for some final thing to happen where I need even more hours or something.


Darn education, eh? If only you didn't need a degree to get a job that is really good or w/e. <.<
I've been hearing that a lot lately. xD
But, Yeah. XD that's pretty much what I'm gonna do. today wasn't too bad, I found a spot almost immediately and I learned the exact requirements for this community service thing. I managed to find a few other people who were as averse to it as I was (since we have to form groups for the service, even though we don't have to go do it together) and we picked the least painful option, which was tutoring middle school kids. As an academic/intellectual type that's definitely the easiest for me, I don't have to interact with weird people or clean up after animals or anything like that. An hour a day after the middle school for 4 weeks isn't bad at all.

I looked into changing it, and they had at least 8 course codes having to do with computers, but there were none I could get with my current schedule. I've decided that I can deal with this now that I don't have to be doing anything uncomfortable.

Reading through this (and just skimming), I notice that your college is quite different, yet similar to mine.

1. Driving/parking? We all bus to school. We pay the school roughly 30 bucks a month and get a pass that lets us take transit anywhere in Vancouver free. That's 30 bucks compared to 80 if I wanted a pass that only goes to select parts of Vancouver, not to mention the 30 bucks a month is accumulated at the end and comes out of my tuition. Dunno how it works where you are, but you make parking sound like a pain in the ass (and it probably is) and it makes me glad I bus (parking is around $600/semester).

2. Book lineups. I go without books the first week of school. By the time I go to the bookstore, the lineups are reasonable. Also, I go in, take a look, find out where everything I have to buy is, then just come back in the morning when there are no line ups, get in, get out, voila. I just buy what I need right away and leave the ones I dont think I need till later. Saves money and whatnot as I usually end up with fewer textbooks as I usually find that I dont need them by the end of the semester/know I wont be looking at them.

3. Uni/College pisses me off in general. I ask myself what's the point at times. Many of the profs are ineffective at teaching, many people go in with no idea what they want to do and come out with no idea either, etc. My friend drops out half way through the year last year and got a job earning him $2000/week. That's more than a lot of people make after they graduate. What's the point of going then? >_>

I think its good that we go to school after high school and whatnot to get further education but its not structured very well in my opinion. I would like to see it altered but hey, that's just me and its probably never going to happen.

As for tutition, 30-40k is in total or per year, Quantact? I pay around 5k a year for University here.

I probably could bus, but it wouldn't be any faster and due to the odd way I packed my schedule in (I tried to put all my classes back to back on the same day so that it'd be like High School.) I'd end up waiting a long time for the bus anyway. The parking passes are pretty cheap (which reminds me I need to get a new one, I'm still using last semester's), and that's probably why the parking is so bad.

as for #3, if you saw what I said about going into Astronomy you'd probably notice why that is. A lot of people want a career in something specific, but the only way to get the job they want is to also take a teaching post. Since they don't like/want/ have the skills to teach, everyone suffers.

University is weird...

Doesn't matter which one you go to, it's almost a universal truth that the administration will be horrible. For example, I wound up taking 2 classes simultaneously in one semester to be able to graduate on time, just because the admin office was too stupid to make a reasonable time table. That's also a good example of why networking with some of the people is important; there's no way I would have been able to do that if I didn't know people in both classes to borrow notes and such...

The other thing that ticked me off is that there's generally 2 types of professors: the ones that love teaching and the ones that do it because it's a required evil in order to keep their funding for whatever research they're doing. In my experience, the more famous/published/highly-regarded the professor is in his field, the worse he'll do as a teacher. For example, my mom taught law at the Uni of Ottawa and got let go because she didn't publish; she only wanted to teach. I also often went to the English version of my vector mechanics course because the teacher was WAY better than the French teacher was. I'd literally walk into the French class, do the quiz, get up and walk out and go sit in the English one...

As for the video games thing, I'm surprised. My friend lived in residence and I'd say over half of the people there were playing video games all the time during the day and going out drinking at night. It was practically an open-door policy to everyone's rooms except for the few hermits. I agree that there's a lot of dumbasses there, though. It gets better as you go along because the people that overdo it tend to flunk out pretty fast or they wise up after getting a rude awakening - the first semester's grades :cool: Just realize that for a lot of people, it's their first real taste of total freedom and they haven't quite adjusted yet.

For parking, I broke down and bought private parking, immediately next to campus. The university charged roughly 600$/semester for theirs. The apartment building right next to campus, literally about 10 meters further than the university parking, cost 200$. Heck, that was almost equivalent to the price of getting a locker on campus so it was pretty much a no-brainer since a car serves as a locker pretty well too. I also learned that if a sign says 3h parking for a random street spot, moving your car between classes doesn't help unless you move it to a completely different zone. I moved mine 3 streets, got a ticket anyways and lost in traffic court because of that...:f3:
Sounds like you go to a place similar to Retalion's. XD

They definitely need to do something about fixing the university system as a whole, though. Heck, don't stop there, public schools are in desperate need of repair as well. The entire education system of the US is in a terrible shape.

[xDae]

I hate group work. I mean I love conversation and talking to people, but when it comes down to us working together to get a grade, I just dont trust most people (especially most other college students) to put forth atleast some effort. They always goof off and want to put stupid ideas that have nothing to do with the work in the final product. I personally prefer the idiots who expect someone else to do all the work, atleast they dont distract you from getting the job done

Like I said in another thread, I have 0 tolerance for ignorance and stupidity

Example: The group work was on why Jewish religous leaders felt threatened by Jesus (it was History of Christianity, an extremely interesting class despite me not being religous) Some idiot proposed we go with the 'Jesus was a dark magician that did cool tricks and was totally stealing the show from Jewish people, and Jewish people felt threatened because he was cool and they were lame...' yea.... I think not


Ugh, that bothers me so much. People at college are very bland and traditional. They don't do anything unique, they just "go to the beach" or "have fun with friends" or "like shopping". Many people have had 18 years in a very unique life from everyone else. Not one of us has had the same life, ever. Make yourself a little unique, for god's sake!
Agreed. I tried talking to some girls in my classes. All they said was "I go to the movies and the mall, and I watch 'The Hills' on MTV" Three different girls basically said the exact same thing....pathetic

[Veneni]

University is weird...

Doesn't matter which one you go to, it's almost a universal truth that the administration will be horrible. For example, I wound up taking 2 classes simultaneously in one semester to be able to graduate on time, just because the admin office was too stupid to make a reasonable time table. That's also a good example of why networking with some of the people is important; there's no way I would have been able to do that if I didn't know people in both classes to borrow notes and such...

I'm sorry, but administration can't make a time table that suits every single student. If you take classes outside a "regular" class build (if that is how you say it... well you know what I mean) there is a chance they end up simultaniously with another class. But they can't change it JUST FOR YOU and make a lot other people unhappy... >_>
I've always sticked to the normal class build and I never had problems.



Ugh, that bothers me so much. People at college are very bland and traditional. They don't do anything unique, they just "go to the beach" or "have fun with friends" or "like shopping". Many people have had 18 years in a very unique life from everyone else. Not one of us has had the same life, ever. Make yourself a little unique, for god's sake!
That depends on your college, and whether you meet the right people. My friends and I had some pretty crazy hijinks in college... you just have to meet those bright personalities, and the rest will come.
I agree. Doesn't your college have student clubs? That's where the fun people get together =P

For the threadstarter: Just don't go to the classes and study it for yourself? I know a lot of people that never go to classes but still pass all exams. But then again physics and math cannot be misinterpreted and we almost never have groop works/assignments.

[GIR]

I hate group work. I mean I love conversation and talking to people, but when it comes down to us working together to get a grade, I just dont trust most people (especially most other college students) to put forth atleast some effort. They always goof off and want to put stupid ideas that have nothing to do with the work in the final product. I personally prefer the idiots who expect someone else to do all the work, atleast they dont distract you from getting the job done

Like I said in another thread, I have 0 tolerance for ignorance and stupidity

Example: The group work was on why Jewish religous leaders felt threatened by Jesus (it was History of Christianity, an extremely interesting class despite me not being religous) Some idiot proposed we go with the 'Jesus was a dark magician that did cool tricks and was totally stealing the show from Jewish people, and Jewish people felt threatened because he was cool and they were lame...' yea.... I think not


Agreed. I tried talking to some girls in my classes. All they said was "I go to the movies and the mall, and I watch 'The Hills' on MTV" Three different girls basically said the exact same thing....pathetic

You all must go to some weird colleges. At OSU, what you just described would be the oddity O_o

[aznegglover]

You all must go to some weird colleges. At OSU, what you just described would be the oddity O_o
If the O stands for Oregon or Oklahoma or whatever, I think that might explain it O_o

[GIR]

If the O stands for Oregon or Oklahoma or whatever, I think that might explain it O_o

Ohio.

[loddlaen]

With textbooks, I bought all the prescribed texts first year. Then I realised that I only used a small section of the book. Visiting the library, I found that most professors put that texts for each subject in short term loan (like 2hour loan) and you could photocopy relevant sections for a fraction of the cost. In a couple of cases, I was able to photocopy the whole text cheaper than what I would have paid.

[Wani]

With textbooks, I bought all the prescribed texts first year. Then I realised that I only used a small section of the book. Visiting the library, I found that most professors put that texts for each subject in short term loan (like 2hour loan) and you could photocopy relevant sections for a fraction of the cost. In a couple of cases, I was able to photocopy the whole text cheaper than what I would have paid.

Doesn't that break copyright law? :P

[butterfλi]

Doesn't that break copyright law? :P

Only if it gets distributed I think.

My old english prof said she couldn't afford books when she was in college so she went to the bookstore and read the chapters and reading assignments for homework for that day in the store. She did that for the whole semester lol.

[IcyGreenTea]

What went down worse in my uni was that the bookshop people are too pineappling lazy to get the books they pineappling have in stock somewhere else in the same pineappling city. So they scared the hell out of the people in my course that haven't gotten their textbook yet (me included), saying that there is no more in stock and it's impossible to get any more in unless you have already ordered them because they are no longer avalible from the publisher. Their lie bubble busted when we spoke to our lecturer and he confirmed to us by contacting the bookshop and the publisher. As for me, I had to borrow my bf's credit card to order from the uni bookshop website after I rang and confirmed that they really have stock. The worst part is that it takes at least 2 weeks to ship and by the time it arrives I will have already done (and failed) my mid semester exam if I can't find a copy of the text in the library to photocopy. The lecturer wants to help us by putting the readings up but yeah, darn copyright issues, and he couldn't do that(as long as there are stock from the publisher, he can't put up complete articles). Students in my course should have a class action against that bloody bookshop. The only thing that prevents us from doing so is because they give you 10% discount to members... so I guess we have no choice but suck it up. Big middle finger to them.