When I came to University, a big concern for many students was whether or not laptops were necessary. Most people asked this question because they didn’t have one and wanted to know whether pestering their parents for a new computer was necessary for their university education. After all, this wasn’t high school anymore and for some reason using paper and pencil seemed archaic and unsophisticated. You can’t really blame people for feeling this way. We’ve all seen college movies where students at Harvard or Princeton are sitting in some eccentric professor’s lecture typing away on their laptops. But do the movies really represent reality? Do you really need that laptop for your first year? Simple answer: No. Complicated answer: It depends.
I say no, because you can get by without having one. I know a few people who chose to only bring desktop computers to university, and they do just as fine. I’ll take this moment to offer a mild digression. I think that computers these days are indispensable. You will need something to type your essays on at 3 am in the morning when your library is closed, or when looking at whatever it is that you want to look at on the internet in the privacy of your own home/room. Without any computer whatsoever, you really lose out on the independence of what is considered a necessary tool for anything these days. So I am not saying you don't need a computer at all. You do.
Back to the question at hand: it differs from person to person. People who have laptops tend to take them everywhere they go. (Well, maybe not to drunken binges). That would be fine, except for one important thing: the internet. The internet is google, so that if there's something about what the Prof says that you want to know more about, you can. It's the University site, with all the Prof's PowerPoint slides and notes on it. But it's also movies (yes, you see people watching them during lectures), chat, Skype, email, and worst of all of course: Facebook. All addictive as heroin. Especially Facebook. Lectures are full of students just feeding their addictions. Some say they can multitask. But most Profs really need your complete attention if you want to get the most out of what they're teaching.
Sometimes they might seem to be droning on, reading off the screen, or just talking about things that are completely boring. They see it as important, though, and they're the ones writing the exams that you'll be taking. Even when you have the lecture notes in front of you and it seems like nothing relevant is being added to the notes in lecture, every prof drops little hints about what's more likely to come up on the exam. They might be as obvious as a green star popping up next to a point, or as subtle as a raise in tone and extra few minutes spent on a concept. Picking up on these cues can save you a lot of time studying!
Even if you can’t find the cues, actually listening in lecture is extra exposure to the material in a different form than just reading notes, and it helps! I began turning off my cell, and disengaging my wireless internet as soon as I downloaded lecture notes to avoid the temptation of distractions. When finals rolled around a month and a half after my “technological epiphany,” I had to study less and seemed to remember a lot more when reviewing my notes. It was a huge stress reliever when I realized that the word "FINALS" didn’t really have to just be an acronym for, “F$#%, I Never Actually Learned this Sh#@.”
I suppose the University could line all the lecture halls with foil, or put in transmitters that fatally interfered with wi-fi signals. But that would spark a huge revolt. Besides, there would still be smartphones, texting, and so on unless they cut off that signal too.
But some people have more of a need to take a laptop to classes. Take me for example. My handwriting is akin to a 5 year old trying to write for the first time. Sometimes it’s so illegible that even I can’t read it. Not to mention that my hand gets cramped because I never learned how to properly hold a pencil and as a result I can’t write notes fast enough and I think it might give me juvenile arthritis if I actually tried for too long. However, I have been using chat sites since I was about 10 and I’ve gotten really good at typing things very fast. Not to mention I practically live on the internet, so computers are second nature to me and I feel a lot more comfortable with a keyboard at my fingertips than with a stack of paper.
That being said, I know plenty of people who choose to bring only paper and pens to class because they say that they can remember things a lot better once they physically write them out. A girl I know even writes them out fully in class and later that day goes home to copy them verbatim onto her computer. Different people, learn very differently, and you might find that the electronic way of keeping data doesn’t cut it for you. Have you ever got completely immersed in an e-book the way you have with a paperback? Me neither. (To the ten of you who answered yes to that, kudos to you – your focusing skills must be extraordinary.)
It really is all about preference. If you feel a laptop won’t suit your needs or your desires, don’t sweat it. There is nothing pressuring you to get one or to change your study habits to go with the latest flow. But know yourself, and don't be weak. I guess students have always found something to be distracted by. But I think it's easier to do that now because of the technology. So control it; don't let it control you.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
I Can’t Do It All
I am the type of the person who in high school was involved in a ton of things from athletics to academics. Coming into university I saw so many more things I could participate in. With the hundreds of clubs advertised during first week, there were lots of things that I really wanted to do. I joined things like debate club, a volunteer organization, badminton club as well as some academic clubs.
All of these clubs allowed me to get involved in some issues that I felt passionate about. I also met a lot of really cool people I still talk to sometimes -- even occasionally with my school work. Perhaps, I thought, I was making connections which just might pay off some time in the future. Some of our TA's have told us about this kind of connection being useful to them later on: introductions, advice on what to say in a letter or interview with a prof or an employer, or occasionally, just whispered into the ear of an influential person, a complimentary few words.
Some of my friends regret not getting out more and being more involved. They look back at the first year and only remember going to class and partying. Not exactly something to write home about, in my opinion.
But soon I had a problem. I realized that there just weren't enough hours in the day for me to do everything. Work for my classes was beginning to suffer as well. In addition, the lack of time for myself just wasn't there, and I was missing it badly -- things like reading a magazine article, hanging out with friends for no particular reason. I know myself too well: that's a fix I need on a regular basis, and if I don't get it I start having withdrawal symptoms. Of course, the first thing to go had been my sleep, because there were too many things that had to be done before the next day. Worse, I became so burnt out that for the first time in my life even when I did go to bed I wasn't sleeping well; this made me tired in class which added more stress, because I couldn’t focus. It was a downhill spiral.
In the end, for my own sanity, I had to compromise. Sadly, some things had to go, in favour of the ones I wanted to truly put in the time for. This meant I dropped two of the clubs I'd joined, which immediately meant more sleep for me; that's what I needed the most. There's something called "sleep deficit", which took me several early nights to get over.
Now, near the end of my first year, I have learned that it is possible to be involved in the many things that I want to do. But I have to be sure that first, I can actually do them and second, given the 24 hours we have in a day, they are the things I want to do the most. So I shall see and hopefully it will work out.
All of these clubs allowed me to get involved in some issues that I felt passionate about. I also met a lot of really cool people I still talk to sometimes -- even occasionally with my school work. Perhaps, I thought, I was making connections which just might pay off some time in the future. Some of our TA's have told us about this kind of connection being useful to them later on: introductions, advice on what to say in a letter or interview with a prof or an employer, or occasionally, just whispered into the ear of an influential person, a complimentary few words.
Some of my friends regret not getting out more and being more involved. They look back at the first year and only remember going to class and partying. Not exactly something to write home about, in my opinion.
But soon I had a problem. I realized that there just weren't enough hours in the day for me to do everything. Work for my classes was beginning to suffer as well. In addition, the lack of time for myself just wasn't there, and I was missing it badly -- things like reading a magazine article, hanging out with friends for no particular reason. I know myself too well: that's a fix I need on a regular basis, and if I don't get it I start having withdrawal symptoms. Of course, the first thing to go had been my sleep, because there were too many things that had to be done before the next day. Worse, I became so burnt out that for the first time in my life even when I did go to bed I wasn't sleeping well; this made me tired in class which added more stress, because I couldn’t focus. It was a downhill spiral.
In the end, for my own sanity, I had to compromise. Sadly, some things had to go, in favour of the ones I wanted to truly put in the time for. This meant I dropped two of the clubs I'd joined, which immediately meant more sleep for me; that's what I needed the most. There's something called "sleep deficit", which took me several early nights to get over.
Now, near the end of my first year, I have learned that it is possible to be involved in the many things that I want to do. But I have to be sure that first, I can actually do them and second, given the 24 hours we have in a day, they are the things I want to do the most. So I shall see and hopefully it will work out.
What Do I Want to do with My Life
I went to University directly from Gr.12 because I didn't know what else to do, and I had enough scholarships that I didn't have to pay for tuition. I didn't want to go to College because it it has a more vocational focus, and I wasn't nearly ready to make any decisions about a career. I had so many interests that I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I figured University would be a better match for me at the time.
The transition from high school to university for me was a drastic one. I'd been to a small high school in a small town. I lived on a farm, some distance away from the nearest biggest city of 75,000 people. So you can imagine that moving to a city with 352,000 people and going to a university with 30,000 students with 4,000 first years alone was pretty scary.
I was used to the quiet lifestyle of going to school, coming home on the bus, doing my homework and going to bed. I never really went anywhere because there was nothing to do. I had never been on a city bus before or taken a cab.
Upon arrival, I was immediately thrown into turmoil with all the events and things to do that first week. I had to get used to a more fast-paced environment, and it wasn't easy at first. I hated it. It took a while, but I eventually did get used to it and came to love it.
And now, I can’t imagine living somewhere where I can’t call for pizza delivery at any time of the night or be within 2 minutes walking distance from whatever kind of food or entertainment I could want.
I graduated from University this summer and will start a Communications and Public Relations program at College in the fall. University education is very broad, especially if you major in English. I don't even know where to start looking for a job that will take advantage of all I've learned in the last few years. People from my family say things like, "I don't see how all that time and all that money has helped you find a real job", or, "so you still don't know what you want to do". So it's all been a waste of time, right?
Wrong. Humanities graduates do get good jobs. True, there's no straight line, as in Nursing or Engineering. It takes a little more time, and there's no direct route. But I know that I'm a far stronger person now because of what I've done in the last years. Maybe it'll be hard to make a direct connection, but I know that I'll analyze situations and synthesize answers in a way that someone else couldn't. Especially situations involving human beings, which when you come to think about it is most of them.
The annoying questions won't stop for a while. I have learned to be immune to them though. I've had a lot of experience coping successfully with complex situations with lots of uncertainty and lots of potential solutions. This is just another one along the way.
And now I do feel ready to start getting trained for a job. A College course in Communications and Public Relations: that's what I'm doing in September. Don't tell me that what I did in my English Major won't be any use. It will.
The transition from high school to university for me was a drastic one. I'd been to a small high school in a small town. I lived on a farm, some distance away from the nearest biggest city of 75,000 people. So you can imagine that moving to a city with 352,000 people and going to a university with 30,000 students with 4,000 first years alone was pretty scary.
I was used to the quiet lifestyle of going to school, coming home on the bus, doing my homework and going to bed. I never really went anywhere because there was nothing to do. I had never been on a city bus before or taken a cab.
Upon arrival, I was immediately thrown into turmoil with all the events and things to do that first week. I had to get used to a more fast-paced environment, and it wasn't easy at first. I hated it. It took a while, but I eventually did get used to it and came to love it.
And now, I can’t imagine living somewhere where I can’t call for pizza delivery at any time of the night or be within 2 minutes walking distance from whatever kind of food or entertainment I could want.
I graduated from University this summer and will start a Communications and Public Relations program at College in the fall. University education is very broad, especially if you major in English. I don't even know where to start looking for a job that will take advantage of all I've learned in the last few years. People from my family say things like, "I don't see how all that time and all that money has helped you find a real job", or, "so you still don't know what you want to do". So it's all been a waste of time, right?
Wrong. Humanities graduates do get good jobs. True, there's no straight line, as in Nursing or Engineering. It takes a little more time, and there's no direct route. But I know that I'm a far stronger person now because of what I've done in the last years. Maybe it'll be hard to make a direct connection, but I know that I'll analyze situations and synthesize answers in a way that someone else couldn't. Especially situations involving human beings, which when you come to think about it is most of them.
The annoying questions won't stop for a while. I have learned to be immune to them though. I've had a lot of experience coping successfully with complex situations with lots of uncertainty and lots of potential solutions. This is just another one along the way.
And now I do feel ready to start getting trained for a job. A College course in Communications and Public Relations: that's what I'm doing in September. Don't tell me that what I did in my English Major won't be any use. It will.
Be Bold, Act Confident:
One of my most memorable moments of that first week was the opening of the campus pub. The place was packed solid, wall to wall. Me and some of the other first year girls that I had met over the course of the week got all dolled up together and decided that we would have a blast no matter what happened that night. Of course, as we were getting ready we all gossiped about some of the guys we had met during the week and wondered if any of them would be bold enough to ask us to dance, knowing deep down inside that we were too shy to make the move ourselves. All night long, we danced together but none of the guys ever asked us to dance.
I had spotted this really cute guy early into the night and had noticed him looking at me as well. But he never came over. He was with a bunch of other guys who were joking and talking and just wandering around, drinking and playing pool, going out on the patio for a smoke. Half way through the night, while all us girls were still hoping to meet one of these new hot guys, I saw him come in from the patio and it looked like he was heading for the door! My heart sank. But then I had an idea. As he was going by me to get to the door, I summoned all my courage, caught his eye, stepped in close so he could hear me and asked him to dance. We danced the rest of the night and his friends joined us and danced with the girls I was with. We all had a blast.
Nothing ever came of anything between me and this guy, but that wasn’t what I had been going for. I just wanted to have fun. You can’t always rely on guys having the confidence to come to you; sometimes you have to be the bold one. It’s easier to make friends when you put yourself out there. So don't hide in your room. Get out there and have fun. OK yeah, of course, don't do stupid or dangerous things.
Let yourself do things you've maybe thought of doing but never had been confident enough for before.
Yes, be bold.
I had spotted this really cute guy early into the night and had noticed him looking at me as well. But he never came over. He was with a bunch of other guys who were joking and talking and just wandering around, drinking and playing pool, going out on the patio for a smoke. Half way through the night, while all us girls were still hoping to meet one of these new hot guys, I saw him come in from the patio and it looked like he was heading for the door! My heart sank. But then I had an idea. As he was going by me to get to the door, I summoned all my courage, caught his eye, stepped in close so he could hear me and asked him to dance. We danced the rest of the night and his friends joined us and danced with the girls I was with. We all had a blast.
Nothing ever came of anything between me and this guy, but that wasn’t what I had been going for. I just wanted to have fun. You can’t always rely on guys having the confidence to come to you; sometimes you have to be the bold one. It’s easier to make friends when you put yourself out there. So don't hide in your room. Get out there and have fun. OK yeah, of course, don't do stupid or dangerous things.
Let yourself do things you've maybe thought of doing but never had been confident enough for before.
Yes, be bold.
We Don't Have Time but We'll Do it Anyway
Putting on Theatre takes a great deal of time, and requires a commitment that's close to being absolute. The performance date is set, and absolutely everyone has to be ready. It might seem, therefore, that theatre isn't something students in programs like mine can do: programs like Engineering, Meds, Architects, and other professional faculties where students have to work into the night and have very little free time. Two commitments that are close to absolute have to be one too many.
It might seem that way, but it isn't.
I've been involved in Theatre for many years, and when I came here, I missed it dearly. A close friend in my program was feeling the same way. One evening we were commiserating together about the lack of theatre in our lives. "Wouldn't it be great if ...": that kind of thing. Next thing I know, he says, "I figured it out, and I have a plan."
The trick would be to schedule all the rehearsals and other activities around our own timetable. Other people who got involved were going to have to fit in with that. We planned how it would all work, got another student involved, and we decided that yes, we really can do this. We turned ourselves into a triumvirate to get it done. We had auditions, found people to do all the backstage stuff like costumes and makeup, and applied to the Student Association for funding. What fun it was to do this again. Our first production was modest, involving just eight of us, but we got such a good response that we decided to expand into a more ambitious production, with more people involved and a bigger budget. Still, though, everything had to fit in with the triumvirate's academic commitments. It's a logistical challenge, involving late nights and early mornings, and weekends, but no-one complains.
Our target audience is busy students, and we do plays that people in our situation can relate to. The one we're doing now involves a group of kids in their twenties who haven't done much since High School. One night, one of their friends appears who has done something with his life: he's a rock star back in town on tour. He stops by to hang out with them, but the contrast between his success and the lives the others are living makes for a really interesting and volatile situation. It brings out peoples' fears about what is or is not happening in their lives, so it relates to the dread that shadows many students here, that they'll just go home after graduation to live on their parents' couch. It’s about the fear of going out into their real world after the insulation of growing up. The fact that some contemporaries might be having great successes in their lives just makes things worse.
One surprise we're all agreed upon is that the drama is another opportunity to 'think outside the box'. I believe students underestimate how multidisciplinary the world is, and the majority of people who succeed in creative professions don't just have one incredibly strong interest, they have several, and those passions interact constructively with each other. There are times during a rehearsal of a Harold Pinter play that I'd find myself thinking about the unconventional structure of the play, and suddenly I'm thinking about innovative ways to change the structure of my architectural design. Notes on acting also become general notes on presentation; how to be engaging and interesting to your audience. The process of writing a play is surprisingly similar to the design work we do in the Program. The list goes on. Anyway, it's more than an escape for us, it’s another pool to draw inspiration from.
One thing we pride ourselves on is that over half our audience is not related to the University. Given that we direct our productions to people in situations like ours, it may seem odd that it turns out that way. It's a good feeling though that so many people from the city want to come and watch us perform.
Our original triumvirate is very proud of the vibrant and successful organization that resulted from our original modest efforts. Best of all, it hasn't had any negative impact at all on the work we do in our University program -- quite the opposite in fact. As I've explained, the skills and insights we get from doing the productions turn out to actually enrich our work in the Program, and we return each day to our Faculty with renewed enthusiasm that comes from having a short but complete break from it.
It might seem that way, but it isn't.
I've been involved in Theatre for many years, and when I came here, I missed it dearly. A close friend in my program was feeling the same way. One evening we were commiserating together about the lack of theatre in our lives. "Wouldn't it be great if ...": that kind of thing. Next thing I know, he says, "I figured it out, and I have a plan."
The trick would be to schedule all the rehearsals and other activities around our own timetable. Other people who got involved were going to have to fit in with that. We planned how it would all work, got another student involved, and we decided that yes, we really can do this. We turned ourselves into a triumvirate to get it done. We had auditions, found people to do all the backstage stuff like costumes and makeup, and applied to the Student Association for funding. What fun it was to do this again. Our first production was modest, involving just eight of us, but we got such a good response that we decided to expand into a more ambitious production, with more people involved and a bigger budget. Still, though, everything had to fit in with the triumvirate's academic commitments. It's a logistical challenge, involving late nights and early mornings, and weekends, but no-one complains.
Our target audience is busy students, and we do plays that people in our situation can relate to. The one we're doing now involves a group of kids in their twenties who haven't done much since High School. One night, one of their friends appears who has done something with his life: he's a rock star back in town on tour. He stops by to hang out with them, but the contrast between his success and the lives the others are living makes for a really interesting and volatile situation. It brings out peoples' fears about what is or is not happening in their lives, so it relates to the dread that shadows many students here, that they'll just go home after graduation to live on their parents' couch. It’s about the fear of going out into their real world after the insulation of growing up. The fact that some contemporaries might be having great successes in their lives just makes things worse.
One surprise we're all agreed upon is that the drama is another opportunity to 'think outside the box'. I believe students underestimate how multidisciplinary the world is, and the majority of people who succeed in creative professions don't just have one incredibly strong interest, they have several, and those passions interact constructively with each other. There are times during a rehearsal of a Harold Pinter play that I'd find myself thinking about the unconventional structure of the play, and suddenly I'm thinking about innovative ways to change the structure of my architectural design. Notes on acting also become general notes on presentation; how to be engaging and interesting to your audience. The process of writing a play is surprisingly similar to the design work we do in the Program. The list goes on. Anyway, it's more than an escape for us, it’s another pool to draw inspiration from.
One thing we pride ourselves on is that over half our audience is not related to the University. Given that we direct our productions to people in situations like ours, it may seem odd that it turns out that way. It's a good feeling though that so many people from the city want to come and watch us perform.
Our original triumvirate is very proud of the vibrant and successful organization that resulted from our original modest efforts. Best of all, it hasn't had any negative impact at all on the work we do in our University program -- quite the opposite in fact. As I've explained, the skills and insights we get from doing the productions turn out to actually enrich our work in the Program, and we return each day to our Faculty with renewed enthusiasm that comes from having a short but complete break from it.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A Country Boy Comes to the City
Being from a rural community, I had a few more adventures in the city than some others would have. I used up the first week trying to figure out how buses work. My roommate also had never taken a ride on a city bus either, so both of us were uncertain of ourselves and confused.
We looked at a bus map, but it looked to us as though it was showing another city in a foreign country. After some discussion we were confident that we knew what bus would take us to the mall. The bus stop was just out front of our residence, so we were confident we could be successful.
No mall appeared. Then the driver informed us that this was indeed the correct bus, but that to catch it going the opposite direction we would have had to stand on the other side of the road. Later, we learned that if you want the bus to stop, there's a cord that you have to pull if no-one else has. So we did eventually make it to the mall and back. On the same day.
We looked at a bus map, but it looked to us as though it was showing another city in a foreign country. After some discussion we were confident that we knew what bus would take us to the mall. The bus stop was just out front of our residence, so we were confident we could be successful.
No mall appeared. Then the driver informed us that this was indeed the correct bus, but that to catch it going the opposite direction we would have had to stand on the other side of the road. Later, we learned that if you want the bus to stop, there's a cord that you have to pull if no-one else has. So we did eventually make it to the mall and back. On the same day.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a cardinal sin in University. Many are tempted by it, some succumb to it, and some are expelled for it. In some subjects, there are online ways for the Profs to detect plagiarism that get better all the time, so what worked for your friend last semester might not work for you now.
The anti-plagiarism ethic is justified, both from the point of view of the students who might work hard for middling grades, and from the point of view of the University itself, its credibility, and its integrity.
Yet nothing is completely original. Sometimes, for an assignment or a project, only a limited number of approaches are possible. If ever you look at what someone else is doing, or you brainstorm together, you're using the other person's work. And if you read a book, decide to approach your work from the same angle, and use some of the same ideas, you're stealing the author's work, right?
So yes, there is a line somewhere that you can approach, but mustn't cross. And as in the rest of my own program, it all works a little differently from the way things are elsewhere. Here, work that already exists is referred to as “precendents”, and we are encouraged to use it. In fact, if we didn't, we couldn't get any decent work done at all.
You read, you look at the precedents and get ideas from them, you choose things that inspire you and use them, you borrow, you work with others, you try an approach out together with someone else. Maybe both of you use the same approach. Maybe it's the only approach that's possible.
Originality, creativity: they're not always possible. It would be possible to walk over to someone else's work when the person isn't there, look at it, and then do the same thing yourself. In my experience, though, that never happens. It would be stealing. What does happen is that the two of you look at someone's work together, you take the idea, and work on it by yourself for a bit. It's how you develop and exploit the complexities of the idea that makes your work original.
I can think of one example to make the point. We were working in groups on a project; each of us had the same assignment but we had to follow it individually, while maintaining some sort of dialogue. My friend Morgan had a good idea, so I pretty much incorporated it into my own project. I wasn't sure about doing it, so I went to the Prof, and said, “I stole this idea from Morgan.” “No, you didn't steal it,” he replied, “you appropriated it.” Part of the idea of the project was “appropriation”, so in fact I was following both the spirit of the assignment and the letter.
And that's what we're being taught to do. We use Precedents, and we appropriate. We do not copy and we do not present as our own something that was substantially done by someone else. That would be plagiarism.
The anti-plagiarism ethic is justified, both from the point of view of the students who might work hard for middling grades, and from the point of view of the University itself, its credibility, and its integrity.
Yet nothing is completely original. Sometimes, for an assignment or a project, only a limited number of approaches are possible. If ever you look at what someone else is doing, or you brainstorm together, you're using the other person's work. And if you read a book, decide to approach your work from the same angle, and use some of the same ideas, you're stealing the author's work, right?
So yes, there is a line somewhere that you can approach, but mustn't cross. And as in the rest of my own program, it all works a little differently from the way things are elsewhere. Here, work that already exists is referred to as “precendents”, and we are encouraged to use it. In fact, if we didn't, we couldn't get any decent work done at all.
You read, you look at the precedents and get ideas from them, you choose things that inspire you and use them, you borrow, you work with others, you try an approach out together with someone else. Maybe both of you use the same approach. Maybe it's the only approach that's possible.
Originality, creativity: they're not always possible. It would be possible to walk over to someone else's work when the person isn't there, look at it, and then do the same thing yourself. In my experience, though, that never happens. It would be stealing. What does happen is that the two of you look at someone's work together, you take the idea, and work on it by yourself for a bit. It's how you develop and exploit the complexities of the idea that makes your work original.
I can think of one example to make the point. We were working in groups on a project; each of us had the same assignment but we had to follow it individually, while maintaining some sort of dialogue. My friend Morgan had a good idea, so I pretty much incorporated it into my own project. I wasn't sure about doing it, so I went to the Prof, and said, “I stole this idea from Morgan.” “No, you didn't steal it,” he replied, “you appropriated it.” Part of the idea of the project was “appropriation”, so in fact I was following both the spirit of the assignment and the letter.
And that's what we're being taught to do. We use Precedents, and we appropriate. We do not copy and we do not present as our own something that was substantially done by someone else. That would be plagiarism.
Sororities and Time Management
Although sororities are a great social outlet, they can also be really good for time management. The whole pledging and initiation process in itself is a huge time management learning experience. You have to learn how to make the right decisions. If you have a big paper that’s due on Monday and it’s Saturday night and a pledging activity comes up, you have to decide if you are going to go out or if you are going to stay in to write the paper. If you do go out, you have to have a plan for how the paper is going to be done. If Sunday night is the only available time, well then, prepare for an all-nighter, because that's what it may take.
Once you're initiated it gets more complicated. Now you have more flexibility about your choices; the frantic pledging process is over, so you have more time. But there are sorority events all the time, and it's easy to forget the real reason why you are in school. You won't be able to participate in everything and still keep your marks up, and it's no longer a choice of yes or no. It has changed to one of selecting which sorority activities you'll do and which you'll pass up. I've found that in order to do that, I need to make myself a timetable that extends at least a week ahead, and sometimes longer than that.
One good thing about my sorority, and I think others too, is that your grades can only go so far down the drain. Then you begin to risk losing your membership. So there are bad consequences for you before the time comes that you have actually fallen so far that you can't recover. The sorority is so much more immediate and intense than your future grades that this threat can be what brings you back to sanity. I've known that happen to quite a few people. So really, the sorority is giving you a cushion. A hard one, true, but a cushion just the same. I've known more than one person who's needed that.
So, as I said at the beginning, my sorority has helped make me better at managing my time.
Once you're initiated it gets more complicated. Now you have more flexibility about your choices; the frantic pledging process is over, so you have more time. But there are sorority events all the time, and it's easy to forget the real reason why you are in school. You won't be able to participate in everything and still keep your marks up, and it's no longer a choice of yes or no. It has changed to one of selecting which sorority activities you'll do and which you'll pass up. I've found that in order to do that, I need to make myself a timetable that extends at least a week ahead, and sometimes longer than that.
One good thing about my sorority, and I think others too, is that your grades can only go so far down the drain. Then you begin to risk losing your membership. So there are bad consequences for you before the time comes that you have actually fallen so far that you can't recover. The sorority is so much more immediate and intense than your future grades that this threat can be what brings you back to sanity. I've known that happen to quite a few people. So really, the sorority is giving you a cushion. A hard one, true, but a cushion just the same. I've known more than one person who's needed that.
So, as I said at the beginning, my sorority has helped make me better at managing my time.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Computers Make Mistakes Too.
With the rapid increase in the number of computer-marked exams, the number of marking mistakes has been drastically reduced; or so the professors would have us believe. After some of my friends and I received our final exam marks, we were all very disappointed. Nobody wanted to approach the teacher and question their mark; it was a multiple choice exam that was marked by a computer. How could a computer make a mistake?
I thought I deserved a higher mark, despite what the computer said, so I approached the professor and asked if it was possible that the computer “messed up”. Initially the professor said it was impossible for the computer to “mess up”. But seeing my desperation, he consented to double-check the computer’s work and discovered that there was in fact a mistake. As it turns out, the score card had been fed into the computer improperly. In the end, my mark was raised 22%, which brought me from a C to an A.
Don’t ever be afraid to ask your professor to double check your mark, even if it was marked by a computer! I was the only person out of all my friends who asked the professor to double-check these marks, so the others will never know if they truly deserved those bad marks or not!
I thought I deserved a higher mark, despite what the computer said, so I approached the professor and asked if it was possible that the computer “messed up”. Initially the professor said it was impossible for the computer to “mess up”. But seeing my desperation, he consented to double-check the computer’s work and discovered that there was in fact a mistake. As it turns out, the score card had been fed into the computer improperly. In the end, my mark was raised 22%, which brought me from a C to an A.
Don’t ever be afraid to ask your professor to double check your mark, even if it was marked by a computer! I was the only person out of all my friends who asked the professor to double-check these marks, so the others will never know if they truly deserved those bad marks or not!
I Was Cheated
Too many students are cheated because they are afraid to speak up against a situation which they believe is not right. For example, unfair marks. With hundreds of papers to correct, many teachers hire graduate students to mark papers, and it’s easy for a marker to give an inaccurate grade. I discovered this the hard way.
During my first year of university, I was very nervous when I was about to receive my first graded university assignment because it was worth 10 % of my mark for that course and it would be the first reflection of my progress in university. Not to mention, I had put in an untold amount of effort and hours into this assignment. When the paper was handed back to me, I desperately flipped through the pages until I came across my mark. I was not happy. Very unhappy, in fact. The mark that I received for the assignment did not reflect the amount of agonizing work that I put into the assignment. I was convinced that university was going to be impossible.
I was so distraught that I decided to confront my professor due to the fact that the assignment lacked corrections. I figured that if I didn’t know where I went wrong, I couldn’t improve for future assignments. Surprisingly, my initiative paid off. My professor was stunned at some of the inexplicable, unjustified marks that I'd received. He decided to have the paper regraded. When the time came for me to pick up my newly graded paper, I was curious as to how my mark would change. (Like, curious to the point that I couldn't sleep the night before.) Would the professor find a lot of corrections and significantly increase my mark, or would he find that it had been correctly graded, be insulted that I'd even asked, and drastically lower my mark in spite?
When I picked up my paper I was ecstatic. My mark increased by 32% and was now sitting at a 92. I informed my friend who was taking the same class and her mark increased nearly 30% as well. This was not the only time that proofreading corrected assignments paid off. In fact, after examining a sociology exam, I was able to get the entire class’s marks to increase by 2% because of a mistake that the professor made on a multiple choice test.
After this incident, I realized how important it is to check over corrected assignments. If you feel that a mark is not justified, don’t be afraid to confront a professor about it. However, I do advise that you have good rationale behind why you believe the mark is not what it should be. I also recommend that you be polite to the professor about the situation. The professor is less likely to sympathize with your grade if you bolt into his room demanding that your mark be changed. In that case, he probably will change your mark, but chances are that it may not be in your favour.
During my first year of university, I was very nervous when I was about to receive my first graded university assignment because it was worth 10 % of my mark for that course and it would be the first reflection of my progress in university. Not to mention, I had put in an untold amount of effort and hours into this assignment. When the paper was handed back to me, I desperately flipped through the pages until I came across my mark. I was not happy. Very unhappy, in fact. The mark that I received for the assignment did not reflect the amount of agonizing work that I put into the assignment. I was convinced that university was going to be impossible.
I was so distraught that I decided to confront my professor due to the fact that the assignment lacked corrections. I figured that if I didn’t know where I went wrong, I couldn’t improve for future assignments. Surprisingly, my initiative paid off. My professor was stunned at some of the inexplicable, unjustified marks that I'd received. He decided to have the paper regraded. When the time came for me to pick up my newly graded paper, I was curious as to how my mark would change. (Like, curious to the point that I couldn't sleep the night before.) Would the professor find a lot of corrections and significantly increase my mark, or would he find that it had been correctly graded, be insulted that I'd even asked, and drastically lower my mark in spite?
When I picked up my paper I was ecstatic. My mark increased by 32% and was now sitting at a 92. I informed my friend who was taking the same class and her mark increased nearly 30% as well. This was not the only time that proofreading corrected assignments paid off. In fact, after examining a sociology exam, I was able to get the entire class’s marks to increase by 2% because of a mistake that the professor made on a multiple choice test.
After this incident, I realized how important it is to check over corrected assignments. If you feel that a mark is not justified, don’t be afraid to confront a professor about it. However, I do advise that you have good rationale behind why you believe the mark is not what it should be. I also recommend that you be polite to the professor about the situation. The professor is less likely to sympathize with your grade if you bolt into his room demanding that your mark be changed. In that case, he probably will change your mark, but chances are that it may not be in your favour.
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