Of interest to the weekender:
Schedule for your average college student at a big, state university:
Friday:
-Get out of class
-nap
-play whichever videogame platform has the best sports games
-pre-game, aka drink hard liqour until you can't your insecurities and actually like to stand around and play beer pong
-go to a party -preferably frat but house party will do, as long as there's plenty of booze and bad, loud rap music
-stumble home with your buddies, don't talk about that feel you took of your friend's package
Saturday:
-Get up with a hangover
-Put on every piece of college football gear you have
-heal your hangover with more booze
-go to the game and root for the team
-nap
-frat house/house party again. More booze, beer pong, and general debauchery
Sunday:
-wake up with a hangover
-go back to sleep
-wake up again
-go back to sleep
-crawl to the nearest dining hall with your friends
-do about 20 min. of homework while studying your facebook
-go to bed and right before sleeping, reflect how awesome the weekend was
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
After, In The Dark
Of interest to the editor:
Curse all who play a practical joke in April. Not because those jokes are inappropriate -although they can be-, not because they are vulgar -although they can be that too-, or because they are cliched -although...well you get the idea. It's because April is really a month for sweating, stressing, and hoping. High school seniors hug their mailboxes praying for that which is most coveted during those four years: the acceptance letter. You'd think that hellish final April of high school would be the end of anticipatory stress in April. Alas, no.
Not-totally-to-my-surprise, my fellow collegians are stressing about summer internships, and where they will be in three months. Regrettably, I'm among them. I do know what I'm doing this summer but I'm still running to the mailbox and checking my messages like my high school or college friends. 12 months from now I could be in Paris or at home for all my divining powers can predict. To top it off, the end is in sight for the academic year, this means final tests and papers.
Sometime in history did a bunch of students come together and, to spite future generations of scholars and youth, beg the higher powers to choose a month and schedule all the pressure makers in those 30 days? These are the days that decide location and happiness for a larger amount of time. It's no surprise that we're all grinding our teeth, squeezing whatever is in our hands, and whispering prayers to the higher powers to get our wish.
The only good part about this is that everyone is praying for a certain residence hall, school, summer job or internship, or college. You aren't alone! Lets all cross our fingers and pray for the best. Goodluck to you all, I hope we don't need luck but a little of it always helps.
Daniel
Curse all who play a practical joke in April. Not because those jokes are inappropriate -although they can be-, not because they are vulgar -although they can be that too-, or because they are cliched -although...well you get the idea. It's because April is really a month for sweating, stressing, and hoping. High school seniors hug their mailboxes praying for that which is most coveted during those four years: the acceptance letter. You'd think that hellish final April of high school would be the end of anticipatory stress in April. Alas, no.
Not-totally-to-my-surprise, my fellow collegians are stressing about summer internships, and where they will be in three months. Regrettably, I'm among them. I do know what I'm doing this summer but I'm still running to the mailbox and checking my messages like my high school or college friends. 12 months from now I could be in Paris or at home for all my divining powers can predict. To top it off, the end is in sight for the academic year, this means final tests and papers.
Sometime in history did a bunch of students come together and, to spite future generations of scholars and youth, beg the higher powers to choose a month and schedule all the pressure makers in those 30 days? These are the days that decide location and happiness for a larger amount of time. It's no surprise that we're all grinding our teeth, squeezing whatever is in our hands, and whispering prayers to the higher powers to get our wish.
The only good part about this is that everyone is praying for a certain residence hall, school, summer job or internship, or college. You aren't alone! Lets all cross our fingers and pray for the best. Goodluck to you all, I hope we don't need luck but a little of it always helps.
Daniel
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Bossa Nova
In grading quizzes from her Honors Introduction to Philosophy class, Professor Sarah Chant, at the University of Missouri at Columbia, realized a pattern: many of the students hadn't approached the essay questions. Instead they had scribbled down everything they knew about a topic, like Descartes, for instance, instead of actually answering the question. This wasn't Chant's fault, nor was it fully the students'. Overtime they had learned that in some classes, a substantial number of points were lost by simply responding to a test question, those points are gained only by regurgitating everything the teacher mentioned in class. Professor Mashoon Bahrain's Concepts in Cosmology (also at Missouri) class works exactly like that. The students gain more points and higher grades if they read the word "Black Hole" and then write down everything they learned about Black Holes even if the question is "what kind of star becomes a Black Hole"?
The fact that Chant's Intro class is almost exclusively second semester students suggests that this information vomit spewed by students isn't the University of Missouri's fault. They must have learned it in high school or at lower educational levels. How does this exactly happen? Tests are meant to judge whether a student is accurately understanding a subject. Writing down everything the teacher professed does imply that a student placed some value on the knowledge but not necessarily that the student understands it. There's a good chance that Missouri isn't alone in breeding this type of learning. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania described teachers who reward these answers as ubiquitous. What it suggests is that the student repeats what the teacher says without actually utilizing the lessons. Students may be learning the teaching but a far more basic one is in jeopardy if teachers (at the collegiate level and under) award this simple recitation. Sometimes new ideas and innovations are born from the foundations of older ones. These revelations don't exist if students are just working for the grade but not the information.
The fact that Chant's Intro class is almost exclusively second semester students suggests that this information vomit spewed by students isn't the University of Missouri's fault. They must have learned it in high school or at lower educational levels. How does this exactly happen? Tests are meant to judge whether a student is accurately understanding a subject. Writing down everything the teacher professed does imply that a student placed some value on the knowledge but not necessarily that the student understands it. There's a good chance that Missouri isn't alone in breeding this type of learning. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania described teachers who reward these answers as ubiquitous. What it suggests is that the student repeats what the teacher says without actually utilizing the lessons. Students may be learning the teaching but a far more basic one is in jeopardy if teachers (at the collegiate level and under) award this simple recitation. Sometimes new ideas and innovations are born from the foundations of older ones. These revelations don't exist if students are just working for the grade but not the information.
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