This was long overdue...
Jan. 19th, 2005 19:09![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI caught a break. See my break? See how lovely and shiny and wonderful it is? Yee-HA!
I'd forgotten how good that feels. :)
So my classes started today. I'm going to Los Medanos, since DVC is totally fux0red and doesn't have any science teachers and has completely stuffed science classes. Today didn't start well, though; there is no list of "if you would take X class at DVC, you need Z at LMC", so I had a horrible thought this morning, and checked, and sure enough my Bio class was not the one I needed. Now, I can't afford even one more unit than I've planned for, since that one unit would land my app in the Dean's Office when I try to transfer to Davis. So it was time to see whether I could use the class I was in as a stepping-stone to another course I do need without adding units, or whether I needed to take Bio 20 (not offered this semester, which would take me out for another half-year). I was ready to tear someone's throat out if they told me I had to take Bio 20 (Fall semester) and Chem 26 (Spring Semester) as my next two classes, as I would have to take one at a time and never have sufficient units to suspend my student loan payments or qualify for other things...
Junior police officers (they have "Police Aide" on their uniforms, so it was the boy scouts for sure) ushered me to a parking lot this morning, as presumably they were trying to fit people in in some sort of order. Lucky me, this lot was all the fucking way across campus from the main building. Since the entire center of the campus (about a third) is lost in The Great Mud Pit, complete with decorator bulldozers and accents in safety orange, there is one, count it, one building for academics. It makes finding classes easy, but it meant a ten minute walk around the construction zone from my car.
I was thirty minutes early, but I knew Counseling would be packed. So I pulled one of the few trump cards available to me and went to the Transfer Center instead, where a nice lady agreed that Bio 10 was wrong, and suggested I try to shoehorn in with an add card on another class. Bio 20 isn't offered? Well, Bio 21 has no prereq's, and I need that too... According to her, the teacher Jerry was "very flexible", and he'd try to help me out. She sent me downstairs, where 21 was meeting right then, and I loitered. I watched the teacher write obviously syllabus-y things on the board and waited for class to end, as I didn't want to interrupt. Finally people got up, I slipped in to join the add line, and started to sweat. Five people wanting to add on a science course is bad news...
Jerry asked me, "Did you attend lab yesterday?" No, I just found out about this class (and that I was supposed to be in it) today. That earned me a talk with him afterward, and he got rid of everyone else by telling them to keep coming until Friday and we'd see how many slots there were. Once we were walking to his office, he heard my sob story -- that I was misinformed, signed up for the wrong course, I have the chem and math and I'm a bio major and I have an impacted schedule and pleeeeese... and then he told me to go trade in my Bio 10 books and tell the instructor my slot was open.
I said, "Okay, so long as I can get into this class..." He looked at me seriously and said, "I'm really good at estimating, you won't have any problem. Go tell Lisa in lab tomorrow that I said you had a very high probability of being in the class." DING DING DING! I have the strongest feeling I just made it to the head of the add line...
I dropped another $130 on books (amazing how the real Bio textbook costs a lot more than the picture-book for Bio 10) and spent the rest of the day beaming at everything. Until I was late to Chem... but that was okay, the teacher didn't even pick up the roll book until ten minutes in, and he was pretty relaxed about the whole thing. No formal writeups in Chem lab like I did last time, either, just fill out the lab book pages and hand them in... Score! He's even taking us on field trips, to an EPA-certified lab at the local sewage treatment plant (more exciting than it sounds) and wetlands restoration on the Delta, which is right up my alley. The sort of thing colleges and employers notice when you put it on applications... yee ha!
I keep feeling like I had this coming, and maybe I did. Maybe it's a sign that 2005 won't suck as horribly as 2004. Los Medanos has its share of wankery, and its departments are if anything more amateurishly staffed than those at DVC, but I seem to have stumbled on a couple of good teachers. So long as I can survive the bureaucracy of the college itself, this may be a really bang-up semester.
I have my fingers crossed so hard it hurts that I get my add card signed on Friday, but I think the chances are small that it won't be. Teachers are much more likely to take on a student who is obviously dedicated to the subject and seems serious about completing their major, rather than someone just trying to clear out requirements or hunting for units. It always stuns me how lackadaisical most of the students are, how they could take it or leave it, and always seem to end up dropping out once the work starts requiring effort. I guess they want the piece of paper, or have been told they need to go to school, and have no real interest in it.
Me, I'm a freak -- I like school. :) I think Jerry and Prof. Shweickert and I will get along fine.
I'd forgotten how good that feels. :)
So my classes started today. I'm going to Los Medanos, since DVC is totally fux0red and doesn't have any science teachers and has completely stuffed science classes. Today didn't start well, though; there is no list of "if you would take X class at DVC, you need Z at LMC", so I had a horrible thought this morning, and checked, and sure enough my Bio class was not the one I needed. Now, I can't afford even one more unit than I've planned for, since that one unit would land my app in the Dean's Office when I try to transfer to Davis. So it was time to see whether I could use the class I was in as a stepping-stone to another course I do need without adding units, or whether I needed to take Bio 20 (not offered this semester, which would take me out for another half-year). I was ready to tear someone's throat out if they told me I had to take Bio 20 (Fall semester) and Chem 26 (Spring Semester) as my next two classes, as I would have to take one at a time and never have sufficient units to suspend my student loan payments or qualify for other things...
Junior police officers (they have "Police Aide" on their uniforms, so it was the boy scouts for sure) ushered me to a parking lot this morning, as presumably they were trying to fit people in in some sort of order. Lucky me, this lot was all the fucking way across campus from the main building. Since the entire center of the campus (about a third) is lost in The Great Mud Pit, complete with decorator bulldozers and accents in safety orange, there is one, count it, one building for academics. It makes finding classes easy, but it meant a ten minute walk around the construction zone from my car.
I was thirty minutes early, but I knew Counseling would be packed. So I pulled one of the few trump cards available to me and went to the Transfer Center instead, where a nice lady agreed that Bio 10 was wrong, and suggested I try to shoehorn in with an add card on another class. Bio 20 isn't offered? Well, Bio 21 has no prereq's, and I need that too... According to her, the teacher Jerry was "very flexible", and he'd try to help me out. She sent me downstairs, where 21 was meeting right then, and I loitered. I watched the teacher write obviously syllabus-y things on the board and waited for class to end, as I didn't want to interrupt. Finally people got up, I slipped in to join the add line, and started to sweat. Five people wanting to add on a science course is bad news...
Jerry asked me, "Did you attend lab yesterday?" No, I just found out about this class (and that I was supposed to be in it) today. That earned me a talk with him afterward, and he got rid of everyone else by telling them to keep coming until Friday and we'd see how many slots there were. Once we were walking to his office, he heard my sob story -- that I was misinformed, signed up for the wrong course, I have the chem and math and I'm a bio major and I have an impacted schedule and pleeeeese... and then he told me to go trade in my Bio 10 books and tell the instructor my slot was open.
I said, "Okay, so long as I can get into this class..." He looked at me seriously and said, "I'm really good at estimating, you won't have any problem. Go tell Lisa in lab tomorrow that I said you had a very high probability of being in the class." DING DING DING! I have the strongest feeling I just made it to the head of the add line...
I dropped another $130 on books (amazing how the real Bio textbook costs a lot more than the picture-book for Bio 10) and spent the rest of the day beaming at everything. Until I was late to Chem... but that was okay, the teacher didn't even pick up the roll book until ten minutes in, and he was pretty relaxed about the whole thing. No formal writeups in Chem lab like I did last time, either, just fill out the lab book pages and hand them in... Score! He's even taking us on field trips, to an EPA-certified lab at the local sewage treatment plant (more exciting than it sounds) and wetlands restoration on the Delta, which is right up my alley. The sort of thing colleges and employers notice when you put it on applications... yee ha!
I keep feeling like I had this coming, and maybe I did. Maybe it's a sign that 2005 won't suck as horribly as 2004. Los Medanos has its share of wankery, and its departments are if anything more amateurishly staffed than those at DVC, but I seem to have stumbled on a couple of good teachers. So long as I can survive the bureaucracy of the college itself, this may be a really bang-up semester.
I have my fingers crossed so hard it hurts that I get my add card signed on Friday, but I think the chances are small that it won't be. Teachers are much more likely to take on a student who is obviously dedicated to the subject and seems serious about completing their major, rather than someone just trying to clear out requirements or hunting for units. It always stuns me how lackadaisical most of the students are, how they could take it or leave it, and always seem to end up dropping out once the work starts requiring effort. I guess they want the piece of paper, or have been told they need to go to school, and have no real interest in it.
Me, I'm a freak -- I like school. :) I think Jerry and Prof. Shweickert and I will get along fine.
