No rain today - or at least not until late evening - and the temperature was above thirteen degrees. Not too bad. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, my first class doesn't start until 10:30. I thought if I was out at the bus stop by 10:08 (which is approximately how long it took me to get down the stairs, cross the street, and climb the hill when leaving at 10:05) then I would be able to make it to class on time. Sure, the route of the red shuttle is long and the place I need to get is literally the farthest building away from where I live, but how hard could it be?
... I waited twenty minutes for the bus to show up, despite my phone telling me that it would be here in ten minutes. Over and over. Then it took ten minutes to ride the bus where I needed to get, so I was ten minutes late for class. Not the way I'd wanted to start my day.
At least my psychological stats teacher seems nice and like she has a great sense of humor! As we were going over the syllabus, she mentioned how all of her assignments were due at 11:00 pm, because "she thought we should all go to bed at eleven". That got quite a few laughs out of the class. All the other teachers have their deadlines set to 11:59, so it's usual for many of us - procrastinators in particular - to stay up until midnight to submit an assignment.
We're using a special math program/website that gives us three attempts to do each problem (it takes the highest score), and there are additional practice problems you can do for each section that aren't at all required, but are totally there and ready for you if you want them. And even though we'll get several take-home exams, they're completely open book.
We also have a one-week grace period if we want to talk to the teacher about the exam and why we feel we deserve an extra point on a question we got wrong or something. After that, it's "no longer the subject of discussion", so you can't try to squeeze points out at the end of the semester. I think that's a good policy to have, and at least I know I can feel comfortable talking to her if I don't understand why I got a question wrong. AND she drops the lowest quiz, too, and we get one retake on each quiz.
So an enjoyable math class sounds like good news! I will definitely have to leave earlier, though. I think if I'm out at the bus stop before 10:00, I can probably catch a ride. Or, I could even go as early as 9:30, and wait out the hour before class starts. Better than stressing every day about lateness.
We also have a one-week grace period if we want to talk to the teacher about the exam and why we feel we deserve an extra point on a question we got wrong or something. After that, it's "no longer the subject of discussion", so you can't try to squeeze points out at the end of the semester. I think that's a good policy to have, and at least I know I can feel comfortable talking to her if I don't understand why I got a question wrong. AND she drops the lowest quiz, too, and we get one retake on each quiz.
So an enjoyable math class sounds like good news! I will definitely have to leave earlier, though. I think if I'm out at the bus stop before 10:00, I can probably catch a ride. Or, I could even go as early as 9:30, and wait out the hour before class starts. Better than stressing every day about lateness.
I called Mom as I headed to the TSC. My printer is still on the fritz, and I needed to print and sign that agreement for my interior design teacher about how I agree to accept everything as my fault and not ask questions in class. As I was leaving the printing lab, I briefly explained to the girls behind the desk that I was having trouble with the printer in my apartment. They told me I could talk to the IT apartment, so off I went. I called Mom on the way and told her about my morning's experiences. After getting a phone number from the people in the IT building of some people who can maybe help me, I headed back to Blue Square.
I kind of relaxed for awhile, trying to sort out my homework schedule and reread some of my teachers' syllabuses. Had some lunch too. Around 2:30, I headed out again for my next class at 3:00. The bus was a little slow in coming, so I made it up to the top of campus at like 2:50, and to the biology building at 2:58. Cutting it close, and good to know for the future. The nice thing about having huge breaks between classes is, I can leave as early as I feel I need to.
My abnormal psychology class looked promising. My teacher was polite and seems knowledgeable, although I felt like he made it more obvious than necessary to announce he wasn't LDS and basically believes man's science > religion. He told us some stories and answered a lot of questions, and even though abnormal psychology isn't my favorite aspect of the major (I prefer average behavior to "abnormal" things), his class might actually be interesting.
However, for a flash all of this meant nothing when he said, "You might get an A in this class, but you will probably get a B".
What? Surely he was exaggerating. After all, this was the same teacher who reminded us that 100 is an average IQ, before shortly thereafter saying that we looked to be a population of people with IQs between 80 and 120, so...
At least, that's what I was hoping until I came home to check his syllabus on Canvas and saw:
So... presumably between four tests, I can only miss, what, eight points if I want to score an A? Twelve for an A-? Well. It's good to know sooner rather than later that this will be a difficult class, and I can't put all my faith in years of taking psych classes or researching things on my own time. I'll have to study hard, and definitely rack up extra credit points. We're allowed to earn a maximum of four, but he did point out that this could move us from an A- to an A, a B+ to an A-, etc.
After finishing my reading assignment, I spent most of the evening copying all the due dates for my five classes into my planner. Between this and Canvas, hopefully I won't miss any deadlines!
After finishing my reading assignment, I spent most of the evening copying all the due dates for my five classes into my planner. Between this and Canvas, hopefully I won't miss any deadlines!
