So I dropped another class today, Religion.  It means no more unfinished readings and no more complete confusion.  It also means I still have to fight my way through another six credit hours of humanities at some point in the very new future.  In the last two years, I’ve dropped three humanities classes–Religion and Pop Culture, Linguistics and now this one.  Add to that my other chronic course dropping habits including Psych Skills in Sport and Life, Anatomy, Intro to International Development studies [in first year], Scientific Principles of Fitness and Conditioning [which I’m now in next term], Developmental Psychology, Introduction to Disability Studies and Introduction to Sociology, and you’ve got a pretty wide range of dropped courses.

I know my study habits leave something to be desired, but I really am trying to keep up this year and it’s just getting more difficult with increasing readings.  I have issues with procrastination, and I’m the first to admit it.  I have a master syllabus of all my requirements for each course I’m in that I look at frequently, important things are in my Google calendar which syncs across the board, and all my notes are always with me in Evernote.  And like Religion, some things just don’t work.

I was really excited for the second term of Religion, but considering I knew literally five points on the review, and was up until 1 am writing a paper and then launched into crazy Wednesday — work, a meeting with my Issues in Sport prof, Issues in Sport, lunch, practicum, Promotion and Adherence, attempt at religion studying and dinner, and then Physical Activity and Aging until 8:30 [or 8:10 today].

I would show you my awesome scorekeeping drawings from practicum today, except for I have no idea where my phone cable is and the e-mails of the pictures apparently aren’t coming through.  They were awesome, though, and the seniors thoroughly enjoyed them and kept telling me things to add.

The coolest thing today was that I had an impromptu tweetup with Donald after Physical Activity and Aging.  We found out via Twitter he was just a building over from me at school and he came by after the presentation he was at — how cool is that?

Tomorrow: work, no class, and probably a flu shot.  So a) I don’t get really ridiculous sick and b) my doctors don’t yell at me.

8 thoughts on “midterm madness and other such chaos

  1. I dropped out of this really lame library class once that I took as an elective during my BA. It was supposed to teach us how to design libraries to be accessible to people with various special needs. Or something like that. The class was supposed to culminate with a class trip to the national Braille library of Israel – the mild excitement of such a trip is what kept me from dropping out in the first week and dropping out in the second week instead. That’s the only class I dropped out of I think during my BA. But then again I dropped out of my MA all together. So I guess I may be somewhat of a pro. 😛

    1. Haha, oh wow I don’t think I would have lasted through that class either :]. Though, the Braille library sounds pretty cool, wonder if we have one here or if it’s linked with a different one.

  2. Well done for realising your potential in other subjects, and dropping something you could cope without, although the ‘religion’ aspect perturbed me a little!
    It’s incredible how you CAN drop subjects and just take up others for only 6 hours? Things have sure changed at University. Or maybe my BMus was just unbelievably prescriptive. We did get to choose a few side dish courses but most were main meals and very compulsory.

    Well done for getting a flu shot. I am streets behind on that one-yet again my steroids are too high to have it safely, so I am told repeatedly every time I have enquired over the last month! ;-/

    1. I don’t know much about Canadian universities, but if they’re anything like American ones, dropping that many classes would be possible. Israeli universities are similar to European ones in that you declare your major when you start and pretty much entirely take classes that relate to your field of study. I had very few classes I would have been able to get away with dropping without harming my ability to graduate. You went to uni in the UK, right?

      1. Yes: I although I went to a Music Conservatoire rather than a plain Uni. We had to do everything compulsarily. There were optional specialisms/ courses in our 3rd year but we basically all did everything the same on a carousel system. The drop out rate was high-about 90 started the course and only 30 finished with their degree. It was very pressurised.

        In the 80s when I went to Uni about 10% of the population went on to Uni, now the figure is 42% so read into that what you like. The government has had this huge push to get people to go onto further education. Sigh.

        1. Unsure they exist elsewhere, but we have things called Voluntary Withdrawal dates where you can drop the course and it’s dropped from your transcript with no record — therefore, no F or D if you’re not doing well! There are also dates EARLY in the term where you can drop classes and get part of your money back.

          University here is really personalized, so you sort of get to pick and choose classes that are more applicable to what you plan to do with your degree [in some cases anyway. Of course some degrees you have no idea!] We do have a few compulsory courses for each degree [in a 3 year BA in Kinesiology, soon to be 3 year BKin, 3 to be exact], but even in my department it’s Intro Kinesiology, Scientific Principles of Fitness and Conditioning and either Issues in Health or Issues in Sport [I’ll have both at the end of this term]. Then the rest is pick out of these, or pick this many credit hours out of this area.

          Six credit hours here refers to a “full course” — 3 hours a week for 24 weeks, as opposed to a three credit hour “half course” of 3 hours a week for 12 weeks. My mom explained to me once how they get 3 and 6 but I have no idea! But yeah, credit hours are different from normal hours!

          WIth the stats you were saying, it’s also true [in Canada anyways] that an undergrad degree in Canada now holds basically the same value a high school diploma did in the ’80s. Hence why there are probably more people out there with MAs and MScs, etc — keeping up with demand! Even I hope to get a PhD at some point, but who knows, after my Masters I may just get sick of the whole school thing and throw the towel in! 😉

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