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I took English today and I'm taking physics monday, which I'm a little nervous about. Last year I did history and calc and got fours and I think those helped me get into college. There were some kids who were convinced they didn't matter and just slept through it. The joke's on them when they're paying a few thousand dollars to hear an aide read out of a text book.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by dantesparadigm: There were some kids who were convinced they didn't matter and just slept through it. The joke's on them when they're paying a few thousand dollars to hear an aide read out of a text book.
Of course, those kids may end up taking a fascinating intro-level course with an engaging professor that turns out to be much more rewarding than the frantic exam-based cramming so many high-schoolers put into their AP courses.
Furthermore, I've never had a class taught by an aide. Much less an aide that simply reads from a text. This had absolutely nothing to do with APs. Your educational experience is unique--do not be so hasty to criticize those who take an alternate route.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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I applied to two colleges, was accepted to both, couldn't afford my preference and ended up at my backup.
Which wasn't bad. The only AP class I took in high school was English because it came attached to GT (though I did all the pre-AP classes prior to senior year.) But I didn't bother to take the exam because our college has its own crazy curriculum and doesn't accept AP credits. For instance, our "English" classes were combined with our history classes to make one course that is taken every semester for the first two and a half years of school.
I never took a class with a TA. All of my classes were taught by professors and even when I took science classes at the university which hosts the college, my physics professor was the head of the entire science department. The English/History lecture class (which is made up of all the students in that year and always less than 100) was the biggest class I was ever in. Majority of my classes ranged from three to fifteen students. Most were seminar based, all work was graded by the professor, and I would have loved my four years there had it not been for the undergrad thesis (aka "bane of my existence.")
I'm just saying...there are alternatives to grinding through high school and living in fear of the TA-lead/packed-lecture college experience.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by dantesparadigm: I took English today and I'm taking physics monday, which I'm a little nervous about. Last year I did history and calc and got fours and I think those helped me get into college. There were some kids who were convinced they didn't matter and just slept through it. The joke's on them when they're paying a few thousand dollars to hear an aide read out of a text book.
You've never been in college, so I'm not surprised that's the image you get. It's also one some cynical person shared with you- because every college student has that experience it seems at least once. That, however, does not make bad teaching the rule. I've got a God Awful anthropology lecturer right now, but she is set against a background of very positive experiences.
Also, part of a lot of first semester/quarter freshman GE classes involve the lecturer or TA giving you some perspective as to how you should be going forward in your education- the ropes of your university.
This is also the reason why you should not wait, as I did, to take most of your GE requirements in your last year, where you know everything, find all the assignments painfully easy, and annoy the rest of your section by being called on first every week. I'd like my cookie now.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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