The Sum Total of School So Far
I've been busy. Rather unfortunately, I thought taking 18 hrs. my first semester back to school wouldn't be a big deal. There are some oddities to my situation. I am the only first year grad student entering with advanced standing. This means that I'm only in two classes with any of the other first years. Instead, I got to jump into the junior studio with grad students who have been here a year already. They've been very nice and after the initial worry, I'm glad I'm in with this group rather the the other first years, but that aside. There is a class called "Site Engineering," and it's just that. Everyone else has had a prerequisite class that introduces them to the concepts of site grading, drawing contours, calculating slope, and in general everything relating to site that I skimmed over in architecture school.
Due to my advanced standing, the department thinks I can handle this. To say the least, it's been hard. Which meant I spent a Friday morning with the professor going over the finer points of site grading so I could do the project that was coming due. Aside from embarassing myself by smelling like rotting tomatoes and having my stomach growl through the entire meeting my comments were, well, less than stellar. The professor would say something like this:
"So you take this and this and blah blah blah and you get this."
"Um, so what did you do to get that number?"
"I added these two numbers in my head. I don't like pushing calcualtor buttons."
"Oh. Of course. You added those two numbers in your head"...just like what I can't do.
But I met with my advisor today. I'm making an effort to get to know my professors, something I didn't really try for in my undergrad days. She is very nice. When she first met me she game me a hug and said she was really glad I decided to come here. And really, how can you not want to talk to a person like that?
I used to not like it much here, and there are times when I still suffer from chooser's remorse, but overall I'm enjoying myself. There are more stories, like when I couldn't collect my thoughts in a class called "Sugar and Slaves" and came across as a racist, or the time I was rolling my eyes in class and I'm pretty sure the teacher saw me. Yeah, that's the new image I'm projecting.
Due to my advanced standing, the department thinks I can handle this. To say the least, it's been hard. Which meant I spent a Friday morning with the professor going over the finer points of site grading so I could do the project that was coming due. Aside from embarassing myself by smelling like rotting tomatoes and having my stomach growl through the entire meeting my comments were, well, less than stellar. The professor would say something like this:
"So you take this and this and blah blah blah and you get this."
"Um, so what did you do to get that number?"
"I added these two numbers in my head. I don't like pushing calcualtor buttons."
"Oh. Of course. You added those two numbers in your head"...just like what I can't do.
But I met with my advisor today. I'm making an effort to get to know my professors, something I didn't really try for in my undergrad days. She is very nice. When she first met me she game me a hug and said she was really glad I decided to come here. And really, how can you not want to talk to a person like that?
I used to not like it much here, and there are times when I still suffer from chooser's remorse, but overall I'm enjoying myself. There are more stories, like when I couldn't collect my thoughts in a class called "Sugar and Slaves" and came across as a racist, or the time I was rolling my eyes in class and I'm pretty sure the teacher saw me. Yeah, that's the new image I'm projecting.
posted by Ellen at 3:40 PM
3 Comments:
I like how you have "Sum Total" in the title and then an anecdote about addition in the body.
it seems like calling a class "sugar and slaves" would be just begging for people to make inadvertently racist-sounding comments.
I'm with you, Why should i have to think when a calculator can do it for me and never makes mistakes?
I guess there is the robot uprising to worry about.
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