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CRACK
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 03, 2005
Age: 21
Posts: 812
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 Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject: What were your toughest aspects of college? |
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| What were your 3 biggest hurdles getting through college if you had any? |
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Fnord
Metasyntactic Variable
Joined: May 07, 2008
Posts: 4204
Location: Pantopia
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject: Re: What were your toughest aspects of college? |
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| CRACK wrote: | | What were your 3 biggest hurdles getting through college if you had any? |
1) Finding my social niche. Getting good grades was easy. Staying out of trouble was easy. Determining how I fit in was fraught with difficulties. People would pretend to be my friends in one social context, ignore me in others, and behave downright hostile in still others. I never had an real friends that I could count on in college.
2) The graduate students that taught the Calculus. I could solve the problems with little or no scratch work. I often knew the answer to all the problems before I could write the proofs. So if I just wrote the answers, or wrote too few proofs of those answers, the grad students accused me of cheating. Even when I took the exams by myself in the professors' offices, they tried to find ways to prove that I had cheated. I never had the respect of my college peers.
3) Leaving it all behind. Despite the hardships, college was my time of greatest in-personal growth. I finally found enough confidence to express myself as myself, and not as others expected. I found that I could make decisions - effective decisions - for myself without concern for the approval of others. My college years had also served to sharpen my abilities to observe, cross-reference, and understand what was going on and to work things out behind the scenes to my advantage. I never again experienced that level of influence outside of college.
_________________
You could be emo if you have ever mistaken niceness for interest, interest for friendship, friendship for committment, committment for love, or love for forever. |
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pschristmas
Blue Jay
Joined: Apr 02, 2008
Age: 41
Posts: 90
Location: Buda, TX
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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There are only a couple I can think of. One is that I tend to be very literal about instructions for assignments. Several times I've had professors tell us that they simply wanted a report on the book or subject, not our personal observations. When I turned in these papers, I would get a C or D because there was no personal critique included. It was very confusing until I realized they were using hyperbole in their instructions to stress that they were interested in a report on the book or current research on a subject, not original research on it. I did much better when I transfered to another university and one of my professors there would ask for reviews of books, not book reports, and showed us an example from one of the professional historical journals. I think the professors at the other school were using the term report and synonymous with review, and really, they are two very different things, to my way of thinking. If you find yourself having trouble like this, try to take the professor aside and ask her or him to help you understand, maybe show you some examples.
Another problem I've had is with chatting up the professors. If you want to continue after your undergraduate degree, you need good references from your professors, and to get those, they have to remember who you are. One of my professors says that he can always tell when a teacher has written a reference for someone they don't really know, and that he knows of some professors who will purposely agree to give letters of reference for students they don't remember from their classes and then give really terrible references which pretty much shoot down any chance the student has of getting into a program. Yes, he agrees that it's mean, but some will do it. It's not easy, but I've been forcing myself to go to professor's offices and ask questions about assignments. I've also been asking for opportunities to volunteer for special projects at the university. This brings one to the teachers' attention without being too difficult socially.
Patricia |
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t0
Phoenix
Joined: Mar 24, 2008
Posts: 526
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Learning to be a real student rather than coasting through and not studying. |
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curiouslittleboy
Deinonychus
Joined: Jun 07, 2007
Age: 20
Posts: 328
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 6:54 pm Post subject: Re: What were your toughest aspects of college? |
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| Fnord wrote: | | CRACK wrote: | | What were your 3 biggest hurdles getting through college if you had any? |
1) Finding my social niche. Getting good grades was easy. Staying out of trouble was easy. Determining how I fit in was fraught with difficulties. People would pretend to be my friends in one social context, ignore me in others, and behave downright hostile in still others. I never had an real friends that I could count on in college.
2) The graduate students that taught the Calculus. I could solve the problems with little or no scratch work. I often knew the answer to all the problems before I could write the proofs. So if I just wrote the answers, or wrote too few proofs of those answers, the grad students accused me of cheating. Even when I took the exams by myself in the professors' offices, they tried to find ways to prove that I had cheated. I never had the respect of my college peers.
3) Leaving it all behind. Despite the hardships, college was my time of greatest in-personal growth. I finally found enough confidence to express myself as myself, and not as others expected. I found that I could make decisions - effective decisions - for myself without concern for the approval of others. My college years had also served to sharpen my abilities to observe, cross-reference, and understand what was going on and to work things out behind the scenes to my advantage. I never again experienced that level of influence outside of college. |
*applause* Very well put.  |
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lastcrazyhorn
Bat-Chick
Joined: Oct 11, 2007
Posts: 1219
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:56 am Post subject: |
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1. Getting it all done every day. - In undergrad, I was an instrumental music education major. By my senior year, I literally had every moment of every day planned out to the last minute. I had to, because I always took 8 or more classes every semester.
2. Balancing friends and homework - My friends were important to me, but in the end, it was more important to me that I graduated. It turned out about halfway through my 4 years that 2 of my friends were bipolar and only one was on meds (which she later went off of and then turned suicidal).
3. Dealing with undiagnosed psychological problems - I'm an aspie with cyclothymia. Both of these were undiagnosed until a year or more after graduation. That, combined with OCD, ADD, GAD (and a few dozen more), left me in a precarious state more than once in my entire college career. Every day from February - May of my sophomore year I fantasized about ways to kill myself.
And even then, I was happier at school than I would have been at home. Heh.
I make it look all bad, but it's not true. College years were some of my best.
_________________
"I am to misbehave" - Mal
BATMAN: I'll do everything I can to rehabilitate you.
CATWOMAN: Marry me.
BATMAN: Everything except that.
http://lastcrazyhorn.wordpress.com - "Odd One Out: Reality with a refreshing slice of aspie" |
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LostInEmulation
Penguin
Joined: Feb 11, 2008
Posts: 1275
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:28 am Post subject: |
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For me the hardest part of college is that everyone else seems to have it better than me. I know that this is wrong, but my feelings disagree. Whenever I see people drive or are able to see what is written on the blackboard from the last row, I get a sting of jealousy (I am highly visually impaired). Whenever people talk about what they did in the evenings, I feel envy.
I know that I have advantages, they don't: I don't need to drive to college since I live on-campus, I have access to the many strange worlds they don't even know of. I already passed midterms with the full amount of points without having learned a bit for them. But still...  I know that it is irrational, now if only the non-logical part of me understood this 
Another issue is the buereaucracy which is a hassle.
_________________
I am no native speaker. Please contact me, if I made grammatical mistakes in the posting above.
GENERATION 20: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment. |
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twoshots
Honorary Vertebrate
Joined: Nov 27, 2007
Posts: 2185
Location: NJ
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| Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:02 am Post subject: Re: What were your toughest aspects of college? |
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| CRACK wrote: | | What were your 3 biggest hurdles getting through college if you had any? |
1. Roommates - I hate them all
2. Teachers - everything I do wrong is invariably their fault 
3. Maladaptive psychological devices - subset of being one sandwich short of a picnic
_________________
"The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country."
-Milton Friedman |
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Tracker
Sea Gull
Joined: Jun 17, 2008
Age: 22
Posts: 205
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| Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 5:54 am Post subject: |
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1. Bad teachers.
Despite what you may hear from the college about hiring only the best teachers, and all that, some of them will suck horribly. There have been a few classes where I had to learn the subject from the book because the teacher was completely useless, or even harmful.
2. Picky teachers.
Some teachers do a good job of teaching, but have unrealistic expectations when it comes to work. I have been graded down for things like poor handwriting, sloppy work, etc. Some professors will assign an incredibly long assignment, and then mark you down for not using thier method. Even if your method is quicker, and gets the correct answer, some teachers will still mark it wrong. I think for my entire time at college, I have gotten more points taken off for not showing work then having the wrong answer.
3. Bad team members.
You will undoubtably work on a group project at least once durring college. I know my greatest problem with these assignments isnt actually doing them, but trying to get my group members to understand what is going on, what needs to be done, how to do it, and then checking thier work. In groups of 3 or smaller I invariably wind up doing the entire project because it is easier (and with better results) for me to do triple the work if I can avoid working with people who dont know what they are doing. |
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curiouslittleboy
Deinonychus
Joined: Jun 07, 2007
Age: 20
Posts: 328
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| Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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@Tracker: I can kind of relate to the last one. ><
Simply put: Some AP physics students are so lazy it makes me wonder why they choose the class. >< |
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AGMorehouse
Sea Gull
Joined: Jun 01, 2008
Age: 21
Posts: 207
Location: Wouldn't you like to know you stalker
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| Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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First, was trying to figure out how do all that reading in a short amount of time. There was no HOMEWORK- nothing to turn in that could balance out all my bad grades for a test (I don't test very well). The HOMEWORK was doing all that reading. Second was trying to figure out how the professors wanted us to turn in our homework assignments- like format.
_________________
Though there's no one there to guide you
No one to take your hand
But with faith and understanding
you will jouney from boy to man |
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ironangel
Toucan
Joined: Jul 06, 2008
Age: 30
Posts: 291
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 9:23 am Post subject: |
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the professors who believes that they're all-knowing
the classmates who keeps on 'shouting' their rights
and the group projects that nobody seems interested but you |
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CRACK
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 03, 2005
Age: 21
Posts: 812
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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| what about missing lectures? Did the professor expect you to ask other students what happened on a day you were absent instead of asking him/her directly? That would seem awkward. |
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LostInEmulation
Penguin
Joined: Feb 11, 2008
Posts: 1275
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| CRACK wrote: | | what about missing lectures? Did the professor expect you to ask other students what happened on a day you were absent instead of asking him/her directly? That would seem awkward. |
They do. Did I mention that I try to have a perfect attendance record for that reason?
_________________
I am no native speaker. Please contact me, if I made grammatical mistakes in the posting above.
GENERATION 20: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment. |
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forallotherthings
Blue Jay
Joined: Jun 22, 2008
Posts: 78
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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| I find living wth people very difficult and my course is very disorganised I dont think you wil find this with every course though. |
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