Well, summer is here and it has been more than a month since finals. I probably say this in every blog post, but again, time has surprised me! When in school, summer seems to be this far-off abstraction of freedom, sunshine, and fun. While that is generally the case, summer is an amazing opportunity to make a schedule and stick to it. I’ve concerned myself mainly with a cause very important to me to occupy most of my days: voter registration. In town, I am assigned to gas stations who sell more cigarettes and chips than gas. The customers who roll up to make these purchases insist that either they have no time or that they’re felons. I’m lucky if I get more than two an hour, but its worth it to know I’m enfranchising populations that don’t have the time nor the money to afford as loud a political voice as others. To make money though, I’ve been revisiting all the yards I took care of in high school and have one project that required a lot of clean up. Results are fun, but the sun isn’t.
Especially with a job though, summer is a great time to practice what works with your body and your mind when it comes to sleep, fun, and family, while you don’t have to worry about keeping with a syllabus or preparing for tests. For me, I’ve tried to readjust to a normal person’s sleeping schedule, something more resembling what Ben Franklin recommended in Poor Richards Almanac “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Especially for outside, it’s best to do it earlier before the sun scars the arid high plains here along the Arkansas valley where temperatures can climb to more than 100 degrees this time.
Dorm life, as a I mentioned in an earlier post, follows no such advice. Neither do my friends, many of whom weren’t in school at all over the last year. This makes me think that staying up late might be built into our DNA at this age! Maybe this is just a cop out though, as increasingly in my college-kid discussions about human nature and the like our genetics are cited much more often than not with the debit of our guilt. It is a phenomenon that I am uncomfortable with, but perhaps its true. Either way, I’ve been trying to figure humans out a great deal this summer with little success. This brings me to the last point that I have to make about summer: Use Your Mind!
I have been reading, participating in those college-kid discussions (about human nature and the like), but as the lazy river of summer leisurely passes by, hanging out with friends during my spare time becomes much more appealing than reading Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” and its also a whole lot more encouraging. Regardless, keep yourself occupied with at least a few tasks that make your brain work. Someone once likened it to a muscle that needs to be exercised every once in a while!!
The last 3 months of my life have been the most trying and difficult of my entire academic career. Last summer I participated in M.S.I., an intense program at my college that lasted one month, and before this, that was my most intense academic experience. During that program, the time constraints made it difficult for everyone. I sense that the difficulty I experienced this semester, though, is a product of both my own complacency, and the exceeding difficulty of the courses I took.
The first mistake I made was waiting for books to come in the mail that I purchased off of the internet. While I saved a significant amount from the bookstore’s used price and this is a practice I highly recommend, some of the books didn’t come for weeks. This in itself shouldn’t be a problem for the serious student who can assertively ask to borrow the readings from others.
I didn’t though, and the second mistake I made was to underestimate just how much I was missing. I based that assessment on the first semester (which was less rigorous for me looking back.) I told myself that I would catch up, maybe over spring break. Needless to say, the break is worked into many of the instructors’ syllabi for work on their classes.
Here is where I made my third mistake. While I did a decent job of keeping up with the intermediary reading before the break, trying to add old readings had the effect of disjointing my reading experiences and made me less productive than I would have been otherwise. If I had just buckled down and done it before, the time after spring break wouldn’t have flown by so fast and I wouldn’t have been so stressed out the last few weeks!
But why am I telling you this? Well, just keep in mind that classes are structured in a way that readings build off one another, and the slow gradual accumulation of understanding most professors try to write into their syllabus is probably the best order to learn the material.
Don’t underestimate the importance of time. A few crucial missed readings can really mess you up. Stay on top of the reading, be assertive and take control of your academic future!
Now, I was able to catch up later this semester with a great deal of diligence, but you can be assured that I will not let this happen again. Learn from me so that you don’t have to make the same mistakes and you can enjoy the discovery and great times of college instead of cramming and hesitantly rejecting social invitations on Saturday nights.
The month is Marching by and those decision letters are going to start trickling in. Some will have good news, others will have disappointment. Perhaps the best advice I can think of is the same I was told the first time on an airplane, “whatever is going to happen is going to happen,” and chances are you really can’t control what’s going to happen. Worrying is not going change what those letters say.
For some the news is going to be bittersweet. There is perhaps no feeling just like learning you have been accepted into a school that isn’t affordable. While disheartening, there is probably hope if you continue to look for scholarships from other sources and talk to the financial aid office. If you are good enough for a school to accept you, then chances are they will do what is reasonably possible in their view to help you.
Seniors, this is your last semester, but it’s still important. Some of the books I read last year around this time were important to my development. In essence, I’m saying, do your work. This semester IS important. It’s also not only a good time to see your friends but to have great conversations with your teachers. This is the time that they will open up to you and you might just find one that is a terribly fascinating person who you didn’t think was before. Anyway, that’s all for now, but good luck!
CSO’s Executive Director Matt Rubinoff came to campus and we did some video blogging. Here I encourage you to think outside-the-box and venture away from home for college. Sorry about the rain and thunder background noise; it was not your typical sunny California day!
Well, 1/8 of my college experience and (knock on wood) I’m very happy with where I’m at. In my last post, I discussed how it took a few people to go out of their way and really become friends with me. These are some great kids, and I have surely managed to have a great time at Oxy up until now. As one of my friends and I were reflecting on the past semester though, we came to the conclusion we really didn’t DO as much in L.A. as we thought we would. Occidental makes a very good case that the whole of Los Angeles is an integral part of the experience. As my friend and I discussed, though, we realized that the times we had attempted to leave campus by ourselves (neither of us have a car) using the public transportation, that you can be very lucky or very unlucky in terms of how much you wait. As a matter of fact, a few of us decided we wanted to see Hollywood on a Saturday night. Thirty minutes on the bus and we were standing wide eyed on the corner of Hollywood and Vine in the shadow of that building that looks like a stack of records. Later on though, we waited almost 2 hours for a return bus with maybe 15 Angelenos and didn’t return to the dorm until around 3:00. Not to mention all the arrests we witnessed in our short stroll along the Boulevard, it was a pretty nerve-racking experience.
This semester though I really do plan to visit some of Los Angeles’s most important cultural attractions, museums, and maybe the beach a couple of times. It truly appears to be a great city, but I think it might be wise for us to much better understand the transit system. Very few of my peers have cars on campus, and of the few that do, a minority are from out of town and willing to “explore” the city. I’m sure that this will be easy to overcome though. My only fear is that increasing my focus on seeing the sights will detract from my studies. My class lineup this semester seems to be far too interesting for that though. (Michelangelo, Intro to Urban & Environmental policy, The Russian Experience, and Spanish) all cater to very specific interests of mine.
Alas though it will likely be a struggle against the ease of hedonistic pursuits to again truly learn this semester, but there is no reason why overcoming such distractions shouldn’t be easy.
Wow! Like everyone else has said, this semester has absolutely flown by. I remember during the first few weeks of school wondering whether or not I was going to handle the social situation of all these kids that I had very little in common with. I did miss my family, my friends, and my comfort back home for the entire semester, but that feeling was especially strong in the first few weeks. My peers at Oxy had all been extremely friendly, and almost without exception, they have proven to be caring, compassionate, and outgoing people. Now, I understand that people at any college are probably more friendly than the average population, however it took a while for me to come around the realization that this is how ALL people CAN BE. What’s more, I had always imagined that the historic class struggle would keep me from ever really penetrating their ranks.
With this realization it was very easy for me to make friends. I’ve never been, by any means, a socially estranged person, but I think I can finally understand how some might sense an alienation and let it confine them. For me, it was that a few people went out of there way to be kind to me that this became possible. They were my gateway to a larger population at the school. While still existent, those feelings of loneliness and distance from familiarity were significantly downplayed. I am appreciative then for my new friends who have made being away a genuinely great experience and who have taken the pain out of it. I genuinely believe that without them I probably would have performed much worse this semester (grades were 3 A’s and a B — the B was in a math class). I guess what I’m saying is that, especially at a residential college, social interactions are a part of the equation. I would caution all people though to watch the company you keep because new friends might be detrimental to your success, something thus far I have tried to avoid.
Swish…loop…crank…crank…nervousness…click click click (gear grinds)… click clack…This is the last hump on the roller coaster of my first semester. There is a lot to do between today and the end of this semester, but somehow these last few months have sped by.
For you high-schoolers out there my guess is that you are experiencing a similar sense of unease and nervousness. The time to finish college applications is nigh, just as the promise of a break from school for the holiday season. I remember that when my C.U. application was somehow erased every time I attempted to save it, a certain heat went up and down my back. So much frustration resulted from this that I felt I alone possessed a terrible burden. In short, the college application process was a very intense experience for me, and I’m sure it is proving to be, at some points, for you as well.
What I have noticed though is that stress is inevitable. I find that the heat is on now as the first semester comes to a close. With due diligence and a lot of patience I have faith that it will all work out in the end, and if you have that same faith it will help you to make more rational and cautious decisions than if you don’t. Let me tell you that your applications and essays will look much better if you type them with a clear head rather than with “just finishing” in mind. These applications and such can be finished, and if I can impart those seniors out there with one more bit in the endless stream of advice: don’t stress out and make more problems for yourself. At the same time though I want to be clear that what you are doing is important, and that is why it is so important to approach these issues with a level head.
That’s how I felt last year at this time. The leaves were falling off the trees, the air had a bite, and the sun was setting earlier. The election season was over, and I had spent the last few months putting off thinking about college in favor of work and the campaign. Fall had come, and it didn’t wait for me. I had done most of what was expected so far thanks to the guidance from a caring teacher, but I hadn’t even begun to consider what schools to apply to. In fact, all I had really done was take the ACT with writing. The deadlines were coming though, and I had made sure in advance I hadn’t missed any.
An important conversation that I had with one of my mentors earlier that year left me with an interest in Liberal Arts colleges. After leafing through a book with overviews of schools throughout the country in the days following the election though, I had a good idea of what institutions interested me. This is a practice I highly recommend to all of the high-schoolers out there. In fact, it was the Insider’s Guide to Colleges that first informed me of Occidental College’s existence. That Oxy wasn’t even on my radar before is important because it shows the importance of broadening the scope of your horizons.
When applying to schools, listen to others but also think for yourself. What you want is important, and it is your education on the line here. Many high school students aren’t getting fantastic advice in their schools. In my case, I was lucky to have it from one teacher and a whole host of mentors outside of my school. If you feel the same way, I would recommend looking around the other regions of your life for advice. The internet is a tremendous resource as well, but I recommend using your informed instincts there as anywhere else. Just don’t be afraid of rejection.
Finally, the last bit of advice I have is this: Get your applications done in plenty of time so you can make sure it is done correctly. I can’t stress this enough. All the mysterious people you are sending your application to will see are the words in front of them. Make sure that it’s you that they can see, and take the time to be certain. You won’t regret it.
In the last month, I’ve begun to think seriously of what my role in academia is. Perhaps the most surprising conclusion that I have begun to arrive upon is that our roles are constructed. Undoubtedly it would appear that such a conclusion offends the very grain of our existence as it doubts our very core assumption of personal power. Perhaps that is why I have not begun to consider this until now.
Familiarity makes us comfortable, but sometimes we stand on pedestillian prisons of our own making. We imagine a role as ours that we want, regardless of what our role may be. We cannot construct our own roles though. It may conflict with the popular conception of individualism to realize that our function is not exogenous, but we are better for appreciating it.
Resigning oneself to the fact of a world that we must fit into is at once frightfully pessimistic. But that world is already there. Recently, I read a book entitled “They Say, I say” that suggested the academic conversation is like a party:
It has been going on a long time when you arrive
Just as soon as you hear enough of the conversation to jump in, you do
After hours of lively conversation and stimulating debate, you have to leave
The conversation continues long after
The intellectual in all of us wants to stay at the party, and see what happens next. We are only given short time to learn from it and offer what we can though. I think this realization is crucial to intellectual growth, and any further understanding of what our role is. In many ways, then, life is just the party. All that you have to do is be attentive, forget shyness, and your role finds you!
Well, summer is here and it has been more than a month since finals. I probably say this in every blog post, but again, time has surprised me! When in school, summer seems to be this far-off abstraction of freedom, sunshine, and fun. While that is generally the case, summer is an amazing opportunity to make a schedule and stick to it. I’ve concerned myself mainly with a cause very important to me to occupy most of my days: voter registration. In town, I am assigned to gas stations who sell more cigarettes and chips than gas. The customers who roll up to make these purchases insist that either they have no time or that they’re felons. I’m lucky if I get more than two an hour, but its worth it to know I’m enfranchising populations that don’t have the time nor the money to afford as loud a political voice as others. To make money though, I’ve been revisiting all the yards I took care of in high school and have one project that required a lot of clean up. Results are fun, but the sun isn’t.
