I, Curtis

Category: Academic

  • Religion, Again

    Didn’t I just write a post about this topic? Yes, I seem to recall that I did.

    This time the topic comes to me from the most unlikely of places, my History and Systems of Psychology course. The topic of the week for the discussion board is as follows:

    Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was a direct challenge to the widely accepted church views on creation and evolution.What do you believe about evolution and creation? Discuss the history of Church/Science conflicts.

    I expected when the discussion began that it would be a nice quiet discussion based on the facts at hand, as well as being relevant to the text and the material of the course. Instead, it has turned into an opportunity for the rabidly impassioned Christians of the course to pick up the flaming pitchforks. The first post on the topic started off citing scriptures and ended by accusing scientists of being “blind”, “not able to know what it is to be human” and “too prideful to see the truth”.  I am not usually the type to fall for responding to such a post, but this time I did. My response pointed out that there is no evidence of God, and that using creation itself as evidence was like proving the Earth is the center of the universe by pointing that the sun travels across the sky. I also pointed out a few logical issues with the person’s post such as her colorful use of ad hominem style argumentation.

    So far I am the only person who has posted who has been on Darwin’s side of things, then again we agnostics have to defend each other, since no one else will. My opinion on the topic is that we cannot prove the existence of a divine being, and as such any theories that are based on the assumption that there is cannot be proven either. I feel that because of the fossil record and what we know of the way organisms develop that evolution is a much more likely explanation for existence. Religious groups seem to want to disprove or discredit evolution by stating that it relies on a series of “accidents” to create an intelligent being. The interesting thing about evolution is that it only requires one accident, the mixing of amino acids to form a few proteins, which can then chain together to form organisms. The rest of the process just requires a few hundred millennia to sort things out. The other argument that I have seen is that “everything” must have a creator. I like this one because it is sort of like my theory that “everything” must have a container. The flaw with this argument comes when you look at “God” itself, if God created creation, then who created God? Some sort of Uber-god? Maybe, but that’s just one step removed from the same problem again. So just like in my container theory, there is no solution, and the theory of the religious are once again invalidated due to an argument that ends up requiring an infinite number of adaptive explanations (due to the fact that every creator must have a creator).

    Sometimes I believe that life would be easier if I did have the capacity to believe in the same things as everyone else, but unfortunately, my experiences do not allow me to have such faiths.

  • Counselor on Crack?

    To get a form processed to allow me to finish my degree in Spring I had to contact an individual who is identified as the “Academic Counselor for the College of Arts and Sciences”. I don’t know if she is having hump-day blues or what, but she managed to thoroughly screw over every piece of documentation that she touched for me. The objective of this exercise was to eliminate 30 extraneous credit hours of GTSU (General Transfer Electives), which would give me space back in my 180 hour credit cap to breath next semester. 

    First, and most obvious to me, she made the following errors regarding courses on my record:

    PSYC 400 – is listed as Complete, it is actually In Progress.
    PSYC 343 – is listed as Complete, it is also In Progress.
    SOCI 299 – listed as In Progress, it is "Completed" (Transfer)

    Next, when adding back credits to my degree audit to ensure that there were credits to cover for courses that had been waived (University Studies and “Critical Thinking”), she managed to add a GTSU 200 course to fill the blank 3 hours. Only one problem with this, we just did the paperwork to have all 10 GTSU courses (30 hours) removed from the record, there are none left to use on this. I guess she didn’t see my spare CSC 202 (C programming), or HIST 211  (US History to 1865) or any number of other 3 hour courses just laying around being lazy on the transcript.

    Finally on the degree audit, less noticeable though, my declared elective for the sociology minor, SOCI 333 (Introduction to SPSS, the reason I’m becoming a Sociology minor), is not noted.

    The other thing she did was on the exclusion form itself, she marked part of the courses for exclusion as being from Gaston College, none were. All of my Gaston credits are actually correct, it was the credits from CPCC and some from UNC-Charlotte that were not transferred and needed to be removed.

    Ugh… a lesson to all undergraduate students – know your course catalog, know your transcript, be your own advisor and always check the work of anyone who does any paperwork for you.

  • I Like Compliments

    I received my grade and a note from my sociology instructor this morning regarding my 2nd essay test on the lectures.

    “Very nicely done, Curtis. You corrected the few flaws I saw in your first paper, and honestly aside from some very minor punctuation and grammar flaws I have very little to criticize here…great paper.

    Score –98”

    In general, a very good way to start the day 🙂

  • Love/Hate Self-Paced Courses

    I am a little worried about tomorrow. Its just another Monday in the academic term according to the calendar, but for me, it marks the beginning of the last unit of study in my Introduction to Sociology (SOC 210) course. According to the grade book I have 3 more quizzes and one more test to complete. Last week I finished off 4 quizzes in one day and finished off the test in a weekend. The course is online and completely self-paced, but the units only get activated as students complete them. I seem to be the only one working ahead, as the units are being activated as I get to them. I never expected to enjoy this course this much, but then again, I seem to be enjoying this semester more than most. I am really eager in almost all of my classes, but most of my courses do not have things to get done just yet, and things are released to be completed on a weekly schedule. In some ways I am glad that the course is moving along as quickly as it is, since I have to get my course credit transferred back to FSU as soon as possible so that on Nov. 1 when the registration opens I will be able to get the courses that I need. I do hate that I have gotten so into the material but yet it will be over very soon. I am very disappointed that there isn’t another course available that starts later in the semester to continue some of this material (such as a course about Deviance). I’m also a little upset that I have not gotten to know the instructor for this course that well. The instructor seems to be very nice and helpful, and he actually responds to emails pretty quickly (usually before 8am, from his iPhone). I seem to get really into courses and let them blow by way too quickly without doing much other than interacting with the material (like I do in ceramics courses), or I let things wait until the last minute and I don’t really get into the material much at all, which really bothers me (math courses have this effect on me).

  • Future Academic Plans

    I probably spend way too much time thinking about academics, and the amount of time I spend writing about it is probably just as bad, but there are more things to discuss. This evening I have been looking at my future academic options. I have looked at the degree requirements for a variety of curriculums that I had started, but not finished. The major ones are the AAS in Computer Programming, Certificate in C# Programming, AFA in Visual Arts. I have quite a few components left on the AAS in Computer Programming, something like 10 courses remaining until I am eligible for the degree. The Certificate in C# Programming only requires 2 more courses, and those can be easily completed, so it is quite possible that I will finish off that program, even if it is just for the fun of it. The Associate in Fine Arts degree requires 19 more credit hours of work, which I intend to work on, at least to the point of finishing off the base studies work (2D/3D Design, art history course). This covers several of my endeavors that I have left in limbo, in essence, what is required to resolve my past academic life.

    Moving on to the real future plans, I intend to take the GRE (Graduate Records Examination) sometime this fall, probably in October. I am very nervous about it because I have not taken a standardized ETS exam in quite a while. After I have taken the exam and received a satisfactory score, I will begin applying to graduate schools. I have no idea where I will end up at this point, but I intend to thoroughly evaluate my options. I do believe I would like to stay in the area of Psychology, so I will focus on those programs. ECU and UNCC are still my primary targets for such a program. My other worry for graduate school is getting 3 people who can recommend me for graduate school admissions. I do not have a lot of people who know me personally who aren’t related to me that can vouch for my dedication to academics and to psychology. I am trying to make a good impression on people this semester so that I may be able to make a few contacts who can write letters for me, or fill out the electronic forms to recommend me.

    As much as I want to look forward to future academic adventures, I keep feeling drawn back to things I haven’t done, like the art programs and degrees in some of my technical interests that I have not finished. So many things to do and so little time in which do accomplish them.

  • Withdrawn From Somewhere I’ve Never Been

    I periodically like to review my enrollment records with the National Student Clearinghouse, if for no other reason than to make sure that none of my schools have reported me as deceased. Found something surprising tonight while looking over my records though. Apparently NCSU has been reporting me as “withdrawn” for the past 3 semesters. I am wondering why they are reporting me as such, since to be withdrawn I would have had to be enrolled at some point, right? It is true that in late 2008 I considered enrolling and even registered for a course, I dropped the course before the semester began and they never reported the course as being on my records. So… why are they claiming I am withdrawn, and why these past semesters, but not before?

    I am used to schools posting a W to the NSC record, but usually only after an F (Full), H (Half) or LT (Less-than Half) posting. Such postings are common with my community colleges where I register one semester and might be at another in the following semester, based on course availability.

  • Worry About The Test

    I just finished my first test in Intro to Sociology and I am a bit worried. I have spent the last 5 days working on and off on the essay test answering four questions. The general idea was that the answers to the four test questions would come from the four lectures that were posted to the course. I listened to the lectures and took notes on them, and then answered the question pertaining to each lecture. The instructor asked for answers to be about 2 pages in length for each question, with a total test length of 8 pages. I am a little nervous at the moment because I am worried that I wrote too much directly from the lectures and not enough analysis and person contribution to the material. I have two answers that are about 1.5 pages in length, then one that is 4 pages long and yet another that is 3.5 pages long. I worry about the variability of the length and the fact that the whole test was supposed to be 8 pages long and mine is 12 pages. Did I write too much? Did I write not enough? Did I write the wrong thing? I feel like I have a good understanding of the material, but I’m not entirely sure that I have managed to articulate that understanding into the test that well.

    I would post the paper here for review, but unfortunately, the course is still active so that would be frowned upon by most academic integrity polices.

  • Socialization

    At the moment I am working on an exam for Introduction to Sociology and I find myself somewhat disgusted with how much humans assimilate to social norms. One of the questions on my exam relates to socialization, which as defined by my instructor and the text, is what makes us human. While I agree that without early socialization we would not be able to develop language skills, there are other things that bother me. Do we learn to assimilate to our culture as a result of socialization, or does some inborn need to assimilate cause our socialization? I assume it is the first, as supposedly all humans are supposed to be social beings. If we assume that we assimilate because of socialization, I worry about what our socializations teach those who are fragile and just learning of the world. While I agree that as a “civilized” species we should have certain “moral” guidelines that we should follow, including a respect for others around us, I feel that the emphasis on conforming to “norms” is just a bit over the top and is severely repressing the development of our species. At some point someone proposed the notion that “everyone” in our “local society” has a cell phone and thus now, every person over the age of 7 now has a cell phone, whether they need it or not, everyone must conform. I think of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Game” (S5 E6), in which a harmful game spreads among the crew of the ship, turning them all to mindless zombies. It is almost analogous to every major social trend in every culture. Why does anyone play “Farmville” for example? Probably because they accepted an invitation after a friend “gave” them a bale of hay or a cow or something. These nasty social habits and conformity are contagious throughout society. One of the most common examples of the force of conformity through socialization is tendency of children who use their left hands to write to be socially sanctioned in some way until they conform to the more socially acceptable right handed behavior. Why does everyone have to be the same? Schools claim that children who choose to have green hair are a distraction. Why is this? Because the student does not conform to the acceptable natural colors, and the other students have not been taught that there is nothing wrong with green hair.  The fact that teenagers go through a rebellious phase is at this point a socially expected thing, which leads to the fact that it becomes part of their socialization. I can not be certain, but it seems as though it may also be a tool of socialization, to create an opportunity for the sanctions to be tested and to re-enforce the need to adapt to social norms.

    Conformity is regulated by social sanctions (dirty looks, negative comments, more direct actions of punishment), and is ultimately the tool of socialization. Socialization is the process by which an individual is forced to assimilate to “the way we do things”.

  • Error in Degree Audit

    I seem to have mis-calculated something in my degree audit, and because Banner is generally less intelligent than a trained monkey, it was no help in discovering the error. When I so eagerly marked the waiver status on the first two requirements on the degree form I neglected that those 5 credit hours don’t just go into the sky, they have to be filled by something, so therefore, I have 5 more elective hours, or closer to 6 since I don’t have any 2 hour courses on my record.

    I have elected to use the following courses for those 6 hours:

    US History I – CPCC – Fall 2008
    Data Structures – FSU – Fall 2009

  • Pornography as a Social Problem

    I am just getting started with reading my sociology textbook and have already discovered a few things that I don’t like, the primary thing is the author. The author has the audacity to call pornography a “social problem”, and classes it with rape, pollution and the spread of AIDS. I personally take offense to this because in my opinion pornography is part of sexual expression. Even at its worst I do not feel that pornography is much of a social threat, unless the author believes that it to be a component of Social Darwinism. In my view of pornography (beyond the scope of just basic sex pornos), I see pornography as expanding the possibilities with variety in sexual intercourse and taking sex to a level beyond the basic animal actions. Some pornography can be artistic and tasteful, something which I suspect that such a prude as the author of my text probably had not considered before, as even considering it academically would probably violate his sensibilities. I do not understand how someone in the social sciences can be so closed minded. Perhaps this direction for a minor wasn’t such a good idea, these people are a little too stuffy for me. It seems like in sociology anything related to sex is a bit taboo. If it isn’t race related, these people don’t seem to care about it. I guess having Freud being one of the founders of modern Psychology wasn’t such as bad thing after all, he was open to all possibilities.