Category: Academic

When I was first admitted to college so many years ago, a student got admitted first, then got access to the registration and records system. Times have changed. It now appears that when an application is “viable” and the application file is “complete”, then the access is granted, but there still is that nervous question… “will I be accepted?”. It is interesting to be a “pending” student at Fayetteville State University and seeing my record before its been fully built (transfer credits, etc). The record is completely naked, like a newly admitted freshman or something.

I am anxiously watching the grade pages for 3 of my classes. I have a paper in Art History and one in American History that were turned in well over a week ago that I am waiting for grades on, and also a mid-term in C# that I turned in just a few days ago.

I am worried about my Art History paper because there is now a class average, but I haven’t received a grade, and the instructor received our papers by email, so I worry that mine went into an SMTP black hole somewhere or perhaps a SPAM trap and will never return (I am only worried from the grade standpoint, I have a backup of the paper stored on a network drive as well as burried in GITI).

I’m not too worried about American History because it was turned in by a traceable web interface (Moodle) and the instructor has been out of the country for the past week.

C# I am just annoyed by. There are averages appearing which means some have been graded, but mine hasn’t been yet. I really want to know how well/bad I did on the mid-term. It was a two part exam, which made it more fun for me. It was a knowledge test (questions) and a practical exam (programming assignment). It felt like what I always expected a midterm to feel like.

If they were 3 little assignments I wouldn’t be this anxious, but they are big parts of my grade and I badly want to know.

Reviewing my academic record is a bit like galloping through the woods on a psychotic horse, you are never really sure where you are going to end up. Just about any degree I want I am about 30 hours from. I was reviewing my academic program for Fayetteville State University this morning and discovered that I am not 50 hours from a degree like I previously thought, I am a mere 38 credit hours from having a BS in Psychology. I am also only 30 hours from a Bachelor of Liberal Studies with a concentration in Humanities. I am starting to feel like I am running out of academic options. I open a college catalog and can identify most of the courses in it, because I have either already taken them, or have already determined that I would absolutely hate them. Maybe one day I will grow up, have a real life and no longer spend my time trying to find courses to fill my time with.

Finished my Art History assignment a few minutes ago. I am much happier with it than I was with literature. It took me 5 days to create 200 words about a few Frost poems, but only about an hour to create 700 words about some paintings by Raphael. Its interesting how I handle visual information easier than literary information.

I am presently analyzing Robert Frost poems. I entered this process with a fairly high opinion of Frost, but I think he man spent too much time staring out into nature, or reflecting on nature after his experiences. Writing a 200 word response to each of 8 of his poems is leaving me completely drained. I am having to strain my usual level of bullshit to get the work together. I usually love poetry, but this is becoming an insane level of analysis. I should have been done with this assignment days ago, but I have run into a huge writers block in creating my response. It is taking me time to start thinking metaphorically again.

I have many options when it comes to my academic life for spring. I have open applications with UNC-Greensboro for Liberal Studies and Fayetteville State University (UNC-FSU) for Psychology, and of course there is the obvious option of UNC-Charlotte with Computer Science or Fine Arts (I won’t say BFA, since that is a whole different process). I have so many options, but none of them seem to be the perfect fit for me. All of the degree programs seem so template. I want to be able to combine artistic with technical, without majoring in computer art. I feel like my desires pull me in too many directions at once.

Current directions of Interest:

• Fine Arts (General)
• Drawing
• Ceramics
• Creative Writing
• Computer Science
• Computer Programming (AAS)
• Culinary Arts
• History
• General Humanities
• Kinesiology/Athletic Training

I’m just too spread out. I could get a degree in each field and probably still find more I’m interested in. Where does the academic loop end?

Assignments exist in my queue
Some more important than others
I show favor to one or two
The favorites are not the ones soon to be due

Annoyed here I sit
Homework of Frost, C-Sharp and Art Hist
Few appeal to me
Most ascend me to a fit

Frustration it does run deep
I dream of drawing
men nude and with big feet

Other thoughts are there too
but still none are in my queue

This semester I am noticing a horrible trend among instructors of web-based courses, they are abandoning the courses for days (or weeks in some cases) and being generally unresponsive when students attempt to communicate with them. For my self-paced C# course I expected that, but not in my Art History and Literature courses. Chris and I both have a substantial amount of coursework online. For him, its his first time in such a situation, and in my opinion, instructors being complete morons does not help get students adjusted to college. This semester that has been a lot of absent minded assignment dropping and running.

I waited over 10 days to get a response to my problem with Art History, and I still only received a half-ass response, although, with the most recent test, the problem seems to have been corrected. The BIGGEST problem I am having with C# and Art History is that the modules for future weeks are not available anymore. For C# they went away to be updated from C# 2005 to C# 2008. For Art History, they went down to go from Janson Art History to Gardner’s Art History, since there was a bookstore mix up. Neither course has had its  modules restored yet, and for Art History, the slow leaking of weekly work by the instructor shows that the materials still haven’t been updated. As for Literature, I still feel like something is missing there, but in general, the instructor does seem to be available upon request, but she doesn’t show up a lot otherwise.

For American History and Literature, I was told LAST weekend that stuff was being graded, as of today, there are no new grades in either course and the class averages haven’t changed.

At some point near the end of this semester I am considering taking a correspondence course from UNC-Chapel Hill called “Advanced Poetry Writing”. It is a self-paced course that has a format allowing the student and instructor to develop the curriculum for the course. I have been wanting another Creative Writing course since Creative Writing II left me a little empty after so much fiction writing and so little poetry. Only problem with the course is I have to get approval of the instructor to even enroll in it, and I am afraid that my current poetry portfolio sucks.

http://www.fridaycenter.unc.edu/cp/catalog/english.html#engl407

If I take this course, it will be my first correspondence course. I fear that I will develop an obsessive compulsion of walking to the mailbox every 5 minutes each day until the mail arrives with feedback and assignments from my instructor.