#choosing classes

[newyorksmithie]

Fall ‘19 Classes

This semester I’m taking:

FMS 245: Melodrama and Power: Genre, Gender and Race with Sebnem Baran

ENG 200: The English Literary Tradition I with Jessica Catherine Beckman

THE 261 Writing for the Theatre with Leonard Berkman

ENG 332 Servants in Literature and Film with Ambreen Hai

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that last spring I only registered for two of the classes I’m taking! This is one of the blessings of Smith’s open curriculum, and one of the many reasons why I’m so glad it’s easy to get into the classes you want to take at Smith. At the beginning of the semester, I got into ENG 332, which prompted some scheduling changes. I wouldn’t have it any other way though- all my classes compliment each other so nicely.

A bit about my classes:

ENG 332 is a seminar, which are normally restricted to juniors and seniors. This mean that I had to get special permission to take it! To get approved, I emailed the professor at the end of last semester asking if she would consider letting me into the class. I then submitted an application to take the class, and found out I got in on the first day of classes! After sitting in on the first class, I decided I wanted to take it, so I then formally petitioned the Registrar to allow me to enroll. I was a little nervous, but the process turned out to be super easy! My professor and the head of the English department just signed a form giving me permission to enroll, my liberal arts advisor sent an email stating his support, and I wrote a statement. I then turned in my papers to my class dean, and she approved my enrollment during the next class deans meeting!

ENG 200 is required for all English majors! I was a little nervous going in because I haven’t read a lot of older English literature before, but my teacher has led the class with so much enthusiasm, it’s impossible not to enjoy it! We kicked off the year with Beowulf, and just finished reading some Chuacer last week.

FMS 245 is my first film class ever! I’m so glad I decided to branch out and take it, we’ve watched some great films (like If Beale Street Could Talk), some cheesier ones (A Star is Born) and one of my best friends (from my first year seminar actually) is in it.

Overall, I’m super excited to see how this semester turns out!

[psyduckstudies]

┌┈┈┈┈┈┈┈⊱⎈⊰┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┐

        college courses 

└┈┈┈┈┈┈┈⊱⎈⊰┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┘ 

- so far so good i guess. 

- i have met the requirement for my honors program but i would like to boost my grades up a bit next semester - 

- my classes are next semester seem light. no english thank goodness omg. i hated the reading and writing analytical essays - 

- maybe i’ll intern for a lab.. if i have any free time. i have a internship as a mentor for fyi and i signed up to be a mentor for my honors program ( i hope i get it, I’m waiting for a phone interview ) -

[all-the-wrong-lines]

For the next time you’re bored, a prompt: choosing their third year classes?

Love this prompt! I’d have done it sooner but these last few days have left me about zero seconds of free time.

“Excellent, I see we’re all taking Divination.” James had spent the last several minutes discreetly looking over his friends papers. He’d had to work especially hard to see Remus’, who had been leaning forward for the express purpose of covering his parchment. “We do seem to have a bit of a disagreement on the second elective, though.”

“Disagreement?” Remus looked up from his paper. “We each get to pick our own electives, I don’t see how that’s something we can disagree on.”

“Moony.” James said his name tortuously, drawing it out as he walked over to lean on the edge of the table for better eye contact. “Do you honestly think you’ll have half as much fun taking a class without us?”

“Well, it’s not as if you lot want to take Ancient Runes or Arithmancy, is it?” Remus leaned back and scowled.

“Well, you don’t either.” James gestured to Remus’ parchment, which was quickly snatched out of sight. “Relax mate, I’m on your side. It’s these two idiots that want to take muggle studies.”

“I resent that James.” Sirius was sitting with his feet on the table, leaning back dangerously far in his chair.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with muggle studies?” Peter was attempting to simultaneously copy Sirius and find a position where he wasn’t in danger of falling out of his chair. In the end he settled for leaning back awkwardly and lacing his hands behind his head.

“The problem with muggle studies,” Remus glared at his friends, “is that I’m the only one with a muggle in the family. I’m not going to have you lot jumping down my throat for the answers.”

“But Moony, that’s why I want to take the class in the first place!” Sirius maintained his precarious balance, but shifted slightly to face Remus. “How am I supposed to talk to your mum if I don’t even know what a waffing machine is?”

“First off, it’s a washing machine. Second, the day you try to talk to my mum is the day I kill you.”

“You’re not going to introduce me to your parents Moony?” Sirius had placed a hand over his heart, a look of over exaggerated shock plastered on his face.

“Sirius, quit flirting.” James rolled up his parchment and threw it, hitting Sirius in the nose. “We have important issues to discuss.”

“I thought we’d decided to take muggle studies,” Sirius said innocently. Peter nodded his head.

“We most certainly have not.” Remus replaced his paper on the table. “I am taking Divination and Care of Magical Creatures. If any of you want to join me, you’re more than welcome.”

“I wrote the same courses.” James assured. “But I was hoping you’d help me convince these two to take it with us.” When Remus didn’t respond he decided to switch tactics. “Come on Moony, imagine Sirius being attacked by a Niffler.” Remus continued to stare fixedly away.

“Fine, I’ll take the course,” Sirius had thrown his hands up dramatically, “on one condition.”

“What’s the condition?” Peter had drawn his eyebrows together confusedly. He seemed worried despite the fact that he’d already written ‘muggle studies’ in large capital letters on his own sheet.

“I will take Care of Magical Creatures, if you two take muggle studies.”

“That’s three electives.” James pointed out. “Can we really risk McGonagal thinking we actually care about classes that much?” Peter nodded, receiving a punch in the arm from Sirius as a result.

“That’s the deal.” Sirius tipped his chair forward again to put his hand on the table, giving a sense of finality to his words. “I get attacked by Nifflers, you teach me about waffing machines.”

“Washing machines.” Remus sighed, looking over at his friends. Remus saw James shrug and add muggle studies to his own parchment. Sirius was looking at him expectantly. “Fine, fine. Okay. I’ll take muggle studies with you. You’d better do the readings though, I’m not doing your work for you.”

“I’d never dream of it mate.” Sirius grabbed Remus’ parchment before he could write anything and penciled ‘muggle studies’ in the third elective slot. The loopy writing looked very out of place next to Remus’ plain letters.

“Right then.” James smiled, “This is going to be a good year.”

[papermeyn]

Wanna know the real beauty of college? It’s that you get to choose your class times and still not show up. If you’re like me who went to a high school that lets you do the same thing you might think that you got this, that you are one reasonable adult… you’re not. I used to be an extra good nugget, a good nugget that never missed class even if I was sick… and then Spring semester of my freshman year happened. I was involved in a show and we would practice seen hours everyday and I would get home around one in the morning; I’d be up until three or four doing homework and chores like laundry. That’s when I got the class skipping disease.

I just finished my fourth semester of college and although it’s been my hardest semester so far, it was one of my best semesters. Grades are up which means it’s time to register for classes soon. I’ve learned that there’s definitely a more efficient way of doing things.  Here are some tips that help me become an extra good nugget again with way less stress:

1. One class a day = NO.

Unless that class is a once a week lab or something that requires 100% attendance, DO NOT DO IT! You will get lazy. Why would you want to set foot on campus for one class? It’s just not logical. 

2. Importance Sandwich

If you have a class you couldn’t possibly care less about, like a GE class, sandwich it between two important classes. Let’s do me as an example: I have my Business Law class as my first class of the day. My Blaw professor checks attendance everyday and my grade is 45% midterm and 55% final, you know I’ll never skip it. My third class of the day is my Accounting class. Not only is it my major, but my professor does not use a book or posts his presentations online. And to top it off, a B- in that class means I have to retake it (college policy), you bet your ass I won’t skip it. What’s my second class? A GE that I couldn’t care less about. My classes are back to back and if I have to show up for the first and last one, why not go to my second one? What can you possibly do in the hour and a half between the first and last class? Nothing because parking sucks.

3. Multiple Requirements = YES

If you have a degree planner available to you, I suggest studying it heavily because chances are that there are several classes you can take that kills two or more requirements. Why would you skip a class which grade counts for two or more? It just wouldn’t make sense.

4. No friends allowed

If you know that you have a tendency to not show to class, DO NOT TAKE CLASSES WITH YOUR FRIENDS. I don’t know if you know this or not but peer pressure is a thing. Trust me, I have influenced a lot of people to not go to class because they see my skip and still pass. Also, if you have no friends in class, where would you get the materials you missed? Nobody. Nobody is good in this case.

xx Maine

[newyorksmithie]

Choosing Classes

Your first semester at Smith I’d recommend registering for a first year seminar, two classes in areas you think you might want to major in, and a class in an area that’s completely new. My first semester I decided to register for Intro Jewish Studies since I had never taken a religion class before, and absolutely loved it! The theme was food and foodways which meant we got to do two cooking workshops. Our professor Lois Dubin also brought us bagels from Montreal (twice!).

A bad photo of some of the amazing food we had at one of our cooking workshops

Since Smith has an open curriculum, the only required classes are the ones you need for your major, and a writing intensive your first year. An easy way to meet the writing intensive requirement is by taking a first year seminar (FYS). They cover a ton of fun topics, are meant to help you transition from high school to college writing, and are a great way to meet friends (I met some of my best friends through my FYS). However, because most FYS are capped at 16 people, they fill up really fast. Most people build their schedules around theirs FYS, which makes it hard to switch into a new one. I’d recommend registering for your FYS first, and making two schedules in case you can’t get into your first choice FYS.

I would also register for an ESS class if there’s one that fits in your schedule! I took aerobics with Rosalie second semester and had a great time. Not only was it a great way to get to the gym, I also felt more confident going by myself at other times during the week.

One of the best pieces of advice that my liberal arts advisor gave me is don’t be afraid to add/drop classes. It’s super easy (especially during online add/drop), and lots of people shop around. After your first semester you register for classes months in advance, which is a lot of time for growth and change! Since coming to Smith there hasn’t been one semester where I’ve taken all the classes I originally registered for. My first semester I changed one class, my second semester I changed two. This upcoming semester I’ll probably change two (or three) as well.

Coursicle is also a great way to plan out your schedule! I’ve found it super helpful to see all of the classes I’m thinking of shopping on an actual schedule.

My Spring Semester schedule on Coursicle

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 385

Despite the fact I downloaded Baldur’s Gate 3 over a week ago I haven’t played it yet. In part because I’ve been busy (having full time work again throws my self schedule into chaos). However, the reason is largely due to the fact I’m still on a Harvestella kick weirdly enough, thanks to my gremlin brain, but also because I can’t choose what character class I want.

Normally in role play games, I choose some sort of magic or healer class, because class preference has a lot to do with playing style. For me, I prefer to hit enemies from a distance and have the ability to heal myself. And often, when playing, the choice of class is pretty clear cut. Do you want to do a lot of close up damage, far away damage, be able to take a lot of hits, be able to heal yourself… very straight forward.

When you’re choosing a class for a game based on Dungeons and Dragons, and knowing how the game rules work and have heard in passing what you can do in game, choosing a class becomes much harder.

On one sense, I would like to be a cleric, not just because I normally like classes that allow me to heal, but it’s a class that allows me access to all the spells for that class that exist in the game and I can switch out my prepared spells easily. Also, the idea of having Speak to the Dead, just so I can see what the dead have to say in the game sounds very interesting.

Or I could be a druid, and have Speak with Animals, and find out what all the animals are thinking. Maybe they have some juicy gossip in the game.

But, but, I also want to be a bard, and apparently the creators of this game have put in songs just for the bards to sing and I want to see that and perform those songs. That sounds like a lot of fun. Also, bards are great when you want to play in such a way that doesn’t involve combat, because they have just great ability stats.

The other, other choice, but not high on my list of classes to try, is the wizard. I don’t know if you can do this, but I want to see if I can find spells out in the wild and add them into my wizard’s spellbook like you would in a real life game. That sounds like a fun thing to do as well.

Which funnily enough, now that I’ve written this out, I realize the biggest difference with Baldur’s Gate 3 is that I’m not choosing a class to determine my combat play style, but rather what class will be the most amusing to me.

[llamaswithnohats]

schedule?!?!

[sortablue]

I scream

You scream

We all scream

Bc the year is almost over and I’m not ready