Sunday, June 29, 2014

Summer After Year 1

So it's hard keeping up with a blog while in college, so I will just post whenever I remember to. Anyhow, I completed my first full year at college and it was a struggle. Not only did I underestimate the difficulty of the classes, I also underestimated how easy it is to forget about homework for classes where it isn't assigned regularly.
My procrastination writing skills were much improved, however. I got A's in both of my English classes this year and definitely procrastinated on everything! My first semester we were supposed to come up with a topic to present to the class that was controversial... well I forgot to find a topic and I forgot my presentation date. Needless to say when my presentation day arrived I was very frazzled. But as the student before me presented her topic, I frantically racked my brain for one. Finally I decided on something that I could make a slight argument about: smoking laws. So I whipped up some notes and presented to the class, nervous as Professor Quirrell meeting Harry Potter for the first time. My procrastination was a theme that semester, and as I walked into class to receive a grade on a paper I spent one night on, I was shocked to find out that I got a 96, and did better than most of the class!
Anyways, now it's summer and I'm glad to be relaxing. I saw my best friends in the whole world last week and now I'm babysitting a little boy who is quite a handful! Life is good and I feel like the upcoming semester will go very smoothly. Not to mention I could only get 11 class credits because of scheduling. All of the classes are at 12! I don't know what the deal is with that but it's killing me! But low credit hours will mean more time to do homework, so hopefully my grades are solid.
That's all for now.
Stay tuned!

~Alaina

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Majoring as a Professional Student

Deciding on a major is the hardest thing about going to college. Yeah, the classes are challenging, but the real issue for me is that I can't stick to a major.
When I was in high school I wanted to be and Archaeologist (basically just Indiana Jones) and then I decided to be a Chemical Engineer. However during my senior year as I began to apply to colleges I realized "Alaina, you suck at math. How will you be a Chemical Engineer?" So I changed, yet again, to something I thought was a reasonable start: English.
I got in to college having said I wanted to major in English, but by the time I started in August, I knew that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to do my own thing and be my own boss, and over the summer I had been telling my dad over and over how much I wanted to make glass. I realized later that I would not be able to do what I thought I would so easily. See, I wanted to blow glass and that's not so easy to learn when the only classes are for Art Majors. So I decided that stained glass would be cool too and that's what I have had my eyes set on for the past months. I was to earn a business degree and one a tiny stained glass shop.
Recently though, like the past few days, I have been really wondering about other majors. I have always had this need for adventure in my life and never wanted to settle with a boring job that I would end up hating. So I started thinking about Seismology, which then led to Volcanology (I found out that Volcanologists were expected to study for 10-13 years, I was like "uh no."), which has now led to Environmental Studies. I can't be positive but I think I want to become an Environmental Scientist, although I haven't decided on any specifics yet.
I'm not too afraid to completely switch majors because I know that I can still learn how to create stained glass and do that later in my life.
Those are my musings on college life for now.
Stay tuned!

~Alaina