i give up
Posted in General on 09/25/2002 09:29 pm by katThat’s it. I give up. I admit that I’ve been stretched too thin this term. I tried to hack 14 credit hours and 30 hours of work per week and it just isn’t going to work. I had to leave work today just to come home and take a nap. My brain was useless and I was nearly falling asleep in my classes today.
I had already contemplated dropping my Optoelectronics course considering it was way different than how the class is described in the course catalog. I am taking the class currently to finish off my CPE elective requirements, but I have an out for that now. I hate doing this. I have never had to drop a class like this before. I even stuck through Kulick’s class last term. This term, though, I just look at myself and see how stretched thin I’ve become. I’ve already talked to Dr. Gaede about my options. I will go back to her tomorrow and put the process in motion to withdraw from the class. That will drop me back to 11 hours for the rest of the course, which means I’m part time, but that won’t punish me unless I only take 11 hours next term, too. So, that’s not a problem. I’m already starting to feel like a weight is being lifted from my shoulders while at the same time feeling so guilty for doing this. I mean, I should be able to hack this. I’m sure other people can hack a schedule like mine. At the same time, I feel both like I’m no less of a person for doing this, but also guilty like I’m chickening out. I don’t know. I’m going to do it and I guess I’m just going to have to learn how to deal. Now, to go hang a bike rack and read Fourier Analysis and then sleep.
September 25th, 2002 at 9:45 pm
Kat, it would be one thing if you were single. But, you’re engaged and planning a wedding.
I did silly stuff like this, and where did it get me–STILL SINGLE AT 24, THAT’S WHERE!
September 25th, 2002 at 9:45 pm
Well, 23, but I turn 24 on Tuesday.
September 26th, 2002 at 6:32 am
There’s nothing paricularly wrong with being single at 24.
September 26th, 2002 at 6:57 am
Kat,
I tried during my last semester to take 12 hours of class and work 20 hours per week on campus. Even that didn’t work as I routinely had to blow off work to get assignments and labs finished.
Right now, I am struggling with my 6 hours and around 37 hours per week of work.
In a situation where you can’t just blow off work (as I thankfully could at State), the only other option is to cut back on the courses.
I’ll stop here before I start convincing myself to drop Kulick’s class.
September 26th, 2002 at 7:37 am
Rick: I appreciate the encouragement. The more I allow myself to think on the reasons why I’m dropping a class, the more and more I realize that this is the best choice for myself.
Is Kulick getting to be that bad or is the class just harder than you expected?
September 26th, 2002 at 8:24 am
Kat, just remember that Sally is really good about school. I was working 30 hrs at Xontech and taking (I think) 12 hrs of classes. If I needed to leave work to study or something, she was always way cool about it.
September 26th, 2002 at 10:12 am
The class is just more than I expected. At least on our first program he was really lenient on the grading. The only real issue is the group work and the fact that we have two assignments due on Tuesday and program due the following Tuesday. Couple that with my trip to Detroit from Wednesday until Sunday of next week and I won’t have a whole lot of time to put into that program.
It’s not that the classes are aweful or anything like that, they’re just more than I had bargained for when I signed up.
September 26th, 2002 at 10:20 am
I remember questioning your sanity, Rick, as we stood in Amy’s driveway.
You may all think that I’m nuts for taking four years for this MA, but I don’t. I’m just being rational.
September 26th, 2002 at 10:32 am
I think it’s the first rational thing you’ve done concerning school, Geof.
September 26th, 2002 at 12:40 pm
I never said majoring in aerospace engineering was rational …
Oh, and Kat, your potential workload didn’t increase. Unless, that is, you want a House position …
/me flees from Sean
September 26th, 2002 at 9:52 pm
I remember the feeling that happens when courses start closing in on you. Somewhere around 3rd year I decided I could handle 6 classes (I don’t know how you guys count hours, but those 6 courses would take up 27 hours a week for one four-month term, not including labs). At some point in the first month I was slipping too far behind on assignments, so I dropped one of the courses.
After that I realized there’s more to getting your degree done quickly, so I started taking four courses a term. One term I took three. And then there’s the term I took golf.
There’re a couple of reasons it took me six years to get my BSc, and co-op is only one of those.
So don’t worry about it. Your degree’ll come sooner or later. Better your degree comes later and you remain sane than to have your degree now Now NOW! and you go stark bonkers.
September 26th, 2002 at 9:54 pm
And apparently with all that education I can’t do simple math anymore. Six courses at three hours a week per course is 18 hours a week, not 27.
September 26th, 2002 at 9:55 pm
That’s okay, Brad. We engineers don’t expect you physicists to ever get anything right.
September 26th, 2002 at 11:06 pm
heh. Our courses are calculated, approximately, on the time we spend each week in class for it. So, I’m taking a 14 hour course load. It’s four classes plus a 2-hour design lab (senior design project). I agree with you. I just really see the light at the end of the tunnel. Next spring, I graduate. I don’t want to push taht off anymore than necessary.
September 27th, 2002 at 10:43 am
Kat,
Do what you need to do, you have more support than you think you do.