College Stress >.<

[k1dj03y]

This is more of a vent with a slight question mixed in to things-

For a little background here are the classes I am taking-
Intro to Civil and Environmental Engineering (2cr)
Intro to Civil and Environmental Engineering Lab (0cr)
Intro to College Math 2 Basically Trig. (4cr)
Philosophy of Life and Death Issues (4cr)
Economics, Private and Public Investment Analysis (4cr)

So after finishing my Associates in 2009 I decided it was time to go back to college and finish my BA. I assumed that I was more mature, and better equipped to deal with my inattentiveness. Well I just finished my second week of classes. And I am all ready at whits end. First week went like this.

I attended classes (and took the week of from work as PTO), and met all my instructors for the term. All but one truly impress me. So I think to myself ok, this will be great good teachers, interesting classes, and I am seeing a positive change in myself for getting this all in the works. My Econ and my Philosophy classes are partial online courses, the idea here was for me to have shorter class sessions so I would not loose focus and zone out. While also allowing me to 'hide behind a keyboard' when needed to help me deal with my minor social anxiety issues. The math class is a short 1 hour sessions where we meet three times a week (again to help me keep focus). And my Intro CE class is 90% busy work. The idea here is to learn what the profession is about, so we spend about 20 minutes in class and then take field trips to different job sites in the area .
I also took the time to e-mail each of my professors informing them that I was in the process of seeking accommodations through the university's disability resource center. As in the course syllabus they asked for it to be known in private.

-Philosophy professor (with his PhD) - This is great to hear and I appreciate you letting me know. If there is anything I can do to help you with this class please say so. Also if you find yourself falling behind, or need a little extra time on an assignment just give me notice and we can work it out. (mind you I never met this guy except for our first day of class)
-Econ professor (Guy with butt loads of RL experience both private and government side) - No response
-Math Teacher (also learn he is just a grad student >.<) - No response
-Intro to CE professor (Another one of those super experienced types) - no response.

Second week I take my first online econ quiz and scored a perfect 100%. Then I take my second quiz, 75%. So I am thinking to myself this is great. I am understanding these things and concepts, and I am doing amazing. See the class as a whole is curved. Meaning the top 15% of the students become the A's the next top become the B's and so forth. So as it sat, with the curve I was looking at a nice B for this course. Well I just took my most recent econ quiz and what do I score? 0/6 correct And let me mind you, I had 13 hours of studying and working on the course content into this quiz. Yet somewhere in this mix I didn't get a single question correct. The good news is I can take it up to twice and he will average your score. So the first thing I did was shut down and walk away. Yes I was and still am quite upset but most people would be.

After a day of cooling down, I printed out my previous attempt, sat down with the book, and the internet (as we have a course specific website) and go line by line, question by question with a fine tooth brush. After 3 hours of working every question with every formula/problem I was confident in my choices (note currently we only get 2 hours max to take these tests). So I log back in and click my answers away with what I know is the right ones. Hit submit, and what comes back at me? 2/6 correct. But with the average it shows as 1/6 >.< So now I am not happy clearly, and I write out an email to my teacher expressing my distaste (which I immediately deleted). Then I wrote another to him (and attached a scanned copy of every problem and how I worked things through), asking for help.

So I had somewhere I was going to go with this. But The thoughts just totally escaped me. What I will do is turn this in for now, and go to bed. With the hopes of finishing it tomorrow. Because I cant wait to tell you about my math student teacher >.<

But What I was going to ask at the end was, has anybody been through something similar? You think you are doing amazing only to fall flat on your face. Because I honestly felt like this go around would have been different. I am finally seeking treatment for my issues, I am finally willing to admit defeat and seek help, and I am finally putting in 110% effort to my studies. Yet I am not seeing results. I guess my current counseling and psych docs (pdocs :P) truly have helped some, because this go around I am at least able to recognise my issues before them throw me into a deep depression like they have in the past.

Ok night all

[someothertime]

Hey k1. I can only add some perspective from the other side of the system.

Most trainers have a genuine commitment to their profession and their students. I taught for 5 years so I know what it's like to some extent from inside the system. WHen I started I would help anyone and everyone who came to me with a query. Over a few years, you put on a mask for small queries and hope they resolve themselves. Often I needed to be approached a few times before I truly listened to someone and the more I taught the less I actually helped but still gave advice and direction. The old lead a horse to water thing.

-Many are so overtaxed they don't have time/energy to devote to outside of class queries
-Alot of "helpme" students take up so much of your time and the majority are looking for hand holding so they often don't encourage off class queries
-The instructors who did not respond had 100 other emails in their inbox and chose not to put energy into responding either because they felt your were giving them a heads up ( which was the right thing to do by the way ) or that your would be nagging them all term.

I suggest you try to leverage someone who has done those units, study centers, friends et. al. Anyone who is able to truly help and devote some time to getting you on the path.

If you do need to go to an instructor, as them for their best time and go to them with as much info as you can and specific outcomes. If you catch them at the right time with a specific question, you are more likely to get them to devote some energy to you. Try not to come across as a nagging, needy student, we find it harder to assist them. Be clear, focussed and genuinely interested in the topic.

Remember, while effort is really important, seek out key areas to devote your effort into. I believe in you. Step back, and take it one issue at a time. Every human being on earth has at some time in our lives thought we had something grasped only to be beaten down to earth. Use your fire as fuel.

All the best on your path.

[k1dj03y]

Yeah, thats exactly what I have going on. Its more me just venting under all the stress. I did email my econ professor and sent him copies of my work with what i did, so we can see my thought process. In the end he sent me a link to a different calendar of his with better office hours that work with my schedules. So with that I am going in to see him on Wednesday to go over things. I did try the leverage thing, first I set up a dropbox account for everybody to pool their notes. After the second week, and not a single upload other then my own, I deleted things and posted up a looking for studygroup thing on our courses website. So far I have gotten one response. . . So we will see where that goes.

So now back to my math teacher. Because we have such a short meeting time (only 1 hour), I find him to always be rushed. He spends 20 minutes trying to explain what he is going to teach us today. Then spends 15 minutes fielding questions. Then spends 20 minutes actually teaching (if we are lucky and the question session doesn't run long). He also has us doing our homework online, and for a visual learner like me, nothing beats paper and pencil. And when he gives us the homework, each question gives us two attempts, then goes NOPE incorrect 0/1 (credit given). Trick here is he also doesn't even cover all the material needed to do the actual homework. Somebody in class asked, how do I do problem X (i forget the number) and he responds with I will show you that on monday. But the homework is due on Tuesday (meaning we have one evening to tackle 30+ math questions. Then we have a quiz every Wednesday, and the last one was horrid. The questions were poorly written and during the quite portion of things all I keep hearing is others asking for clarification (and it was a huge distraction for me). And half way through the quiz he gives up and tells us to work with the people around us to finish the final question. So thats what I do, only to notice others now changing the first half of their quiz too (catching me in a huge moral dilemma, cheat like others, is this cheating, well he said do only the last one together). In the end I stuck to myself and just did the final one with a group as instructed.

So I've adapted to doing the homework by hand first and skipping the ones I don't know. I have also started self teaching as much as possible regarding the content he has yet to go over. And made contact with our schools tutoring center (which is free for me thank god!) As for being proactive with him, I sat down and wrote an e-mail to his supervisor and let it sit for a day. Then went back to it, edited it, re-read it and then sent it to him directly. Telling myself it will either be class suicide, or it will be good feedback for him.

I explained my struggles, and that it is clear he knows what he is attempting to teach. But somewhere his message is getting lost to the class (between his jumping around the topic all the time, unclear way of explaining formulas and strategies, and his consistent repeating himself.). I also let him know I had been approved to use the schools testing center for a more quiet environment, but didn't like the idea of doing so because everything has to be schedule a week in advance, and should he allow us to work in groups this is somthing I would not be able to partake in.

That evening I received an e-mail back and he apologized about the first half of the quiz, and understands that his message, while not direct come the end of the unit things will begin to fall into place for everybody. He also said the time management thing will be an issue with such a short class time, but he will work better at watching the clock. Well low and behold last Fridays session was better planned, while his directions were slightly unclear at times he at least used the classes projectors and such so we could see what he was wanting us to do, and he was even watching the clock better so things didn't run short or over.

Now off to the shower then back to the computer to write a paper about the existence of god and whether I think religion has a positive or negative effect on morality or --whether I think the project of proving the existence of God is important and why.

[k1dj03y]

Well the philosophy paper on god is in a rough brainstorming phase as I have one assignable text to read (40 pages >.<). But my other paper is complete and waiting for my final revision in the morning. Now off to bed because I work in the morning.