Alternate Title: “Last Ditch Effort”
Last semester I started what could be considered a tradition by writing about my early class impressions.
Granted that “tradition” was started literally one semester before the end so it doesn’t mean THAT much… But hey.
Traditions.
Given that it is my last semester at Cal State Fullerton, I actually have a pretty strange class layout. I’m taking seven, but only four are on campus.
Oh, and one of those four on-campus classes doesn’t meet every week.
As a result I’m essentially at CSUF two-and-a-half days this semester.
I’m not sure how I managed to achieve that while taking seven classes, but I guess that’s the nature of being a near-graduate.
As a result of that weird schedule, the degree to which I can talk about my classes varies. But it’s about as good a time to do so as any.
Cognitive Psychology
This semester we start with my only multi-day class and the end of my journey into a Psychology minor.
I took Cog Psych on the recommendation of a friend from my Sensation and Perception class. She had taken this course before and figured it would work out well for me considering my previous experiences.
Based on the curriculum so far I can’t really argue, even though I have a different professor.
In the two class periods we’ve had, the early subjects have all overlapped with things I previously learned. A third of the semester will even be focused on Learning and Memory, which I took last semester.
So if my general knowledge keeps up, I might just be ahead of the curve.
My biggest complaint is nitpicky, tying into how the desks are randomly dispersed and require students sitting in the same column to have to enter from different aisles.
Aesthetically annyoing, but harmless.
As far as my professor goes, I do like her thus far. She’s apparently a semi-recent immigrant from Egypt, which makes her an intriguing character with a slightly thick accent. Seemingly new to teaching, which could be good or bad depending.
However, considering I came in so positive about my last two Psych professors and got burned hard, I’m cautiously optimistic.
Guess I’ll just have to see.
Communications Law
Working for the Daily Titan may be the capstone course for the Journalism program, but Comm Law is considered the cream of the crop in terms of difficult classes.
Whether or not I succeeded in saving the work-heavy class for an ample time depends on your take regarding my ‘seven classes versus two days on campus’ debate.
Even though I don’t have the usually lauded Journalism department head as my professor, I still got the impression I’ll be very interested and engaged just from our first three-hour class.
My professor is plenty energetic and casual about the subject in a way that suggests her breadth of experience and all-encompassing love for it.
My one trepidation is that she seemingly decided to start winging it in the middle of the first day, shifting course to more of a traditional lecture style instead of a reversed classroom, video lecture style.
I’m not sure how much that will actually change things, and I think I prefer the sound of what we’re doing now, but it’s hard to inspire too much confidence when the immediate impression is “let’s wing it.”
Though maybe that ties in well with the casual air I like about the professor. So it could all mesh together quite nicely now that we’re past the initial civics recap.
Gaming and American Culture
In case you missed it, I wrote a post yesterday more or less discussing my first impressions about this class in service of a larger debate.
So I’ll keep it brief here and thank myself for the foresight.
Despite the fact that I apparently didn’t bother to fact check myself on the course’s name, I think this will arguably be one of the best things I’ve decided to do with my college career.
We’re reading great books, watching great movies, playing Dungeons and Dragons, analyzing video games (and board games and sports) and at the end I might even get to record my own pseudo-take on a Let’s Play.
It’s quite literally 15-year-old Jason’s dream class.
Senior Honors Colloquium
This is the class that I mentioned will only happen on certain weeks.
Ironically, this week was not one of them.
Because it’s taught by the Director of the Honors Program, she needed to be at the Welcome Back event held that same afternoon.
As a result I really can’t say much about the class itself. My friend who had it on a different day said the experience was pretty chill.
All I know is that it’s essentially going to be a bunch of planning to finish our Honors Projects, culminating in the conference of presentations at the end of the semester.
Shouldn’t be too bad.
With that, I’m all out of on-campus classes.
The remaining three are kind of similar in that they’re independent study experiences.
One is my Comm Internship class, where I just need to log 120 hours doing Gladeo-related stuff and turn in a few reflection papers online. Nothing too crazy.
The other two are Senior Honors Project Blocks, one of which is scheduled with my mentor Dr. Rizzo. They’re more or less the actual work half of the Colloquium class. I’ll be meeting with Dr. Rizzo on a weekly basis, possibly doing some outside meetings with people and going over my novel.
That about sums up my semester.
I’ll have two-and-a-half days of classes, with the rest of my four-day weekends being devoted to homework, work-work and writing.
A strange culmination to my schooling experience, but one that makes sense as a denouement for three converging threads of study.
At this point the best I can hope for is a more fun experience than last semester, which drained the life out of me by the time it was through.
Smooth sailing to graduation here we come!
… He said, obviously jinxing himself.
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