Read My Mind

I'm just putting this up here because The Killers are the greatest band ever, and this is hilarious. It really has nothing to do with college, except for the fact that my English teacher is making us blog about music videos (no this isn't it--I just felt like adding this). I have a separate blog for my English class, and I'm probably gonna pick a better music video. Or maybe not, I don't know yet. I have until 11 am tomorrow to figure it out.

Scholarship.

Ok, so I got an email from the UNL College of Arts and Sciences about a "word cloud" they're putting together to promote the college, and it asked us to write a description and send it in.

Well, I have a few choice words to describe A&S right now, and not very many of them are appropriate to send in or post on here.

Mainly just because their scholarship application process frustrates me to no end.

UNL is divided up into different colleges based on programs and departments. College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business Administration, College of Engineering, College of Education and Humans Sciences, you get the idea. Everybody is a part of their college, and their college determines how to award upperclass scholarships. Most of them you just have to fill out the application form online, maybe add in a resume if you want to be considered for certain ones, hit 'submit' and then you're done.

Of course I would be in the one that's difficult and complicated. Not only do you have to fill out the application, you are required to submit a resume, a one-page "narrative of your education and professional goals" and two letters of recommendation. TWO. And they base who they award scholarships to on GPA and "leadership outside of the classroom" like UCARE research and stuff like that.

Ok, I'm a FRESHMAN. I have no idea what my "education and professional goals" are. I'm golden on GPA, but leadership outside of the classroom? Come on, freshman don't do anything. I've only been here a couple months. I couldn't do UCARE research at this point even if I wanted to, the best I could do would be to apply for it for next year. And I got two letters of recommendation out of complete luck, because if those two professors would've said no, I would've been SOL because I'm pretty sure my other prof from last semester wouldn't remember me and my other teachers were TAs or grad students. Awesome people, but probably not the best choice for references.

So basically, I have little to no chance of getting any money for next year unless my 4.0 GPA and the fact that I'm in the Honors Program and am an ambassador counts for anything. I'm hoping it does. I also threw in there that I played intramural broomball. Can't hurt right?

Refunds.

So every once in awhile, I get student loan return checks, which basically means that they gave me more in loans than I really needed. This gives me a false sense of having large amounts of money. Because yeah, I have an extra thousand dollars in my account, but no, it's not actually my money. This makes me kind of sad because I'm going to have to save it so I can pay it back. The system seems a bit skewed...

But actually I'm probably going to use it anyways for books and study abroad stuff. It works.

So Tip of the Day: Be financially responsible. Bleh. And take out student loans.

Professors.

University faculty are known for being...well...a bit strange. And I mean, you kind of have to if you want to be a professor. I think it's just some unwritten rule somewhere.

There's the stereotypical professor--old, nerdy, boring, clearly would rather be in a lab somewhere than teaching. Then you have the borderline insane ones--genius, but their mental competency is questionable at best. And the grad students--awesome and nice, but have no idea what they're talking about. Occasionally, you get the amazing ones--interesting and basically know everything there is to know about everything.

Last semester, I had a pretty neutral bunch. This semester there's a bit more variety.

My personal favorite is English Teacher. English teacher is a grad student, but also a borderline insane one. He's got black messy bed-head hair that sticks up all over the place, complete with scraggly goatee, mustache, and soul patch. He's never been on time to class, and I don't think I've learned anything about English so far. He's crazy, all over the place, but dang, he's hilarious. And he knows his stuff. See we've learned a lot, just I'm not sure that it's English-related.

French Professor is pretty entertaining too. He's more the stereotype--old, thick-rimmed glasses, wears jeans with blazers, you know. He's a bit crazy; he'll fire random questions at us and gets really excited about technology, which makes me laugh. He's not French, but when he speaks English, he speaks it with a French accent. He also makes us repeat stuff like a thousand times until we pronounce it right. He's not boring though, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't hate teaching. I like him.

History Professor wins though. History Professor is a genius. He's the only teacher I've had so far in college that can lecture for the entire period without notes or slides. He just talks to us the whole time, and what's amazing, is that he's interesting too. He knows basically everything and is enthusiastic enough to teach it to a bunch of freshmen in a 100-level history class.

I think it's going to be a good semester.

Tip of the Day: I've been told to sign up for classes based on the instructor, not the course number. That's how I've ended up in classes like History 101 and Philosophy 110. So far, it's worked out quite well for me.

Problem Solving.

So we figured out that if things don't work, hit them and it fixes all your problems.

Like last night we were going to sleep and there was this weird buzzing noise.

"What is that?"

"I think it's the light...maybe we should throw something at it..."

WHAP!

My roommate hit the light with a giant stuffed fish. The buzzing stopped. Problem solved.

Starting over?

Ok, so this thing was gonna end after first semester because I figured I pretty much had the hang of things, but after today I've decided I'm gonna extend this out for the whole year.

So this is Operation College, Take Two. New semester, new experiences.

UNL mailed us our schedules at the end of last semester, and you would think that schedules would be pretty straight forward.

If it says "HIST 101...0930-1020AM...MWF...FERG 217" you can safely assume that your History 101 class meets at 9:30, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings in room 217 in Fergusen Hall, right?

Wrong. My History 101 class meets at 9:30, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings in room 112 in Hamilton Hall. See the problem?

I showed up in FERG 217 at about 9:20 this morning with about 5 other people. This was immediately weird because it's a lecture class that should have about 50-100. None of us had received any sort of email or notification that class had been cancelled, and there was nothing posted saying it had been moved. The professor is the the director of the Honors Program, so it's not really like him to just not show up to class, but a couple people left anyways. Simple solution right? Just double-check Blackboard and your email to make sure you didn't miss it.

Weirdly, none of had our computers or anything to check the internet on. The kid with a Blackberry even forgot his phone. So we wander around until we find a computer. Nothing anywhere about class being changed. Finally, we find out that they had changed it on the online class schedule without telling anyone. WHAT THE HECK?!?

So by the time we figure out we have to go to Hamilton 112, it's about 9:50. The three of us walk into class just in time for it to get over. Skipping class on the first day is not the best idea, by the way. Everybody else made it to the right place except us, and I have no idea how that happened.

But at least we will be there Wednesday!

Tip of the Day: Always make sure you have access to the internet. ALWAYS. And double-check things.