I am taking a macro-economics class this semester in the Galvin Hall. The professor is Les Finley. The class is nothing at all what I expected it to be, it is actually better. My opinion of the class going into it was "oh great, another confusing class that I am going to struggle in." Turns out, I actually understand a lot that is going on. Last year in high school I took a marketing class and a lot of information in that class has already showed up in my economics class. I have class every Tuesday and Thursday, on Thursday's we do current events; also, in high school, we did current events every week in my sociology class. So after a few weeks of the class already, I am enjoying it thoroughly and would recommend the class to anyone. The one thing that I am worried about is this book report we have to do. I am not a strong reader, and within a month, I have to read a 300 page book and critique it. Although I am not looking forward to it, it is just one project in the class and hasn't changed my opinion on the class... so far. We are also doing this online stock market game for bonus points. The game is called "How the stock market works". How the game works is you are given a certain amount of virtual money to spend on stocks just like in real life, but the only difference is you are neither gaining nor losing money. I find it very interesting and fun.
Another one of my classes that I am taking is Public Speaking. To be honest, I was a little nervous going into this class because of the thought of getting up and speaking in front of a bunch of people that I didn't know. Little did I know that, once again, my high school classes would come into factor with another one of my college classes. My sophomore year of high school we would have to give speeches every Friday throughout the school year. During these speeches, our teacher, Mrs. Tussing, would grade us on how well we prepared, whether we met the standard time limit and by counting how many "ums or uhhs" we had. Likewise, in my public speaking class, Professor Lause grades us on the same type of stuff. Each of our speeches have to be three to five minutes long, and he grades us on how well we prepared and also by how many um's or uh's we say. Also, in high school I was president of the Indian Lake FFA chapter. During our awards banquet, my adviser gave me the task to make a speech in front of every one at the banquet, which I might add was close to 300 people. I believe I did well on that speech and the experience helps give me an advantage to my public speaking class. We have already had a speech in class. The speech was about an object that told the class something about ourselves. The item I brought in was my soccer captains band. All though I didn't do too hot on this first speech, he said nobody had gotten lower than a "B" and I plan to do much better on my next speeches. The list of the speeches I have yet to give in the class are an informational speech about something, a "how to" speech, and an argument speech. I would not say that I am looking forward to these speeches but I am not regretting them either.
I am taking a public speaking class as well. I have a different professor and it is a little different but I had the same preparation. Seeing how I was in your sophomore and junior English class I was just as prepared. We always gave speeches sophomore year in front of the class and we had to be well prepared which helped me a lot going into this class as well. Junior year when we would have to present some of our papers in front of the class and when we had to give a presentation over our book at the end of the year also helped. And even in other random classes we would do at least one presentation. It was never too bad because it was just a class of like 20 people that you grew up and already knew so well. It is more difficult in college because I had no idea who anyone in my class was after the first speeches it got a lot better though. We have to do speeches once a week so everyone is learning more and more about each other and getting more comfortable around each other. We are graded on uhm’s and uhh’s, our time, our gestures and how we pronounce words. He is very strict on how speeches should be. I got docked points because of the way I said get, I pronounced it like git not get. He even docks off points when you use unnecessary hand gestures that take away from your speech and create a distraction. It is definitely not my favorite class.
Hello, I get what you are saying about public speaking I have had to give a speech already to. I think that I need to slow my role a bit because I was trying to work ahead on a few things, so I could give myself some breathing room. I was able to get done with a lot of things so I slacked off a bit and then got cocky thinking that I would be ok on it all. I was done with my speech and I practice on it a lot to even in front of my neighbor. Then I was able to get through my digital fundamentals chapter four and studied my ass off. The professor told us what was going to be on the test so I went back and looked over that stuff but, when he gave us the test it had stuff on it he told us would not be there. Then there is what is due on in this class I want even get started on that one. Then there is my first year’s class and I have been done with that one for a week. My SOC. Class I’m up a couple of chapters but I need to get more done in that. My point is that I was not ok in most off these classes. My speech didn’t go liked I hoped my eyes were everywhere but on the audience, I messed up the end, and I bombed my digital class. My SOC. Class was ok and my first years well let’s just say that there was no way that I should of failed that one. Well that’s all I have to say for now so, have a good day, and latter.
Yeah, like you, and a lot of other people in our English class, I am obligated to take a public speaking course this semester, as well. In terms of high school classes preparing you for these college classes, I can relate with you on that one. My sophomore year of high school contained a lot of speeches. I had to give an informative speech in biology that pertained to the structure of an organism, in Math we had a two minute speech on why math is important to us, and in English we had a speech that pertained to an aspect of the holocaust. Honestly, I really enjoy speaking. I love to get up, converse with an amount of people big or small, and relate with the audience on a number of theories and opinions. That is why I really enjoy my public speaking class here. That being said though, I feel as if the class is starting to just drag on and on forever. I would say, on average, we have about one speech a week (maybe slightly less.) So, although I really and fully enjoy expressing my own opinion on certain issues and ideas, I am really running out of things to converse about. Luckily, though, I just finished my public speaking final presentation about an hour ago, and I can confidently say that I am done with the class (subtracting the written final, of course.) Although it was a really fun class and I met a lot of new people who contain new theories and ideas on certain policies and aspects of life, I can say I am happy it is almost over because, well, I ran out of things to talk about ha-ha.
Honestly public speaking is not bad at all. I asked the professor the other day about my grade in there and he said I had a borderline "A". I was excited to hear this knowing the only thing I have left to do in that class is be interviewed for a fake job. How this goes is you will have two classmates asking you questions and you have to answer them regarding to a certain job like a real interview. The position I selected was in business management. So they will ask me questions about my resume and I have to answer them according to that. I feel that this will be the easiest thing yet all year. The rest of the classmates have to watch which is not a big deal because I will only be answering to two interviewers. I am glad that this is considered my "final exam" and I am glad that I am getting it over with tomorrow. I have to study my responses to the questions. I have a list of the questions so I can have kind of an idea in my head what to answer. I believe this class will help my in English Comp for our final presentation. The only thing I have to worry about is that it has to be at least four minutes long and I do not have very good time management. I still haven't decided if I am going to do it over my proposal or over the class as a whole. I discussed it with Professor Piro and she said I would have more options doing it over the whole class.
Tomorrow, September 13, 2012, is my first college exam. The exam is over the first 5 chapters in my Macro Economics class. In these chapters include the ten principles of economics, thinking like an economist, interdependence and trade, supply and demand, and elasticity. I am extremely nervous about this exam because after all, this will be the first exam that I have taken in college. I am not quite sure what to expect, will it be very hard or will it be just like the tests I had in high school? I am pretty thankful that my professor, Mr. Finley, has given us a lot of the questions on the exam so we can study over them. I plan to study all of tonight and tomorrow morning for this exam, I expect to get at the lowest a "B". One thing that I do not understand is why they are called "exams" instead of "tests" though? After I see how I did on this exam I will feel a whole lot more comfortable because I will know what approach to take towards the rest of the year. If I do not do very good, I know I will have to step up my note taking and studying, but if I do pretty good, I know that my strategy towards college so far is working just fine. As much as I hate taking exams/tests, it is something that has to be done and I will put all of my hard work and effort into it.
As posted yesterday, I had my first college exam today. I believe I finished the exam in half an hour; not because I flew right through it, but because I spent all day yesterday studying for it and I believe I knew it like the back of my hand. I will find our possibly by Tuesday how I did on my exam, let's hope for the best! My second exam is set for Tuesday as well. This exam is in sociology. I think I will also do pretty well on this exam. It is important to get the first exam in every class out of the way so you know what to expect for the rest of the exams. Anyways, back to sociology. As well in high school, I also took a sociology class. The high school class was more of an introduction so you would know what to expect when you got to college, as I am doing now. Our professor said that we will be able to use anything and everything on the exam EXCEPT for our books. I plan to get on angel and print out the notes that we took in class to use on the exam. I am not as stressed for this exam since I get to use resources to help me on it, but I will still study because you never take anything for granted. I would have to honestly say that sociology is my most boring class. This reason is partly because I have already taken the class but also because we do nothing in class but take notes, so it is hard to stay focused sometimes.
Is there anyone else who is taking the "SDE first year experience class?" All I can say about this class is what a drag. I was told that I had to take this class, they did not give me a choice at all. Honestly, this first year experience class is probably the most useless class I have ever participated in. We do not really learn anything necessary in this class, everything is about how you should act, what you should do for your other classes, or how to take on challenges in college, etc. I have so much homework in this class that it is not even funny. After they signed me up for it, I thought to myself, "Okay, no big deal, this is just going to be a screw off class and I am just gonna get basically a free credit for it" and honestly that has not been the case. The only positive things I have found about this SDE class is that it is only one day a week (Wednesday), it is only for eight weeks, and I have made my two new friends in it and I connect with other people more so in this class than others. The bad things about the class are things like how the class is two hours long! Also, since the class is only one day a week, we have so much homework in it! The kind of work that we do are three journal entries, read fifty pages, and usually do an essay all in a weeks time. I find this class so useless that I think that it makes it even more so unbearable than it already would be. Let's just say that I count down the weeks until it is over....
I am taking this class but I am taking it online which I think makes it so much better. Each week we have four or five assignments we have to finish by midnight on Friday. And you can get ahead as much as you want. If you get done with week one you can go ahead and start week two whenever. We usually have two discussion boards where we post something and then read others and then post what you learned from it. We have journal entries, sometimes a case study, and sometimes this strategy planning. I like it because I can do all this work without even reading out of the book. It is all about you so it is easy to answer questions and there is not tests. I think the class is really pointless too, we could be getting a useful class finished while we are stuck doing this. I usually sit down one day out the week and just do it all in one day and that makes it easy because I do not have to worry about it anymore. Since I take it online I have to make sure I actually do it, since I am not getting up to go to a class it is harder to make myself sit down and just do it instead of doing things I actually want to do. It really is a pointless class though.
I would have to disagree with the fact of taking the online class being better than in the classroom. The fact that I am a procrastinator would make it WAY more difficult to take this class online, any class online for that matter. I have talked to you a bit about your online class and you have discussed it a little bit with me. We do exactly the same assignments but I believe that I am understanding the assignments a little more clearly because I have someone first hand to help explain them to me. Also, the advantage of taking the class in a classroom is I got to meet new people. I have made two new friends from this first year experience class and I had a great time. In regards, I am already done with this class for the year while you still have to do your assignments. I can also do all of my work without reading the book because we never had any tests or anything over the reading. This first year experience class was probably my most enjoyable class though because I got to interact with people more so than my other classes. The one thing that I absolutely did not like about this class was that it was two hours long! Although it was only one day a week, I still had to sit in the classroom listening to the stupid buzzing light for two hours going over stuff that made no change in my life. I would say that the college has the right idea trying to help students transition to the college life, but for good students like me and you that already do everything that they suggest you do, it is pretty pointless and time consuming.
Hello Zack, Just thought I would let you know that I agree with what you said about the first years exsperence class. It was definetly not what I thought it would be. On are first day in class the professor that I had started off by telling us what the class was about and then a little about herself. Then she asked us if we had heard anything about the class from other people. There were a lot of people that spoke up and believe me when I say most of it was not good. I took my chance and told her that I heard there was a lot of home work in this class. The Professor proceeded to inform me that there was not that much homework and it really was not that bad. The very next class we had she slammed us with so much homework that it was not even funny. I remember turning around and looking at the people that was behind me and shaking my head. I wanted to raise my hand and say I tho9ught you said there was not that much homework but, what good would that do. So I just did what everyone else did and dealt with it. I did on the other hand just set down and do all the journals and academic skill plans just to get it over with. The two papers sucked as well but like I said I just got them done and all I had to do from ether was show up. Well that’s all for now, latter.
I have found out that there are two different sides of giving speeches in my public speaking class. When giving a speech about something that I am not comfortable with, it is extremely hard. I had no idea what to talk about during my first speech of the year. My speech was over leadership and I only had a few things to talk about it. Our speech had to be anywhere from three to five minutes long and it seemed like 45 seconds. Also I think that the fact of not being comfortable also made me really nervous, I was afraid of looking stupid and messing up; I just wanted to get the speech over with. I think that I will do much better giving the second speech in this class. This speech is an information speech. We have to pick something to try and educate or teach the class over. I think that I picked something more in my comfort zone this time around. This speech has to be in the vicinity of seven minutes long. I just got done making my outline for the speech and I literally have boat loads of information to talk about. I believe that since I will be more comfortable giving this speech, I will have more confidence, not be so nervous, and improve my score over the last speech I gave.
I found this out about giving speeches as well. We do speeches once a week and they are either two minutes or five minutes long, our final speech is six minutes or seven minutes long and I am definitely not looking forward to that one. I agree that giving a speech that you either do not care much about or do not really know what it is about is hard to do. We have had to do a pretty big range of different speeches though. We did our information speech and I found it really easy because I just used stuff from my Anatomy class that we just learned about. I talked about the different tissues of the body and where they are found and what they look like and I felt really comfortable doing it because I understood it. On the other hand I had to do a speech on value and I did not really know how to go about it but I chose optimism and it was not too bad but I did not really know what to talk about. And it does not help when you are nervous to give the speech because you do not want to mess up or you realized it is going a lot quicker than what you thought. I just really do not like the public speaking class, I think it is helping because I will have to give speeches in some of my other classes and I will be more prepared but that does not make it anymore fun!
It sounds like to me that your public speaking class has it easier than mine! All of our speeches are suppose to be six to seven minutes long; although we only give like a total of six speeches all year long. Along with giving speeches that you are most interested in, I also learned that using a power point in a speech is so much easier as well. These last two or three speeches I have done a PowerPoint. Advantages to using a PowerPoint are: the audience doesn't focus on the speaker so much, it lays out your whole speech for you, its a guideline to your speech so you do not forget anything, and if you forget what you were going to say you can just read it off of the power point. I am glad that I had the public speaking professor that I did. He was very good at teaching what to do and what not to do in speeches and he is pretty lenient on his grading. I believe the lowest grade I got on a speech was like a 86 out of 100. Public speaking has been my favorite class of the semester by far. I have it on Monday's and Wednesday's and it is the only class I have those days. I just seem to be more interested in public speaking than in every other class. I did most of my speeches on information that I was comfortable about like cattle and sports, but I did have to give one speech over texting and that was not my cup of tea.
In my macro-economics class, we are playing a game describing how the stock market works. The whole class gets to participate in this game and whoever makes the most money off of stocks by the end of the semester gets bonus points. I think first place gets 20 bonus points, second gets 19, third gets 18 and so on. This game is on the website "howthestockmarketworks.com" Kind of obvious right? This little competition is set up just like the real stock market is, without the option of running a risk and losing all of your money. At the beginning of the game, each student was given $100,000 of virtual (fake) money to buy stocks with. After the first couple weeks I remain in second place so far. I have made a profit of 4.6% and the market average is 3.3% so I am doing pretty good for having no experience in the stock market before! I have invested in virtual stocks such as Fedex, Polaris Industries, Dick's Sporting Goods, Nike Corporation, Ford, Burger King, and First Citizens National Bank. So far, my best stocks have been Polaris and Burger King while Fedex and The Banking Corporation are giving me a little bit of trouble. I find this game to be fun and also very educational. It gets us students to understand how the actual stock market works, and we get to kind of participate in it. I plan to keep an eye on this game throughout the semester and hopefully be able to win first place and claim my 20 bonus points! Everyone knows that we could all use some of those.
In my public speaking class, I have two speeches left to give. My next speech, which should be coming up pretty soon, in the matter of the next couple weeks, is a how to/demonstration speech. This speech has to be over something that we have to teach the class how to do, and it can not be something that everyone knows how to do; it has to be a unique subject. I have come up with a couple of ideas such as how to throw a curveball, how to fish with a remote control boat, and how to wax a car. I am not yet sure exactly of which subject I am going to choose. I have narrowed my search down to these three subjects because not everyone has played baseball before, and may not even know what a curveball is. Also, I myself have not heard of the idea of fishing with a remote control boat until here recently, so it sounds pretty amusing. Not very many people know how to wax a car. Sure people know how to wash their car but not very many actually wax cars; it is a lot more complicating than most people think. If anyone has any idea on which one they think I should do I would appreciate your opinion. The last speech of the year before my final exam is an argument speech. According to my professor, the argument speech is the most difficult speech of them all. I am not sure why it would be so difficult, the only thing I can think of is trying to find a topic and argue only one side of it the whole time. The fact the Professor Lause said that this was going to be our most difficult speech has definitely made my wheels start to turn, and the nerves rolling. I think I will get through the speech alright though because my first speech of the year I thought I butchered when I actually did very well on it. From taking this public speaking class, I have become more comfortable with speaking to other crowds, which, all in all is what is suppose to happen right?
In addition to taking my five classes at Rhodes State for my senior year of high school, I am also taking an AG class at my high school. Ag, or also known as FFA is the only class that I am taking at the high school this year. I have been around agriculture my whole life and have been in this class each of my last three years of high school so I figured I would go ahead and take it for my senior year also. I do not really have any work in FFA since it is known as "Ag Projects" so I don’t have any homework to do. The only things I do is sell fruit, attend field trips (matter of fact I went on one today), and participate in out of school activities such as community work. In regards to being in FFA, I am the president of the FFA for two years straight now. I am honored to be the first student ever to be president for more than one year in our FFA chapter. One of the fundraisers that we do throughout the year is sell fruit. The last three years I have been the top seller in our school and last year I topped out at exactly $2000 sold worth of fruit. Our incentive for selling fruit is that we get 10% of the commission that we sold, so over the years I have made over $500 worth of money just by selling fruit to my community, pretty cool right? We also have an FFA banquet every year in which I gave a speech last year. The speech was given to over 150 people sitting in the crowd and that may have been one of the most nervous moments of my life, fortunately I had a professional speaker there to help me through it and has helped me in all of the speeches I do now. Most people might think that FFA/agriculture is stupid but it has become a hobby of mine and hopefully becomes a career also.
I did not have class yesterday in my macro economics class. My professor, Mr. Finley had some sort of meeting at a university in Chicago so he cancelled class all together. Although we did not have class, the instructor gave the class an opportunity to earn some bonus points. There is a video on a PBS website that we can watch. The video has something to do with who is at fault in our economy. The video is actually from a television show that was on TV, and we are just re-watching it; kind of like what we did in this class with "How I Met Your Mother." This video is 56 minutes long and after we watch it, we have to write a two page paper over what we thought of it. All though this assignment is for bonus points, I am not sure I am going to do it. Mainly because I do not have the time and it is only worth five points! At least it is bonus and is not mandatory. Although when someone hears the phrase, "class is cancelled" they automatically get excited. I had mixed feelings about class being cancelled because the day it was cancelled I have three classes, and my macro economics class just happens to be the middle one; so I can neither show up later or leave earlier. During the time it was cancelled, I ran to McDonald's to get some breakfast, came back and took a nap in my car, and did our in class blog over politics on my iPhone, by which I love very much... when it is not broken.
I am taking a macro-economics class this semester in the Galvin Hall. The professor is Les Finley. The class is nothing at all what I expected it to be, it is actually better. My opinion of the class going into it was "oh great, another confusing class that I am going to struggle in." Turns out, I actually understand a lot that is going on. Last year in high school I took a marketing class and a lot of information in that class has already showed up in my economics class. I have class every Tuesday and Thursday, on Thursday's we do current events; also, in high school, we did current events every week in my sociology class. So after a few weeks of the class already, I am enjoying it thoroughly and would recommend the class to anyone. The one thing that I am worried about is this book report we have to do. I am not a strong reader, and within a month, I have to read a 300 page book and critique it. Although I am not looking forward to it, it is just one project in the class and hasn't changed my opinion on the class... so far. We are also doing this online stock market game for bonus points. The game is called "How the stock market works". How the game works is you are given a certain amount of virtual money to spend on stocks just like in real life, but the only difference is you are neither gaining nor losing money. I find it very interesting and fun.
ReplyDeleteAnother one of my classes that I am taking is Public Speaking. To be honest, I was a little nervous going into this class because of the thought of getting up and speaking in front of a bunch of people that I didn't know. Little did I know that, once again, my high school classes would come into factor with another one of my college classes. My sophomore year of high school we would have to give speeches every Friday throughout the school year. During these speeches, our teacher, Mrs. Tussing, would grade us on how well we prepared, whether we met the standard time limit and by counting how many "ums or uhhs" we had. Likewise, in my public speaking class, Professor Lause grades us on the same type of stuff. Each of our speeches have to be three to five minutes long, and he grades us on how well we prepared and also by how many um's or uh's we say. Also, in high school I was president of the Indian Lake FFA chapter. During our awards banquet, my adviser gave me the task to make a speech in front of every one at the banquet, which I might add was close to 300 people. I believe I did well on that speech and the experience helps give me an advantage to my public speaking class. We have already had a speech in class. The speech was about an object that told the class something about ourselves. The item I brought in was my soccer captains band. All though I didn't do too hot on this first speech, he said nobody had gotten lower than a "B" and I plan to do much better on my next speeches. The list of the speeches I have yet to give in the class are an informational speech about something, a "how to" speech, and an argument speech. I would not say that I am looking forward to these speeches but I am not regretting them either.
ReplyDeleteI am taking a public speaking class as well. I have a different professor and it is a little different but I had the same preparation. Seeing how I was in your sophomore and junior English class I was just as prepared. We always gave speeches sophomore year in front of the class and we had to be well prepared which helped me a lot going into this class as well. Junior year when we would have to present some of our papers in front of the class and when we had to give a presentation over our book at the end of the year also helped. And even in other random classes we would do at least one presentation. It was never too bad because it was just a class of like 20 people that you grew up and already knew so well. It is more difficult in college because I had no idea who anyone in my class was after the first speeches it got a lot better though. We have to do speeches once a week so everyone is learning more and more about each other and getting more comfortable around each other. We are graded on uhm’s and uhh’s, our time, our gestures and how we pronounce words. He is very strict on how speeches should be. I got docked points because of the way I said get, I pronounced it like git not get. He even docks off points when you use unnecessary hand gestures that take away from your speech and create a distraction. It is definitely not my favorite class.
DeleteHello, I get what you are saying about public speaking I have had to give a speech already to. I think that I need to slow my role a bit because I was trying to work ahead on a few things, so I could give myself some breathing room. I was able to get done with a lot of things so I slacked off a bit and then got cocky thinking that I would be ok on it all. I was done with my speech and I practice on it a lot to even in front of my neighbor. Then I was able to get through my digital fundamentals chapter four and studied my ass off. The professor told us what was going to be on the test so I went back and looked over that stuff but, when he gave us the test it had stuff on it he told us would not be there. Then there is what is due on in this class I want even get started on that one. Then there is my first year’s class and I have been done with that one for a week. My SOC. Class I’m up a couple of chapters but I need to get more done in that. My point is that I was not ok in most off these classes. My speech didn’t go liked I hoped my eyes were everywhere but on the audience, I messed up the end, and I bombed my digital class. My SOC. Class was ok and my first years well let’s just say that there was no way that I should of failed that one. Well that’s all I have to say for now so, have a good day, and latter.
DeleteYeah, like you, and a lot of other people in our English class, I am obligated to take a public speaking course this semester, as well. In terms of high school classes preparing you for these college classes, I can relate with you on that one. My sophomore year of high school contained a lot of speeches. I had to give an informative speech in biology that pertained to the structure of an organism, in Math we had a two minute speech on why math is important to us, and in English we had a speech that pertained to an aspect of the holocaust. Honestly, I really enjoy speaking. I love to get up, converse with an amount of people big or small, and relate with the audience on a number of theories and opinions. That is why I really enjoy my public speaking class here. That being said though, I feel as if the class is starting to just drag on and on forever. I would say, on average, we have about one speech a week (maybe slightly less.) So, although I really and fully enjoy expressing my own opinion on certain issues and ideas, I am really running out of things to converse about. Luckily, though, I just finished my public speaking final presentation about an hour ago, and I can confidently say that I am done with the class (subtracting the written final, of course.) Although it was a really fun class and I met a lot of new people who contain new theories and ideas on certain policies and aspects of life, I can say I am happy it is almost over because, well, I ran out of things to talk about ha-ha.
DeleteHonestly public speaking is not bad at all. I asked the professor the other day about my grade in there and he said I had a borderline "A". I was excited to hear this knowing the only thing I have left to do in that class is be interviewed for a fake job. How this goes is you will have two classmates asking you questions and you have to answer them regarding to a certain job like a real interview. The position I selected was in business management. So they will ask me questions about my resume and I have to answer them according to that. I feel that this will be the easiest thing yet all year. The rest of the classmates have to watch which is not a big deal because I will only be answering to two interviewers. I am glad that this is considered my "final exam" and I am glad that I am getting it over with tomorrow. I have to study my responses to the questions. I have a list of the questions so I can have kind of an idea in my head what to answer. I believe this class will help my in English Comp for our final presentation. The only thing I have to worry about is that it has to be at least four minutes long and I do not have very good time management. I still haven't decided if I am going to do it over my proposal or over the class as a whole. I discussed it with Professor Piro and she said I would have more options doing it over the whole class.
DeleteTomorrow, September 13, 2012, is my first college exam. The exam is over the first 5 chapters in my Macro Economics class. In these chapters include the ten principles of economics, thinking like an economist, interdependence and trade, supply and demand, and elasticity. I am extremely nervous about this exam because after all, this will be the first exam that I have taken in college. I am not quite sure what to expect, will it be very hard or will it be just like the tests I had in high school? I am pretty thankful that my professor, Mr. Finley, has given us a lot of the questions on the exam so we can study over them. I plan to study all of tonight and tomorrow morning for this exam, I expect to get at the lowest a "B". One thing that I do not understand is why they are called "exams" instead of "tests" though? After I see how I did on this exam I will feel a whole lot more comfortable because I will know what approach to take towards the rest of the year. If I do not do very good, I know I will have to step up my note taking and studying, but if I do pretty good, I know that my strategy towards college so far is working just fine. As much as I hate taking exams/tests, it is something that has to be done and I will put all of my hard work and effort into it.
ReplyDeleteAs posted yesterday, I had my first college exam today. I believe I finished the exam in half an hour; not because I flew right through it, but because I spent all day yesterday studying for it and I believe I knew it like the back of my hand. I will find our possibly by Tuesday how I did on my exam, let's hope for the best! My second exam is set for Tuesday as well. This exam is in sociology. I think I will also do pretty well on this exam. It is important to get the first exam in every class out of the way so you know what to expect for the rest of the exams. Anyways, back to sociology. As well in high school, I also took a sociology class. The high school class was more of an introduction so you would know what to expect when you got to college, as I am doing now. Our professor said that we will be able to use anything and everything on the exam EXCEPT for our books. I plan to get on angel and print out the notes that we took in class to use on the exam. I am not as stressed for this exam since I get to use resources to help me on it, but I will still study because you never take anything for granted. I would have to honestly say that sociology is my most boring class. This reason is partly because I have already taken the class but also because we do nothing in class but take notes, so it is hard to stay focused sometimes.
ReplyDeleteIs there anyone else who is taking the "SDE first year experience class?" All I can say about this class is what a drag. I was told that I had to take this class, they did not give me a choice at all. Honestly, this first year experience class is probably the most useless class I have ever participated in. We do not really learn anything necessary in this class, everything is about how you should act, what you should do for your other classes, or how to take on challenges in college, etc. I have so much homework in this class that it is not even funny. After they signed me up for it, I thought to myself, "Okay, no big deal, this is just going to be a screw off class and I am just gonna get basically a free credit for it" and honestly that has not been the case. The only positive things I have found about this SDE class is that it is only one day a week (Wednesday), it is only for eight weeks, and I have made my two new friends in it and I connect with other people more so in this class than others. The bad things about the class are things like how the class is two hours long! Also, since the class is only one day a week, we have so much homework in it! The kind of work that we do are three journal entries, read fifty pages, and usually do an essay all in a weeks time. I find this class so useless that I think that it makes it even more so unbearable than it already would be. Let's just say that I count down the weeks until it is over....
ReplyDeleteI am taking this class but I am taking it online which I think makes it so much better. Each week we have four or five assignments we have to finish by midnight on Friday. And you can get ahead as much as you want. If you get done with week one you can go ahead and start week two whenever. We usually have two discussion boards where we post something and then read others and then post what you learned from it. We have journal entries, sometimes a case study, and sometimes this strategy planning. I like it because I can do all this work without even reading out of the book. It is all about you so it is easy to answer questions and there is not tests. I think the class is really pointless too, we could be getting a useful class finished while we are stuck doing this. I usually sit down one day out the week and just do it all in one day and that makes it easy because I do not have to worry about it anymore. Since I take it online I have to make sure I actually do it, since I am not getting up to go to a class it is harder to make myself sit down and just do it instead of doing things I actually want to do. It really is a pointless class though.
DeleteI would have to disagree with the fact of taking the online class being better than in the classroom. The fact that I am a procrastinator would make it WAY more difficult to take this class online, any class online for that matter. I have talked to you a bit about your online class and you have discussed it a little bit with me. We do exactly the same assignments but I believe that I am understanding the assignments a little more clearly because I have someone first hand to help explain them to me. Also, the advantage of taking the class in a classroom is I got to meet new people. I have made two new friends from this first year experience class and I had a great time. In regards, I am already done with this class for the year while you still have to do your assignments. I can also do all of my work without reading the book because we never had any tests or anything over the reading. This first year experience class was probably my most enjoyable class though because I got to interact with people more so than my other classes. The one thing that I absolutely did not like about this class was that it was two hours long! Although it was only one day a week, I still had to sit in the classroom listening to the stupid buzzing light for two hours going over stuff that made no change in my life. I would say that the college has the right idea trying to help students transition to the college life, but for good students like me and you that already do everything that they suggest you do, it is pretty pointless and time consuming.
DeleteHello Zack, Just thought I would let you know that I agree with what you said about the first years exsperence class. It was definetly not what I thought it would be. On are first day in class the professor that I had started off by telling us what the class was about and then a little about herself. Then she asked us if we had heard anything about the class from other people. There were a lot of people that spoke up and believe me when I say most of it was not good. I took my chance and told her that I heard there was a lot of home work in this class. The Professor proceeded to inform me that there was not that much homework and it really was not that bad. The very next class we had she slammed us with so much homework that it was not even funny. I remember turning around and looking at the people that was behind me and shaking my head. I wanted to raise my hand and say I tho9ught you said there was not that much homework but, what good would that do. So I just did what everyone else did and dealt with it. I did on the other hand just set down and do all the journals and academic skill plans just to get it over with. The two papers sucked as well but like I said I just got them done and all I had to do from ether was show up. Well that’s all for now, latter.
DeleteI have found out that there are two different sides of giving speeches in my public speaking class. When giving a speech about something that I am not comfortable with, it is extremely hard. I had no idea what to talk about during my first speech of the year. My speech was over leadership and I only had a few things to talk about it. Our speech had to be anywhere from three to five minutes long and it seemed like 45 seconds. Also I think that the fact of not being comfortable also made me really nervous, I was afraid of looking stupid and messing up; I just wanted to get the speech over with. I think that I will do much better giving the second speech in this class. This speech is an information speech. We have to pick something to try and educate or teach the class over. I think that I picked something more in my comfort zone this time around. This speech has to be in the vicinity of seven minutes long. I just got done making my outline for the speech and I literally have boat loads of information to talk about. I believe that since I will be more comfortable giving this speech, I will have more confidence, not be so nervous, and improve my score over the last speech I gave.
ReplyDeleteI found this out about giving speeches as well. We do speeches once a week and they are either two minutes or five minutes long, our final speech is six minutes or seven minutes long and I am definitely not looking forward to that one. I agree that giving a speech that you either do not care much about or do not really know what it is about is hard to do. We have had to do a pretty big range of different speeches though. We did our information speech and I found it really easy because I just used stuff from my Anatomy class that we just learned about. I talked about the different tissues of the body and where they are found and what they look like and I felt really comfortable doing it because I understood it. On the other hand I had to do a speech on value and I did not really know how to go about it but I chose optimism and it was not too bad but I did not really know what to talk about. And it does not help when you are nervous to give the speech because you do not want to mess up or you realized it is going a lot quicker than what you thought. I just really do not like the public speaking class, I think it is helping because I will have to give speeches in some of my other classes and I will be more prepared but that does not make it anymore fun!
DeleteIt sounds like to me that your public speaking class has it easier than mine! All of our speeches are suppose to be six to seven minutes long; although we only give like a total of six speeches all year long. Along with giving speeches that you are most interested in, I also learned that using a power point in a speech is so much easier as well. These last two or three speeches I have done a PowerPoint. Advantages to using a PowerPoint are: the audience doesn't focus on the speaker so much, it lays out your whole speech for you, its a guideline to your speech so you do not forget anything, and if you forget what you were going to say you can just read it off of the power point. I am glad that I had the public speaking professor that I did. He was very good at teaching what to do and what not to do in speeches and he is pretty lenient on his grading. I believe the lowest grade I got on a speech was like a 86 out of 100. Public speaking has been my favorite class of the semester by far. I have it on Monday's and Wednesday's and it is the only class I have those days. I just seem to be more interested in public speaking than in every other class. I did most of my speeches on information that I was comfortable about like cattle and sports, but I did have to give one speech over texting and that was not my cup of tea.
DeleteIn my macro-economics class, we are playing a game describing how the stock market works. The whole class gets to participate in this game and whoever makes the most money off of stocks by the end of the semester gets bonus points. I think first place gets 20 bonus points, second gets 19, third gets 18 and so on. This game is on the website "howthestockmarketworks.com" Kind of obvious right? This little competition is set up just like the real stock market is, without the option of running a risk and losing all of your money. At the beginning of the game, each student was given $100,000 of virtual (fake) money to buy stocks with. After the first couple weeks I remain in second place so far. I have made a profit of 4.6% and the market average is 3.3% so I am doing pretty good for having no experience in the stock market before! I have invested in virtual stocks such as Fedex, Polaris Industries, Dick's Sporting Goods, Nike Corporation, Ford, Burger King, and First Citizens National Bank. So far, my best stocks have been Polaris and Burger King while Fedex and The Banking Corporation are giving me a little bit of trouble. I find this game to be fun and also very educational. It gets us students to understand how the actual stock market works, and we get to kind of participate in it. I plan to keep an eye on this game throughout the semester and hopefully be able to win first place and claim my 20 bonus points! Everyone knows that we could all use some of those.
ReplyDeleteIn my public speaking class, I have two speeches left to give. My next speech, which should be coming up pretty soon, in the matter of the next couple weeks, is a how to/demonstration speech. This speech has to be over something that we have to teach the class how to do, and it can not be something that everyone knows how to do; it has to be a unique subject. I have come up with a couple of ideas such as how to throw a curveball, how to fish with a remote control boat, and how to wax a car. I am not yet sure exactly of which subject I am going to choose. I have narrowed my search down to these three subjects because not everyone has played baseball before, and may not even know what a curveball is. Also, I myself have not heard of the idea of fishing with a remote control boat until here recently, so it sounds pretty amusing. Not very many people know how to wax a car. Sure people know how to wash their car but not very many actually wax cars; it is a lot more complicating than most people think. If anyone has any idea on which one they think I should do I would appreciate your opinion. The last speech of the year before my final exam is an argument speech. According to my professor, the argument speech is the most difficult speech of them all. I am not sure why it would be so difficult, the only thing I can think of is trying to find a topic and argue only one side of it the whole time. The fact the Professor Lause said that this was going to be our most difficult speech has definitely made my wheels start to turn, and the nerves rolling. I think I will get through the speech alright though because my first speech of the year I thought I butchered when I actually did very well on it. From taking this public speaking class, I have become more comfortable with speaking to other crowds, which, all in all is what is suppose to happen right?
ReplyDeleteIn addition to taking my five classes at Rhodes State for my senior year of high school, I am also taking an AG class at my high school. Ag, or also known as FFA is the only class that I am taking at the high school this year. I have been around agriculture my whole life and have been in this class each of my last three years of high school so I figured I would go ahead and take it for my senior year also. I do not really have any work in FFA since it is known as "Ag Projects" so I don’t have any homework to do. The only things I do is sell fruit, attend field trips (matter of fact I went on one today), and participate in out of school activities such as community work. In regards to being in FFA, I am the president of the FFA for two years straight now. I am honored to be the first student ever to be president for more than one year in our FFA chapter. One of the fundraisers that we do throughout the year is sell fruit. The last three years I have been the top seller in our school and last year I topped out at exactly $2000 sold worth of fruit. Our incentive for selling fruit is that we get 10% of the commission that we sold, so over the years I have made over $500 worth of money just by selling fruit to my community, pretty cool right? We also have an FFA banquet every year in which I gave a speech last year. The speech was given to over 150 people sitting in the crowd and that may have been one of the most nervous moments of my life, fortunately I had a professional speaker there to help me through it and has helped me in all of the speeches I do now. Most people might think that FFA/agriculture is stupid but it has become a hobby of mine and hopefully becomes a career also.
ReplyDeleteI did not have class yesterday in my macro economics class. My professor, Mr. Finley had some sort of meeting at a university in Chicago so he cancelled class all together. Although we did not have class, the instructor gave the class an opportunity to earn some bonus points. There is a video on a PBS website that we can watch. The video has something to do with who is at fault in our economy. The video is actually from a television show that was on TV, and we are just re-watching it; kind of like what we did in this class with "How I Met Your Mother." This video is 56 minutes long and after we watch it, we have to write a two page paper over what we thought of it. All though this assignment is for bonus points, I am not sure I am going to do it. Mainly because I do not have the time and it is only worth five points! At least it is bonus and is not mandatory. Although when someone hears the phrase, "class is cancelled" they automatically get excited. I had mixed feelings about class being cancelled because the day it was cancelled I have three classes, and my macro economics class just happens to be the middle one; so I can neither show up later or leave earlier. During the time it was cancelled, I ran to McDonald's to get some breakfast, came back and took a nap in my car, and did our in class blog over politics on my iPhone, by which I love very much... when it is not broken.
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