Spring Semester - New teachers, classes, roommate?

                Hello everyone. It’s been a long time since this blog’s been updated, so I guess I’ll try to cover all the bases by saying Happy Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything. Sorry if I did.

                Anyway, I’ve been on campus for a few days now getting back into the gear of classes, cafeteria food, roommates, and independent living. My month-long vacation was a lot of fun, but I’m definitely glad to be back here for my second semester here at Clark.

                Classes started on Tuesday, but the way my schedule works out, I didn’t have classes until Wednesday. That sounds great, but I had all four classes in one day. That’s over six hours of class time. That seems normal to a high-schooler, but in college, it’s a nightmare. It really wasn’t that bad. I’ll try to give you a little run-down of my new courses, but keep in mind I’ve only just had the first taste of what the courses will actually be like.

                My first day started at 10 AM with my Economics class. Professor Geoghegan (pronounced gay-gen, go figure) seems like she’ll be a fantastic way to start my morning three times a week. She has a really great sense of humor and is enthusiastic about the course material. We spent the beginning of class going over expectations, scheduling, blah-blah-blah, and then talked a little bit about what economics really is. I don’t know enough at this point to do it justice, but I was actually surprised about how interesting the class was. I signed up to fulfill a requirement and was not expecting it so be something that would actually spark my interest.

                After lunch, I went up to my next class: Psychology. As this is spring semester, the class was only 80 students, a dramatic decrease from fall semester’s class which if I have my figures right, was over 120 students. This is a very large class for Clark, but psychology is the most popular major here, so it only makes sense to allow the most people into the introductory level before the classes decrease in size based on specialty. Professor Brown is new here at Clark – this is his second semester teaching here. Again, he appeared to be very enthusiastic about the course material and the topics seem to be very interesting from the start.

                Directly following psychology, I trekked across the snow-covered campus to my philosophy class: Personal Values. Professor Donahue says that the class should be called Ethics because that’s really what it is. Professor Donahue, like my other professors, has a great sense of humor and is very excited about teaching. In class, we discussed the concepts of utilitarian vs. Kantian. Rather, should we always hold true that it is wrong to lie, or do we analyze the consequences of telling the truth before we decide to lie. Most of us are utilitarian. Think of the last time a three-year-old asked you about Santa Claus. I’m sure you wanted to keep the spark alive in their eyes. I'm not sure why this picture creeps me out, but here you go...

                Finally, my night-time class: Managerial Communications from 6 PM to 9 PM. It seems intimidating, right? It’s actually the class I’m most excited about. In the class taught by Professor Kimball, we will learn different methods of public speaking and writing in a managerial context. These are essential skills to any professor, whether I stay in the business management department or not. So many people have told me the most valuable classes they took were public speaking. We learned a lot about a large project we’ll be working on most of the semester. I’ll tell more once I know more.

                This entry’s already getting rather lengthy, but there’s one more thing I wanted to talk about. My roommate from the first semester transferred to a state school for financial reasons, so I currently don’t have a roommate. There was the possibility that a transfer student would be placed here, but it seemed unlikely since my dorm is freshman-only. Anyway, one of my friends and I filled out a form to have her move in with me. It’s a pretty easy process. We just had to answer a few questions and get some signatures. It’s not finalized yet because this is still the “freeze period.” That means that we can’t change rooms the first two and last two weeks of each semester. It looks like the chances of her moving in are pretty good though.

                Last paragraph, I promise. Things are looking pretty good for spring semester. New roommate, new classes. The change in course focus will be a blessing as well. Clark has a fantastic science program, but I just don’t think it was the right kind of thing for me. I’ll be much happier with social sciences. That’s all for now. I’ll update more about my classes next week.