Revised and Updated with the Wisdom of Attending for Five Years…
While cleaning my room, I stumbled across a list of observations I made about college way back in my freshman year. Needless to say, not all of it applies to every college, or every faculty or program, but it was entertaining. So I have posted it, with any updates I made in red:
I’ve graduated from blackboards to a world of overhead projectors, PowerPoints and videos. Which don’t work half the time. Then the prof has to call the tech guys, who don’t show up till half an hours later, while we all fiddle in our seats and marvel at the way technology has simplified our world.
You are suddenly surrounded by people who care about good grades. On the other hand, there are enough people that make you wonder how did they ever get in nursing?!?
This applied to when I was in nursing, of course. Though I truly hope some of the people I knew never graduated that nursing program…
No class takes as much time and effort as the prof would like you to believe it does on the first day.
I still don’t understand why nursing profs liked to scare us so much… though the classes took up enough time and effort as it was.
They tell you to buy fancy-spancy calculators for Math 30, but when in college they tell you you need a SIMPLE calculator that’s not programmable. Because our profs aren’t technologically advanced enough to wipe the memory…
I did finally get to dust off my fancy TI83 for Statistics class this year.
You will be reminded again why English is useless.
And reminded again, and again…. and I say this as someone who likes writing.
Professor-jokes are not any more funny than teacher jokes.
They will decide to implement a completely new class for your year because of what a few students said the year before. It will be the stupidest class ever, so they’ll decide to take it out again for the year after you. Lucky you.
There will always be someone who makes flashcards for everything.
I still think making flashcards is a waste of time… more time making them than studying.
Exam anxiety is contagious.
Significant digits go out the window when calculating drug amounts.
You will not be a loner all year, like you thought you would on your first day.
Though it’s entirely possible some of the friend you made in first year you’ll never see again.
If your class project requires you to find complete strangers and teach them how to hand-wash, you will somehow end up at the restaurant your partner works at, teaching her brother and her best friend.
The nursing faculty will swear to you that the program you’re learning (Context-Based Learning) is best program for learning since sliced bread. You wonder why, if that’s so, they’re putting a completely different program next year?
Never start a program in a transition year, unless you like being a guinea pig.
Just because you’re in college, doesn’t mean everything will be more organized. Your classrooms WILL be switched every week, and always to a room on the other side of the campus, ensuring half the class gets lost on the way.
Sadly, university is even less organized.
Evaluations of your performance are completely subjective, with most of one group getting “A”s because they have an easy prof, while the instructor in another group will insist no one in first year nursing deserves an “A.”
This might only apply to nursing, but actually was true.
Having a nit-picker for your first instructor has some benefits – at least you’ll learn how to cite using APA. And never, ever forget…
When you get a prof who actually knows her stuff and doesn’t use PowerPoint, you will be so thankful that you’ll tell everyone she’s the best prof in the world. This realization is only heightened when she is absent and the substitute spends an hour and a half showing you pictures out of your textbook.
If you got a nice new shelf in the summer to put all your junk on, it will be filled up with books by the end of the year and you STILL won’t have a place to put your junk.
Choir is suddenly a viable recreational option because you miss your highschool band class. Your new yearly music trip now consists of going to sing in Neerlandia.
People will complain the college’s Student’s Association does nothing, and you will be amazed because it is a thousand times more active than your Student Council was in high school.
There is no way to avoid coffee addiction.
Yet it’s still all too easy to sleep in class.
You will learn how to procrastinate like never before – making this list, for example.
Oh yes, I’ve come a loooooooooong way… (now if I could just get that novel done)
Hmm... 
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