July 7, 1999

Summer School Fun

I guess the last thing you would expect college to be is Summer school. Summer school sounds like repeating classes for the people who couldn't handle the load during the regular school year, but in reality it is quite different. Right now I'm taking Summer courses at Berkeley (where else?) and I'm getting a whole new side to college that I couldn't have in the regular school year.

First of all, the students here in Summer Sessions are a lot more diverse; many of the studnets living on my floor are international students! I'm really quite amazed they can all speak English so well. Plus, they are also inspiration for me to do well, because many of them are going to great universities and/or taking really advanced courses. Kind of puts me, the actual Berkeley student, to shame. It's also a lot of fun hearing about how the educational system is different from state to state, country to country.

Second of all, you get to choose what you want to take. Since this is Summer session, and I wasn't supposed to be taking classes in the first place, I can pick any class I want to, um.. as long as there is intellectual material involved for the three thou I'm paying for the whole package. I had planned to take a math and a political science class, but the PS class turned out to be really questionable in educational value (we talk about jazz music?! That's politics?), so I dropped that class to get my four hundred bucks back. See, no sweat; I get a class I don't like and I can just drop it. There's no worry of "are they going to rescend my financial aid package?" and "am I enrolled full time?"

The only downside, I guess, is feeling really deflated when you're pit up against some of the toughest competition in the world. I see high school students in my Mulitivarible Calculus class and I'm just really afraid they're going to blow me out of the water on the tests. As if that wasn't enough, the classes in the Summer are double time. Fifteen week classes being crammed into six or eight weeks is not a lot of fun.

All in all, I'm gald to be taking Summer Classes. I could be at home, rotting my brain on only videogames and over-sleeping every day. That would be much worse. Use it or lose it, that's the motto. (Well, I wouldn't mind playing videogames... it's just that if I played all day, my brain would turn to mush.) Plus I'm meeting a bunch of new people!
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