Update: So Finals

Severus Snape

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As you all probably know, I'm in college at the moment. I need to have a 3.0 GPA to maintain the scholarship I have. Well, I am unsure if this will be possible this year. I did exceedingly well in all of the hardest courses I had to take, which is to be expected of me as it is usually the way things go for me. The more challenging and free a course is, the better I tend to do, because such courses encourage intellectual activity and stimulate the students in ways that the easier, generic courses do not.

The problem is, since most of my first semester was, well, introductory, a large portion of my classes were the genero stuff. Thus, I did feel pigeonholed throughout a lot of the semester, and I may not have done as well as I should have. I am pretty sure I passed all my classes, however, I passed English Comp. with a C (due mostly to my refusal to cooperate with someone who cannot spell or use proper grammar, yet decides to call herself an English professor...) I know it seems trivial, but things like that really bother me. I need whatever I set out to do to have purpose, and a sense of relevance. It's one of my faults, I am the first to acknowledge this, but it is what it is. I passed, at the very least, however, as I said, I am unsure as to whether I'll make the 3.0 mark or be left at a 2.80-90 something. I don't know, and the worst part is that all the classes are worth an equal amount of credits (which seems unfair to me.) So basically, my 200 level history class with its rigorous work and challenging material is worth the same as that horrible 106 level English Comp. course that I should have never been in to begin with (my adviser screwed that one up for me, and I got stuck.) It seems completely stupid--nothing like High School, where AP classes were worth more than academic or basic level classes.

The worst thing, of course, is that none of the professors seem to find it relevant to post our grades online so that we at least have the slightest inkling of a clue as to where we stand in their class at that moment. Such things would be helpful.

Although, to be fair, I admit I should be a bit more compliant. It's difficult for me to comply to authority simply for authority's sake, being the great rebel and thinker I am. If only I were less bright, or more astute and sneaky, then I would know how to worm my way around these things. Alas, snivel is closer to the mark, it is not so.

In any case, I don't know what I'll do if I don't make the mark. There's always taking out loans (with my nonexistent credit) or transferring to community college. If worst comes to worst, I reckon, there's always feigning insanity (although, at this point in my life, I don't think I would need to feign it...) and being committed to a nuthouse or something. I'm all out of ideas, and I don't know what else to do.
 
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Re: So, Finals...

I've just finished with my finals too - all you can do is *try* to stay positive. I know it's easier said than done, but still. :)
 
Re: So, Finals...

I've just finished with my finals too - all you can do is *try* to stay positive. I know it's easier said than done, but still. :)

Isn't it? I hope you did well in yours~
Apparently, if you don't make it through during one semester, you get some sort of warning to try and pull your grades up next semester, and if you don't make that, then your scholarship is taken from you. That's a relief--next semester will be a lot better, since all of the generic classes freshmen have to take to transition will be over with.
 
Re: So, Finals...

Mikage, i'm so sorry to hear about your situation. I truly hope from the heart your scholarship isn't in any real danger. In a not very strange way your situation reminds me of my own school-related stuff.

Back in June 2005 i got my MA degree, but i was in danger of not obtaining it cause i did a lousy sh*&y arse excuse of a dissertation. I submitted it on June 4th one day after jury deliberation began in Michael's trial. That is exactly when my laptop broke down. That was a blessing in disguise for two reasons - firstly, because i did have the paper done and ready (whatever that meant) and secondly cause i was insulated from the message board drama related to the wait of the verdict. In that way i could focus on prayer, Bible study and whatever else i did back then. I had to sustain the paper on June 13th itself but since i was in Europe, that was during the morning and the verdict came around midnight. Michael's trial and his freedom were faaar more important to me than any degree or school-related matter, but i was in danger of not gettin' that title and having to pay back the scholarship. Albeit of very differing nature and scale (my little school drama being nothing in comparison to his ordeal), things ended well for both of us, at least then.

After that whole thing was through i thought i was done with school for good, but little did i know that three years later i would embark on another educational ship. Let's put it this way - i exchange PhD's more often than some change their underwear lol. During the 2008-2009 academic year i went through the most horrible teaching experience due mostly to the awful human nature of some of the academic staff at the school i was at. My final exam there was on July 4th 2009 just a few days after Michael's disappearance and three days before the memorial. Suffice it to say exams were the last things on my mind. In between my disgust at the 'quality' of character of some of the teachers and my lack of interest disaster was guaranteed.

Thankfully, in October 2009 i began another PhD at a different school and although this first year of courses has been challenging from many points of view, it has ended well. I've had some pretty deep issues in many other 'areas of life' as i call them, but somehow by miracle i managed to put them aside. Also, i am blessed with an amazing woman as my coordinator. She is amazing and i love her so much. I like to call her my 'mom at school'.

In Europe we have what is called the Bologna system - where the PhD is done usually in three years, with two stages and two admissions in each stage - the first dedicated to courses and exams and the rest of the programme is dedicated to writing the thesis. I'm very happy i'm no longer obliged to attended classes. Basically i can write my thesis from the moon lolol.

I used to be a scholarship kid just like you - organizations of all kind used to pay me for studying at home and abroad across Europe. Nowadays, i'm payin' to get my degree, therefore i do know both the peaks and valleys of the educational process.

Education is mighty important in life, it is terribly important. It can be a great achievement and it contains the building blocks of a career, BUT what you must understand is that life is far richer in its dimensions than school and work; they are nothin' but instruments and means, they should never be purposes in and by themselves.

There are certain things which you will never learn in school and no matter how much knowledge you possess, how many books you read and how much insight you have in science and literature and arts, none of that will be of any use once you'll need to mend a broken heart, deal with distance and separation from a loved one or betrayal.

Education is neither the beginning nor the end of it all for anyone. Once we are gone nobody will care about how many degrees we had, or how smart we were. What people will remember will be the impact we've had on others and how much and how many we have helped, if we did. I like to think the most important in life are the people you love, those you help and if you manage to have some who love you then you can't really ask for that much more. Those are the true blessings and the greatest achievements in life.

I'm sorry if i took so much space talkin' about my own experience, but i was simply tryin' to show that i really know where you are coming from. I understand your fears, i really do, but please be strong, don't lose faith - in yourself, in your capacity and please know that no matter what happens, you will be fine. You must know that, you really must.
 
Re: So, Finals...

Mikage, i'm so sorry to hear about your situation. I truly hope from the heart your scholarship isn't in any real danger...You must know that, you really must.


Shabuya, thank you so much for your kind words, as usual. ^^;

I don't think it is in any real danger, and as I said, the fault is my own for refusing to comply with an inferior professor for authority's sake. I just find it sad that I am to answer to someone who doesn't even have mastery in the field they're supposed to be teaching me about. It makes no sense to me whatsoever, and I just rebel if I don't like something for a good reason. This personality flaw of mine has brought me many a misfortune, I do not hesitate to say, however, I would rather have it all rain down upon me than to comply for conformity's sake. This is something neither my mother nor most people seem to comprehend, because they are used to functioning in a world where it is key to follow orders and work as parts in a machine rather than as individuals with real input and ideas. Tragically, this is the way of the world, and as so often happens, those of us who are non-conformists often pay a heavy price for going against the majority. Is it not true, however, that such people change the world in the end? Where would we be without a bit of revolution to stimulate our evolution? We'd be stuck in perpetual monotony, never changing, never growing, because collectively we are resistant to change until someone comes along and stirs us in the right direction.

What that has to do with my perhaps jeopardized scholarship, I don't know. That's just a sample of the random philosophizing tangents I tend to go on from time to time.

In any case, yes... next semester will be more history-centric, so it's ought to be easier for me. I'll be done with all those classes which were introductory this semester, so they won't bother me any longer. I am sure I will do better next semester.

The thing that bothers me is that I am more than capable of doing excellent work, but I just can't do it if the conditions are too restricting. Our Composition course was not only taught by a complete and incurable moron, but it was also in and of itself a dead-end, straight-path, no-questions-asked, step-by-step, preordained procedure sort of course, in which the hardly qualified professor chose the topics we were to write about, and how we were to write about them. I daresay even an academic-level high school course permits more freedom to its pupils than the Comp course I got stuck with.

In any case, we are to survive everything, in some way or other. That is just the natural course of things, until we encounter our death. Every misfortune, every setback, every agony, has a way of spanning from future, to present, to past, eventually ending in oblivion. Who amongst us remembers, with the same amount of passion, things which happened in the yesteryear? Not one. Time fades all, the good and the bad, and even if it is not so, this too will pass.

It is the fatalistic manner in which some people think that has everyone so high-strung about making or not making it, per se. What difference does it make, and when did it all become so important? What does it truly change, if anything?

Education is the most important thing in the world, and it is free. College does not equal education--it equals a means to an end: a degree to vouch for your supposed qualifications as a duelist in the real world. It impresses those who wish to be impressed, but it speaks nothing of you as a person. It merely attests to a path you have chosen to take, and finished through hard work and your own personal merit, through cheating, through your father's generous donation to the institution, through a series of "favours" which led to your recommendation amongst members of the faculty, who knows? We've certainly seen them all.

In the end, you could be what one calls a "well-educated" moron. Going through eight years of school in addition to the twelve which are compulsory for any child in a first world country does not an educated man make. It is merely jumping through hoops and going through the motion--nothing but empty movement. If, after everything, you are unable to formulate a single original thought or produce anything of any creative value, you are no more educated than you were when you used to make spit bubbles and poop in your diapers. You've merely become a parakeet, forever spewing out useless information without understanding its true value. Or worse yet, you've been conditioned by the system to be a part in the giant machine.

I'll leave my views at that, since I've strayed far enough from the topic and have probably confused everyone with my incoherent rambling. Anyway, I will survive, I am sure.
 
I know some people don't want you to be as bright as we are :rofl::rofl:
 
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