Staff Letters: Phil

... Tuck you in, warm within...

So yeah, I'm finding out what college is all about. You see, there's two parts. Passing and learning. Anyone tells you college is only about one of these is flat wrong. But, how it splits up is different for everyone. See the basic idea as far as I've been able to understand it is this.

Some classes are there for you to pass. These are the classes you probably won't learn much in. For example, Calculus 3. This was a class, that for me, was purely about passing. I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours for that class. 10-15 hours a week on that class just doing HW. Then the exams were worse. That was a 30 hour weekend. Physics 152, which is based on Calc 3 looks like it's going to be another one. But as I said, it splits different for everyone. So maybe Calc3 was a "hey, I learned a lot in that class" for some. Physics 151 was more of a learning class. There were a few chapters that seemed pointless and unnecessarily hard, and those were "just memorize what you have to" chapters. A great example is EE357: Computer Architecture. This is basically learning assembly, a really low level computer language which requires an in-depth knowledge of how the CPU and RAM work in order to use. The point of the class is to understand the CPU and RAM as much as it is to learn Assembly. For me this is a LEARNING class. I LOVE it and I learn so much each day. For about 80% of the class, they don't see the reason behind it, and they don't like it, and they are struggling. For them it's a passing class: you have to pass it.

The other thing I learned about college is that you can't do it all. Each week you have to decide which classes you'll have to skip and which homeworks you can't possibly do. I get 90% of the work done and get virtually no sleep. It would be humanly impossible for me to get any more work done and still live, eat, or speak to people. Those decisions are hard because sometimes you have to sacrifice a class you like and KNOW you can do well in for a class you hate but might fail. So you accept a B (instead of an A) in a class you like in order to make a C (instead of an F) in a class you don't like.

Now, lets put all that in perspective with two HUGE points. 1. When I say a "C" I mean perhaps a 40% in the class. In some classes that C may only be a 20%. When I say hard, I mean HARD. 2. This is from the perspective of someone taking a very challenging major. The people in International Relations or Communications don't work nearly as hard as the Computer Engineering Computer Science, or the Aerospace Enginnering, or the Architecture majors. I also have a part-time job, like to do something social once every 2-3 weeks, and have a girlfriend who likes to see me for more than 4 seconds, ya know more than once a month (given we live together).

On the non-personal front, Echobrain is interesting, and cool, and most of you will hate it.

On the Metallica front, after reading the Lars and Kirk interview in the last So What!, WOW I'M FUCKING EXCITED!! I can't wait! New Metallica, new millenia, new attitudes, new music, and it's gonna be FUCKING awesome!

Later...

Phil

GOOD

Buffy DVD
Kristel

BAD

School
Losing my job
No sleep

MOVIES

???

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