Hey friends!
I'm in that routine where there isn't a whole lot new with me right now, so this might be a little bit of a boring post (sorry). Coming up on the first round of midterms and just doing a lot of homework and readings. Working a ton, picked up an extra shift last night at Maggie's Coffee Shop and working 15-18 hours a week. Normally the school caps you at 15 hours, but if you work in the food services they'll let you work up to 20 hours. Working at Maggie's is seriously one of the best jobs I've ever had, it's really nice to not just be sitting at a desk filling or mundane computer work. I also had a shift at the bookstore last night, and then had Dance X rehearsal.
Another typical Saturday, went on a quick run in Tryon this morning, and now I'm downtown doing my pile of homework. I will say, the amount of homework we get isn't too bad, and it's really nice to get a day in between each class (unless you're in a 4 day-a-week math or language class) but it does give you a bit of time to do your homework. But I like getting all my homework thats due Mon, Tues or Wed all done over the weekend, just because my week gets so busy I don't have enough time to put it all off. So the workload isn't terrible, but you definitely need to learn time management; my amount of work just is a lot because I squish it all into one day and I'm so busy during the school week.
It's also really nice that after midterms we get a short fall break!!! Last year I went on a College Outdoors trip for raft guide training which you can read about here This year I'm going up to Seattle to see my mom and actually rest for the 3 days we have off (hopefully).
Classes are going well:
Molecular bio we're getting into more complex ways of thinking and how to run assays and design our own experiments looking at how we can mutate certain genes or promotors to see how that will effect the overall function. We're also just going into very detailed descriptions of everything to do with DNA, replication, repair and structure. It's really interesting and exciting... when I understand whats happening. Which, for the most part I understand a lot, but I get frustrated on some points where it's like my professor is just making up the rules on experiments, but as she's pointed out, that's how it is in the real world. With technology and genius scientists we can pretty much program things to exactly what we want. The class is very much more than just a basic understanding, it's more taking that and then jumping miles outside the box and thinking of new ways to incorporate what we know and make it something completely new.
Disease ecology we're learning about modeling and the whole SIR model and how population dynamics effect studies. It's a lot of math right now, which isn't my favorite but it's still all really interesting. It's a lot of reading, but it's cool stuff and it's all very updated. We get to study things that are happening now and that are always evolving. We looked into the 2014 ebola outbreak and studied very crucial current events.
Cross Cultural Psych is going well too, it's a little harder to keep this class as fresh in my mind just because it's only once a week and it's a night class and by the time we get to class everyone feels a bit dead from the day and week. But my professor runs the class so well, gives us breaks and brings us snacks. I wish the class was a 3x a week class because what we're learning is so interesting. I always really love psych classes - if nothing more than to have the classic "first year psych student disease" where you self diagnose yourself with everything you're learning about. But coming from a different - almost an outside culture and learning about how studies are conducted and the difficulties across the different cultures is really cool. I understand a lot about the difficulties when trying to recreate studies (at least for China) -- For example a big issue across other cultures with the US is a language barrier and how to keep the language equivalency. There is no word for "cousin" in Chinese, instead you'd have a word for you'r mom's older brother's youngest daughter and that would be different than you're dad'd younger sister's oldest daughter. This can get really hard when you're trying to define something more important for a study. We just read an article on how the attachment avoidance leads to less satisfactory relationships across the US, Mexico and Hong Kong. Their study had many issues when we were critiquing it - but thinking about language equivalency and cultural differences -- how do you define a satisfactory relationship? It's sometimes difficult and really frustrating, but it's really cool to also study all the issues.
And lastly, Chinese is going well. Still pretty much all review and kind of a boring class. I had a lot of issues even getting into this class and it's clear I'm not in a level that I should be at, but I'm just trying to get rid of the last gen ed requirement with this and then I'll be done with Chinese. It's mostly just the issue that not enough students at LC take Chinese so it's only a once a year rolling schedule and it's also a 4 day a week class and that is impossible to schedule as a STEM major with labs.
Anyways,
if you would like to hear more about my classes, learn about dance X, or if you have any questions about anything - student life, campus jobs, being a biology major or anything you can think of you're always free to email me! I love getting emails and it's cool to hear about where you guys are all from and what you're looking for in terms of college!
Cheers,
Kate
ksaylor@lclark.edu
I'm in that routine where there isn't a whole lot new with me right now, so this might be a little bit of a boring post (sorry). Coming up on the first round of midterms and just doing a lot of homework and readings. Working a ton, picked up an extra shift last night at Maggie's Coffee Shop and working 15-18 hours a week. Normally the school caps you at 15 hours, but if you work in the food services they'll let you work up to 20 hours. Working at Maggie's is seriously one of the best jobs I've ever had, it's really nice to not just be sitting at a desk filling or mundane computer work. I also had a shift at the bookstore last night, and then had Dance X rehearsal.
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| :3 some more behind the scenes |
Another typical Saturday, went on a quick run in Tryon this morning, and now I'm downtown doing my pile of homework. I will say, the amount of homework we get isn't too bad, and it's really nice to get a day in between each class (unless you're in a 4 day-a-week math or language class) but it does give you a bit of time to do your homework. But I like getting all my homework thats due Mon, Tues or Wed all done over the weekend, just because my week gets so busy I don't have enough time to put it all off. So the workload isn't terrible, but you definitely need to learn time management; my amount of work just is a lot because I squish it all into one day and I'm so busy during the school week.
It's also really nice that after midterms we get a short fall break!!! Last year I went on a College Outdoors trip for raft guide training which you can read about here This year I'm going up to Seattle to see my mom and actually rest for the 3 days we have off (hopefully).
Classes are going well:
Molecular bio we're getting into more complex ways of thinking and how to run assays and design our own experiments looking at how we can mutate certain genes or promotors to see how that will effect the overall function. We're also just going into very detailed descriptions of everything to do with DNA, replication, repair and structure. It's really interesting and exciting... when I understand whats happening. Which, for the most part I understand a lot, but I get frustrated on some points where it's like my professor is just making up the rules on experiments, but as she's pointed out, that's how it is in the real world. With technology and genius scientists we can pretty much program things to exactly what we want. The class is very much more than just a basic understanding, it's more taking that and then jumping miles outside the box and thinking of new ways to incorporate what we know and make it something completely new.
Disease ecology we're learning about modeling and the whole SIR model and how population dynamics effect studies. It's a lot of math right now, which isn't my favorite but it's still all really interesting. It's a lot of reading, but it's cool stuff and it's all very updated. We get to study things that are happening now and that are always evolving. We looked into the 2014 ebola outbreak and studied very crucial current events.
Cross Cultural Psych is going well too, it's a little harder to keep this class as fresh in my mind just because it's only once a week and it's a night class and by the time we get to class everyone feels a bit dead from the day and week. But my professor runs the class so well, gives us breaks and brings us snacks. I wish the class was a 3x a week class because what we're learning is so interesting. I always really love psych classes - if nothing more than to have the classic "first year psych student disease" where you self diagnose yourself with everything you're learning about. But coming from a different - almost an outside culture and learning about how studies are conducted and the difficulties across the different cultures is really cool. I understand a lot about the difficulties when trying to recreate studies (at least for China) -- For example a big issue across other cultures with the US is a language barrier and how to keep the language equivalency. There is no word for "cousin" in Chinese, instead you'd have a word for you'r mom's older brother's youngest daughter and that would be different than you're dad'd younger sister's oldest daughter. This can get really hard when you're trying to define something more important for a study. We just read an article on how the attachment avoidance leads to less satisfactory relationships across the US, Mexico and Hong Kong. Their study had many issues when we were critiquing it - but thinking about language equivalency and cultural differences -- how do you define a satisfactory relationship? It's sometimes difficult and really frustrating, but it's really cool to also study all the issues.
And lastly, Chinese is going well. Still pretty much all review and kind of a boring class. I had a lot of issues even getting into this class and it's clear I'm not in a level that I should be at, but I'm just trying to get rid of the last gen ed requirement with this and then I'll be done with Chinese. It's mostly just the issue that not enough students at LC take Chinese so it's only a once a year rolling schedule and it's also a 4 day a week class and that is impossible to schedule as a STEM major with labs.
Anyways,
if you would like to hear more about my classes, learn about dance X, or if you have any questions about anything - student life, campus jobs, being a biology major or anything you can think of you're always free to email me! I love getting emails and it's cool to hear about where you guys are all from and what you're looking for in terms of college!
Cheers,
Kate
ksaylor@lclark.edu