The SSMB School/University Thread; Also a Homework Help Topic

[leave_nothing]

Would you guys accept the offer to speak @ your school's baccalaureate service? It's an honor but I seriously have no clue what to speak on.

[Emperor Robrainiac]

I just got a letter from my school informing me of my financial aid... Apparently, It's a "Formal Notification of my status of End of Program"

With it came an appeal form which also informs me of having to write a response of the following questions:

"How the Additional academic program will enhance my short and/or long term employment goals"

"Why my prior academic program are not adequate for reaching my career goals" (This is the one that really concerns me.)

"How the completion of this additional academic program will provide me with more or better job opportunities."

It should be noted that I am finishing my major this year, and I plan on going to another college next year after taking some required classes, and taking art. Does this have anything to do with this letter? Or did I just screw up again? I shouldn't have, because my teachers don't grade me until the end of the semester. In addtion, I've been turning in all of my assignments.

Seriously, can someone clear this up for me? I am freaking out right now, cause I've never gotten anything like this before.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Wayward Vagabond

[Chaos Warp]

I hate High School. I do decently well enough in it, but I don't really like it. Too many retards, and certain subjects are very time-consuming and hard to understand. The only subjects I really like are Buissness Tech and English, everything else I don't. When it's over I'm gonna do the same thing that Alexander The Swell is doing: take a break! I intend to go to college/uni, but break first.

[LoseR]

So my teacher keeps being all "I have a life on the weekend", but she doesn't seem to understand that us kids have lives DAILY! >:U

53 vocabulary notecards... WHY!?

[Speederino]

Hey guuuuuuys? Would you mind doing me an itsy-bitsy-witsy little favor? You see, me and a partner have this Sociology assignment on age discrimination in the workplace. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be worth bringing up in this forum. Buuuuuuttt...we have to conduct a survey on it, and I refuse to be one of those people who badgers mall customers to fill out their crappy survey. Even if I was willing to sink to that level, I also have to study for two tests and get started on a whole other project, so my time is more than crunched.

So, without further ado, I would really appreciate it if you would click this link and fill it out. Just think of it as helping me with my homework. I can't give a reward or anything, but I at least promise to post a picture of freshly-baked cookies for you to stare at.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Speederino

[leave_nothing]

Considering joining a frat this fall but have heard enough hazing stories to easily drive me away. Anybody here have any first-hand experience they would want to talk about? Vid mildly related as it is very amusing.

[Burnt Ash]

Yay for World History. Currently, I'm writing a DBQ (document based question) for it. Difficult thing is, organizing it is somewhat difficult.

[Melru]

I'm supposed to be studying for AP American, I have my books out and I was studying for a couple of hours. And then I went on pottermore.

I'm bracing myself for a failure. At least your teacher gave you a DBQ. Mine only gave us two in the whole year. And he thinks we don't need any more, lol.

[Emperor Robrainiac]

I know there's a few animators in this board... Any of you guys have advice for making a Portfolio and Demo Reel?

[Your Vest Friend]

Pottermore! *shakes fist*

I picked a Natterjack Toad on it just because there weren't any reptiles and I was aware that there were some in my home county. Now it turns out that I'm going to be conducting my Independent Study on the population of Natterjack Toads in said place, and why the council was insane to introduce them there all those years ago, which will take up much of my time throughout the next year.

I know that site is all about magic, but I wasn't aware ESP was on the agenda. :/

[TheNicollette30]

I am not excited for school at all. My school starts in 2 days, but luckily gives us off on thursday and friday when the freshman attend school. Unlike last year, I am taking all honors classes. Last year I purposly took regular classes, so it could be a easy A in every class. It was a breeze. Now my mom is a pain and called up my School, and switched me into AP and Honors classes. I have the worst Chemistry teacher in the world, and that just so happens to be AP. It isn't gonna be a fun year like last year.

Welp, The worst that could happen is working at McDonalds all my life! Bleh, I hate McDonalds, luckily I haven't gotten there yet.

[Chaos Warp]

it's the start of school season again. And boy, am I not excited for another mundane year dealing with stereotypical jocks, bitchy teachers who think they are always right, and of course, shit-tons of learning in which 80 percent of it won't matter to me in the long run. God I hate High School, can't wait 'till I can go to college and actually do something I enjoy doing.

Edited September 3, 2012 by Zero

[Emperor Robrainiac]

EDIT: ... Okay, I've calmed down a little bit, and reedited this post. I was a little too angry, and I feel like I was a little too vicious towards the people at my school. I apologize, and I should really not post until I calm down.

First of all, I should tell you guys that recently, I've been diagnosed with a serious learning disability... I don't know if this is the place to explain, or if It's something for the Personal Discussion, so I'll leave it at that.

After all these years of getting mediocre to average grades, I could have been getting more help. I just don't know why I haven't realized I had it before. Even when I try my hardest, It always seems I fall short anyways. I still feel like that. But that's not what I'm angry about.

There's drop in tutoring services, sure, and there's one with those who need extra help and I've been using that. But you know what? They both suck. Every time I finish half the problem, the tutor goes off the help someone else... I've always felt one on one tutoring was much better for me than having a tutor that helps other students. I filled out an application for one on one tutoring and sent it in to the office.

But what happens? They deny me and instead offer alternate solutions that either don't work for me or are at inconvenient times. So now It almost feel like my only option is failure. However, I'm trying to look on the bright side... I have an appointment with my therapist on Monday, and I'm hoping to ask for something so I can update my special needs forms. Maybe I could try again, then?

Second thing... My math instructor... good god I am so pissed off at her. She's actually the reason why I feel like giving up on math. For once, I actually got the answers right on my math homework. Man, I can't even explain how good I feel whenever I check my answers and see that I'm getting my answers right. Math was never my strong suit, and I feel a sense of pride when I get my math homework done right. But what happens when I get it back? She marks it down just because It's not the way she wanted it to be written. I've gotten homework back that I knew I did a good job on, and I get half credit for it.

I'm going to try and consult both my advisor and therapist next week. Failure is not an option for me and it never will be.

Edited September 20, 2012 by Lyra Heartstrings

[Nintendoga]

For the time being, I'm a free spirit! <3 I'm a college level student, but I haven't started yet. I need a break, dammit. Fuck school. Considering the fact that I'm going to college for animation, almost everything I learned in school is completely fucking useless for me.

Man I know this post was written last year, but it actually made me remember a post I saw on another forum recently. It's asking why High School is so important, and I just thought I'd share what he wrote about over here.

I'm not some kid who just doesn't care about anything. I used to be 5th in my class out of a 1000 or so kids, and my high school is really competitive. I'm like 35th now because I totally don't care and none of this matters at all.

My post asks the question "why is high school important to you personally". Tell me what motivates you to go through it every day, because I totally no longer understand it. However, before you make a generic response, read what I have written below to make sure you are making a cogent argument. I'm asking you guys, because it seems this community would probably have a lot of people who think high school is very important. I challenge all of you to prove me wrong, to prove that school serves a greater benefit than detriment.

- I will honestly never use what I learn in real life. The internet makes learning trivia rather silly. I can look up the rivers in africa, or a physics formula when I need to know them, rather than memorizing them. I could understand it being useful during the early 1900's (when the US education system was designed for the most part) because that was before the advent of the internet, but today it's as useless as your appendix.

- School hardly teaches "skills" or to "think for yourself". Schooling usually represses critical thinking - it emphasizes a "right and wrong answer". Thinking outside of what is pedagogy in english is usually punished with lower grades, math is a series of formulas, history is facts not thinking. Schools usually try to avoid critical thinking anyway - they get rid of philosophy and debate classes because intellectual free thinkers reject the binary pedagagy of the system and undermine their authority.

- People who say it will "help me in college" have circular reasoning - if it is meaningless, now then it is meaningless in college as well. Even if that's not true, hy not go straight to college?

- In addition, the argument "learn history, or history will repeat itself" is bull, history has repeated itself as long as history has been taught. If history is supposed to serve that function, then it has empirically failed so we should cease to use it. If anything, history causes itself to repeat - it allows us to learn the subjectivities of our past as if they are objective to silence criticism and mobilize hate towards "radical" ideologies. Palestinians learn in history how Jews are "vermin". The Japanese learn that the US nuked them "for no reason". We learn that communism and socialism are *irredeemably* bad, when there is serious argument for the opposite. My history book tells me the ideals of american "democracy", when every political scientist agrees america is a republic and every sociologist agrees that the poor and disenfranchised have little voice in policy over rich corporations and lobbyists. Yet it is the same ideology which allows us to invade other countries to "help" them with these "ideals". History causes itself to repeat.

- canonical english literature does not teach american culture. All attempts to represent culture involve selection, all selection means some things will not be included, and, most often, what is not included is conveniently only not so for political objectives. In other words, we do not learn american culture in english class, and, instead, we learn a very skewed representation of it. For example, we learn poets like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman wrote about nature, when they wrote almost entirely about sex.

- We don't need math to "do my taxes" or something else in real life. I learned algebra in middle school. That's sufficient. I don't need derivatives or polynomial functions to do that.

- School harms a love of learning. It represses it because you spend hours doing homework and going to school, leaving little time for reading what interests you personally. It was only after I stopped caring about school could I read what interests me.

- The whole career argument has flaws. I might need *a very small portion of it* in my career but certainly not all of it, or even a sizable amount of it. Even if that's not true, should I give up my life in order to make money? According to psychological studies, if you compare a lottery winner to an average person 6 months after he or she won, there is no difference in happiness between the two. Money has nothing to do with long term happiness. There's probably a negative cost/benefit of fretting about school because school itself is unpleasant and the benefits it achieves are non-existent.

Anybody have thoughts on this?

[Burnt Ash]

Hmm. Well, I'm not sure how to answer that question Nintendoga.

Anyways. English class looks to be really difficult this year. Enjoyable, yet difficult. I expected this, being an honors class and whatnot, but for some reason, it still takes me by surprise.

[Your Vest Friend]

I see high school as, like, the place where you start to get a grasp on what you want to do. No, you won't use all the building blocks you're given in high school, but it could potentially act as a foundation for what you do want to do. You can't jump straight to college in some cases because it's just far too specialised (example: You try A-Level science of any kind without prior grasp of GCSE stuff, and you'd be pretty screwed. High School in fact really did help me with Science since it taught me how to get to grips with long writings before it was a crucial skill).

And no, it probably won't end up being too necessary for quite a few people, but I'd say it's better to have a go than potentially miss out, then decide later if it's really something you want to follow with.

Although...

It represses it because you spend hours doing homework and going to school, leaving little time for reading what interests you personally.

I'd say to that, "Hard fucking cheese". Life itself doesn't really give you much time for it.

Anyway, had the smoothest start to Uni ever (which is nice, since it's my final year). Got my room sorted plenty early, got enrolled on the day I was supposed and my student loan has come in today so I don't have to worry about the bank getting all pissy with me. Classes start next week, so currently just chilling in between Natterjack Toad work.

[Blackbell]

Well I've just graduated as a teacher and responded to the post above about how high school crushes creativity and passion for your interests- I say that absolute rubbish (i would use profanity but as a teacher that mey set the wrong example).

School is a point of learning. People think that when they're in high school they know everything and think that they're better than it- better than the system- problem is about 99.9% are not. What the guy has posted shows he has problem with the system- perhaps it's a dislike towards certain subjects but majority of it seems to be based on the fact that there is no 'critical thinking' or ability to 'think for ones self'. School is not like that.

First off to state the obvious you need an education to go to college or get a decent job. The number of apprenticeships available to people who do not have the skills and qualifications are limited.

Second- History isn't just about learning about what happened in the past. It is about learning the lifestyle and cultures of your ancestors and understanding how things came about and how we have progressed to where we are today. Mathematics and English language are essentials skills for any job when working in the United States or United Kingdom. And whilst some lessons might study certain things in more depth- this broadens pupils knowledge and gets them interested in something that they might not have discovered themselves.

Skills are actually explored deeply in the United Kingdom- when teaching a class I have to state how I broaden their critial thinking- I won't bore you with the psychological side of it but it had become a main focus within education. And one thing I can agree on in the post is that Schools should make the topic interesting by having debates, puzzles, problem solvers etc. And whilst he may not like it studies prove that repeition in learning, by doing homework, can increase the chances of that learning being remembered long term.

The internet is a great place but I think alot of people who grew up with it take it for granted (me included). That's why when I set specific homework out I tell children that whilst the internet can be used they also need to collect hard evidence such as leaflets, posters etc (not printed out) - Not because I want to make it more difficult and make them actually do something for a change (that's about 35% of the reason) but because it's gets them to explore the world physically- and that had shown to have a deeper impact than stuff you learn on the net.

Rant is over Anyway I finally finished my final (maybe not) year at university and going into the hard work of- Primary school teacher!!!!! Seems to be an endless cycle. I wish you guys all the best for the new acedemic year.

[Your Vest Friend]

The internet is a great place but I think alot of people who grew up with it take it for granted (me included).

Wait, if you're qualified as a teacher, you must be older than me...you must be one pretty well-off citizen to have grown up with the internet, I didn't have wide access to it for resources until year 10!

[Blackbell]

Wait, if you're qualified as a teacher, you must be older than me...you must be one pretty well-off citizen to have grown up with the internet, I didn't have wide access to it for resources until year 10!

Only 22/23- I've gone from one degree to another. - I was lucky to grow up in a family that supported my education and learning- and my school was pretty good when it came to ICT- though it was less used then than it is now. Something as small as 5 years can make a huge difference. When I went to school mobile phones could only text and call people (and maybe play Snake if you got a Nokia)- I went into a secondary school for training (this is high school aged children for those who aren't aware). These children were about 5 years younger and I saw about 5 pupils reach for their phone and going on facebook!!!!

I'm an ICT co-ordinator and all the time I hear children moan about how difficult everything is- doing research and finding out different stuff. Many of the children don't believe me when I tell them I didn't have the internet when I was their age- and that I did all the research by going to a library and looking through BOOKS (that's a word you don't want to use).

[Your Vest Friend]

Only 22/23- I've gone from one degree to another. - I was lucky to grow up in a family that supported my education and learning- and my school was pretty good when it came to ICT- though it was less used then than it is now. Something as small as 5 years can make a huge difference. When I went to school mobile phones could only text and call people (and maybe play Snake if you got a Nokia)- I went into a secondary school for training (this is high school aged children for those who aren't aware). These children were about 5 years younger and I saw about 5 pupils reach for their phone and going on facebook!!!!

I'm an ICT co-ordinator and all the time I hear children moan about how difficult everything is- doing research and finding out different stuff. Many of the children don't believe me when I tell them I didn't have the internet when I was their age- and that I did all the research by going to a library and looking through BOOKS (that's a word you don't want to use).

My family supported it, but they couldn't afford it until I was in about year 5/6, and that was severely limited. High School had ICT rooms but they were on a very limited quota so it was usually more reliable to get a book out of the library until you got to the GCSEs for real. And I'm only two years older than they are, if that, by your scale! And I still only use my mobile for phoning and texting, and that's pretty rare.

If it weren't for the environment you were in, I'd say that you should have asked "Have you heard of a goddamn glossary or index, luv?".

[Patch Black]

Deleted

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Okay, so I am having a hard time right now writing a Susan Griffin style essay. This is the requirement:

For your first essay, you are invited to mimic Griffin’s style by choosing five or six topics that you can use to construct an essay of “sections” that should seem to the reader to be independent of each other. As you tell your various stories, you should think of ways in which you can slowly and carefully reveal the relationships between them, just as Griffin does.

From the text: “You will need to think about the stories you might tell, about the stories and texts you might gather (stories and texts not your own). As you write, you will want to think carefully about arrangement and about commentary (about where, that is, you will speak to your reader as the writer of the piece). You should not feel bound to Griffin’s subject matter, but you should feel that you are working in her spirit (711-712). [The expanded description of this assignment can be located on those pages.]

My intended topics so far are:

Sonic Generations Tournament

Echo and Narcissus

Money

Edited September 26, 2012 by Forten Neintiinain

[Autosaver]

I got a D on my first math test.

It's Algebra II + Trig Honors and most of my mistakes were dumb ones though.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I y+x I <"some number that I can't remember" Graph the inequality. How do I even do this because it isn't anywhere in my textbook. The "I" means absolute just for note.

[Sly4Good]

I y+x I <"some number that I can't remember" Graph the inequality. How do I even do this because it isn't anywhere in my textbook. The "I" means absolute just for note.

Y has to equal whatever x equals to, so, in |y+x|, if X was 2, it should equal (2,4), with 2 representing x, and 4 representing y...if I did my math right because that's all we've done in my Algebra class for the past 2 months........