The intensity of a student in Cambridge has truly set in. The sad part is that I am taking courses that are not really up to the true potency of that of a normal course, as they are all watered down a bit to accommodate non-majors (though in some cases, I do not believe even the watered down cases are truly enough for a non-major). I believe that in a way we are all by their standards non-majors though. Over here when you are 16 you specialize and you are done with gen-eds...in America I will still be getting rid of the pesky gen-eds at age 21 (though odds are I won't learn anything in the gen-eds at my university, I never really seem to, as my university's gen-eds basically cover high school material). This is just how it measures out though. One of my main desires for coming over here was to see how I measure up to students in a real academic university (lets face it, Lander is easymode...we all know the difficulty isn't anything like a real well-known university). It has been nice in this matter. The students I am attending classes with are the pick of the crop from Harvard, Yale, etc. I feel like I am pairing up well enough with them, but certainly not anywhere near the level of achievement I attain at Lander.
So yes, I suppose I have just spoken poorly of Lander, but I haven't said anything that wasn't true or that anyone didn't really know (if you didn't know it, or you are offended, lol @ you!). It is a good institution, but it does not hold its students to the academic standards of prime universities. I am studious enough to account for this over here, but it is a world more difficult. Part of me is excited by this, it is a challenge, but part of me hates that these courses are going on my gpa and are likely to crush it.
Alright, so that was the nasty gritty bit I needed to get out. So what has happened since Thursday? Not very much at all. On Thursday I had class a bit later than normal so I got to sleep in, then bought groceries for the weekend (simply can't afford to eat out all weekend, and I bought more than enough food for Saturday and Sunday for about 5 quid). My first math class ran from 2-6, a brutal 4 hours. I really do not like this class at all. If they allowed you to drop a course I would have. It is taught by Hungarians, in Hungarian style. On weekends, apparently (yes, from what they have told me they do this extra on weekends for FUCKING FUN), they will all gather at a place and they are given a set of problems. As they solve a problem, they are given the next. Now when I say a set of problems, I mean there are multiple problems from different categories. You might get one from logic, one from game strategy, one from statistics, and one from numbers. After a few hours they give everyone another set of problems. So you are constantly immersed in these problems, drowning with no way to get out.
If that wasn't bad enough, you work alone. Yes, their method could be a bit effective. Once you stare at that problem for hours and figure it out yourself, you know it, and it does help you with solving the next one. I solved 11 problems in 10 hours of classes between today and yesterday. It does help to be forced to figure these things out on your own, but if someone had shown me some examples and let me play with things myself, I think it would have been just as effective. It's like they are giving you blocks, and telling you to build a tower. There are many ways you could build this tower, but only one is right. If perhaps they had shown you the ground level of their building scheme, you could mimic it and expand on the later levels. But no, they want you to figure out the ground level building scheme yourself to build and expand on. While it may work after hours of seriously wanting to crucially injure yourself, I do not think their method is very effective.
"What is this? This is nothing! I don't think you know what a set is!"
"I'M NOT A MATHEMATICIAN. I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT A SET IS."
Yeh, that was an actual conversation between me and the professor. I have since tried to only converse with his assistants.
The girl I sat to during this math class, Sarah, was at least pretty awesome. She is a linguistics major, which though it may seem like I have an advantage being a chemistry major, I feel like we are fairly evenly matched in wits (which means we are both feeling like idiots). Just knowing someone else was having as terrible a time as I was was quite nice, and we had a nice lunch.
That's pretty much it. The only other notable thing was the formal hall on Thursday. I sat next to a girl named Joy, who seemed to enjoy the alcohol as much as I did. After the people across from us had left we switched our empty wine glasses with the full or almost full ones they had left. Now that's classy!
I'm done for now. This time next week I will be getting completely obliterated because I will be done with this damn math class. Cheers to then!
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