Friday, May 25, 2018

Summer School


As I noted in an earlier post, I'm teaching two classes (let's hope -- one hasn't made yet) this summer.

The Kid is also taking a class at my university this summer. This is for two reasons -- one, it's much cheaper to take a class here than up at the flagship U; and two, it's their math req, and taking it all by itself will allow them to focus just on math. They're much better at math than Dr. Skull and I are, but it's not their strongest subject.

Anyway! My point! Signing the Kid up for a class has let me see the mechanics of university life from the other side. While it's much easier than it was in our days, in that lots of it can be done sitting in your living room via your computer, rather than walking all over a miserably hot campus from building to building, it's still a heap of fiddle to collect and stick in the right slots -- transcripts, shot records, SS#, official # for high school, dates for same, official # for all universities attended, dates for same, ACT/SAT scores...

All to take a single summer class.

I can see why each bit of data is necessary, mind you. But I can also see why some prospective students, who don't understand the need for all this data, might give up and decide to work at the water park instead.


2 comments:

nicoleandmaggie said...

I really appreciated the ability to take a single course over the summer at the uni where my mom works. I did that with two calc classes in high school and finally understood general chemistry (after not having any in high school and then really not getting it my first semester of college). My mom took care of all the application stuff for me... I am very grateful! (She was also the student advisor for her department for a few years and helped a lot of students out with the mess that even current students have to deal with--- you're right that it must be even harder for prospective students.)

delagar said...


It's been an education for me, too -- I had no idea what it was like from the student side of registration!

We've got the kid accepted into the university, but we still haven't got them registered for the class. That's another entire ball of wax, apparently. Doing that on Monday.