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Dark Spartan796 |
A thought occurred to me that I’ve been mulling over the last couple of days. I’m a senior in high school, and graduation is May 30. Today is April 20. I’m a little over a month from graduating.
It’s interesting to think how life will be, seeing as I’ve lived a life where school takes up eight hours of my weekdays for the last eleven years. In reality, the schooling’s still not over, taking to account at least four more years in college.
Right now, I’m taking these dual-credit courses which can count for both high school and college credit, so that you can graduate from high school, but you won’t have to take the courses going into college. Thing is, they’re, expectedly, college level classes. I signed up for Economics 2301, Government 2305, and English Composition 1301 and 1302. I’m going to list a few reasons that if you have the opportunity to do something like this, don’t:
- For me, they are held very early in the morning, about an hour before actual school starts, which is at 8:30 am. This makes the classes start at around 7:30, and run to about 9:00. Seniors have the ability to have one period (of four during the day, we’re on a block schedule), dedicated to either late arrival or early release, which are first and fourth periods, respectively. The college classes overlap with the late arrival, so we are required to have that. I’m not a morning person by any definition of the term. There is NOTHING you can learn about economics or government through one bloodshot eye in the morning.
- If you’re not prepared for college-level work, the difficulty of the classes will come to you as a swift kick in the balls. Don’t expect to come out of it with a good GPA.
- If you fail these classes, since these replace normal high school credits, you either have to make the credits up with a remedial course or not graduate.
- Teachers are from the Austin Community College campuses. Some are nice, like my English teacher, some are boring, like my Economics teacher, and some are condescending bitches, like my Government teacher. Be aware of which teachers you might get, because they teach college classes, and they’re not going to ease their game up for a bunch of high school kids.
Right now, the only major concern I have is number 3, and only for my Government class. There’s only a few opportunities for grades there. There are three exams, and four position paper essays. The tests are of course murder, and if you bomb those, the papers are your saving grace. Luckily, I seem to be a decent writer (so she says), and it may come down to this last paper and test which may make or break the class. If I can pull another 93 on the essay like I did last time, I should be fine. Not an easy task, given that the papers must be at least four pages long double spaced, cited in APA style, as well as an electronic copy e-mailed to her before 6 am on the day the paper is due. The last paper I did the night before it was due. Don’t let it come to you burning six hours of your Tuesday night writing a paper on each of the 2008 election’s candidates’ views on foreign policy. Hey, it worked for me, but it’s not something I’d want to do again.
In the past, I’ve never put a lot of thought into where I wanted to go to school, mainly because I never knew what I wanted to have as a profession. Earlier in my high school years I was exceptional in math and science. Things started slipping last year in the junior pre-calculus class. I’m in the “distinguished” plan, which is pre-Advanced Placement (Pre-AP) and Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which are of course harder and look nicer on your transcript. I started slacking off last year, and my grade (and class rank) took a downturn because of it.
They say there’s a “disease” which affects nearly all seniors, called “senioritis.” To those unfamiliar with the term, it’s the feeling of complacency and slacking off a senior experiences once they realize that graduation is right around the corner, and school is finished for them. Thinking all the hard work is out of the way, they let it all slip the last year, which doesn’t always look good on transcripts.
When the year began back in August, I made the mistake of signing up for the AP Calculus course. I passed the Pre-Cal course with a 79, so I’m not sure what possessed me to keep at it. I guess I was just deluded back then. I had a decent hold on the concepts of derivatives and stuff for the first six weeks, but then it all kept coming. If you didn’t understand a concept by the time the next one was introduced, you were doomed to be left behind. And I was. The fact that the teacher, who is 28 years old and is still in grad school, is a bitch doesn’t help either.
But that’s not where it ends. Towards the end of the first semester, things got out of control. Here’s the story:
In the AP Calculus class, whenever the class takes a test, they have the opportunity (by that I mean “required”) to correct any missed problems for half credit to be added to the existing score. This was done in place of retaking the test for a 70. Basically you wrote out the problem, did it correctly, and explained why you missed it. Fair enough. Here’s the thing: the tests were not to leave the classroom under ANY circumstances. Well, one of the tests mysteriously disappeared one day.
She just about lost it. She, in her infinite wisdom, decided that until the test was returned to the classroom, no test corrections could be turned in. If the test was not returned by the correction due date, the test grades went into the gradebook as is, which would result in the majority of the class failing for the grading period. Two days later the test was returned, found on the owner’s car windshield.
Since the test was back, we thought our corrections were all fine and dandy. But wait! She’s changing the agreement! Now she wants to know who did it. Until someone came up and confessed, no corrections would go in, same as before. She said the person who confessed would not be punished. Based on her honesty in the original agreement, we knew this was a lie.
The class just about panicked. They knew no one would willingly step up and admit it, for fear of getting punished. Some students, terrified of failing, wanted someone, anyone, to step up and admit it, even if they didn’t actually do it. Guess who was asked to take the fall?
Upon being asked to take the fall, I kindly told the students to go fuck themselves. Apparently someone else went in and constructed a lie for the teacher, saying a freshman took it out of her room (she also teaches freshman algebra).
She then got up in front of the class and told us how disappointed she was, and that she still wanted to know who REALLY did it. Apparently to her, my low performance in her class–
Sorry, let me interrupt my own story for a second. Halfway through the semester I realized that signing up for the class was a mistake, and that since I had fulfilled the necessary three math credits to graduate, I could just drop the class for the second semester and still graduate. No longer motivated to pass, I skipped out on the notes, didn’t do the homework, and flunked the tests. Oh, and I didn’t do corrections.
Anyway, she decided my low performance in her class was a good enough excuse for her to accuse me of taking the test to cheat. That’s where I lost it.
In my school career, I have never been disciplined once. No detention, no suspension, no nothing. Plus, I’m in the National Honor Society (I know that last paragraph doesn’t reflect it), and would such a student cheat? No. I had it. The second semester I dropped the class, and signed up for the team which worked on the school yearbook. That was heaven for me. The yearbook teacher is the same as the newspaper teacher, and he likes me to no end. And so I dazzled everyone with my incredible Photoshop skills and we all lived happily ever after, the end. When my yearbook comes, I’ll scan in the pages I worked on so you can see them.
Anyway, getting back to the “where I’m going to college” topic, I missed the deadline to apply to the University of Texas in Austin, so I applied to Texas State University in San Marcos, about 20 minutes away. I decided to major in graphic design. From what I’ve read, TSU has a nice department for such fields. In my second year I might transfer to University of Texas in San Antonio, because Jake wants me to room with him and they also have a great graphic design program. Sounds like fun.
It’s amazing to think about what’s going to happen after this May. I won’t be weighed down by high school anymore. I’m actually going to have to start working this summer, I may take up a job at the call center where Jake and about six of my other friends work. Hope I can deal with stupid people bitching about their internet!
So that brings a close to my very long and boring story. If you’ve read this far, congratulations! You win absolutely nothing! YAAAAY!
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