First Week of School
2014-10-05 21:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asher553So yeah, I'm back taking classes at Portland State. My major is officially either Physics / English or Engineering / English; I can't remember what I changed it to last.
I was nervous about going back to school at first but by the end of the first week I was just stoked. I made up my mind to dig in and try to do well in all the classes I'm taking. I'm signed up for full-time, 16 hours, four classes.
US History to 1840 - I am not crazy about the instructor's delivery style but I am warming to her. And I'm getting interested in the material, and I'm excited by the idea that if I make the effort and master the material, I'll end up actually knowing something about American history - which was always kind of a blur for me.
Linear Algebra - This is just what it says, algebra with linear equations. What's different from high-school algebra is we just drop all the x's and y's and write the coefficients as matrices. Later I guess we're going to do other stuff with vectors and matrices. As with History, I felt nervous and intimidated at first, but once I started buckling down and trying to really gain control of it, it wasn't so hard and turned out to be kind of fun.
Modern Physics - The instructor is a chubby, jovial German with round glasses. He hasn't assigned any homework yet. He says the math in modern physics isn't really that hard, the hard part is just wrapping your brain around the concepts.
Intro to Acting - You know, I've always secretly wanted to take a course in acting, and this year I finally decided I was going to do it. The instructor is a gentle but commanding presence, a sort of mild-mannered drill instructor. (You just have to try to picture a mild-mannered drill instructor.) All of the first week was spent in team-building exercises. One of these was to get up and simply answer fourteen questions - mostly about your family background and your relationship to the theatre. Then you were to write your answers into the form of a two-minute talk and deliver it. To my great shame, I missed the original deadline last Wednesday (I'd simply misunderstood the instructor, and hadn't bothered to double-check) but he gave me an extension to next Monday, and by golly I'm ready!
I was nervous about going back to school at first but by the end of the first week I was just stoked. I made up my mind to dig in and try to do well in all the classes I'm taking. I'm signed up for full-time, 16 hours, four classes.
US History to 1840 - I am not crazy about the instructor's delivery style but I am warming to her. And I'm getting interested in the material, and I'm excited by the idea that if I make the effort and master the material, I'll end up actually knowing something about American history - which was always kind of a blur for me.
Linear Algebra - This is just what it says, algebra with linear equations. What's different from high-school algebra is we just drop all the x's and y's and write the coefficients as matrices. Later I guess we're going to do other stuff with vectors and matrices. As with History, I felt nervous and intimidated at first, but once I started buckling down and trying to really gain control of it, it wasn't so hard and turned out to be kind of fun.
Modern Physics - The instructor is a chubby, jovial German with round glasses. He hasn't assigned any homework yet. He says the math in modern physics isn't really that hard, the hard part is just wrapping your brain around the concepts.
Intro to Acting - You know, I've always secretly wanted to take a course in acting, and this year I finally decided I was going to do it. The instructor is a gentle but commanding presence, a sort of mild-mannered drill instructor. (You just have to try to picture a mild-mannered drill instructor.) All of the first week was spent in team-building exercises. One of these was to get up and simply answer fourteen questions - mostly about your family background and your relationship to the theatre. Then you were to write your answers into the form of a two-minute talk and deliver it. To my great shame, I missed the original deadline last Wednesday (I'd simply misunderstood the instructor, and hadn't bothered to double-check) but he gave me an extension to next Monday, and by golly I'm ready!
