So starts my project!
My name is not really Midori, but for the sake of privacy I will pretend it is. I'm 18 years old and entering Simon Fraser University in the fall.
So "Midori", what's the point of this blog? Is this just another silly teenager's blog about OMG BOYZ MAEKUP LOLOL?
No! It is not. The purpose of this blog is to document the university experience. The ups and downs, the confusion, and of course the experiences.
I am sliiightly obsessive when it comes to planning things. I've been planning my university schedule since grade 9. Okay? Okay. I've looked into just about everything there is to look into about university, especially in the Greater Vancouver area (where I live), and I consider myself somewhat well-versed in university.
HOWEVER. One thing that I REALLY wished for is to find a blog from an SFU student talking about what their first year at SFU was like! For UBC, there's the UBC Blog Squad (an excellent group of bloggers, highly informative and entertaining), but due to my proximity to SFU and my lack of money for dorms, as well as SFU having a better Arts department, I wanted to go THERE.
So, to help out other neurotic planners like myself, I created this blog! I hope it will help you or at least entertain you.
Another secondary purpose of this blog is to keep in touch with my friends who are going to faraway universities or who aren't graduating this year. Instead of me rambling on and on and on to them about things, they can just read this blog to see what's going on in my life!
And believe me, I DO ramble. You will come to learn this, and perhaps, yes, even love it. Not likely, but crazier things have happened.
So, I'll talk a bit about my actual university experience so far.
I applied to SFU and only SFU back when they first opened up the self-reporting grades in December. Being the conscientious student (COUGH COUGH) that I am, I had a fairly high average, and was accepted in February or March I believe. I also got a scholarship. Woohoo!
One thing they DON'T tell you is that they're gonna start taking your money right away. There's the application fee, which is $45 for SFU I believe. Then, once they've actually accepted you, you have to pay $250 to actually get IN. What a rip-off! Oh well. I should get used to being shaken down by SFU.
Currently I'm waiting for the courses to be posted. It's sort of odd. They were posted for the Fall 2010 term for about 2 weeks... and then they disappeared. Now the terms in the online course calendar go "Summer 2010, Spring 2011". Fall 2010 is mysteriously gone. Oh well. I can go to each department's website and try and figure it out from there.
I'm currently planning to major in History. I say 'currently' because I'm sort of rethinking it. If asked what exactly I'm most interested in, I'd say I want to learn how we got to where we are today. This encompasses history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, human geography, archaeology, humanities, etc. Social sciences, basically, the entire department. But I don't know if I'd be able to survive 4 years of history classes. I think my teacher this year has sort of dampened my passion for it. She gives us notes and then we read the notes. That's it. And that's how it's gonna be in university, right? So... I don't know. I suppose I'm just wondering if this is the right path for me.
But I do have an idea of what I want my first semester to look like. So far this is the plan:
HIST101 - Canada Before Confederation
HIST151 - The Modern Middle East
PHYS191 - Introduction to Astronomy
JAPN201 - Advanced Beginners' Japanese I
????
See, I need to take GEOG 162 (Canadian Geography) if I'm planning to become a Social Studies teacher (my back-up plan in case I completely fail at becoming a professor), but it runs at the same time as JAPN201. I figure it's best to take Japanese 1st year while I still remember it from high school than to take it later.
As far as the other courses, I need HIST101 for SS teacher.
HIST151, I know woefully little about Middle Eastern history.
PHYS191, I need a science/quantitative course*, and I love astronomy. Plus I hear the class is really fun and the teacher is great.
I don't know what to take for my 5th course. All the other courses I'd like to take run at the same time as the other courses.
I'd like to take an English course (considering minoring/double-majoring in English, augh) but I want to see which courses offer which reading list BEFORE I decide. And, those aren't up yet.
I was considering taking FPA104 - Music Fundamentals. I know very little about actual musical theory. I mean, I know basic notation and such, I was in choir from grade 3 to 8, but I don't know nearly enough. I never learnt an instrument. But... the class starts at 8:30 or 9:30 I believe... rrrrngh... Plus I hear that non-music students have to work really hard just to keep up and I don't know if I want that sort of stress first term.
*For those of you who don't know, there are what we call WQB requirements at SFU. WQB stands for Writing, Quantitative, and Breadth. You have to take 2 Writing courses (courses that are writing-intensive, usually requiring a couple of term papers in lieu of midterms and finals), 2 Quantitative courses (courses that are math-intensive), and 2 Breadth courses each from Science, Humanitities, and Social Sciences. These requirements are in place to ensure that even though you're a Science major, you can still write a decent paper and know a bit of culture, or even though you're an Arts major, you can still do math and know a bit of science.
Anyways, at this point the most PRESSING thing is AP exams. Dun-dun-duuuuun. I'm in English Lit and Human Geo AP, the exams for which are on this Thursday and next Friday (also the day of my grad, ack). If I get good enough scores, that's like 2 university classes passed already! Alriiiight.
Anyways, I'm going to stop it here for now. I'll update at least once a week with details of university or of my life in general.
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