Hey, everyone! It has been awhile since I last posted a blog entry, and this past semester had been quite an experience for me so I was kind of preoccupied with other things to keep posting.
Sometimes I post personal stuff here, but the blog is still called "Musings of a Female College Student," so I want to take some time and talk about collegiate stuff.
This past semester (Spring 2011) started off pretty well. I liked my teachers, my classes seemed interesting, so on and so forth. However, when I registered for these classes, I was not prepared for the amount of reading that would await me.
I fell behind almost immediately.
About 2 or 3 weeks into the semester, I started having panic attacks. Even when I wasn't having a panic attack, I felt buzzed. I was very tense, shakey, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I had dry mouth and I was afraid to talk sometimes because I was trying to conserve breath. When I woke up in the morning I would cry and dread the day.
I told my therapist about these things, and she agreed that I should go on meds. Of course, all of these things going on affected my academic experience, so I chose to withdraw from a class so I can do better in my 4 other classes. Ironically, I withdrew from a Roots of Literature class, and that was pretty shameful given that I was still an English major at that time (I'll talk about why I changed my major in another blog entry).
I strategically chose what class I wanted to withdraw from. I picked the Roots of Literature class because the teacher made the course too challenging for me. Also, this was my earliest class--9 AM--so I figured it was worth dropping for that reason alone.
Withdrawing from a class does not mean you get a 0. You just get a W. It does not affect your GPA whatsoever. However, there is the issue of making up credits. Also, this class is still part of my core, so I'm going to have to retake it sometime.
That said, in order to have 15 credits by next fall (because I would not want to take 6 classes in the fall, that's for sure) I decided to take a summer class. At Manhattan College, summer classes are broken up into 3 sessions--Summer I, Summer II, and Summer III. So depending on how early in the summer you want to take your class, you have to register for a class within that session's time frame. I chose to go with Summer I, because it ran from May 24th until June 9th. I registered for my third science class, because I have to take 3 for my core, even though science has nothing to do with my major.
So now I'm taking Intro to Meteorology. With all that's been going on with the weather lately, it's a very relevant-to-life class. The professor also makes the class interesting, and he likes to play music in the beginning of class and during lab. It's easier to retain what I learn because the class is condensed into 2 and a half weeks.
You don't want to make a habit of withdrawing--so my advice is if you realize from the get-go that a class is going to be too difficult, try to switch out within the first week of the semester and transfer to another class. I didn't withdraw from this class until almost half-way through the semester, and even if I wanted to switch to another class, it was already too late. I did not even voluntarily register for the class I withdrew from--I was placed there along with several other students by the registrar. It can happen. I originally registered for another professor's Roots of Literature class.
Going back to summer classes, they can be kind of costly. I think we got a little discount because withdrew by a certain point of the semester, but it still cost a lot.
So, bottom line, there's no shame in withdrawing if you really have to. Don't make it a habit, though, because making up credits and taking summer classes are both expensive.
This was kind of a dry entry, but it was college-related and relevant, so I felt like writing it anyway.
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