I don’t think I’ve really written about my school situation, but at this point, I feel like I can sum it up like this…
I’m pretty sure it’d suck a lot less if I had managed to get into DES 1 first quarter, but I didn’t. Not that I had much of a chance as a freshman non-major. Still, I dropped down into the single digits of the wait-list (started out in the 70s) before the class closed. If I had gotten in, I could conceivably be taking other design courses right now. But I’m not, since DES 1 is a prerequisite for just about every other design course, and it’s only offered once a year. Arrrrgh.
The thing that annoys me the most is that I almost definitely would’ve made the class had I applied to Davis as a Design major. So why didn’t I? I blame the Office of the University Registrar, who failed to update their online records to reflect the fact that a portfolio is no longer a requirement to apply to the Design major. The Design department website was no help either, making no mention of whether or not a portfolio was required.
Anyhow, my mom convinced me that I couldn’t go wrong if I just applied as Undeclared. So I did.
Wrong. Turns out you can’t declare Design until you’ve taken at least one design course. And you can’t really take any design courses until you’ve taken DES 1. And good luck getting into DES 1 if you’re not a Design major.
In retrospect, I probably should’ve just called and asked them whether or not a portfolio was required. Damnit.
Okay, whatever. I can wait a year. Oh wait, what’s this in my email…
According to our records, you are approaching 90 units and have not yet declared a major. The faculty regulations require that you do so by that point in your academic career, so it is important that you take action soon.
What the fuck? This is my second quarter, and I’m already approaching 90 units?! Where did—oh. That’s right. AP courses. Community college. It’s all coming back to me now. Sigh. I’ll probably go talk to them about my situation, but I have to say, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if I end up having to do something retarded, like declare a random major that I’m going to transfer out of as soon as possible.
And in the meantime, I’ll just spend freshman year clearing through those GEs. At least I don’t seem to have to take any math or science courses.1
Maybe not… but to borrow a gaming term, it really feels like a grind. I’m just not all that interested in the courses I’m taking right now. But I have to slog my way through them before I can get to the good stuff. I can feel myself falling into my high school routine: doing just well enough to get by, just enough work to pass. For better or worse, I’m unable to invest any significant effort into something that I’m not really interested in.
Not that I think upper division design courses will be all candy and rainbows. But at least it’ll be stuff I care about. And history has shown that I do a lot better at stuff I care about.
Like the Landscape Architecture course I took last quarter. Of course, it helped that the professor was entertaining in a former-hippie sort of way. And that I also had an excellent TA. But in the end, it came down to the fact that I cared about the work I was doing. Unsurprisingly, my highest grade was in that course.
Of course I’ll put more effort into classes I actually care about. I guess I’m just disappointed that those classes are few and far between.
Then again, maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should care about more stuff instead of being so obsessed with design. Broaden my horizons or something. Because if I don’t, my cumulative GPA will pretty much suck ass.
I have another one at work: the design phase of my first project is over, and I now have 50+ pages of 1997-era tag soup to convert into clean, valid XHTML. I wish there were some automated solution, but alas, there is no rhyme or reason to the code that would make it feasible.
Man, I need a haircut.
I keep checking the requirements, expecting to find something I’ve overlooked, because not having to take any math or science really sounds too good to be true. Not that I’m complaining. Of course, the downside is that I have to do a lot of writing, since that’s basically what all non-math, non-science classes involve. Theoretically, I’m supposed to do a lot of reading too, but I don’t.2
Yes, this is a footnote on a footnote. Just wanted to say that Daring Fireball–style footnotes are really a rather elegant way of going off on a tangent without breaking narrative flow. I don’t have nice jump links, though, due to technical limitations of this design. Okay, I guess it’s not that elegant. Sorry.