August 28, 2007

School Daze....

Today was the first day of school here at Tiny U.    We've recently developed a new program that funnels most of its students into my class, so the class was double the size this year.

That's 12 instead of 6.

It's an interesting mix.  I have everything from 17 and 18 year old traditional freshmen to students who are my age and returning to finish up the prerequisite classes for medical school.  Most of them are very bright, and you can bet I'm going to be riding the asses of the low ones to keep up, because they all have serious potential to do well.

As usual, the first class was pretty short.  I had a 15 slide power point which was both introductory material (biological chemistry stuff) and points about the syllabus (show up, don't cheat, do your work, come to office hours).  Then we talked briefly about lab safety and all the dos and don'ts of the lab.  Most of which are common sense.  Like don't touch a hot plate, you can't tell if it's too hot or not.  Or never pipet by mouth.  Umm.  EWWWWW.  And yet, there are idiots in this world who do.  I swear.

We were done by the time I should have been done lecturing.  Yay me.  So I spent the next hour wrestling a copier and copying the first two chapters for students whose books still haven't arrived.  See, one of the drawbacks of being Tiny U. is that we don't have a bookstore.  So students have to order their books online or look for them at USC, UCLA, or some other large bookstore.  And that can take time.  In a class I taught 2 years ago, the books were backordered from the publisher and we couldn't do anything about it for 3 weeks.  Ugh.  What a mess.

The other thing about this class is that it starts at 8am.  Which means that to get here on time I need to leave my house before 7am.  6:30 if I need to make a stop at the gas station or Whorebucks. (or Coffee Bean.... or Peet's).  And then when I get here, it's a toss up as to whether I'll be able to get set up as I need security to let me in to the classroom and to open up the computer podium for me.  Urg.  Try finding a security guard when you need one.  In the hood.....

Anyway, if you need me 8-12 Tuesday and Thursday or 9-10 Friday, Pacific Time, AM, you know where I'll be.  Broadening young minds.  Heh.  Yeah, that's it.

Posted by caltechgirl at August 28, 2007 10:37 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I hope the first day went great! :)

Posted by: Richmond at August 28, 2007 11:07 AM

14 more weeks until December breal!

Posted by: wRitErsbLock at August 28, 2007 11:42 AM

breaK even

Posted by: wRitErsbLock at August 28, 2007 11:42 AM

Better you than me. *grin* First of all.... early!!! (Help!) Second of all... teaching!!! (Kill me!) LOL.

Posted by: Teresa at August 28, 2007 01:06 PM

ugh. good luck and all that.

Posted by: vw bug at August 28, 2007 04:48 PM

Wow, I'm glad I don't need security to let me in places...I get here at 7 and I'm usually the one unlocking all the doors. Security kind of doesn't know we exist because we're away from the main campus.

And on the textbook thing - we have a bookstore but I have many, many students whose "financial aid checks haven't come in" (or that's what they tell me), and so they don't have the book. Or they don't buy the book because the money that they save buys a couple rounds of beer. Or whatever.

Posted by: ricki at August 29, 2007 05:26 AM

I feel your pain. Not as the teacher, but as the student.

Posted by: Mia at August 31, 2007 10:52 AM