First Semester Grades

I have successfully completed my first semester back to school after almost 10 years away from the classroom. The semester was full of challenges and hard work but it's done.

My "fluff" class was so easy, the professor actually asked me at one point "why are you here?" The only reason I took the class was to qualify for financial aid. I needed to be taking 6 credit hours to receive any financial aid. So I started looking through the classes I had left to finish my degree and found that they all were being held at the same time on the same day. And since I have yet to find a way to be in 2 places at the same time (something that would be increadably helpful in my everyday life, what with Laundry, Nursing, Cleaning, Cooking, Nursing, Cleaning all demanding my attention simultaniously) I found it necessary to enroll in a class that was easy and wouldn't screw up my GPA. I found "Exploring The Internet" and said BINGO!

The class was a Continuing Education course. The professor literally walked us through every lab and homework assignment during class. The sylabus had WAY more material listed then we actually got to. Had we gotten much further through the material, I probably would have found it a bit more challenging. But we seriously never got any more difficult then creating a very basic TicTacToe board. We had to keep a running compaliation of our work. I'd link to my site but we were required to list our real information on several pages, including our actual resume with address. So, in the interest of staying semi-anonomous, I'll just say it was all very very simple.

If you didn't get an A in the class, there was something seriously wrong. Granted, there were several students in the class who seemed COMPLETELY lost even with the hand-holding.

I walked away with a 99.9% (because I missed one class due to a sick kid or something) translating to an A.

Then there was my real course. Business Communications. I was prepared for something about how to write reports, memos, etc. What it really intailed was giving speeches and working in a team to develop a research presentation. Can I just say I HATE public speaking. Add on top of that, I was the second oldest student in the class. Most of our speeches were "pick your topic" type. Of course, since my life revolves around my family and primarily my babies, my speeches were rather odd to the rest of the class. Carseat Safety and Cloth Diapers vs Disposables. At least I knew what I was trying to talk about even if I was stumbling on every other word.

Unfortunately, the grading for this class was completely subjective. There is no "Right" or "Wrong" when it's a speech. The professor judged your speaking abilities and graded you on various aspects. It was nearly impossible to get a grade above a B.

The Team Presentation was frustrating. We were broken into teams and given the assignment on the first night of class. We were suppose to be working on the assignment thru the entire semester. My team never met as an entire team, the Team Leader picked the topic and assigned our parts 5 DAYS before it was due! Luckily, we managed to pull it off and got an 88% on our final presentation.

I managed to pull a B+ from that class.

So all in all, the semester was a success. Now I'm on winter break and I'm really looking forward to next semester.

I'm actually kind of sad that I only have 2 more semesters to complete. I'm starting to think I might start working on something else when I'm finished with my Business degree. Maybe becoming a Doula?