In my first week at OSU I attended the first few sessions for my four classes: Ling 4100, Ling 3701, Geog 1200, and CSE 1223. So far I haven’t done much in the classes themselves but did learn about the general workings of the classes.
One class of note is my Ling 3701 class (Language and the Mind). This class doubles as a psychology class (Psych 3371), which means that some students are taking it for a psychology major rather than linguistics. As the instructor for this class said, some students who took it for one of the class’s two subjects unexpectedly learned a lot about the other as well. Though some past students felt that the class covered subject matter too different from what was advertised, I look forward to learning topics more loosely connected to my major. I also know that understanding aspects of the mind is necessary to know more about the field of linguistics.
My geography class is notable because it does not have any textbooks; rather, students will print reading material for the class from Carmen. This will allow me to absorb a broader range of material (and also save money). While I have had a longtime interest in physical geography and looking at maps, this one covers human geography which could be a more challenging field for me to learn about, but also could be more interesting.
There is little to report so far about dorm life. I have been eating at the Scott and Kennedy Commons dining halls most often, and bought cereal and milk from a nearby Kroger for breakfast. I have been getting along fine with people in my dorm, but have had little interaction with them in general. Since I have various classes scattered throughout the week, as do many students here, it will probably take me a while to start building strong connections with my fellow students. But I am in no hurry to get tied up in the web of social life when I have this much work ahead of me.
There is one major thing I am worried about in college: forgetting important things. I have long struggled with remembering everything I have to do, even with parents to remind me. For instance, this week I missed most of the Honors and Scholars Launch and the beginning of my first Humanities Scholars Seminar session because I realized too late when they were. My method of going against this tendency has been with an online calendar. It started a few years ago, when upon my parents’ instruction I reluctantly started a calendar to put important events in. While I barely used it at first, I now maintain the calendar in much more detail, including every class session I have over the course of this semester. I still haven’t fully got into the habit of checking it, but I am trying to get better with that.