had my first day of in person classes today

[LeftyMom]

I got into the two I was waitlisted on just fine. I just really really really need to remember to eat breakfast next time, since I have classes until a little after the typical lunch hour.

It went okay though, other than being quite hungry.

[u4ic]

1. What are you taking?

Good luck! :hug:

[LeftyMom]

2. Poli sci, business law, public speaking and human sexuality

Oh, and a composition class, but that's online and started last week.

[mtowngman]

3. That sounds like a heavy schedule-Good Luck n/t

[LeftyMom]

11. It shouldn't be too bad

I did four years of speech in high school, so I could do that half asleep and standing on my head. The human sexuality instructor is said to be an easy A. The other three sound reasonably challenging but well within my capabilities.

[ThomCat]

4. Watch out for those Labs in Human Sexuality.

They can get adictive. :P

[LeftyMom]

12. I can't wait to find out what my homework is.

:P

[rug]

6. Sounds like you plan to open a brothel.

[LeftyMom]

13. Wonder if I could get an SBA loan for that?

:P

[Magrittes Pipe]

9. "Hey, Ralph! How much for a copy of 'Orgasm'?"

"What?"

"A copy of 'Orgasm.' This man wants to buy a copy."

[arwalden]

19. ~

[xmas74]

5. Congrats!

Classes started here in town today and our streets are just packed.

I'll wish you the best whenever I walk down the street from my house past the university in town.

[LeftyMom]

14. Traffic was nasty, parking was a nightmare.

Luckily the school I'm attending is not terribly far from my house. Even with the congestion and having to wait multiple cycles at a few lights it was still only a 15 minute drive.

I should see how long it would take to ride my bike over there- I could throw my books in my panniers.

[xmas74]

25. Parking is a nightmare here too.

You have to pay for a pass here-either by the month or the semester. Quite a few houses around here actually rent out their driveways to students while they are at work for extra money.

My brother and his wife park their cars at my house and either walk or bike over to the school. They can't afford the parking pass right now (it's pretty expensive) and when they've had it they've had to park pretty far off. It ends up being closer for them to walk than to drive.

[LeftyMom]

26. I was lucky, I got a deeply discounted pass

Even without, it's still much cheaper than parking at my sister's school.

I just need to make a point of getting there a bit earlier, I wound up at the extreme far end of the parking lot farthest from my classes, which made me a touch late for the first one. Now that I have a better idea of where I'm headed I should be able to get a slot much nearer my classes provided I leave a bit earlier.

I think early morning parking will get easier as people drop classes, too. Congestion should really thin out the first cold morning.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. My dear LeftyMom!

I'll bet you were too nervous to really eat today.......

But now you'll be OK.......

Good Luck....not that you need it, of course!

:toast:

[LeftyMom]

15. I wasn't too nervous, it just took me forever to get out of bed.

I stayed up too late last night watching a movie.

[Lisa]

8. I've had days when I remember during class that I forgot to eat breakfast

... and it's usually not a good thing, since I'm generally the instructor, and people notice! I usually have a fruit bar in my bag, but the last time it was totally useless because I was speaking in front of a big 2nd-year class and I couldn't get to it. (I had a sugar low during a 3-hour lab once -- I'm sure the students thought they'd ended up with a classic "absent-minded professor".)

p.s. I've found that dried fruit is even better as an emergency food stash than chocolate, because while the sugar doesn't hit you as quickly, it seems to last longer (and I don't feel as tired after it burns off).

[LeftyMom]

16. I get a bit shaky.

Usually I keep some nuts or a Luna bar in my bag to prevent that kind of thing. I thought I'd have time to stop and get breakfast but I ran a bit late.

[WCGreen]

10. My class today I was older than everyone by at least 25 years..

And the teacher by at least 15...

So it is going to be fun....

Poli Sci and Business Law...

Taking business and A&S classes is like being Jekle and Hyde....

[LeftyMom]

17. I wasn't as much older than my classmates as I was afraid of.

I think (judging by the fact that they dress like high schoolers) that I have a few years on most of them, but there were definitely a few people who were older than me by quite a bit.

All of my instructors are boomers, as most of the teachers there appear to be. I wonder if they're going to be in a lurch for qualified replacements in a few years when they start retiring?

[WCGreen]

18. Perhaps....

Now you need to be a doctor to teach in Community College, at least here in Ohio...

[Lisa]

21. one of my students this summer is in her fifties ...

She scored at the top of her class -- great attitude, came to all the lectures, and really threw herself into the major project. I thought it was cool that, even though she was new to the subject area (cultural geography), she really got into it! She was working with a guy who was in his late teens -- he was great too, and together they did more work than some of the groups which had 3 or 4 people in them. Neither of them tried to boss the other around -- sometimes there can be some problems if the younger people feel scornful of or intimidated by a mature student -- but things worked out perfectly this time. Last week he asked me if I could write him a letter for grad school. I'd be happy to recommend both of them!

I'm almost 40 now ... one of the people who was told that there would be a huge surge of demand for profs once the retirements started. So far, though, I haven't had a "big break", even though I've noticed my supervisor and committee members starting to plan their exits. Instead of opening up tenure-track positions to replace them, our school is being cheap (okay, to be fair they did have funding cutbacks) and is trying to take up the slack with short-term contracts and even term-by-term sessional lecturers like me and the other recent graduates. I've heard this is happening at universities and colleges all over. They've started stipulating all kinds of technical skills (geomatics, etc.) with every new position that does get posted -- often this is for fields which didn't require this kind of thing previously, and some faculty members are saying that this is either due to a) latching onto industry buzzwords which happen to be the fad now, or b) trying to get two instructors for the price of one.

So I've been trying to keep up my teaching skills by filling in for people who are on sabbatical or sick leave -- and getting experience in a variety of different areas (sciences as well as the humanities) to increase my flexibility and range.

[petronius]

24. Howdy, fellow geographer!

:hi:

I remember hearing that there would be a huge job market as well - and the people who told me that still haven't retired... I've also noticed the same thing about current job listings; I doubt if there are 10% of the listings in the JIG that don't say something like "GIS/Remote sensing expertise required" - no matter what the actual specialization is supposed to be. It works for me, since I actually do a lot of that stuff, but it's pretty ridiculous.

[Lisa]

27. howdy to you!

I swear that I saw a posting for Marxist geography a while back, which stipulated GIS/remote sensing/geomatics! It's become a standing joke for the job-seekers in my department. As you say, they seem to want it for everything ... and most of the new hires don't end up teaching that anyway.

The guy who did get hired at our school on a 3-year contract is grumbling because he has to spend the whole time teaching GIS (he's actually an historical geographer). I did some work on the GRASS system for my MSc research, but as for teaching other people how to use it ... I'm actually better at research methods (and some stats). I probably should have gone past the ArcInfo intro just to make myself more employable, but since I don't use it regularly I'm pretty rusty. And as the historical geography guy remarked, all that just to get a job not in my original specialization? Yeah, as opposed to "no job", sure ... but one of the other grads, who just finished an applied remote sensing dissertation, says she's also having problems finding work. So she's going for her Registered Professional Forester qualification next month.

I think that some of the comments raised in Nadine Schuurman's GIS paper way back in the 90s are still relevant. People were concerned that the specialized background required (and the costs of software, hardware, data, etc.) made it harder to break into teaching and research. Another grad and I have a cool project idea, but we're thinking of trying to do it without GIS because neither of us have access to adequate facilities at present. My supervisor commented that we'd have a much better chance of getting funding if we could somehow work GIS or geomatics into the proposal, but unfortunately neither of us is in the "GIS lab club" in our respective departments, and unless the grant turned out to be a real whopper, I know I wouldn't be able to book time or assistance in the big lab.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. Don't be one of those people

In my experience in university level teaching, the returning students can be either wonderful, or monumental pains in the ass. The latter is especially true when the instructor is much younger than the returning student, a situation I'd faced frequently when I was teaching in graduate school, and continue to see each semester. So, when is a returning student a pain in the ass? When he or she is under the deluded belief that life experience trumps knowledge of the subject matter. They will often make comments in class that begin "My daughter...," or "Well, I own my home and...," or "When I started working in 1979..." These comments are invariably met by massive eyerolling among the other students, and with good reason: they are more focused on inflating the status of the returning student and trumping counter-arguments with life-experience than they are with wrestling with the material. When I was a graduate student, and - like most graduate student instructors - still working to establish my voice and style in the classroom, I'd often entertain such commentary, but now I have less patience for it. "Tie it in to the material, please," is my response now. Now, needless to say, a good classroom teacher will draw on such life experience to make points, etc. But the excessive declaration of life experience among returning students is not only disruptive, it is often pointless, and this is clearly recognized by the majority of traditional students as well as the majority of instructors. Point being: don't be that person!

[Lisa]

23. one good thing about getting older -- I now have my own "geezer tales"!

In previous years, I was at a bit of a disadvantage, because younger-looking people (especially women) can be disregarded by not just the older students, but the teenagers as well. I was actually happy when I started to get some white hairs.

Luckily most of the returning students I've had have been just great. I did have some trouble a while back with a couple of guys who were not really in the "mature student" age category (one had trained as a pilot, and the other claimed to be serving in the military), who would loudly assert that something in the textbook was wrong ... almost always they turned out to be mistaken. I think the problem might have been that they actually weren't old enough -- that is, to have been taught to be conscious of manners (when to sit down and let someone else get a word in edgewise). Regardless of the age of the "PITA" (pain in the ass), I picked up a similar strategy to yours -- if they don't make it relevant to the course material, I would jump in and do it for them, often introducing a technical term or concept which even they had to admit was unfamiliar. Saying things like, "this is such an interesting example that it would be an excellent choice for the final exam" resulted in other students hushing the PITA because they wanted to learn the theoretical background instead.

On one occasion when I had to cut someone off, I said, "I'm so glad you brought that up because we are going to discuss that very point next time -- could you come prepared to explain that to the class as a case study, and we would especially like to hear about the following things in particular ..." Unfortunately the person didn't come to the next class. As for the military guy ... I suggested to him that it would be a great thing if I could invite his commanding officer from the nearby base to give a guest talk on the story which he was telling us (withough directly being skeptical of his claim) ... and for some reason, he decided that would not be a good idea. (Pity.)

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

22. Congrats!!!

I start next wednesday! im a bit nervous