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Why do people pretend that living a lifestyle like Caligula for 4 years is somehow a great campus life experience that will somehow better prepare them for life?  I think maybe there was a time in America where that (making friends, networking, etc...) was true, but by the time the 60s hit campus life turned into an over glorified whore house with baby sitters. Â
Save money.  Avoid VD.  Get your degree.
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(03-24-2019, 04:50 PM)ScarletHayes Wrote: Why do people pretend that living a lifestyle like Caligula for 4 years is somehow a great campus life experience that will somehow better prepare them for life?  I think maybe there was a time in America where that (making friends, networking, etc...) was true, but by the time the 60s hit campus life turned into an over glorified whore house with baby sitters. Â
Save money.  Avoid VD.  Get your degree.
Most people don't think that. Frats at schools where frats are big-SEC,ACC, the South are basically extensions of adult country club business and social networks,imo. Otherwise frats and sororities are just students wanting a group to hang out w/ at college.
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I wasn't in a frat, does that shock anyone here? I still had a lot of fun, and I don't mean just nonstop sex with babes.
My first wife was in Tri-Del when I met her and I went to a couple dinners at their house. They supposedly were for the smart gals, but at least some of them were dumb as rocks.
I was 25 by then and didn't see much purpose to a frat obviously, nor did I have time. I was routinely running 80-90 hour days, some of that sleeping in a chair while an experiment ran. It was a rush to get done.
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(03-24-2019, 06:52 PM)cincydawg Wrote: I wasn't in a frat, does that shock anyone here? Â I still had a lot of fun, and I don't mean just nonstop sex with babes.
My first wife was in Tri-Del when I met her and I went to a couple dinners at their house. Â They supposedly were for the smart gals, but at least some of them were dumb as rocks.
I was 25 by then and didn't see much purpose to a frat obviously, nor did I have time. Â I was routinely running 80-90 hour days, some of that sleeping in a chair while an experiment ran. Â It was a rush to get done.
Who would've thought that all that hard work would one day pay off for your true calling: Nut House contributor. Looking back, it probably all makes sense now.
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Not much in my life makes any sense to me. I have narrowly missed some dire outcomes many times in my life.
I've run head on to a few. I reckon we all have.
The wife is remarkably tolerant of my, um, "proclivities". We're headed to Boston tomorrow for various reasons, I'm not really all that eager to go.
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My two kids started at THE OSU right out of HS, that fall anyway. I felt they were pretty mature and at the time I was still "out of it". They told me some stories about leaving the dorm for ROTC drill fairly early and some of the other girls were just straggling in from a night out. This would have been Thursday AM. They both graduated "on time" and with decent GPAs. They both now have quite good jobs, better than any I would have expected for them given their majors. A lot of jobs out there just want a degree in "something", anything really. History will suffice.
If you prove to be a reliable person who does a decent job you can expect to do well over time.
The "med school" tract is tough. I was competing with premeds until my junior year when they dropped to other course levels. I was in the upper levels, supposedly, for majors, but it was a LOT easier because the competition was much much softer. We only had 6 people in my PChem class, and they weren't anything like as competitive as the premeds. I later taught chem labs to premeds, I ended up TAing the upper levels, and those were mostly some smart cookies. Nearly all were headed to med or vet school.
One of the best students I had was a trumpet major of all things, he said he just liked chemistry, it was a hobby for him.
If a student is serious about med school, college is going to be tough, a LOT of studying because you will be thrown in with kids in classes that are competitive and tough, forget about any curve on grades. And a few of them will be cheating.
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03-25-2019, 08:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-25-2019, 08:11 AM by ScarletHayes.)
I always respected the hell out of MD's because I realize the course load had to be INSANE. Â Combine that with the balls it takes to be a surgeon, etc... Â Very impressive
As for Chemistry majors, respect the hell out of them too. Â Had to take Gen Chem when I started out in engineering. Â I had no interest and put forth very little effort. Â Anyway, I knew some guys that went further in Chemistry, and from I gather it's no picnic. Â What's the word I'm looking for, not Bio Chemistry, but something that basically means the same thing. Â Guys would tell me those classes were rough. Â
In all honesty, I always think if I had a chance to "do it all over again" I would have gone the chemistry route. Â My mind just wasn't in the right place work and responsibility wise when I was young. I had no college prep for it either because I was a directionless kid in high school.
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What I discovered was that the toughness of classes depended on the caliber of the students in the class. If your peers were smart and hard working, the class was going to be tough.
My first year in grad school we all had to take a course called "Bonding". I sat in the class for two weeks no understanding a thing being discussed. The book made no sense to me, nor did the professor. I'd look around the room seeing these confident faces figuring my grad school career was about to be abbreviated. I think on the first test I got a 57, and the professor read out the top 3 grades and mine was second.
Reality was that most of the grad students were more or less like me, some were weaker, some stronger, but I was obviously able to get through it. When you are in organic chemistry with 30 pre med students, it's going to be very very challenging.
I had a terrific professor for org chem and found I really liked the stuff, so I did pretty well.
I later learned most of what I ever learned about bonding from Pauling's book "The Nature of the Chemical Bond" which was clearly written and fairly short.
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(03-25-2019, 08:10 AM)ScarletHayes Wrote: I always respected the hell out of MD's because I realize the course load had to be INSANE. Â Combine that with the balls it takes to be a surgeon, etc... Â Very impressive
As for Chemistry majors, respect the hell out of them too. Â Had to take Gen Chem when I started out in engineering. Â I had no interest and put forth very little effort. Â Anyway, I knew some guys that went further in Chemistry, and from I gather it's no picnic. Â What's the word I'm looking for, not Bio Chemistry, but something that basically means the same thing. Â Guys would tell me those classes were rough. Â
In all honesty, I always think if I had a chance to "do it all over again" I would have gone the chemistry route. Â My mind just wasn't in the right place work and responsibility wise when I was young. I had no college prep for it either because I was a directionless kid in high school.
Organic chem. That's the weed out course.
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Yeah, we started with 180+ in org chem, people sitting in the aisles, after the first test there were plenty of open seats. By the end of the year, there were 33 still standing.
Most of the 33 were going to med school.
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Yes, organic chemistry. Â That's it. Â
I have a story similar to Cincy's regarding being pleasantly surprised by a bad grade.  I've told you guys I ended up going the math route.  Anyway, will never forget this one particular Calc class taught by some TA from somewhere in the ME.  (Could barely understand a word he said.) So I get my first test back.  34%.  I sat there thinking about if i had time that week to hustle over and drop the class.  Etc...  Then I started hearing audible gasps coming from other students.  Â
Long story short -- My 34% curved to a B. Â Lovely. Â Now I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, and call me crazy, but having a guy that can speak clear English probably would have been a help in a class like calculus. Â But maybe that's just me
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(03-25-2019, 09:21 AM)ScarletHayes Wrote: Yes, organic chemistry. Â That's it. Â
I have a story similar to Cincy's regarding being pleasantly surprised by a bad grade.  I've told you guys I ended up going the math route.  Anyway, will never forget this one particular Calc class taught by some TA from somewhere in the ME.  (Could barely understand a word he said.) So I get my first test back.  34%.  I sat there thinking about if i had time that week to hustle over and drop the class.  Etc...  Then I started hearing audible gasps coming from other students.  Â
Long story short -- My 34% curved to a B. Â Lovely. Â Now I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, and call me crazy, but having a guy that can speak clear English probably would have been a help in a class like calculus. Â But maybe that's just me
I dropped my first organic chem lab section because the TA was an Asian who I could not understand. They had changed to using microscale equipment and you had to literally make a lot of the little glass containers and tools yourself. She would supposedly explain how to do that and the experiment with an English vocabulary that consisted of a half dozen words at most. I dropped the class almost immediately out of frustration.
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