My Final Registration
Two weeks ago I started checking out the list of available classes for the summer and fall semesters against my DegreeWorks worksheet. I’m down to five classes, my friends, and it feels glorious.
However I found myself looking at the lists of classes I need and feeling ambivalent towards them. Or, in the words of one friend, I felt a mighty ‘meh.’ I remember way back when I first started college, looking at class names and thinking, “Ooh! That class sounds cool!” I remember taking classes because the descriptions sounded fun.
Nowadays I don’t have as many options. I look at the classes I have left and wonder, “Where are the fun classes?” For example, I need a management or marketing course and dread them all. They have names like Organizational Behavior or Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Ok, that second one is not in marketing or management departments, but still. These topics are not my cup of tea. Instead of fun, each class is more like a giant mountain that must be climbed to get to the graduation ceremony. I am visualizing that at the top of the fifth mountain there will be a stage to walk across with a dean holding my diploma. I think this is how visualization works.
Another issue I’ve encountered is finding classes that meet on campus. Since I use VA Department education benefits to pay for school, I am required to physically attend at least one class to receive my full housing allowance. If I do not, I am capped at 50% of the housing allowance regardless of how many credit hours I take. For both summer and fall semesters all the classes I need are asynchronous web-based or video streaming web-based. No campus time. I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what to do.
The obvious thing would to do seems to be find some random class and enroll, but there’s a couple of problems with that idea. First, there are usually prerequisites for 300 and 400 level classes. They require a little background in the subject so you can keep up with the workload. Second, there’s the workload itself. I am just looking for a class to fill a hole me my schedule. I don’t really want to take on mountains of extra work so I have an on campus class. Here’s where planning out my course load early on would have been really helpful. Some of it I did, but obviously not enough. During my first semester at ODU I had four classes that met on campus. I would love to have one of those to take now.
Another option is dual enrollment at ODU and my local community college. That brings another set of concerns. I need to ensure that ODU will accept the transfer credit for a class I pick. That’s the easy part. The big issue would be the end of semester dates for the community college versus ODU. My local community college’s semester ends after ODU. My assistant site advisor pointed this out to me. She said I would need to make sure my community college professor would be willing to finish my grades early and submit them to ODU by the ODU deadlines. If not I could have my graduation delayed until the spring. Ack!
That bit of news had me heading back to the list of ODU courses. For the moment I’ve found a class that fits the bill. Geometry. It should be interesting since I’ve not had geometry since the ninth grade. If I find something else later that I would rather take, so be it. But for now I’ve got an on campus class so I’m squared away with the VA Department.
Since my registration time ticket was Monday I’m officially signed up for four of my final five classes. Hopefully the last will be straightened out this afternoon or tomorrow. For me, graduation is now just eight months away.
How about you? How do you feel about your upcoming classes? Do you feel like you have lots of options still?
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Friday, April 27, 2012 at 08:50
Veronica Reid says:
Hi there:
It seems as you are overwhelmed! I suggest you to take a deep breath. Online is not easy, but is a good option! ODU is great, but there are always good things and difficult things in all the things we do; and online is no exception. You will most likely find teachers you like while others you don’t like as much.
Is like everything else, not everybody can be your best friend and not all classes will fit you. Stay focus on what matters! If you don’t like any classes, then challenge yourself to find something nice about it! Find peace on things that matter to you. Remember that this will be momentarily. One semester here or one semester there will not kill you.
Look at it this way, if you had fun during many classes, well maybe you can have less of a fun in a couple of classes until you find again a renewed inspiration!
The other day I went to a “test success class”. Honestly I didn’t thought I would learn a lot, but I went anyway as I would get some extra points. I went during my lunch time and was pretty busy (I have a full time job) but truly I learned something from that class, I would have missed, and I was surprised! Sometimes when we have the lowest expectations, it is that we have a nice surprised!
Hang in there! And stick to it. I had a lot of difficulties to start as I am a complete deviation, but all the effort will pay off if you respectfully ask for help. I was so frustrated, because my situation was so complex, but at the end if we have a valid reason, a good attitude about it, things will always turn around. Sometimes it takes longer, but remember that most of it still depends on us! :) Hang in there and good luck!