Spoiled

Professor Pittman is one of the most involved and caring professors I have ever had. She is such a sweetie. Everyday she sets up a little goodie table for us. She knows that colds are going around, so she brings cough drops, tissues, purrell, lotion, candy, and even drinks. She brings a random assortment of drinks for us everyday such as bottles of coke, vitamin water, orange juice, even starbucks drinks!!! Tonight we are having a pizza party. For extra credit, we can work on our family tree during the three weeks. We need to get back to the turn of the century on one side. She is going to give us an overview of how she would like it done and some useful resources tonight, and is bring pizza. I am really glad I am in the class. It has been a positive experience for me. It is not a time to slack in any way. We were reminded that missing one day of class is equivalent to missing one week's worth of class in a twelve week. We have two or three readings every night and we have to take notes on them that will be graded at the end. I am enjoying the material a lot. I am thinking about the dynamics of African American Families today in a way I never thought of them before. The enslavement of African Americans in the past, and their treatment even after they were freed, has left a lasting legcy. A few things we have considered are the involvement of the mother versus the father in child rearing. During slavery and reconstruction, it was not easy for a father to be involved. Did you know that during slavery, slave owners didn't even recognize any type of relationship or connection between a father and children? ...that a slave family was a mother and children? ...that it was perfectly fine to sell a father away from his family, or even a mother separate from the children? The class is long at times, but never dull. Either the teacher or other students are constantly interjecting personal stories or jokes. We have taken so many notes!!!! We have to take notes (that will be graded) on every lecture, movie, presentation by other students, and article we read because they are all fair game for our mid-term or final. Anyway it is time for pizza so I will write more later!

First day of the three week

Today was my first day of the three week class. The class I am taking is Sociology of Black Families. I chose the class because a.) it would count toward my biomedical humanities requirements and b.) my advisor said it would be good for me to consider the life structure of people different than me especially if I plan on going into the medical field. This made sense, not everyone I expect to treat as someone in the medical field will come from the same background as me. I assumed most of the people in the class would be there for the same reason I was, they were recruited to expose themselves to different cultures as it would be pertinant to their future careers. This is not what I found on the first day of class. I realized I was one of three white students in the class. I was not sure what to think at first, because this was a different setting than I had ever been in before. I wasn't sure what to do, continue with the class or drop it. It probably took me about an hour to get back in my comfort zone, and by the end of the three hour class I knew I was not going to drop it. Everyone in the class was very open minded and friendly. The girls were very welcoming and I didn't feel like and outsider. The teacher assigned us "families" that we will work on our two presentations with. I am in a group with Nikita and Rob, and I think we will make a great "family." The teacher is LaShawnDa Pittman, who is here through a fellowship while she works on her Ph.D in Sociology through Northwestern. She is really friendly and seems like she will be a good teacher. I will keep you updated on my progress in the class.

60.72%

What does 60.72% mean? Well I will tell you. This is finals week, and is obviously stressful. My mom sent me a note with lots of goodies, including a magazine clipping that says "60.72% is the difference in salary between someone with a bachelor's degree and someone with a high school diploma (the Bureau of labor and statistics fall 2005)."



Hiram has very unique semesters. A normal semester is 15 weeks, and a typical load would be about 4 classes. At Hiram, the semester is broken into two parts: a 12 week component in which we take 3 classes, and a 3 week component where we take 1 class. The twelve week ends before thanksgiving break and spring break. This mean it is almost impossible to have any assignments over break, literally, because you are between classes. Our finals started on Sunday afternoon and will go through Tuesday. Then we will be off until next Wednesday. Finals are very stressful!! I have been cramming for about a week now. In chemistry we had a test on chapters 6-9 on Friday, and then today we had the final on all the chapters (1-9). John Andrews is my teacher and he is very good! I promise you. It is hard work, but it is well worth it. If i had it to do over, I would still take his class. I am hoping it will help me as I continue toward a science degree. Another professor I would suggest is Joseph Gallant for physics. He is new to Hiram but has a great sense of humor and is very realistic about his expectations. All of my teachers seem to have been realistic about the finals. They all realized that we have other finals and tried to make it as bearable as possible. My cumulative math final was turned into a take home test. Don't think I got off the hook too much because it still took a little over five hours!!! My room mate has a paper that is due tomorrow, and just a few hours ago she got an email from the teacher giving them a week extension. I have heard a few stories of hard teachers; I'm sure we have our share. I heard we have a new psychology teacher that has a pretty high standard. One of my friends, Ben, has an intense calculus class. For each test they take, they have a retake the following day where they can get up to half of the points back that they missed during the first try. Well on the final, the highest grade was a 55%, but they still get their retake. Where every you go, you just have to study and you will be fine! At any rate, I am off to study Physics. Tomorrow after 11 am I will be homeward bound for a week! Happy Thanksgiving!

Yet again, the professors shine through!!

I am taking a one credit hour class entitled Cancer and the Arts. It has been a great class. Last night was our last night. I was going to stay after class and talk to the professor - Jon Moody - about possibly picking up an ethics minor. I heard him ask a few other students to stay after. When everyone left I saw that it was our four international students he asked to say. He asked each one if they had somewhere to go for Thanksgiving. He didn't let them off the hook with just a yes answer. He went through the whole, "are you sure?" "Where are you going?" set of questions. He said he has extra room at his dinner table and he wanted to make sure everyone had somewhere to go. I thought that was one of the sweetest things. Oh, and did I mention that he also went home before class to bake us delicious brownies?? Well, he did.

A college full of awesome professors.

So yesterday I was studying for my statistics test with two other girls. We weren't really getting anywhere so we decided to go to the Professor for help. She, like every other teacher, always encourages us to come by, especially before a test. She also told us to wait for a few minutes if she isn't there because she went to get food. Well, she wasn't there. We decided to sit outside of her office and wait. Brad Gubser, the other math teacher, walked by and told us that our teacher had gone home. He then told us he knew we had a test tomorrow and asked us if we had any questions. We had a lot! He had two meetings in the next two hours, and he insisted on moving the second one to help us, even though he wasn't our teacher. We tried to say it was ok, we didn't want to make him move meetings. He helped us for an hour, and went over both chapters. I was so amazed that someone who wasn't even our teacher rearranged his schedule to help us!!! To top it off, he sent us an email the next day asking us how we did. I am really impressed with all of the professors I have come across so far at Hiram. They all seem to go above and beyond. They are very supportive of the students and have a very, very open door policy. One more example. My chemistry teacher, the guy with the great British accent, invited all of the chemistry students to his house yesterday for dinner. Every year, him and his wife host a dinner. They live right here in Hiram, basically on campus. He said we were more than welcome to come in our Halloween costumes since it was only the day after Halloween. I walked in with my friends, and every room in the lower level of the house was packed with students. His wife made wonderful food and about four types of deserts. Professor Andrews told us all about the food: they had beef tips (or something, I don't eat meat so I don't remember exactly what it was), rice and curry for the vegetarians, and an organic salad. They also had cucumbers in dill and something else (very delicious!). The science students and teachers hung out for a while. I couldn't believe how relaxed the night was, and how comfortable I was in my professor's house. When it was time to go, we went up to his bedroom and got our coats. It felt more like I was in the house of one of my parents' or grandparents' homes, not a professor. We really do have amazing professors here at Hiram.

Is anyone out there?

I was just wondering if anyone is reading my blog. I hope that I'm not just writing to thin air... It would be great if you could leave a comment or something. Maybe your name, school, how you found out about Hiram, how interested you are.... Feel free to ask questions, and I promise I will answer them as truthfully as possible. I know I appreciated honesty when I was looking at colleges. Muchas gracias!!!

It must be said...

It was the first week of school when it happened for the first time. For some reason, there is a bit of an obsession for pulling the fire alarm in the middle of the night this year. I live in centennial, and it is always around 3 AM when it happens here. I remember the first time, waking my roommate up, putting decent clothes on, contacts in, trying to find our shoes and still get out of the building in a descent amount of time. We waited outside for about a half hour. We had to wait for the volunteer firemen to get a call, get out of bed, and check the *whole* building. Within the first month, there were 13 prank alarms pulled. Last year at this time there were ZERO. The college posted signs that (I believe) say falsifying a fire alarm is punishable by up to $1000 and six months in jail. They finally stopped!!!

So fast forward to last night. I was up till about 1 studying and was going to get up the next morning around 7. Wouldn't you know someone decided to pull a fire alarm once again. Three AM, as usual. So far, no one has been caught. I wish some people would start talking!! I know our senate has looked into possible solutions. Problem is, the fire alarms are everywhere, so even if a solution is found and is reasonably cheap, there are like a hundred gazillion fire alarms you need to take care of. I also happen to know that our security is looking into solutions. We asked about the specifics, and they weren't comfortable telling us the details. It makes sense, why would they tell the students what precautions they are taking. The point is for those students to fall into the trap. I hope it happens soon!!