My Classes Thus Far (Fall 2005)

Well I’m currently studying for an exam I have on Tuesday and I’m taking a little break. I actually take a lot of breaks because I can never really study for more than 15 minutes without digressing to something else. I just felt like discussing what I think of my classes so far:

AEM 419 - Strategic Thinking
Although some of the material can get quite boring at times, other topics are really interesting in their applications in real world situations. Plus, the professor is a pretty good teacher - I didn’t even buy the textbook and I understand the material. All you really need to do is attend lectures and read the handouts.

AEM 424 - Management Strategy
I can only characterize the substance of this class as “thin.” It’s a capstone class required of seniors but it just goes over topics that we’ve learned in other classes in a very light manner. I don’t feel like we’ve gone over that much material up till now. And the problem sets involve math that the professor doesn’t really go over in class. His answer is “see the TA at office hours if you don’t understand.” Uhm.. OK, why am I even taking the class then?!

EAS 109 - Dinosaurs
One of the biggest disappointments ever. I expected this to be a fun survey course on dinosaurs but instead it has been INCREDIBLY boring and thus far, it has not really covered dinosaurs but instead evolution of fish, sediments, fossils, and other related crap. Fellow Cornellians, do NOT take this course unless you need a 1 credit class to finish off your physical science requirements (like I do).

FOOD 101 - Introduction to Food Science
This class is fairly interesting. You learn a lot of information about food research, production, etc. That’s about all I have to say about it - it’s a decent course barring the fact that it’s located at a rather far building on campus.

HD 220 - The Human Brain
This class is VERY BORING. It puts me to sleep every time without fail. I could’ve had a good night’s sleep. I can conciously resist dozing off. I can check out the abundant amount of girls in the class. Doesn’t matter - I ALWAYS fall asleep. Additionally, the lecture material is taken almost entirely from the textbook, eliminating the need to even attend lecture. I’ve only attended the first 2 weeks of this class.

HADM 120 - Personal Financial Management
For some reason, this course has also turned out to be incredibly boring, perhaps due to the way the instructor presents the material (she’s actually an accountant, not a professor). Most of it is pretty common sense stuff but once in a while I do learn things I didn’t know. But for the most part, the lectures are very boring, so I’ve resorted to simply picking up the handouts and reading the textbook.

CONCLUSION? This semester isn’t really that great besides the fact that I have a pretty light course load and have a lot of free time to devote to other endeavors.