My First Week of My Last Year at College

I had some  trepidation starting classes last Wednesday (Sept7) because the registration process was a much bigger hassle than last year and there is a country wide strike of all college support staff. That makes it much harder to get into the parking lot in morning and causes longer lines at bookstore cafeteria and registrars office. For the first time I was glad I didn't have a car to park and that I lived very close to college so I could get everything taken care of before Sept 1 when the strike began. Normally, I have no problem registering online but only my mandatory courses were accepted into the system. That meant I had to go to college to get the other 4 sorted out but maybe all the good time slots would be gone. I was pretty lucky only had to settle for one night course Thursday 7 to 10 and I got Fridays off for the first time!

I was very pleased with the teachers I had. Not only they did have a passion and enthusiasm for their subject (even the bookkeeping teacher!) but they also knew how to teach ! They all said there were no stupid questions.

What I wasn't pleased with was the attitude of 75% of the girls in my bookkeeping class. My friend Karla and I  changed our class from Thursday at 8 am to Wed at 3 pm (not a morning person )  so it meant we were in with law clerk students rather than the office admin crowd we had in our mandatory classes . I had heard some horror stories that it was hard to pass this class but soon figured out why! It was a computer lab as the last section of the course is on Quickbooks and quite a few of the kids logged onto FB right away until the teacher said to shut the computers down for a while while we talked about the course outline. Bookkeeping and Math are two courses of ours you have to pay attention in and they have the highest failure rates. Kids are always texring on their cell phones (only a few teachers have a strict no cell policy) or surfing the web and then wonder why they don't do well on the tests. She mentioned we would have only 2 tests (no final exam) and the spoiled chick beside me said  They better be open- book ! The teacher said "Those are actually harder but I will look into it" She came from another campus and when asked what her pass/fail ratio was in Muskoka she said 100% that was really reassuring to me. The class is from 3 to 5:50 pm with 2 ten min breaks and people were all packed up and ready to go at 530 pm even though she wanted to explain the homework  we had so she just wrote info on board and said I am losing you so will let you go but most days we will be here till 550.  Some kids really don't make any effort nowadays! The first time I went to college in the early 90's there was a much better attitude. Social networks really are addictive and you all KNOW I am addicted to Google + but there is a time and a place and I would never show such blatant disrespect to a teacher as to text while he/she is doing a lecture. I also expect them to treat me with respect. There was one teacher last year who earned our contempt quickly by refusing to answer questions and sending nasty emails on the second morning. 9 of us reported her to the course co-ordinator and she was put on academic probation.  I am looking forward to tomorrow and I have a Management class with an as yet unknown teacher and students! Wish me luck!