One very important part of college is balancing social life and homework. Sundays are always fun. All the students wake up late or in my case, spend time in the city with friends. I made sure to balance my time with homework, which I have been dreading to start.
My dad always tried to get me into running when I was younger. I really enjoyed it, but there were those days when I just wanted to stay in my pajamas and loaf around the house. He would come up to me and say “The hardest part is getting out the door.”
This little piece of sage advice directly applies to my homework situation. After a quick snack, I sat down and turned on my clip lamp to the assigned homework pages. I found that I got focused rather quickly and I knocked out about half my assignment. Spreading out work over the course of a few days really helps with coping with stress. Homework is due Tuesday.
The workload here is definitely different than high school. For macroeconomics, we are assigned about twenty-five problems total in the review sections of the chapters that we covered. Although the assigned numbers will be Chapter 2 - #2-5, there are a lot of sub-questions (eg. a-f). I am planning on finishing my assignment tomorrow and then reviewing my material with Andrew in the afternoon. Students study here because they want to, not because they have to.
I took a break from my homework to get dinner. New arrivals came onto campus today. There was another ice cream social with Frisbees and Twister. I remember when I was a new comer to Brown University. Now I feel like I've always lived here. I met some new students (one who is going to Yale for the Grand Strategies Program after his stay at Brown) before leaving early with Steph and Alina. We explored to the basement floor of Marcy Hall where the walls were plastered with graffiti and various paintings.
At our floor meeting, Mikalei discussed the events going on this week (Tie Dye Tuesday, and the Pizza/Ice Cream Party) and we also talked about our high and low points of Summer@Brown so far. Although most of my floor mates talked about their encounters with boys, I went on a different track. My high points were definitely winning the scavenger hunt and also getting really involved with my class (like having my suggestion for “Blood Diamond” go through with a majority vote). My low point would have to be group work for homework. Andrew and I work together really well, but our third member, Jose Barrionuevo, is not much of a help. He says intelligent things once in a while, but Andrew and I do most of the hard work.
We broke our floor meeting with an improvised group cheer, and then headed to Dana and Steph’s room to hang out. I left early to blog and finally the noise next door has toned down. It is time to sleep once again.
Erin,
ReplyDeleteSorry to read about your study partner. Such is the way of the world. You're going to run into a lot like him over the years in high school, college, your work life and even working in the community. There will always be people doing the bulk of the work while others sit back and reap the rewards.
I know you don't have much time left in the class so it may not be worth your effort but you and Andrew may want to have a face to face with him and ask why it is that he feels that he doesn't have to carry his load. You won't necessarily get the response you want but if you do nothing you can be assured you won't.
The first thing I thought of when you wrote about the person who will be attending the YISP after completing the studies at Brown is that this young person comes from money--a lot of it. Of course, this person may have access to lots of scholarship money but it's hard to imagine a scholarship program that would fund multiple programs in one summer.
I promise you, Erin, I had no idea that when we sent you to an Ivy League school that they would expect you to do homework. That's just so unfair. Get me the contact info for your instructor and I'll write one of my 'special' letters--the kind that usually brings fear and tears all at the same time.
I agree! Have the face to face with Jose ASAP!
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