I haven't been posting for a while, but I just thought I'd give a little update of my second year in college. Classes started last week. I have a load of reading to do all the time, and most of it is worthwhile reading. I live off campus now and I've been surprisingly productive in utilizing the gaps of time I have between my classes: I go to the library and read! When I get home, all I really have to do is my French homework and some writing (which I should be doing all the time anyway). Parking on campus is a pain in the butt, so my brother, whose classes are in the parking-ample engineering school, drops me off in the morning and picks me up once I'm done for the day. I have to admit that I had him pick me up in between classes last week in order to eat lunch at home and watch some US Open matches, but now I'm on campus for most of the day (from around 9:30 in the morning to 7-9 at night, depending on the day).

I wanted to say a bit more, but I'm off to school now!

Hey everybody! Happy belated holidays, new years, etc.

(I used to have the user name "BRthe2000man," as I hope my new signature will indicate.)

I'm currently applying to graduate schools (in the U.S.) but I haven't had a chance to visit any of the places I'm applying to yet. I was wondering if anyone on the board had any info or impressions to share about the following locations or schools:

University of Southern Illinois (Carbondale, IL)
Hofstra University (Hempstead, NY)
University of North Carolina (Greensboro, NC)
Ohio University (Athens, OH)

Anyone ever lived/visited any of these places or attended any of these schools?

Ohio U is gorgeous! i dont know anything about their graduate programs, but i almost went to OU to pursue film and tv. i have a lot of friends there.
athens is in the middle of nowhere.. it's a pretty mellow town i think, with no shortage of coffee shops, cafes or bars. socially, i'd say there are plenty of artsy people, also balanced by hippies and preppy kids like girls who wear sparkly things. i dont know how that all translates into the grad level society, though.

UNC is cool too.. it was way too big for me when i was shopping for an undergrad school, but it seems to have a lot of prestige behind it. north carolina has great weather, too. ohio can get real snowy. another plus at unc is the basketball, if youre into that.

What are you going for?

In terms of prestige and location, I vote for UNC all the way.

thanks for the info!

I'm going for film production, specifically documentary.

i was extremely lucky when i visited OU's broadcasting dept. i was supposed to take a tour out of that office, but when i showed up there had been some mix up - i forget. the president of the college was walking in from lunch when my parents and i were talking to the girl at the desk. so the president invited me back to her office to chat, then gave the tour herself.

i'm considering transferring to kent state now, for a different major (i went to neither OU nor UNC), and their journalism school rivals OU's, though i'm not sure about film specifically. i did hear that one of OU's biggest claims to fame was that matt lauer sp? graduated from their scripps college of journalism. still, i think they work hard to keep that program up, though.

Man, reading my post from September at the top of this page makes me sad. That semester ended up being very stressful for me. I always used to have a certain spunk for school, but I have thoughts of quitting all the time now.

I was complaining about homework last night, and my brother, who just graduated college, said I should do what he did and simply stop caring. I think a large part of the reason why school does stress me out so much is because I care about it too much (in terms of grades and being satisfied with my own performance).

How do you find that happy medium, realizing that school is important but also far from the only thing in life? (I guess an easy answer to this would be to "get a life," but that's another story!)

I think it's about focusing on what you're getting personally from the classes you take and not necessarily on the grades you get. I look back on some classes that I didn't do great in but I still feel like the things I learned in those classes will stay with me and continue to influence me. Grades are important, especially if you're looking into graduate school, but they're not the beginning and end of an academic life. some classes will be just damn difficult and I think that showing your professors that you have a strong work ethic is more important than the grade that results from it. I got decent grades as an undergard but I did not have as strong a work ethic as I could have, and I definitely regret it.

Fretting over grades is very much my problem. I've always been a bit of a perfectionist, and it used to be a healthy thing for me: being self-critical kept me on my toes. But it's come to a point where I'm so hard on myself I've lose sight of what I'm really doing. I guess this is a symptom of not having a focus in the first place besides a nebulous idea of success. It's only recently that I've confronted myself with the big "so what?" question of what I'm doing and what I want. I find it hard to answer that question, and I think it's the main reason why I can't seem to sustain myself as robustly as I used to.

i had my first interview yesterday, for an internship with a local design firm. i was very very excited (more nervous beforehand, then excited after). it went really well, and she said they dearly needed the help, so that will be great. the woman i interviewed with said she doesnt believe in the classic intern-who-gets-coffee sort of position.. so i'd actually be doing relevant things!

i emailed her later that evening (i thought of calling, but i debated past 6 o'clock, so i figured everyone was gone). i told her it had been my first interview and said something like, 'i forgot to add that i'd be great for the position - i'm excitable about design and i'd love jumping from project-to-project as you described...' etc. just a short note thanking her for her time.
do you think this was overzealous? in hindsight, it was my first interview, and there are a dozen remarks i wish i'd made, to 'sell myself' for the job. i thought about emailing again to apologize for myself, but i figured i'd already written like, .5 emails too many.