F Yo Skoo!
It’s a bit like my last day at home today. Going to visit my sister for the rest of the week and then return to Atlanta this weekend. I guess I’m ready…to go back…actually I’m ready to go back and I’m not.
I’m always anxious about who my socializing group will be because I tend to hang out with older people. During sophomore year, I didn’t really have a group. I made the mistake of not having friends outside my boyfriend so when he was off doing his thing, I kind of didn’t do anything.
Junior year it was made up of prophytes that were my roommates, but three out of four of them graduated and the remaining one fourth lives off campus.
Now I am the older person and the only older group of people are the grad students who I never really see around anyway. Hopefully though, we’ll get a good crop of transfers in. For some reason, they’re the people I’m always drawn to. (Ex was a transfer from Xavier, another close friend was also from there, 50% of last year’s group was from Fort Valley State University…)
I don’t know what it is about Tech Students, but it seems like a lot have something stuck up their bootys. Everyone is so competitive and anti-social for the most part. I mean, you’ll be walking down the sidewalk and everyone will have their heads down, their Ipods on, or will be talking to their parents on their cell phones to avoid talking to someone in person.
The transfers from HBCU’s seem so much more open and bold. For instance, one of the things that attracted me to the ex was that he actually dated, I mean traditional, hey let’s go to dinner and a movie date. AND he asked in a traditional “that’s how it happens on TV” kind of way.
That doesn’t happen at Tech. EVER. I don’t even think people date. They just have relationships and/or “relations”.
Most of the transfers we get are from Morehouse, Spelman, or Fort Valley. They’ll get a degree in Math. Chemistry, or Physics in three years and then come to Tech for some type of engineering degree. Most of the people in these programs tend to do really well, much better in fact than their counterparts who start at Tech. Why that may be prompts heated discussions among native and transfer Tech-ians. Some claim that a math at an HBCU may not be as tough as it is at Tech where we don’t even have classes like college algebra.
I can’t really say too much about that. I can say though that classes like Calculus, Physics, and Introduction to Computer Science are all weeder classes at my school. They separate the boysss from the mennn (have you seen that Sonic commercial? Hilarious.) The average GPA for those classes is about a 2.5, and that’s for the first Calculus and CS classes. Java and Calculus II? They separate the living from the dead. I mean, my Calc II class’s average GPA was a 1.3. Yes you read that right, ONE POINT THREE.
Well what made it so hard? You might ask. Tech has this mentality that makes them want to combine multiple subjects in one class. In Calc II we covered what most schools would separate in three different classes there was: Matrix Algebra, Introductory Differential Equations, AS WELL AS actual Calculus II subject matter. No one ever curved grades, and if you didn’t understand, shoot if the WHOLE CLASS didn’t understand like my 1.3 GPA class, the professor was still be like “f you.”
Which is the general consensus of Tech professors actually, “f you. I’m here for research money.”
I think the students from HBCU’s do some much better because they come from a place where their professors care more, they have smaller classes sometimes, and class material is presented in a way that’s easier to learn. They come in with a confident foundation instead of one that says, “people tell me to f myself.” Also, they come from a place where students talk to each other.
If I had to do it all again, I would have definitely gone to Southern University for a degree in Physics then transferred to Tech for some type of engineering degree…probably Industrial Engineering. I feel like then I’d be more confident, more social, and I’d be able to look back on college as a positive time instead of a, “man, people always told me to f myself” time.
I guess though, I’ll just have to make the most of this last year in some kind of way…
