Inefficiencies with "Higher Education" in Oregon

If you want to see my schedule for next term, here it is. It should be pretty intense: 20.5 hours in the classroom, 6 of which are labs, 2.5 recitations, and the other 12 lecture.

I have a gripe. I am still taking midterms...yes, this is week 5 of midterms and I still have another next week. Six weeks of midterms in all. And the term is only 11 weeks!! It makes no sense. We don't learn anything because every week we are focused on a test which makes up between 15-33% of our final grade. In states that use the semester system, they get 16 weeks and only 1 midterm per class.

Another gripe concerns Southwestern Oregon Community College (is it SOCC or SUCC??). I had nothing but problems with them...EVERY single term it was something different...some new form that had to be filled out because it "disappeared," etc. One term they actually enrolled another guy in all of my classes instead of me. Anyway, Kristi was all set to graduate after completing her current chemistry class. Hell, her advisor and the transcript lady even SIGNED OFF on her graduation application. Then she gets a call today because a new requirement was added to the curriculum...another course so she can no longer graduate. What the hell??!! It's the most messed up crap I've ever heard.

It's hard enough to complete your education with the cuts in education spending and hikes in student loan interest rates, but then they have to pull crap like this. That's me 2 cents.

I am still using Linux and enjoying the stability. There are a few times when I think it would just be easier to go back to the familiar, but then I realize what crap Microsoft is. I have had to tweak my computer a bit to get somethings to work, and others work amazingly easier without Windows. One issue I have, and it's with Apple, is that I cannot currently play my LEGALLY downloaded music on my computer because they have created their iTunes so that it will not work on Linux. In fact, when people have cracked it and found ways for Linux users to PURCHASE music from their music store, they fix the "hole." So my iPod sits here, incapable of receiving new songs. I can only play the ones currently on it. Apparently Apple is trying to force people to resort to illegal downloads that do not have the DRM (digital rights management) attached to the songs.

Well, my blog entry has been stunningly negative, so I will go for now. I have an engineering lab to type up and a computer program to finish writing.