The last first day

It's true! Today is my last first day of undergraduate college!!!! And let me tell you... It feels GREAT!!! Even though I've had many "first days" of school, this one felt peculiar. Odd. Strange. After this semester, I'm done with DelVal. I was just standing outside and trying to remember where the Horticulture building is for my last class this afternoon and thought to myself, "DelVal didn't have non-Hort related classes in the Hort building when I was a freshman." My first class of the day, Stats for Science, was in the "New Britain Buildings," aka the-trailers-that-were-parked-a-half-mile-from-main-campus-as-"temporary"-classrooms. It was about forty degrees in there.

What does all this mean? Well, DelVal has grown too big for its own good. I think it's great that people are discovering this little gem of a college and all the unique majors it has to offer and the personality and closeness of it... but there just isn't room for all the students! For housing, it used to be that Super Seniors got first choice, then Juniors, then Sophomores and so on. They did a lottery by class so that the people that were here the longest and had the most seniority got first pick. Now? They do an entire campus lottery. So if there is enough housing for 1,400 students (including incoming freshmen) and you're number 1,200, you're not guaranteed housing no matter what your class standing is. As unfortunate as my living situation has been the past year and a half, I'm glad I had a place to go. I'd rather not have been a junior that's been kicked off campus and left to find an apartment costing way more than it costs to live on campus (as cheap as DelVal is not, Doylestown is even less cheap).

The new president has certainly made steps to beautify the campus and I'm sure there are talks of breaking ground on new dorm buildings (oh, and classrooms)... but this poses another dilemma. DelVal prides its self on its wonderfully maintained campus (what else would you expect with a bunch of farmers and plant people?) and it's 500 acres of preserved farm land. Where would they build? There are parts of campus that no one wants disturbed with icky man-made structures. Ideally, DelVal should make a contract with apartment complexes off-campus and set up some sort of shuttle to and from. My sister had an apartment like this her freshman year at Clarion. The school didn't own the apartment complex but it was off campus, all students, and you paid through the school. They even had the shuttle to bus students to and from the campus. DelVal is going to need to figure something out or they're going to have start breaking hearts and turn away perfectly good high school seniors and chase away current students with their housing system.

This morning I've already experienced Stats for Science and Biochemistry. The professor for Stats is someone I've had before... but don't particularly care for. He actually told us more than once NOT to take notes. I think he thinks that since he's a college professor, he's kind of a big deal. All our homework, quizzes and tests are through MathZone.com. He said that if we did everything on paper, he'd not have time to grade quizzes and would need a TA to grade homeworks... so the online thing benefitted everyone. Right... A TA? Really? His power points (which... ppts for a math class just don't make sense to me) are directly from the books publisher. He was not the one to put them together and decide what is important and what isn't... a bunch of people out to promote and make necessary the book did.

Biochem was a hoot though. I adore this particular professor and had her for organic. Her office is in Mandel and I've spent countless hours in that lobby and in the food room so she knows me... which is also kinda cool. She's got a great sense of humor and has the mind of a student. She just connects very well with the class and speaks a language we know. It's AWESOME.

Just food preservation and psychology left for today. I'm selling my Calc book from last semester to one of the other food students... It'll be great to have $80 in my pocket... but it's going to go right back out for books for this semester... what a drag.

I'm making Asian-ish beef and rice tonight for dinner then off to work. I do not miss this aweful schedule of class during the day and work during the night... It'll all be over in a few months time...