Missed Opportunity
My go-to study place on campus is a room that I still call 'the Laptop Lounge', which the name switched the semester I started my grad program. It's a room with low lights, macbook computers for loan, software products, a sound booth, and a staff that helps students and faculty with technology needs. I just like going there because it's a quiet location that usually isn't too crowded.
Today, I walk in and their volunteer staffer is a young guy I've become somewhat friendly with over the past year. As we hadn't seen each other since the last week of April, he leaped out of his chair and stopped himself before giving me a bear hug (which I ended up hugging the kid, anyway.) That's the kind of place it is-I am among my people.
My purpose for using that laptop lounge is simple-it is an excellent, out of the way place to study. And that is what I did. However, it is a gathering place of sorts and I ran into three of my professors in my two hours there. My major professor saw me and said "Oh good, you got some time to come to my office?" Alas, I was committed to the preparation for this final.
The project I did last semester? Well, she and the 'client' professor were about to meet to discuss the future implications of the product my team created and will be in use. It would have been a really good meeting to attend and get insights about what will happen to the product.
However, I made the right call, even if I wavered. The test I was saying I needed to get a 75 or better to secure an A in the class, the one I thought would be a bear, wasn't. Most if it was the concepts I knew, and the format was such that there were only 10 to 14 questions (of 77) that I wasn't absolutely certain of my answers. At 1.3 points each, that lands me solidly in B territory, leaving the easy A assignment ahead of me.
Suddenly, I'm not feeling as guilty for the lack of textbook reading this semester...
Today, I walk in and their volunteer staffer is a young guy I've become somewhat friendly with over the past year. As we hadn't seen each other since the last week of April, he leaped out of his chair and stopped himself before giving me a bear hug (which I ended up hugging the kid, anyway.) That's the kind of place it is-I am among my people.
My purpose for using that laptop lounge is simple-it is an excellent, out of the way place to study. And that is what I did. However, it is a gathering place of sorts and I ran into three of my professors in my two hours there. My major professor saw me and said "Oh good, you got some time to come to my office?" Alas, I was committed to the preparation for this final.
The project I did last semester? Well, she and the 'client' professor were about to meet to discuss the future implications of the product my team created and will be in use. It would have been a really good meeting to attend and get insights about what will happen to the product.
However, I made the right call, even if I wavered. The test I was saying I needed to get a 75 or better to secure an A in the class, the one I thought would be a bear, wasn't. Most if it was the concepts I knew, and the format was such that there were only 10 to 14 questions (of 77) that I wasn't absolutely certain of my answers. At 1.3 points each, that lands me solidly in B territory, leaving the easy A assignment ahead of me.
Suddenly, I'm not feeling as guilty for the lack of textbook reading this semester...
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