Things go by quickly. Take her feedback to heart (as I have done).
Hey Reynolds! Just thought I'd send out an email to you telling you of all of my academic challenges thus far, especially since I know you love hearing about how we're all doing (and later telling your current College Comp. classes).
Well, I'm four weeks into the semester here at Macalester, and my oh my, is the course-load rigorous. I haven't had any major papers or assignments just yet, except for my 20-minute long oral presentation due next Wednesday for my Intro to East Asian Civilizations class. But aside from that, I've mostly just had A LOT of reading. It's funny, when I think about it; I heard from so many college students last year in your class about how much reading there is, but you don't really seem to grasp it until you actually need to read it. Needless to say, I am behind in my reading--both for my Principles of Economics class, and my East Asian Civ. class. If I were to add up all the reading I do a day (if I were caught up, of course), I would probably need to read about...60 pages a day: 20 from my Econ. textbook, and then 20 pages each from my two textbooks for East Asian Civ. Oh, and that isn't even including my supplementary reading for Econ. That would be another 20 pages or so. But my supplementary reading isn't so bad. It isn't a textbook, so it isn't written in such a plain, tell-it-like-it-is format. I also greatly enjoy and am intrigued in the content; it reminds me of Freakonomics. I actually think you would enjoy this book, Reynolds. It's called, The Economic Naturalist by Robert H. Frank. It sounds boring, but it isn't really. It discusses different "enigmas from everyday life," and tries to describe the reasoning behind it using economic concepts. Some questions Frank addresses are, "Why is there a light in your refridgerator but not in your freezer?"; "Why do 24-hour convenience stores have locks on their doors?"; "Why do the keypad buttons on drive-up cash machines have Braille dots?"; and plenty of other questions just as interesting. Just thought I'd do a little advertising.
Ack, long paragraph. Sorry.
Anyways. I'm enjoying my Japanese class immensely. It's pretty difficult, learning all the different characters, but it's a good kind of difficult. My music history course is also going well, as is my East Asian Civ. class. I really enjoy all of my classes, despite the vast amounts of work I have to do. I am struggling a lot in my economics class (Northland has nothing on Macalester). I have learned more in one month here in this class than I have in the whole semester at Northland. Sadly, Northland didn't really do too much in preparing me for Macalester--yet, I suppose I should have expected it, especially considering the vast difference in academic quality.
I would like to thank you, though, for everything you have taught me in College Comp. I and II. We had to write an essay during orientation week, mostly just as a placement test to see where we were skillwise in writing (I suppose it's a really big issue here at Mac). Those that didn't meet a certain standard had to take a writer's workshop. Thanks to your amazing teaching skills, I did well enough to pass, and thusly don't need to take the workshop. So, thank you for being such a great teacher.
However, I would like to make one suggestion for your classes in the future, concerning citations styles. While I am very thankful for you teaching us MLA and APA, I, unfortunately, don't need to use either of those citation styles at the moment. Rather, I need to use Chicago/Turabian for my music history course. So, I think perhaps you should at least give a brief overview of Chicago/Turabian to your future classes. They may not need to use it that much, if at all, in the future, but if they do, I think they would really appreciate having a slight familiarity with the style (I know I certainly would have appreciated it).
So, I suppose I should stop now. I wrote a lot, and I do believe I gave an adequate amount of information concerning my first month here. You are more than welcome to read anything from this email to the class, and you can edit it to your liking. It is a lot of...stuff, and the class doesn't need to hear about a book I'm currently reading.
I hope my unnecessarily lenghty email brings you right back to editing and reading my lengthy papers. Enjoy!
~Brittany
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