dragonkollector
|
Last Activity: 07-04-2016 12:33 AM
- User Lists
Visitor Messages
Showing Visitor Messages 11 to 20 of 347
-
-
-
-
06-01-2013 03:22 PMHantsukiDeeekay! I finally managed to log since (checking the last time I logged on) January! I'm sorry that it's taken me until this time to respond, but as you surmised in your latest message, I had been super busy this past semester. There's so much news that I have to share, but I'm going to summarize the big ones so I don't bore you too much:
I got into the University of Kansas for the MA in English, and I'm moving to Kansas at the end of month. They gave me a fully funded offer, so I don't have to pay tuition, and in exchange for teaching two English 101 classes each semester, I'm given a stipend. I'm super excited not only because I don't have to pay, but they paid for my visit in March, and I got to meet so many amazing students and professors, and I just completely fell in love with their program. I don't even know how to describe it except I know that I was very torn about leaving my undergrad institution, but KU really made the decision easier for me.
I officially graduated from my undergrad last weekend, and I finished my senior honors project yesterday! I literally wrote my last essay for my Milton class right before grades were due yesterday, and it felt so great to finish. But my senior honors thesis was the most rewarding thing I've accomplished this year. It turned out to be about 250 pages long (of course most of it is data from my research), but it feels so great to be able to say that I've contributed original research to my field. Yesterday was an especially emotional day because my mentor came to campus to approve my project and then took me out to lunch, offering me the last bit of advice before I leave. He even wrote me a three-page letter that left me crying (but in a good way). So many thoughts are running through my mind now that everything I'm writing must sound so articulate (sorry!).
I also traveled a lot this semester to three different states, and it was awesome because it was my first time being out of state. Like I mentioned before, I went to Kansas to visit KU, then I went to Portland, Oregon for a conference hosted by the English Honors Society. Then I went to Flagstaff, Arizona to present my senior honors project, and that went extremely well even though I was completely unprepared until the last 48 hours prior to the conference. It was also the first time I drank coffee too! (Since I only had 4 hrs of sleep in 48 hrs.) It worked really well though since I was skipping around the room after I called my mentor to tell him how it went. It was hilarious.
OH! I completely forgot. I also presented my senior honors project on campus for a grade, and it was awesome because so many of my mentors and colleagues showed up (and it made me really nervous). Again, I had very little sleep, and the fact that so many people who supported me were there really intimidated me, so I didn't do as well as I wanted. (At least, I was very self-deprecating, and I was cracking a lot of lame jokes.) It was great though! I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.
Anyway, I don't want to take up too much of your time because you probably have a lot of work to do on your end too! I'm going to visit Kansas on Tuesday and be back the following Tuesday (since we bought a house, and we want to check it out), but I'm gonna try to respond to your last message that you wrote to me so long ago (because I feel really rude about just putting it aside after all that you've put into it). Please let me know how you're doing as well! Even news that you think is mundane is probably something I'd like to hear about! I'm gonna send you a PM in a moment. -
-
12-25-2012 09:52 PMHantsukiI'm a little late, but I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas! I hope you're enjoying your first year as a college student so far! I will prepare a more detailed post soon of what's been happening on my end, but until then, I hope you're doing well. And I apologize that I haven't been on in a super long time!
-
09-29-2012 12:26 AMHantsukiSo if I understand correctly, the game programming degree has less merit than the computer science degree? I don't really know much about your field, but I'd say if computer science isn't too far off from what you want to study and it's general enough that you can be eligible for other jobs if your first desired job is hard to attain, then you might want to go with that especially if game programming is too limited. However, if you know what you want from the game programming degree, and you're ready to accept any challenges that come with having that degree, you should go for that. But you should always have a back-up plan. And I'm sorry for taking this long to reply to you. I've been staying up for a couple of nights a week because I took on a bunch of stuff at the last minute, and my mentor is having me write 10-14 pages a week for my senior honors project, so I've been constantly busy. I hope to talk to you soon though and I hope you're doing well! C:
-
08-06-2012 09:17 PMHantsukiIf you don't have time to read my giant walls of text in one go, I really want you to read the fifth paragraph of my second to last post. I think you might find it helpful. C:
-
08-06-2012 09:15 PMHantsukiAnd since I’m offering advice about colleges in general, I might as well say some other stuff. : P You’re better off not joining study groups unless you can ensure that the people participating are smarter than you. RV told me how he was part of a study group one time and all they wanted to do was pick his brain. He never joined another study group. Be nice to the secretaries in your department and the librarians in the library. You never know when you’ll need their help. Besides, if you can start a great relationship with them (specifically the librarians), you never know when they can offer you a great book you’ve been looking for for a research project. They might even extend a deadline for a book that’s due the next day but you need it for an extra week to finish a paper, but you need to turn it in. (I don’t know about that last one, but just think, little perks like that can come a long way.) There’s probably a lot more I can offer you, but my brain is stuck at the moment. Oh, and try to stop that procrastination. Do a little bit every day. It makes it so much easier than doing everything at the last minute. (I constantly convince myself to do this, but it hasn’t yet happened, but maybe you’ll have better luck.)
Yes, the experience in the Writing Center will be very helpful because I would be assisting students who are having a hard time constructing an essay. I can already sense the frustrating experiences I will feel as well as the happy experiences, but I’m sure it’ll all be worth it in the end! It doesn’t actually start until the fall semester. The class I’ll be taking for it will start at the end of August, but the volunteering in the Writing Center won’t start until midterms which is mid-October, but I’ll keep you updated! And thank you so much for the congrats! C: It really made me happy to find out too. I hope I’ll be hearing about a scholarship you won sometime soon, too! : D
No, listen to me. I’ve been following you (now that sounds creepy) and your experiences through high school for a few years now, and I’ve seen that you’ve grown a bit even if you’re too humble to admit it. Honestly, you remind me a lot about myself, and heck, you’ve grown a lot more in high school than I did, I admit, so it’s only a matter of time before you do something great. Don’t doubt yourself for a moment. I have faith in you, and even though I feel guilty every time RV says those exact words to me, I know he really does, and you should know I feel the same for you too. So don’t give up! You’ll kick butt, I know it.
And as for picking courses, why don’t you give that Khan Academy site a try before deciding anything? If you feel like you’re learning something, you might be able to make the decision yourself (not that I don’t want to help you, but I want to see you really try first). And no, that isn’t true. Mentors come in all shapes and sizes! I’d be honored to be your mentor, but I still want you to try to find a more appropriate mentor who can help you with your field because I’m unfortunately not that good with computers. =[
I’m glad you got your old computer fixed! But no worries about the late response. Here I was bragging that I would get it done last week and then some other things came up and I forgot about the book sale this weekend, so I prepared for it at the last minute and had to stop working on this, so I apologize! I will tell you more about the book sale if you want, but for now, I think I’ve kept you waiting long enough!
-
08-06-2012 09:14 PMHantsukiWell, since the forum was called Diversity in Graduate Education or something like that, it was geared more toward the minorities. Of course, there were people there of all kinds of background, but mostly, it’s the people who you may have mistaken as slackers if you didn’t meet them in person and talked to them more about their dreams. (That sounds terrible I know.) So, you probably don’t know this (I certainly didn’t), but the San Diego State University is one of the universities that highly promotes diversity (and they are sort of a party school). The president of the university is black, and so he related his own experiences in his speech. Basically, he said he remembered when he was a slacker student who didn’t really understand math until a professor helped him. He also told a story about how one of his students was terrible in math (just like all of us), but instead of trying to help himself, he just acted like a moron until the president confronted him and told him what he needed to do. He changed that student for the better, and he used a lot of slang to describe his experiences, which really helped to bring it all to life for us. I mean, he wasn’t up there trying to pretend like he was some perfect person that we should all aspire to be. He admitted that he messed up before, but with a little push and some people who care, you can change your life around. It’s pretty inspiring.
Well, they never voiced their reasons out loud, but one of them walked by and when the recruiter from University of Iowa asked why he was leaving 30 minutes early, he responded that he gave away all of the fliers and pens that he brought with him, so there was no point in staying. Still, he could have offered any information if he had stayed. Oh, it’s definitely the same for me as far as grad school goes. When I was in my final year of high school, I thought I was the s*** (even though I only got accepted to three schools – two of which I didn’t apply for) and it got worse during my freshmen year because we had to get our general ed classes out of the way, and those were easy and similar to high school college prep classes as far as level. I only started realizing I had a lot to learn and in fact I didn’t know anything at all when I had met RV and had taken his classes. He really opened my eyes to what I wanted to be and what I should strive to be. In other words, I became incredibly humble and subservient to those I deemed as smarter than I was. And now I think I’ve taken it to an extreme level. I’m incredibly diffident even though my professors and friends try to assure me that I’m on the same level as them or at least I’m smarter than I think I am, but I’m still not entirely convinced. So learn from my mistake. Don’t be like me!
Okay, I’ll send you a PM of the schools I’ve been interested in too. (And don’t worry, I don’t think you’re a creeper.) If you don’t mind, I’d like to see what school you plan on attending too. : P Yeah, it’s hard studying for classes you have very little interest in. One of my professors taught me the solution to that though. She said no matter what subject or field you are stuck writing an essay for or stuck doing a project for, there is something in it that you are fascinated about. You just need to find a way to make the project yours, and then you will enjoy doing it. It takes some effort to do that though. And yes, there are courses specifically focused in my area of study. At my university, there’s on focusing on that specific period, but it’s offered only once a year. At other schools, I’ve seen classes offer that period or a class on before the Civil War or after the Civil War, so it kind of focuses in that period as well.
Yeah, they try to convince me that questions from me are always welcome, but sometimes I feel like they could be doing something better than satisfying my curiosity like grading stuff or getting an article published. : P
Hmm, have you ever heard of Khan Academy? Here’s the link to it. I actually used this website to learn more about Biology when I had to take the online class over the summer. The professor who makes these videos teaches you about all the different subjects and he makes it extremely clear and even fun to learn, but I forgot all about it until recently. It even has a cool system where you can accumulate points and earn badges for watching videos. It’s a great incentive to keep watching because you feel like you’re accomplishing something. I figure you could watch his Physics videos and they might help you to understand the subject better because I don’t want to see you quit your dream just because some subject is giving you a hard time. I just hope I’m not too late in offering this website for help. If you really do love computer science as much as you love game programming, you can go for that as well, but just like my dad tells me, go for what you love. Don’t change your goal just because you think you can get a job that pays better. You never know what the future will look like, but I know I’d never want to spend the rest of my life doing something I hate just because I can earn more money.
Congrats on your wins! And after reading this paragraph, I have a better understanding on why you’re so torn, so you can disregard my previous paragraph if you want. Hmm, I don’t really know much about computer science or game programming, but if you would like to tell me more about it, I can try to offer you some advice.
Mentors can be anyone really. A mentor and mentee relationship is more intimate than an advisor and advisee relationship. See, an advisor can give advice about anything, but specifically about academic matters. If you’re wondering what class you should take, you can talk to a professor about it or a student who has taken plenty of classes in the department and can offer you solid advice. An advisor doesn’t need to know about other stuff you’re doing an academia such as your presentations at conferences or your essays that you’re working on for other classes. A mentor on the other hand offers advice like an advisor would, but you check in with a mentor more often. You would tell them your accomplishments, your frustrations, what you plan on doing with your life, and even your personal life (if you and your mentor feel comfortable with being that intimate). A mentor is not necessarily always older than you, but they have more seniority in the field of study that you’re working in. For example, a grad student focusing in American lit can be a mentor to me as well as any of my professors. Even my professors in other departments can serve as mentors to me such as my History professor because I tell her all of the conferences I present at and how things are going in my classes. Heck, she was one of the few people I trusted to tell about my mother dying when we only had a month and a half left of classes. You wouldn’t necessarily tell those things to an advisor. I could even qualify as a mentor to you if you wanted because I offer advice about academic stuff, but I also know about how you’re doing in classes and what other accomplishments you have. I’m just not a really good mentor because you can’t necessarily come to me about advice about anything and expect an answer right away because I take a long time to reply. XD But it is possible to have long distance mentors. It’s just easier to have a mentor you can talk to face-to-face beforehand.
As far as finding a professor to be your mentor, go to office hours whenever you can. Find any reason to talk to your professor. If you don’t know who to go to, start with the professors you’re taking classes from. If none of them seem like someone you can connect with, talk to other students and find out who the best professors are. They will be the ones who will always welcome students even if you’ve never had a class with them before. If you can manage an intellectual conversation with them, they’ll be ecstatic. If you don’t know what to ask them, tell them what you’re interested in or go find out what they are interested in and find out if you are fascinated by anything they are fascinated in. Start a conversation based on that. Ask them questions that only they can answer. If you find something interesting about something they say in their lecture or something interesting you came across reading in a book, talk to them about it. They love to talk about themselves and they generally love answering questions, and if they’re really good, they’ll pose questions to you as well. Be a good listener.
As far as finding a student to be your mentor, a lot of them are surprisingly willing. Go join clubs, organizations, and other stuff on campus. Find out where the honors center is and make friends who are honors students if they have them there. Find honor societies. Talk to those people about what classes they recommend, what professors they recommend. Ask them about their interests. Tell them about yours. Be genuinely interested (which I’m sure you would be). Ask them how you can get involved in stuff. They’ll be happy to recruit you to their own clubs and such if they’re good students. Don’t bother with students who want to compete with you. The ones who ask you how you did on your last test so they can boast about their higher score. No one cares. This isn’t grade school. (Tell them that, as well.)
About Me
- About dragonkollector
- Biography
- I'm a bit of an introvert.
- Location
- Mississauga, Canada, Ontario
- Interests
- Writing, reading, programming and playing games.
- Occupation
- None :[
- TPPC
Your TPPC Trainer Information
- TPPC Trainer ID
- #1147846, #1211482, #1211491, #1258583, #1325264
-
Signature
- "Well, most of those people are going to end up flipping burgers the rest of their lives or work for some other bottom of the barrel job. Those are the people you see at fast food joints you don't want to visit again because most of them have a bad attitude and screw up your orders. Those are the people who work to live, not live to work." - Hantsuki
Friends
Showing Friends 1 to 10 of 71
-
- 123MMM
- ShinyBreloom Expert
-
- 3072676
- ShinyWurmple Master
-
- 911komar
- Pokémon Trainer
-
- aed
- Pokémon Trainer
-
- Andromalius
- ShinySlaking Master
-
- Beat
- Pokémon Trainer
-
- bigasmooth
- Ho-Oh Trainer
-
Blackheart- Banned
-
- broadway
- Hydreigon Master
-
- Canine
- ShinyFloatzel Trainer
