USC is a big school. There's always something going on campus, but it's not so easy to hear about all of them. That's when this USC calendar website (http://www.usc.edu/calendar) really helps. If you click on a date on the calendar at the right corner of this website, it shows you all USC events happening on that day. You can also search a certain event with the website's search engine. It will give you all information you need about that one event you are looking for.
Also, if you want to keep track of the events thrown by the student-run Program Board (the programming branch of the Undergraduate Student Government), visit Program Board's calendar (http://www-scf.usc.edu/~prgbrd/calendar.html). It will even tell you when the meetings of each assembly belonging to this board are held. One of the coolest events you can find on this calendar is the "Friday Night Flix"--free movie screening at Norris Theatre every Friday! Go find out which movie is screening on which Friday.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
The Room Assignments (or lack thereof)
If you are a freshman at USC (class of 2012), and if you are taking one of many courses that offer Supplemental Instruction (SI) program, you may have already experienced a serious disappointment. Yes, the room assignments!
It's been more than two weeks since school started, and guess what? We still don't know which classroom to show up at. Whatever has happened to the over-thirty-thousand-dollars they robbed from us is beyond mystery. But regardless of anything, it is not okay to leave us confused in the third week of school.
Most of SI classes still don't have assigned classrooms. This can be frustrating, since SI classes meet every week, just like regular classes, and every week, neither the SI leaders nor the students knew which room to go in. The general routine has been that the leader announces the meeting place (e.g. the VKC courtyard) on the day of his or her session either in the lecture or through email, and they meet at that place later and walk together to find an empty classroom to settle.
Often times, they can't find a room big enough to fit the students. And even if they do, there goes the wasted 10 minutes (out of 50) that were used to search for an empty classroom, instead of reviewing the class material, like they are supposed to.
Such waste of valuable time has been prevalent all throughout this semester so far. Our valuable time (which we paid for with our valuable tuition money) is being trashed in whatever excuse the scheduling office (or whoever is responsible for room assignments) can possibly come up with. If this keeps up, I don't know if I can continue telling my friends how wonderful this school is. The truth is, everyone is disappointed and annoyed.
If you're new to USC, first of all, welcome. And I'd like to tell you the bright side... No, it isn't normally like this. The SI rooms were assigned by the end of the first week in both fall and spring semesters last year. And hopefully, this won't happen again in this coming spring.
And if you have no idea what I have been talking about, perhaps you would like to check out SI. The Supplemental Instruction program (www.usc.edu/si) is a peer-mentoring program for big lecture-hall style introductory classes (e.g. general biology). Each SI "class" is run by a student leader who have previously taken the course and excelled in it. Often they know the in's and out's of your professor's style and what to expect on the exams. If you are taking one of the courses that offers SI, while you are at it, why not take advantage of it?
It's been more than two weeks since school started, and guess what? We still don't know which classroom to show up at. Whatever has happened to the over-thirty-thousand-dollars they robbed from us is beyond mystery. But regardless of anything, it is not okay to leave us confused in the third week of school.
Most of SI classes still don't have assigned classrooms. This can be frustrating, since SI classes meet every week, just like regular classes, and every week, neither the SI leaders nor the students knew which room to go in. The general routine has been that the leader announces the meeting place (e.g. the VKC courtyard) on the day of his or her session either in the lecture or through email, and they meet at that place later and walk together to find an empty classroom to settle.
Often times, they can't find a room big enough to fit the students. And even if they do, there goes the wasted 10 minutes (out of 50) that were used to search for an empty classroom, instead of reviewing the class material, like they are supposed to.
Such waste of valuable time has been prevalent all throughout this semester so far. Our valuable time (which we paid for with our valuable tuition money) is being trashed in whatever excuse the scheduling office (or whoever is responsible for room assignments) can possibly come up with. If this keeps up, I don't know if I can continue telling my friends how wonderful this school is. The truth is, everyone is disappointed and annoyed.
If you're new to USC, first of all, welcome. And I'd like to tell you the bright side... No, it isn't normally like this. The SI rooms were assigned by the end of the first week in both fall and spring semesters last year. And hopefully, this won't happen again in this coming spring.
And if you have no idea what I have been talking about, perhaps you would like to check out SI. The Supplemental Instruction program (www.usc.edu/si) is a peer-mentoring program for big lecture-hall style introductory classes (e.g. general biology). Each SI "class" is run by a student leader who have previously taken the course and excelled in it. Often they know the in's and out's of your professor's style and what to expect on the exams. If you are taking one of the courses that offers SI, while you are at it, why not take advantage of it?
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