New Schedule: love it or leave it

As the first semester of the new schedule draws to an end, I asked myself: what did it mean for us students?

Well, either your brain cells have worked hard enough and you want a break from the new semester, or you are ready to carry over your momentum from fall into the new winter session. For some of us there are certainly two sides to this coin.

Before the new schedule, Dr. Sid Kolpas, a math professor, took a vote in class asking students if they’d like to attend class earlier to review the previous night’s homework. Now, 6:45 a.m. is no longer his trademark – it is actually in the class schedule.

Needless to say, it is a struggle for all the non-morning people to begin the day earlier if they need that second cup of coffee to function once they make it to class.

Night classes also take a toll on those of us who don’t like to stay at school after 10 p.m. It was enough of a challenge to sit still and focus in the previous semesters’ three or four-hour classes, even

with breaks in between. Now, with even longer classes, it is becoming extremely irritating for those of us who lack a long attention span.

Most importantly, this accelerated learning process is a disadvantage for the math and science students who need more time to register all the new material and get past all their required lab work. One minor advantage I can think of is the chance to make good use of our short-term memories. Midterms, and then finals, are just around the corner, making procrastinating for studies almost impossible because there just isn’t enough time between tests.

I suppose we only have two choices: cope with the new schedule, or transfer to a neighboring college with regular semester terms, like Pasadena City College.

If your choice is to deal with the new schedule, take heart. You can treat your time at GCC as boot camp for the more rigorous studies that you will encounter when you move on to a university.

However, as strenuous as the new schedule may be, we have to remind ourselves that this is college and that the road to success takes a serious conscious effort on our part. It may be difficult to adjust to the new schedule at first, but it will definitely pay off in the end when we look back at our achievements over each semester or over the school year.