Why didn't anyone tell me that?! Part 1

It's time for my first edition of a periodic blog I have decided to title, "Why didn't anyone tell me that?!" Every few weeks or so, I will post a blog about one or more topics I was pretty clueless about coming in as a freshman to PLNU. You'd be amazed that, for the incredible abundance of information you receive in the first four days here at school, there's still a lot of important stuff left out.

As you may or may not have heard, for your first semester here at Loma, your classes will be scheduled for you based on your major. I think the reasoning behind this is that the school probably knows better than you what you need to take your first semester. Considering you've never met with your college advisor, and you probably haven't planned out your classes for your four years of college just yet, this makes sense. Which brings me to my first point:

After your first semester, sit down and plan out your class schedule for the rest of your college career.

Most students do not do this. Some departments encourage or even require students to do this, but the majority do not. It's really important, though, for several reasons. First, even if you think you may change your major at some point, you need to save some "gen-ed" classes for later down the road. Trust me on this. Gen-ed classes are classes that every student must take regardless of his or her major. By planning out your schedule and spreading these classes out throughout your college career, you save yourself a lot of stress down the road. If you take all of your gen-eds right away, you will be stuck your junior and senior years taking all classes for your major. These classes are typically more difficult than your average gen-ed class, so it's good to take 2-3 gen eds along with 2-3 major classes per semester.

Also, if you leave a bunch of your major classes to the end, chances are you're going to get into serious trouble. Often, classes for your major will not be taught every semester (some of mine are only taught one out of every four semesters). It's vital to know when those classes will be offered, and you can find this out online or by talking to your advisor. If you don't plan things out carefully, you're likely to hit senior year and realize there's a class you needed to take the year before that isn't offered until after you are supposed to graduate. It's also important to note that since your major classes are offered more infrequently, if you try to take a bunch of them at a time, chances are they will overlap in the times they are offered, and you won't be able to take them all in the same semester. By mixing in gen-eds, you can take your 2-3 major classes per semester and fit in 2-3 gen-eds wherever you want.

You'll have to make some adjustments to your plan from time to time, but having a set schedule in place and knowing when classes will be offered is very important. Your advisor meets with a lot of students in a very short period of time, and he or she may not mention this idea to you, but you'll want to use it, and your advisor will be thankful and impressed when you do.

I will post part 2 of this series of tips in the next few days. But now, let me share a few highlights from the week. This week was a tough one for me as a sports fan, because I endured Oklahoma's harsh loss to Texas in the Red River Shootout this past Saturday. I then had to watch my NFL team, the Broncos, lose an embarrassing game to the Jaguars. So I spent much of the weekend looking like this:


However, on Sunday we also played an intramural softball game, and my team won! Our team name is the Hot Tamales and we improved our record to a respectable 3-2 on the season. I also saw my roommate's band play a great outdoor concert on Saturday night (shameless plug time: check out his band, Family Wagon, on Myspace!) Alas, I forgot to bring my camera to the concert, so I was equipped with only an iPhone. Family Wagon played later in the night and it was too dark to get any decent pictures, but I nabbed a passable shot of the opening act (again, keep in mind this was taken with a 2.0 megapixel iPhone camera).

This is Rheanna Downey (R), who is actually a really cool musician from just up the 5 (Interstate 5) in Encinitas. On her left is Nancy Reeves, a PLNU grad who also has a great voice.

The coolest thing about the concert was that it was a free show put on in downtown San Diego by a local church, and they had food donated from Wienerschnitzel and Starbucks that they gave away to some of the people who live on the streets nearby. So really the concert was only partly about the music, but also about unifying people of different backgrounds through common ground - who doesn't love a free concert and free food?

I always get a laugh out of this week's YouTube video, even though I kind of feel bad for the guy. This is one of my all-time favorite YouTube videos, so definitely check it out. I'll be back in a few short days with part 2 of my little series...hope you find it helpful!