I made a conscious effort over the past 2 weeks to try and get out and see Justice League, the new DCEU movie that finally brings together the superfriends on the silver screen. I told Gabrielle, my editor, that I’d bring her a review of the movie, but the thing about 4th year though is that you don’t actually have time to do the things that you want to do. My Justice League plight is just the most recent turn in a series of unfortunate events that 4th year has caused. Instead of reviewing the hot new movie I’m going to review what I did instead of watching it.
By fourth year you’ve hopefully learned that asking TAs a question is typically more difficult than the question itself. There are some terrific TAs out there, readily available, personable, knowledgeable in the content, and familiar with the courses’ marking scheme, but these seem to be few and far between. In my experience you either have to do a lot of running around to find your TA’s office, then wait for them to actually be there. After making physical contact comes the explanation of your problem, and the part that you don’t understand, which inevitably leads to them telling you a few things that you still don’t understand and then running away. I had to do this instead of watching Justice League.
4th year, especially in my program, is when the technical electives start rolling. Departments do a pretty good job of scheduling the TEs so that you can take any combination that you want, INSIDE the department. As soon as you start trying to take TEs from another department you’re going to have a conflicting lab time or tutorial slot. This isn’t even that big of a deal if you talk to the Professor though, they always understand, you just have to fill out a course override form. This isn’t bad except that it’s actually horrible. I filled out the form and got permission from the Professor whose class I was going to be missing. I was already enrolled in this class though so this was a mistake, one which according to my departmental secretary was nearly unforgivable. Do you really need to stress me out any more than I already am? I had to do this instead of watching Justice League.
And then you can’t forget about the five or six projects that you have in the next few weeks. I had 4 major deliverables, one for each 4th year course, due on 4 successive days last week. I didn’t do a whole lot of sleeping, and ended up being pretty grumpy. I had to do this instead of watching Justice League.
So yeah, 4th year is pretty dull. I’d give my time not watching Justice League 2/5 stars. Would much rather have watched Justice League.
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