New year. New semester. New opportunity to bring up that GPA and fulfill your wild-est academic dreams. Or so you hope.
To prepare for the upcoming spring, we must reflect on the previous semester. There comes a time over Winter Break when many students choose to view their semester grade report. I personally like to choose a time post-Christmas and pre-New Year's. That way, if all my grades are as bad as I expect, then it doesn't spoil Christmas and I can drink away my academic woes on New Year's. Logical thinking, eh? For those of you who don't celebrate any major holidays right after exams, I'm sure you just wait as long as possible before the new year in order to mentally prepare for the damage inevitably done to your GPA by ENLT 789: Principles of 18th Century British Colonial Prose Writers Who Supported the Parliament's Decision to Ban Knickerbockers and Clotted Cream.
I am also the type of student who prefers not to tell her parents her grades. The reasoning behind this is multifold but boils down to the fact that my dad doesn't care (he graduated last in his class after seven years) and my mom cares too much (she graduated first in her class a year early). When you have this type of academic disparity in your family, it's no wonder that you keep your grades a secret. As long as they aren't getting any letters that I'm on academic probation, I think I'm validated in remaining mum.
I fully believe that almost everyone looks at their grades from the fall semester and wishes they had done better. I say "almost" because there are some people who can't get any better grades and other people who really couldn't care less. I know one guy who technically got an A+ in a class, but U.Va. doesn't give more than a 4.0/A credit for those. The teacher wanted to commend him so badly for his excellent work that he wrote in an A+ on ISIS just for this guy, just so he could have the knowledge he got an A+. You know who you are, and yes, I'm still holding this grudge from first year.
So, spring semester of 2006 (or 061, if you will) presents the opportunity for each of us to excel in school.
I myself have made grandiose plans for this semester. My first goal is to skip only one class a week. This is a step up from last semester's goal, which was to skip only one class a day. This is also a commendable ambition considering I am a fourth year, and graduation is waving enthusiastically from the finish line with a bottle of champagne in hand and a sign that says, "Go crazy, woman! You've only got one semester left!"
I also intend not only to stay awake in all my classes but to take thorough notes. "Thorough" will not be defined as doing the Sudoku, Jumble, Crossword, or drawing funny faces on the photos in the paper, nor will it be defined by passing notes to Jenny about the guy three rows over picking his nose. Heretofore, "thorough" means legible, usable for studying and pertaining to the subject matter being discussed by the professor for the full duration of the academic session.
For the eighth semester running, I hope to make straight A's. Should this happen, I think the world might implode. I'd like to see that, so I'm going to try. Actually, some semesters I just like to make straight anything merely for the neatness of the look on ISIS and the ease it affords when calculating my semester GPA.
And my last aspiration (or should I say "resolution?") for the upcoming semester is always the same: to have a fabulous time. It doesn't matter if fabulous means sitting on the couch all day watching reruns of "What Not to Wear" with my roommate or if it means spending an unnecessary amount of time be-bopping around Charlottesville, exploring everything from Beaver Creek to the little shops on the Downtown Mall. I'm sure, like every student here, I strive to make each semester better than the last. These are the golden years, are they not?
Usually, these goals last about a week. Or in some cases, they don't even last through the first day. It's expected that you are probably not going to achieve all of your hopes for the new semester. Just shoot for one little goal, like always having a writing utensil in class, and try not to get too wrapped up in the overachievement that is U.Va. Life's a party, not a study hall.
Lindsay's column runs bi-weekly on Thursdays. She can be reached at mccook@cavalierdaily.com.
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