Classes

By this time in the semester, I am always struggling to stay awake in class and stay motivated because I am so bored with the classes I am taking. I find so many classes at the University so interesting at first but each class becomes so repetitive that it's hard to stay interested. On the brighter side, it's time to start backpacking and registering for next
semester!

My roommate and I are such nerds because we look forward to when the course guides are released like it's our birthdays. We looove figuring out our schedules and reading about upcoming classes. I also love strategically planning my schedule for the most ideal possible schedule. For example, I have only had Friday classes two semesters. I have had 3 day weeks for the past 3 semesters! I have always been a full-time student as well. It's possible! (Maybe not for you science majors though.)

Some KEY things to remember when registering for classes:

1. DO YOUR RESEARCH! www.RateMyProfessor.com is the Bible. Make sure to look up your potential professors and do your background research! There are a lot of attractive classes that might sound really great in theory, but if you introduce a bad professor into the mix...the result might not be so great. There are a lot of helpful comments that suggest the best ways to study for the professor's exams and succeed in the class. Another thing I always do is Google my professor. I like to read up on what they research and specialize in. It's always a great idea to skim over their publications because most likely, it will give you a window into the angle at which they will be teaching their class.

2. KEEP IN MIND WHAT KIND OF PERSON YOU ARE! Personally, I am a morning person and like to get up early. However, two years ago, I could not, for my life, stay awake during my 9:00 AM discussion on Fridays. Consequently, I got points off for "napping in class", according to the comments next to my grade from my GSI. On the other hand, if you really hate ending class
and it being pitch black outside, I suggest you take more morning classes. Common sense right? Just keep in mind that the time of day really effects your mood in different ways for different people. Don't brush this off as a miniscule factor! It might really make or break your attitude for the class.

3. WOLVERINE ACCESS IS YOUR BEST FRIEND. During backpacking and registration time, you should check Wolverine Access all the time. You should be looking at your Degree Progress Report to check what requirements you have to fulfill, your registration time, and to see if the classes you backpacked are still open. If not, you need to make back-up plans! Don't wait until the last minute to figure out what classes and which sections you will take. You want to be absolutely ready to register for your classes as soon as it's your appointment time! You are fighting for a spot among thousands of students!

4. TAKE AT LEAST ONE CLASS THAT REALLY INTERESTS YOU. I know that many of us want to be done with our requirements for the University and your major(s). These days, when people think of college, they think of just a means for a job. What happens is that people stray more and more away from the traditional ideals of what a college or university is and gravitate towards just professional training, which is probably better if they go to grad school anyway. Colleges were first founded as educational institutions for students to further their knowledge and think about life critically and philosophically. You don't need to stress too much about careers. It really doesn't matter what you major in anyway!

5. TALK TO PEOPLE! Talk to people who are in the same major as you for advice about what classes to take and which professors are good. Upperclassmen might be even gracious enough to pass down old books, study materials, and notes! Another piece of advice is to try to take classes with friends. It's a great way to spend time with friends and make you want to go to class. You can study together and keep each other on track!


By: Sorah Park

Advice for Freshmen

To the Freshmen:

You’re almost done with your first semester of college. How do you feel? It probably went by really fast, and I’m here to tell you that before you know it, you’re going to be an upperclassman freaking out about being thrown into the real world too fast, too soon. Over the course of your undergraduate career, you’ll have three full summers before you graduate. What you should be doing the summer after freshman year? There is no absolute correct answer to this question, but this in itself might prove to be frustrating for some. Don’t worry – you still have time to decide, and you have a ton of options as to what you can do this summer.

1.     Find an internship. This is pretty rare for students just completing their first year of college, but it does happen to a lucky few. You can find internships by going to career fairs or if you have personal connections, but most of the time, freshmen aren’t the ones interning over the summer. But if you’re really ambitious, go for it – it’ll give you some good experience and something noteworthy to put on your resume, even if it’s an unpaid internship. It doesn’t even have to be related to your major if you can’t find one that is.

2.     Get a job or volunteer. Many freshmen go home for the summer, and that’s fine. You could pick up an old high school job, or get a new job – a little extra money to spend for sophomore year won’t hurt, especially when the new freshmen come in and you start to feel ignored when the upperclassmen start treating them instead of you. Or, you can volunteer at home too. Some possible volunteer positions could be working in a hospital, being a counselor at a camp, or tutoring.

3.     Study abroad. I personally have not studied abroad, but I hear that it’s an amazing experience, no matter where you go. If you want to go and just chill in a foreign country, learn a different language, or just get some credits out of the way somewhere more exciting that Ann Arbor, you should definitely study abroad. If you’re worried about paying for a trip like this, don’t worry – the university has plenty of financial aid options for those who’d like to study abroad. If you’d like to go abroad anywhere from a couple weeks to a few months, Michigan has a myriad of opportunities for everyone. Please visit http://internationalcenter.umich.edu/swt/study/ for more information.

4.     Take classes. This isn’t a super appealing option, especially when you’ll have already been through two semesters of class, but it can be really helpful in the long run. If you feel like you’re a little behind on credits, or if you really don’t know what you want to study yet, this could be a good option for you. Keep in mind that you can do this at Michigan (make sure you look into off-campus housing, since dorms aren’t available over spring/summer term for students) OR you can do it at an easier, less stressful school or community college. If you take classes elsewhere, keep in mind that the grade you receive won’t transfer, but the credit will (i.e., the grade you get at a different school won’t be counted in your GPA; you’ll only receive credit for the class). Another reason why this could be an appealing option is that certain classes here at Michigan are infamous for destroying GPAs. I strongly recommend for anyone who needs to take Math 215 (Calc 3), Physics 140, or Physics 240 to take it off campus, or at least not during the regular school year. Even Math 116 (Calc 2), if taken at a different college, could take some weight off your back. These classes require a lot of work and the majority of students go through excruciating pain to even pull off a B. If you want to take it at Michigan, I would recommend taking just one of those classes at a time during a spring or summer term. That being said, if you take classes during spring/summer term (here or at a different school), beware that the terms are half as short as a regular semester, so a 4 credit-hour class might meet 8 hours per week and you will learn the material twice as quickly.

5.     Play. Honestly, since it’s your freshman summer, and you feel good about classes and all that, just go play. Catch up on sleep. Do nothing. This is probably the last summer of your life where you aren’t going to feel the pressures of society and work coming down on you. You’re probably going to want to be productive during your sophomore and junior summers, but you can get away with chilling after freshman year. But since it will be probably get really boring really fast, you might want to think about something you could do to pass time, like taking a road trip, learning how to cook, or working on losing that Freshman 15.

My friend, who studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain, on a weekend trip to Lagos, Portugal.


My brother and I visiting Taipei, Taiwan over the summer. We took language classes there.

      By: Jasmine Huang

Psyched Out

"What's the easiest four credit class that I can take next semester?" "Oh, take Psych 111 with Schreier, it's easy." 

This is the most commonly heard answer when I asked around to all of the uppers on what class was the easiest. So I went ahead and backpacked Schreier's Psych 111 class for this semester but soon realized how it didn't fit my schedule and coincided with the classes that were mandatory. So, I researched some on ratemyprofessor.com and decided on Dr. Perlmutter's Psych 111, who I heard was really easy. I mean how much harder could one person be from each other teaching the same exact course. 

I was so wrong. 
1. Perlmutter has a no laptop policy, which means you have to hand write notes or print out the lectures or concentrate on every word she's saying 
2. This class has no attendance required including discussion, that rule makes more the half of my class NEVER want to show up for class
3. Her lectures are purely graphs and what sounds like a summary of the chapter from the back of our text book so they are COMPLETELY pointless for the exams which means ... going to lecture is completely pointless 
4. Her tests are based completely on the textbook and the Wiley website quizzes. Formatted just like the online quizzes which are extremely detail oriented, unnecessarily
5. Her class gives 1195 points. sounds good, especially because exams are from 150 points to 200 points, huh? WRONG. Each question on our online quizzes count as one point and you only get on try. If you don't get the answer right thats one point down the drain. That doesn't sound like much? Do the math of two 15 question quizzes easy optimistically getting 10/15 everyweek.. oh those points add up not to mentions the exams are hard too

So conclusion: Don't take Perlmutter's class EVER! 

By: Rebecca Yi

Course Information

So, you’re new to Michigan’s course selection process, huh? You probably thought it would be something like your high school experience when you pretty much followed a general path with all of your friends. But at Michigan, with literally hundreds of courses to choose from, it’s very easy to find yourself confused and wanting to rip your hair. The LSA Course Guide book really doesn’t help since it doesn’t talk about how good or bad the class really is. The online registration page itself is a pain to your brain, and backpacking on Wolverine Access sucks because of all the glitches and bugs.

So what to do….

As a senior, I’ve been there and done that. For four years. And I survived. Since I will be leaving at the end of this academic year, I hope to impart to you a small token of knowledge, wisdom, and knowhow so that you may do the same when time comes. Unfortunately, I can’t possibly write out all the tips and tricks. So, the resources and information briefed below should be taken as a very general guide to your survival.

Ratemyprofessors.com! Ever heard of it? I’m sure you have, but this is one of the most useful sites when backpacking and registering for classes. This is a fantastic website that informs you about which professors are BOSS, which are ‘eh…’, which are hard graders, and which are easy-A-givers. Although you should take the comments and ratings on this website with a grain of salt (or perhaps a fistful) since they’re merely opinions by other students, the ratings are for the most part reliable and accurate.

Okay, so you’ve picked the best class and the best professor. But many students realize that these classes are filled quickly. If you’ve been waitlisted, do two things: write an awesome e-mail and anticipate for the worst. Writing an awesome e-mail means you should e-mail that professor with a succinct e-mail correspondence. Remember to show why you really want to take this course, and ask what steps you should take to get in the class. Anticipating for the worst means you should pretend you didn’t get in the class and have backup classes. Then, when you get in the preferred class you’ll feel great. If you don’t get in, the world hasn’t crashed and the sky isn’t falling apart because you were smart had a Plan B.

Regarding your weekly schedule, it can be a good idea to give yourself an extra day of weekend. Frontloading your week can give you a head start on your weekend plans every week. This can also work with backloading your week to have every Mondays off. I found this to be useful (especially having Fridays off) if you’re planning frequent road trips, long weekends, getting your freak on every Thursday night, or having a chill day to attend to your personal life and errands. You can also schedule your classes so that you’ll have Wednesdays off for a mini-weekend. If you’re a freshman or sophomore, try these options when you still have time. Then, when senior year rolls around, you won’t have to spend all five weekdays in class :)

On a concluding note, one of the best resources during my college years was KSA members, especially upperclass KSA members. With insightful knowledge and knowhow like the ones above, KSA uppers are treasure chest of information and tips. They always welcome questions about course registration and classes, and they’ll be an amazing asset for your convenience. Good luck!

By: David J Kim

80% of what you learn in school is useless(?)

I came across a poll on a website about how much of what you learn in school is pointless and the general consensus was quite shocking. 80%. I agree that a lot of material you learn in classes and memorize for exams are not applicable to jobs in the real world for the most part.  But I think 80% is harsh.  I can't speak for other majors but the theories, disorders, and studies I learn in psychology classes are pretty useful.  I could care less (right now) when infants develop stranger anxiety, but I'm sure it will be helpful in 10 years-ish. Also, a lot of my upper level communication classes focus on the media industries, media economics, and how rapidly our society is changing in this Web 2.0 world.  This is definitely relevant to my upcoming job interviews. I guess what I'm trying to say is you never know when you'll use the information you learn from class. There's nothing to lose in learning more than what you "need" to know!

By: Grace Hong

College Advice

To all you Freshmen out there, here are some golden nuggets of advice I wish someone had told me 3 years ago.

1) Don't skip class! You may be very tempted to because you think you can just learn it from the book, but it takes longer to learn it from the book than to just sit and listen to your professor talk for an hour. You might even think to yourself that the extra hour of sleep is worth it, but the extra 3 hours you will spend studying the material when the exam rolls around could have been spent enjoying some high quality Z's. Go to class!

2) If you are undecided and have no idea what you want to do, BE PROACTIVE about finding something you are generally interested in and can see yourself pursuing a career in. Take classes in a wide range of subjects, but don't stop there. Do your own research: find out what kind of jobs are available for which majors. Find out what you would need to study in order to get a certain job. Talk to older friends about their majors and if they like it or not. We're lucky that Michigan offers such a wide variety of schools and programs: a great business school, a great engineering school, arts school, music school, public policy school, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, architecture.. The list goes on and on, but I didn't find out about half of them until Junior year. DO YOUR RESEARCH!

3) If you are an engineer, and you don't know if you want to do engineering 100%, get out. Get out now! I have heard too many stories of Juniors and Seniors who just did engineering because they didn't know what else to do, and switched to LSA with no applicable credits for their new majors. Also, the later you switch out of engineering, the deeper your GPA will sink (probably) and the harder it will be to pull it back up. If you're just unsure of what kind of engineering you want to do, find out quickly because the more quickly you find out, the less time you will waste taking filler classes as underclassmen and the easier your junior and senior years will be.

4) Learn to spend your time wisely. You might have already figured out by now, but college can get very busy. From class, studying, meetings for student organizations, church small groups, to laundry, sometimes it can be impossible to find time for facebook (but we all somehow manage to do so). Figure out things you have to do and things you don't have to do. Class, for example, is a must, whereas laundry can be postponed (to a certain extent..). Learn to double task: if you take the bus to class, do something productive like reading for your psych class. Those 15 minutes spent on the bus may not seem like long, but they can add up. If you ride the bus twice a day, seven times a week, that adds up to three and a half hours! Equivalent to one facebook session! 

5) Figure out what kind of study person you are. Do you get a lot done when you study with friends or do you usually end up taking hundreds of pictures on your mac photobooth at the Ugli? How much noise can you handle when you study? Can you handle the Ugli at its noisiest, or do you need law library level silence? Do you ever get anything done when you take your computer to the library with you when you don't need it? Can you study in your room? Can you study in one place for a long time, or do you need to move around occasionally? These are all good questions you should ask yourself to figure out where, when, with whom, and in what conditions you will maximize your study time efficiency.

6) Finally, last but definitely not least: call your parents. They miss you. It's easy to forget to do it when school picks up and things get busy, but you make their day when you call them before they call you. It's also easier to hit them up for money when they're in their "aigooo! my baby thought of me and called me!" mood than when they're in their "you took three days to call me back" mood.


By: Dan Jun

GO TO CLASS!

Although it may seem trivial, good attendance for a class can greatly increase your chances of doing well in a course. Going to class is a good habit to pick up your first year and maintain throughout your college
career. Many freshmen either don’t heed the warnings of upper classmen who tell them not to skip, or, foolishly listen to some of the older students who assure young freshmen that for certain courses, attendance is unnecessary. However, most students who skip class, yet still do well are exceptions, not the standard. I don’t doubt that many of you have the
ability to miss class, yet still catch up when midterms and finals roll around, but why stress out while cramming, rather than keeping up with the material on a daily pace? Also, continual recitation and reiteration of the material will help you learn it more thoroughly as opposed to the couple hours or less that you spend learning it on your own. While class time that you utilize on other tasks may seem much more important, such as sleep, in the end, you’ll be a lot more thankful that you attended class than those couple hours of sleep you caught up on instead. Most professors, knowing that students choose to sleep in or skip, choose to leave out vital information on the slides they post on ctools, or purposely put only the bare minimum of information on their power points. Looking back on these slides right before an exam and not knowing what anything means or how it’s correlated, can screw you over – BIG TIME. So be wise! If you know your professor puts everything on the power point slides AND records his lectures, sure, you may be able to skip stress free, but why sit for hours
the day before an exam listening to numerous, dry lectures? Also, those who aim to go to any type of graduate school after undergrad NEED the recommendation letters from professors. How do you approach and have a
conversation with a professor with whom you’ve never attended a lecture of? For most students, unless you’ve received a full scholarship, tuition is costly, whether you’re in-state or out-of-state. For just in-state
students, it’s about $50 per class , not the overall course, but the class! Think about the money you waste by not attending. So for those of you who wish to both succeed in college and make good use of your
parents’ investment, go to class – it’s the simpler way to doing well! 

For more tips for surviving freshman year, check this website out: 
http://www.quintcareers.com/first-year_success.html


By: Michelle Park

Class Info- Asian Language 138- 1st Year Korean for Heritage Learners

Ok, so it’s a 5 credit class…but it barely feels like one. Really, it feels more like going to Hangul Hakkyo (Korean School) in-between you’re classes every day. To get into 1^st Year Korean for Heritage learners, you have to take a placement test and meet some bare minimum requirement. When I say bare minimum, I mean bare minimum. I haven’t been to Korean school since 5^th grade and even then, I was in the 3^rd grade level. If you can speak and understand basic stuff, you should be able to get in. The class is made up of people like you who understand just fine but have problems with grammar, reading and writing.

The teacher, Ko Insung, is one of the most beloved teachers by Korean students on campus.  I have always heard about him and wanted to take a class with him. He teaches the 1^st year and 2^nd year heritage classes so it’s really chill and laid back. He really just wants to see us get better at Korean.  There’s weekly vocab quizzes but, again, it’s nothing too crazy. He’s goofy, fun, and very passionate about his work.

As a way of getting us to learn to type better (and use Korean more openly) we set up class facebook accounts where we write on each other’s walls, update statuses and write postings ALL IN KOREAN! It took me a very long time to learn, but it is a dam effective way to teach people to type. Cmmon….Facebook as a classroom tool? Awesome. If you’re struggling with Korean or just ashamed that you’re not proficient at it (like myself), then I would 100% recommend you take ASIANLANG 138!

Last year’s class…

By: Sam Moon

academic/life crisis?

Hello freshies and other underclassmen :) Now is the time that you all have to think about potential majors and concentrations.  I understand the confusion, stress, and frustration that goes into deciding a major and then getting all the requirements done in order to graduate on time. A little piece of advice I want to give the new freshmen class is to take advantage of one semester of freshmen year by taking all sorts of classes.  That is the best way to find out if it's something you really want to do or if you're doing it because you don't know what else to do.  I personally had a mid college epiphany after my sophomore year that I didn't want to do pre-medicine because of the simple fact that I didn't like it.  Too bad that I realized it a little late after all my basic pre-medicine  requirements were done. But it's never too late! I am now a communication studies and psychology double major AND am still able to graduate on time.  I don't regret this decision I made and I hope all of you find something you really love learning about. Because nothing's better than genuinely wanting to go to class and learn.  If you haven't experienced that desire then I challenge you to find your passion in college and in life :)

"When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end.  So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it." --Charles de Lint


The KSA board members are always eager and willing to help all of you so feel more than welcome to e-mail us about questions you have related to school, KSA, or just life in general!


Inyong Chung//inyong@umich.edu
Taejoon Han//Economics major--tjhan@umich.edu
Grace Hong//Communication Studies & Psychology major--honggr@umich.edu
Jasmine Huang//Industrial and Operations Engineering major--jashuang@umich.edu
Dan Jun//Biomedical Engineering major--djun@umich.edu
David Kim//English major--djkk@umich.edu
Sam Moon//Communication Studies major--sammoon@umich.edu
James Oh//Biology major (pre-dental)--jstoh@umich.edu
Michelle Park//Political Science major, Economics minor--michp@umich.edu
Sorah Park//Communication Studies & Psychology majo--sorah@umich.edu
Austin Yi//Mechanical engineering major--yiaustin@umich.edu
Rebecca Yi//Communication Studies major--rebyi@umich.edu


By: Grace Hong