The School/Uni Thread

[Profanity]

Were you an engineering student?

My brother was.

 

[Einherjar86]

I start my program today at UChicago. Two weeks of a core lecture series (hour and a half lecture Mon-Fri) and then classes begin on September 27. I've been overloading my brain with readings by Kant, Descartes, Baudelaire, Habermas, Adorno & Horkheimer, Hume, and blah blah blah fuck me in the ass.

 

[Mountains_of_Mars]

Im about 3 weeks into my freshman year. I planned on majoring in Physics, but I want to switch to something else. Math sucks. To be fully honest, I just want a degree where I can get a job that pays like 40K plus benefits. It could be boring mindless office work and that would be fine for me.

My social life is literally non-existent down here. I spent the whole last weekend playing WoW and eating snack cakes.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

That was your life at home bro.

 

[w0es]

Uh, about a week later the new term will start, I have fucking difficult subjects this term.My field is Electrical Engineering in university.Wish I had the chance to change my field to IT (Information Technology) but it's too late.

 

[waif]

@mountains: Switch to Arts.
I'm digging Arts so far. The one class I hate is the one non-arts class I'm taking (Calc 2, math be hard yo).

 

[The Ozzman]

This is what lots of people are doing with their degrees.

For most people, they'll take anything they can find at this point.

 

[sevag00]

Yeah for about 3 semesters. I switched to computer science.

My brother majored in computer science, and he's doing pretty good. He's a project manager atm.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I could potentially become a project manager at my job if I stayed on long enough, but I don't think I've got quite the personality for it.

 

[Episteme]

Doing:

Process Lab Projects
Process Instrumentation & Control
Fluid Particle Processes
Advanced Separation Processes

1 more year after this semester and I'll be done!

 

[Einherjar86]

First week of classes and I now have more reading to do for next week than I've had to do in a long time (maybe ever).

My classes are:

Representations of Finance in 20th Century Literature and Film
Reading Freud
Foundations of Interpretive Theory (required)

 

[unknown]

books I've read so far for my 20th Century American Lit class:

Sherwood Anderson - "Winesburg, Ohio"
Willa Cather - "A Lost Lady"
Anita Loos - "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"
Nella Larsen - "Quicksand"

and now it's onto Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms." just rockin and rollin right on through

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I read my first Lovecraft this week, The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Good subject matter, mediocre writing style.

 

[unknown]

read it again

edit: I will admit. Lovecraft's writing style is not the most accessible at all. However, if you read Lord Dunsany, Arthur Machen and other similar authors, you'll see he is right in line with the early weird fiction style. And for the genre/conventions/motifs, Lovecraft is absolutely stellar. If you're in the right mood, you can get absolutely lost in his prose. Otherwise, you'll just find it to be Romantic and turgid at times. Also, Dodens will probably be here any minute...

 

[waif]

Read The Shadow Out Of Time.

 

[sevag00]

Still 3 days till classes start.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

edit: I will admit. Lovecraft's writing style is not the most accessible at all. However, if you read Lord Dunsany, Arthur Machen and other similar authors, you'll see he is right in line with the early weird fiction style. And for the genre/conventions/motifs, Lovecraft is absolutely stellar. If you're in the right mood, you can get absolutely lost in his prose. Otherwise, you'll just find it to be Romantic and turgid at times. Also, Dodens will probably be here any minute...

I've only read one of his stories once so far, so any point I make can probably be trumped with the standard "read more / read it again" line, but for what it's worth...

Regarding how "accessible" Lovecraft is, I did not find the story difficult to "get" in terms of the plot and the psychological transformation of the narrator as he learns more about the town and about himself. Of course, I was not "absolutely lost in his prose" as I found it thoroughly dry, unengaging, and as you said, turgid. He really overuses his adjectives and descriptive phrases in TSOI -- I don't see how that kind of overblown language becomes more appealing as you get more "lost" in the story, unless you just start forgetting how many times you've read about how decrepit and miserable the townscape is, how furtive the residents are, etc.

I understand that in some sense a story is only as engaging as the imaginative capacity of the reader, but I also hold authors responsible for creating characters who are emotionally rich enough to relate to, thus opening a window into their world. Lovecraft works with very interesting subject matter, but it seems to me that for anyone who unequivocally loves a story like TSOI the subject matter is the main reason -- Lovecraft doesn't offer much of anything else to work with.

One other thing -- why do you bring up genre and conventions when you defend his writing? Last I checked it is not the mark of a great writer to be conventional or easily grouped in with a bunch of similar writers.

 

[Einherjar86]

One other thing -- why do you bring up genre and conventions when you defend his writing? Last I checked it is not the mark of a great writer to be conventional or easily grouped in with a bunch of similar writers.

Not necessarily; if a writer is trying to emulate a certain tone or style, it's perfectly plausible for him to borrow from other writers of that genre (in fact, I would even go so far as to say it's laudable, since he's demonstrating his knowledge of the genre). That said, Lovecraft still developed his own unique voice.

I enjoy Lovecraft's work; but as far as conceptual, often horrifying and intriguingly weird short stories go, no one can beat Borges.

 

[Onder]

So I spent my first three days at uni. I'm fucking tired. They were talking about anatomy and shit and then I went to like five various pubs in the crampus and ended up in a jazz bar in my district. That's like 12 beers and waking up next morning. This life will be hard. There are like zero hot girls im my class and most of the guys are Vietnamese or czech nerds. This guy from Thaiwan was looking for drugs and I understood only like one third of his sentences but he was saying something about some black guy dealing pot.

 

[Srontgorrth]

So far in Individual Society and Freedom I've read Sophocles' Antigone, Plato's Apology of Socrates and Crito, and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Next up is Rousseau's Emile and On the Social Contract.