The fun in registering for classes

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Robert

Every year, once each semester, students go through one of the most traumatic and exasperating experiences of college: class registration. Maybe that was an over exaggeration, but most students will complain that this time of year is rough. If it wasn’t hard enough that you have to pick a major and do well in school, you have to get a spot in each of the classes you want. The experience isn’t limited to just McDaniel either, students at all other colleges go through the same stress.

For me, this year’s registration snuck up on me. Earlier this semester I had decided to drop my Spanish major and just stick with an English major in order to open up my future schedule for the exploration of other subjects. Looking at the program requirements for each of the minors I wanted to accomplish, as well as the rest of the classes I needed to complete for my major and the McDaniel Plan the road before me seemed a bit daunting. So who do you turn to for guidance? Your advisor!

Advisors are special academic advice gurus that you select in your major who help you pick classes and stay on course with all major, minor, and McDaniel plan requirements. I’ve been gifted a wonderful advisor, Dr. Mary Bendel-Simso of the English department. This semester, the past three actually, she has helped me completely reconfigure my plan. First, to be a English and Spanish double major with a minor in Education, then just simply an English and Spanish major, and now finally an English major with minors in Political Science, Spanish, and (hopefully!) writing.

Though some students come to McDaniel knowing exactly what they want to do, there are definitely more of us who wing it and see where we end up. I’m in the second semester of my sophomore year and I still might pull of a major with a triple minor so there’s really no rush to choose. The comfort is knowing that even if I don’t end up sticking to this plan, Dr. Mary will be there with me to figure it all out and make it work.

In the meantime, I got all the classes I wanted this semester which is a first (don’t be discouraged freshmen, it gets easier) with the exception of the Yogacore PE class I wanted to take, but I’m waitlisted and those always end up letting you in eventually. Anyway I feel like I’ve finally gotten myself on to the right track in terms of what I’m studying.

McD Professors Outside of the Classroom

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Luke Schmidt

I have had a lot of professor time outside of the classroom this past week. Almost every McD student has their own unique story about what they did with their professor ranging from smoking hookah at their home or babysitting sheep at their farm. I got to add some more stories to my list this past week due my participation in the Maryland Collegiate Honors Council. Here are three things I added:

1) McDaniel professors will text you more often than your mom when you are sick, but will be less sympathetic for the most part.

It all began Wednesday when I unfortunately contracted a virus spreading around campus, which I am sure you have read about in other blog posts. Literally five minutes after I had my first incident in the bathroom (I don’t need to get explicit) my professor, Dr. Raley, texted me that she ordered all the other presenters to stay away from me until the conference on Friday. I was so happy to see that she was worried about me… I didn’t respond. About an hour later with no response from me still, she did acquire some emotions and begged for an update on my condition with very sincere sad face emoticons. I received text messages from her frequently (when I say frequently I mean more often than my own mother) until the day of the conference to make sure I was on the route to recovery. She even offered to bring me food! The morning of the conference I texted her that I was not feeling too great and had to go to the wellness center. Her response – “Poor thing. You can rest at the hotel before your presentation.” She was dedicated. I just chuckled. Luckily, rest did the trick!

2) McDaniel professors will be sympathetic when they witness an ill student being discriminated against.

At the conference, I faced harsh discrimination from all students avoiding the virus (especially from the students I was sharing a hotel room with). Lets just say the elevator ride to the 4th floor was anything but comfortable. The other students probably felt like it was an elevator ride to the 82nd floor… and so did I. Dr. Madsen, the Honors Program Director, was extremely generous and ended up giving her hotel room to me so that I did not have to worry about awkwardly sharing a room with students who were constantly shooting daggers at me with their eyes (these students are my friends – I am slightly exaggerating the situation).

3) McDaniel professors will reward students with free treats if they out shine all the other colleges at a conference.

We definitely had reason to celebrate since McD completely owned the conference, which we successfully did Friday night when Dr. Raley took us out for goodies and footed the bill. I wish I would had known she was going to pay the bill or else I would have ordered more! Nonetheless, there was plenty celebration for McDaniel.

Returning from my quilting bee

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Annie Brown

Yesterday afternoon, I was gearing up to go back to McDaniel later in the evening, when my mom and sister came back from the fabric store with a few bolts of beautiful fabric. They had decided to follow up on my suggestion that we make a quilt for one of our family friends who is undergoing chemotherapy.

Not wanting to pass up an evening of quality family and quilting time, I decided to postpone my return to campus to this morning and get sewing instead! I’d say this proved to be a wonderful choice. My mom cut and pinned fabric while my sister and I sewed and ironed. In only a couple of hours, the face of our quilt (the top part with all the different pieces sewn together) was nearly finished! (Some of the pieces weren’t lining up though, so we decided to call it a night.) We also talked about how “back in the day,” it was common for women to make quilts together in quilting bees, and that’s kind of what it felt like.

Spending an extra night at home to have a small quilting bee was wonderful, but it did come at a small price: I ended up being late to class. Since I don’t keep a car on campus, my dad drove me back. And unfortunately, a number of things got us behind schedule, including a 10-minute delay that involved one of the tires of our car sounding funny that resulted in us going back to the house to take our other car instead.

So I ended up getting to class at around 10, thirty minutes after it started. But I didn’t stress, since a lot of the factors that caused me to be late were out of my control. Dr. Mazeroff, my professor, was very understanding when I explained my situation to him during our mid-class break.

Though it’s courteous and in good practice to be on time, most professors at McDaniel won’t get upset if you’re a few minutes late. If for whatever reason you’re really late, apologize to your professor after class or in an email and explain what happened. Professors will often say that it’s better to show up late to class then not at all. Some professors might deduct points from your grade, but you’ll never get a detention–college doesn’t work that way.

I try not to be late, but sometimes time and other things I can’t control have a way of working against me. I’ve learned that it’s best to not let these things stress me out. My lateness this morning really doesn’t matter in the smaller or the grander scheme of things. What’s important is that I spent an extra night at home doing something fun with people I love…and now I know what I need to do to be on time when I return back to campus on a Monday morning : )

End of the Semester…Fun?

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Robert

Last day of classes was surprisingly easy for me, even enjoyable. In my Spanish class I took a quick quiz on the final chapter of our textbook and then we ended up just hanging out and laughing with our teacher for another 30 mins before she let us out early. This was a nice end to the course I thought. It’s nice to hang out with a cool professor and learn more about them, especially one that is enjoyable to be around like Dr. McNichols. Getting out 30 minutes early isn’t too bad either!

In my second and final class of the day, my teacher surprised us with a game of jeopardy to help us study for finals. I’ve always thought jeopardy was a great way for teachers to help students study. It’s fun, it’s easy, and really helps you figure out what areas you need to focus on for study. We were put in teams based on which rows in which we were sitting in one of the lecture halls on the first floor of Hill Hall. I, however, was late and ended up in a two person team with one of my brothers which proved comical since neither of us were truly prepared for a game of jeopardy and we finished out the game at -2100 points. It was still a fun way to spend the class and for the students who were prepared, a good way to solidify key course concepts.

After I finished classes, I resigned myself to the library and forced myself to crank out the rest of my 8 page paper which I had only completed about half of at this time. There was some work to be done to say the least. Mind you, with my mind in it’s present state, working on a paper means a max of 20 mins of productivity and then ample break time in between these moments of pure focus. Sometimes this is the way it happens though and honestly it is important to allow yourself this break time. In my case, if I do not take this little break time, I will end up becoming too unfocused to accomplish anything and will not get any work done. It’s better to get a little bit of work over a long period of time then none done over a longer period of time. After three hours of this effort, I had a completed, full cited and edited paper and could finally take a break.

Tonight, I’m celebrating my accomplishment by going to a Christmas date party my fraternity, Alpha Sigma Phi, is hosting at our apartment. Even though the end of the semester is really stressful and half the time I feel like I’m about to explode, it’s manageable with good study habits and knowing your limits. But having good professors helps too!

McDaniel Professors Rock!

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Annie Brown

I had the opportunity to eat lunch with a prospective student for a little bit yesterday along with a few other McDaniel students. When he asked us what one of our favorite things about McDaniel is, one of the first things we all said was the professors. And then we spent the next several minutes gushing about how fantastic they were.

Professors at McDaniel are truly exceptional in so many ways, and they’re one of the reasons I came here. Most of our professors are very well educated, but they are so much more than the degrees they hold and the excellent institutions they came from.

Our professors are wonderful because they care about their students both on an academic and personal level. They are truly great teachers and great people. One of the girls I ate lunch with yesterday pointed out that professors are almost always readily available during their office hours. But if a student needs to meet with a professor but his or her office hours conflict with the student’s schedule, the professor will schedule another time to meet with the student. Our professors are also very understanding when students have extenuating circumstances, and I know this to be true from my own experience. I had some hard times in my personal life last semester, and my professors were able to give me the flexibility I needed to continue to succeed in my classes while dealing with my personal needs.

Professors at McDaniel are just as wonderful outside of the classroom. I’ve had some fantastic conversations with my professors about things barely or not at all relating to any of my classes. McDaniel professors also enjoy opening up their homes to students for celebrations and fun activities. My First Year Seminar (FYS) professor invited my FYS to her house to carve pumpkins last fall, which was super fun! It was especially neat since some of my classmates had never carved pumpkins before. She also took our class out to ice cream a couple of times.

I’ve never had a professor at McDaniel I didn’t like. In fact, there are several professors on campus I like who I’ve never even had for a class, and if they don’t know my name (which many do), they still smile and wave hello in passing. McDaniel professors are truly phenomenal people, and I am quite fortunate to have them in my life.

Wednesday, Thursday

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Annie Brown

It’s kind of rainy tonight, which I actually don’t mind since it gives me an excuse to stay in and have some downtime. Tonight, I plan on chilling and (hopefully) completing my grammar homework for tomorrow by a reasonable hour. The Princess Bride is also playing on TV, which is fun, and one of my suitemates just asked me if I want to watch The Office. (Heck yes!)

However, I did have a fun and busy last couple of days. Yesterday, I was finally able to find a chance to visit one of my English professors during her office hours. We discussed my how I’ve been doing in her class, my feelings about studying rhetoric (which is what my class is based on), and other random things that came up about my life and the world in general. I love how the professors on this campus are very accessible and give meaningful feedback when asked. Many of them also can hold some interesting and engaging conversations.

Later in the evening, I attended the second annual Ira G. Zepp, Jr. Memorial Lecture, better known as the Zepp Lecture. This year’s lecturer was Dr. Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor from Stonybrook University, who talked about the new life stage that is emerging between adolescence and adulthood and what effect that has had on males in their 20s. He described this life stage in males as “Guyland.” Dr. Kimmel was a very engaging speaker and I thought the topic was quite interesting.

I also received a really nice package from my aunt and uncle yesterday, which was full of candy, pumpkin muffins, and other goodies. I love getting mail on campus, and having a post office in Decker Center makes getting letters and packages very convenient.

Today I attended my regularly scheduled Thursday classes, Approaches to Everyday Discourse, followed immediately by The Nature of Science. Both were good classes today.

Tonight’s dinner in Glar featured an ice cream sundae bar, which was a real treat! My sundae consisted of chocolate ice cream with whipped cream, cherries, chocolate syrup, crushed Oreos, and M&Ms. So tasty!

After dinner, I ran into my good friend Avery, who invited me to go with her to Red Square (the center of campus by the library) to watch people rehearse their instruments for Ascend, an evening prayer group held at Ascension Episcopal Church in Westminster that some McDaniel students attend. I don’t know a lot about religious life on campus, but I learned tonight that several area churches give McDaniel students rides to church on Sundays. It was a nice change of pace to hear some well-performed live music, which was made up of guitars and a violin, and I had a great time talking with Avery and one of our English professors who is involved with the group.

A lot of conversation, a lot of learning, and some great food happened over the past few days. This is how I like my college experience!

My First Day of Class

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Annie Brown

Today was the first day of class! Unfortunately (to me), my first class wasn’t until 1:50 this afternoon, so when people asked me at lunch how my classes were, I wasn’t able to give them an answer! (And because I also have an evening class on Mondays, my answer to that question was pretty much the same at dinner.)

I guess it’s not such a bad thing that I had to wait for my first class though. I actually got up at around 8:30 this morning to work on unpacking more of my things and to go print out some course materials at the library. After a little downtime, I went to Decker to check out the annual Welcome Week poster sale and then had lunch with a couple of friends in Glar.

On my way back to my dorm from lunch, I stopped by the brand new Center for Experience and Opportunity (CEO), which is still under construction, and was able to say hi to Jim Mayola, who officially is CEO’s Associate Director of Student Employment and Employer Relations. (I know him better as the really awesome and helpful guy who worked for what used to be Career Services on campus.) It was nice to chat with him, as it is to chat with a lot of people on campus, and because I told him that I had class right when CEO would be giving away cupcakes in Kriel Lounge by Glar, he let me have one early.

At 1:50, I finally had my first class, Grammar and Usage. The instructor is very friendly and enthusiastic, and I think it’s going to be a great class. I’m an English major, but grammar was my first “love” within the realm of English, so between that and the fact that I’m actually pretty good at math, I think things are going to go smoothly.

After class number one, I stopped to chat informally with my adviser, English professor Dr. Becky Carpenter. Becky was my First Year Seminar (FYS) professor last year for a class called Gender, Literature, Culture. She’s a wonderful professor and person, and I was glad to be able discuss my summer and other random things with her.

My afternoon didn’t end there! After I left Hill Hall, where the English department is located, I returned to the poster sale to continue to look through posters, and this time, I left with three. My walls are so much more cheerful with the new posters, but I still need to hang up all the smaller wall decorations I collected over the past year. (Not to mention, I still need to finish unpacking!) I also walked to Rite Aid to get some things that I had left at home and managed not to pick up at Target. Rite Aid is easily within walking distance of campus, but the trip there seemed longer than I remembered; it must have been the heat. From Rite Aid, I went straight to dinner at Glar, which I left 20 minutes before my next and final class of the day.

My evening class is called “The Hero’s Journey,” and it’s taught by psychology professor Paul Mazeroff, who after one class, I can already tell is a great professor and person. The class is my SIS, which stands for Sophomore Interdisciplinary Studies. Similar to how all McDaniel freshmen are required to take a First Year Seminar, all sophomores on campus are required to take an SIS. The Hero’s Journey takes a look at the concept of the hero’s journey throughout myth and storytelling while also introducing concepts in psychology developed and made famous by Carl Jung. Though having a class that’s over three hours long is a little brutal, given the content of the course and the great professor, I think I can survive my first ever evening class!

In the meantime, I’m pretty tired after my first day, so I’m going to go easy on the homework tonight and try to go to bed as early as possible. There will be plenty more time to unpack tomorrow, and with two more classes to attend for the first time, I’m looking forward to what day two has in store!

Stories from the Hill

Tag Archives: Professors