Midterms and papers . . . and papers . . .

It has been two weeks since Halloween.  I wished I could have wrote right after Halloween night, but it has been really hectic over the past fourteen days.  Soon after my fun filled Halloween weekend, midterms and papers…and more papers were due in class.  It was like a tsunami to my brain. I just finished my second paper for writing class and started the final paper, I took an economics midterm, and a calculus midterm is waiting for me in a few days.

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, which gives me mixed feelings: inspiration for a final spurt to finish this second part of semester and the need to rest inspired by the slight laid back-ness of the holiday.

Most of all, my main stress came from one of four classes I am taking this semester: computer science. Before college, I had no prior knowledge of computer science. I just loved to read articles, watch videos and play games on the computer but I never tried to learn how to program. In the beginning, since it was pretty manageable and the field was intriguing, I did not think of plan B – dropping the class before 4 weeks of semester, which would not show up on transcript. However, as the course more progressed, I have felt that it was beyond my effort and knowledge and lost my interest since I was always far behind and everyone else in class had prior experience with computer science. I had to spare extra hours a day to try to understand the course work, but the stress took my entire days.

At one point, I was reminded of what my economics teacher, Dr. Rizzo said in class: if your opportunity cost is a lot more than initial cost, you should not buy that good and take the alternative. I finally determined that withdrawing is the way to go to end my stress. Even though it will leave “W” mark on my transcript, my opportunity cost of still being in class gives me a lot more time to focus studying what I really like. Therefore, this past week, I withdrew from my computer science course and feel the burden’s away from my shoulder.

At the end of the day, I feel the need to learn computer science sometime later, probably alone through books. That sometime hopefully was not this semester.

Right now, there are several more big things to finish before Thanksgiving break. There shall be positive struggles. Meliora!