Music or Women?

You may ask, "Jeffrey, why can't you have both?" Let me explain.

Yesterday I learned how simple it is to drop a class and register for a different class (when I dropped the hard algebra class and added the not-so-hard algebra class). So today I was talking with my dad telling him about the classes I currently have on tap for this quarter.

To recap: English Composition - feeling good about this one, Intermediate Algebra - feeling better about this one than I did, Women's Studies - I took this because it was available, Men's Health - ditto.

After my dad and I got off the phone, it occurred to me that a lot of students have been dropping and adding classes since I first registered and maybe some of the classes I really wanted to take might now be available.

Women's Studies fulfills a Humanities requirement and when I registered, it was the only think left that worked. What I really wanted to take was something like music or art history. Not that I have anything against Women's Studies. I read some in the textbook and it indeed seems like it would be interesting. But music history? That is in my wheelhouse. That is the kind of textbook I would read for leisure reading.

So, armed with my new-found skill at dropping/adding, I went to see if anything had changed with regard to availability. Sure enough, there were 16 spots available in a class called Music History - Classical & Romance. So I pulled the trigger and now, instead of studying Clare Booth Luce and Andrea Dworkin, I'll be chillin' with Brahms and Beethoven. I can't wait.

This change did affect my schedule a little. The music class meets M-F for an hour at 10a, which means I now have one class on Friday where before I did not. This change also means that I now have only one evening class where before I had three. So for me, that seems like a fairly even exchange as far as the time factor. It was not a hard decision at all since it means I get credit for studying something I love. (Plus, we all know that you can get away with skipping the occasional Friday class if you have to. ;))

This evening I was reading in the textbook for my English Comp class. I'm liking it. The typical view of early college writing is to talk about different types of writing, e.g. descriptive, narrative, compare and contrast. These authors instead believe that all writing  is a part of some form of conversation and when the writer picks up her "pen", she enters that conversation. I'm liking that model. If the instructor stays pretty close to this book, I believe I might enjoy this class.

I was worried that with all the returning and exchanging of textbooks, it would cost me more money. It turns out I will actually be spending about $10 less than before. Plus I get a brand new textbook instead of a used one.