The Great Switch!

Switch2Semesters

While Columbus State and other colleges’ stand as the minority group of schools for academic schedules. The Board of Regents is now requiring all colleges and universities in the state of Ohio, starting Fall 2012, to switch from quarters to semesters. How will this switch affect you? To answer your question, every first Monday of the month, the Switch to Semesters Committee meets and discusses any concerns or potential issues that may affect students. One piece of advice that the committee gives is:  if a student can finish before the switch takes place, finish! The reasoning behind this is that the switch could prolong a student’s graduation. But don’t worry,  I have a few tips that you could find useful.

First, try to finish early. If you are a year  or less away from obtaining your degree, and you graduate on time, you will not be affected by the switch. That being said, make sure not to take any quarters off thinking that the switch will not have any impact on you because it could.

Second, take care of any multiple course sequence classes now! For example, math, foreign language, or science series courses should be completed before the conversion, it will make things easier down the road. Since those are typically the harder courses for most students, you will only need to spend 11 weeks in a series versus 16.

Third,  keep in touch with your advisor. Columbus State’s Switch to Semesters Pledge to Students says: if a student does not complete their degree or program before the time of the conversion then they are considered as a transition student. Also, if you attend regular advisory sessions, jointly create their Degree Audit/Transitional Plan of Study, and shadow the academic requirements regularly to completion and you will receive the succeeding pledge from Columbus State:

-No Loss of academic progress

-No delay to degree completion

-No increased costs

 

This is key; it would not be good to lose credit for a class that you have already taken.

Finally, a tip that I find useful in my everyday life: be proactive in your academic success. Running a degree audit to monitor your academic progress is ideal. It lets you know where you stand academically, what classes you need, and what classes you have taken.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please refer to the switch2semeters webpage:

http://cscc.edu/Semesters/

Be Very Clear

There are a lot of you here at Columbus State that may be taking courses to then transfer to another university or college for credit. Good for you.  CSCC offers many opportunities for students to further their education in a convenient way by taking necessary courses here, then transferring those credits toward a degree elsewhere.

The process though, requires a lot of attention to detail by both the student taking the course and the academic advisor assisting the student with the transfer.

Let me be clear.  The university’s requirements (such as the classes you need to take that will then transfer for credit) defines whether or not you are a transient student or a transfer student.  If you are a transfer student you may be at CSCC for a good while, chipping away at classes with the hopes of one day transferring all credits to a different college or university.

If you are a transient student, you may be a full or part-time student enrolled at another school while taking just one or two classes here to transfer back to your other school.  In other words, you’re transitory in your academic career at CSCC.  Get it?

It sounds simple enough. However,  in my case, I needed to follow up and make sure the process was going as smoothly as it sounded.   I am currently a transient student via the University of Toledo and living in Columbus.  I needed a few more classes to transfer back to the Mother Ship in order to earn my journalism degree.  Most of my classes were offered online from UT, but I needed to fulfill two Spanish requirements. Those classes were offered here at Columbus State.

If you are in this situation, or thinking about it, talk to your advisor at your original school. Make sure he or she has notified the admissions office at that school of your interest in taking classes at another school, PRIOR to you registering for the classes.  It’s very important.  If this fails to happen, you almost assuredly will be required to re-apply to the school you’ve already been attending.  I know it sounds silly, but I’m speaking from experience here folks.

The school you are attending is under the impression that you’ve been attending the other school for awhile and not just transfering one or two classes.  They need proof that your advisor gave you permission to take these classes.  There could also financial aid and loan implications and your school will want to be sure you did not violate any rules.

If you’ve already transfered some classes back to your university, make sure you check and re-check daily to make sure those classes appear on your transcripts.  If they do not, contact your admissions office and let them know your situation.

Taking classes here at Columbus State, or anywhere else, is a great option for students looking to obtain a degree, but you want to make sure you are being rewarded for your hard work.  Follow up on your progress and be aware of what’s going on with your education.  Be responsible for your future.  You’ve put the effort in, now enjoy the benefits!

Gobble Gobble

This quarter has come and gone so fast, I feel like I’m inside a meteor. I apologize for not writing more, for those of you that might read this to pass the time, but this quarter has been all over me. For those of you that have noticed the “Why I Blog” feature article on the Columbus State front page and just started reading the Student Blogs: thanks! It’s nice to know that we’re not just white noise every now and then.

On the topic of thanks, I thought it would be appropriate with Thanksgiving approaching to discuss what I’m thankful for. Hopefully it will encourage a few of you to do the same in the comments section and share your own. Appraising the gifts that life throws at you (as rare as they can be) can certainly help one maintain a positive attitude. I am particularly vulnerable to seasonal depression, so I’ll take whatever help I can get heading into the winter months.

Anyway, here we go!

Family. Perhaps because I have known so many people who have family troubles, I know just how fortunate I am to have loving and supportive kin. My parents, Rodger and Sheryl, are at the top of this list. For the twenty-six long years of my life, they have been there for me without fail. The fact that they didn’t feed me to lions, or drive me out into the woods and leave me there during my teen years is testament to their infinite patience and compassion. (I was a handful, I assure you.) Even today, they are my number one support group in all things and the two people I draw the most strength from. It’s hard to articulate just how thankful I am for everything they have done and continue to do on a daily basis. My grandparents, aunt, and uncle are also equally important as they filled the same guiding role over the course of my lifetime. Without their influence in raising me, I would be a very different person today, and I thank them for how I turned out.

I’m pretty solitary and making acquaintances is hard for me, much less cementing long-term relationships. I don’t have many friends, I’ll be the first to admit, but those that I do have are very dear to me. Whenever I need guidance, help with something, or just somebody to talk to, these individuals have been there for years on end. When you feel lucky to have them, you know that you’ve really hit the jackpot in the friend department. While life may force us to ebb and flow to and from each other, it is incredibly comforting to know that no matter their geographical location, they’re still being awesome somewhere.

My experience at Columbus State has been a long one that has spanned from 2003 to now, broken up by some of life’s many curve balls. I have had a hard time really keeping my head in the game and convincing  myself that the experience is worth the time and money, to be completely honest. With at least a year and a half of classes ahead of me at Ohio State next year, I have done a lot of soul searching about college in general.  It made me realize that a few instructors were key to my continued interest in pursuing academic success at the college level. Had I not stuck to Columbus State, I think my education would have been worse-off for it. I would love to name them, but I never do in blog entries. Instead, I’ll say this: Pyschology, Anthropology, and World Civilization would have been pretty lame without them to really ignite my interest.

As a cancer survivor, I’m also just thankful to keep sucking air. It has taken years for me to understand how much I would have missed had things gone the other way, and I am extremely thankful for the men and women, modern medicine, and technology that caught it just before it was too late and turned that ship around. (My parents saved my butt, yet again, as well.) It scares me more now to think about it than when I was diagnosed at 18. Life can be a bummer a lot of the time, but it’s those wonderful moments in between that make it all worthwhile.

I know this is a sappy entry, but I appreciate you reading through to the end, if you did. That said, I would love to read about what you’re thankful for (aside from this entry ending), so please share your own stories in the comment section. Take a minute to let hundreds of people know just how special that someone or something is.

A Transient Dream

A Transient Dream

Four years ago I took a very uncalculated risk and dropped out of the friendly confines of the University of Toledo and went on a journey in search of money. I was tired of being the struggling, strapped for cash typical college student, so I did what every broke twenty-something year old does: I moved back in with my parents and got a job as a line cook at a fancy restaurant.

I was a journalism major and, after four years at Toledo, I had about a year worth of credits to take before I graduated. But I grew anxious of being in the classroom and I thought I knew everything about writing and I could take an easy job and write in my free time.

If you don’t already know, taking a job as a cook does not put you on the fast track to financial success. And free time? You have little free time when you get off work around one in the morning and sleep in until noon the next day just to turn around and do it all over again that afternoon. I needed discipline. I needed to get back in the classroom.

This song and dance went on for nearly three years until I decided last January that I wanted to finish school, and that the classroom I once loathed was exactly the structure I was lacking in my life. But how was I going to do this? I had a handful of credits left at Toledo; do I try and transfer them somewhere? But then I might lose them. Do I try and move back to Toledo? But how will I support myself working full-time? The market was terrible and I had little job experience.

I decided to give my old academic advisor at UT a call and see what routes were available for me. Much to my surprise, the remaining classes I needed to graduate, mostly Communication and Writing classes were available for me to take online via Toledo’s Distance Learning program, all of them that is, except for one – drum-roll please -  Spanish.

My weakness. My downfall. One of the reasons I decided to leave Toledo in the first place because I struggled so mightily with learning the language. And now it appeared it was going to keep me from graduating. My advisor, much more calm in the face of adversity than I, suggested that I look at community colleges in my area that may offer the remaining Spanish courses I needed and we could then look at transfering them up to UT.

Let me just tell you I had already taken Spanish 103 a whopping four times at Toledo (I’m sure that’s some kind of record), and I wasn’t looking forward to registering for that class for a fifth time regardless of where I’d be taking it. But in doing research I found that the class was offered at night at the Columbus State’s Westerville branch. That was convenient for me.

I decided to go with it and, when I walked into the class for the first time, I realized there were only ten other students in the class. Perfect, I could mess up all I wanted to and only ten other people would laugh; I was overjoyed. Plus the smaller classroom allowed easier access to the professor and an overall sense of understanding of the material.

I went on to pass the class, pfheww! And this past summer registered for the final installment in the Spanish marathon, Spanish 104. It was only offered at the main campus, but it was still a small classroom with a great professor and I took my last foreign language exam of my academic career in August.

The convenience and comfort that came along with taking the course at Columbus State allowed me to relax and strictly focus on the subject matter. I felt little pressure in the classroom, just a sense of drive and an opportunity to succeed. I can literally say, graduating would not be possible for me had these courses not been offered at Columbus State. I have two more classes that I’ll be taking online at UT this January and then I’m done. Finishing up a goal that once seemed impossible, but made possible again through dedication and hard work is very rewarding.

I know that I’m not the only one that’s passing through the hallways of CSCC on their way to higher education from another school. A lot of you are taking advantage of the programs and convenience this school has to offer and I wish all of you the best of luck on your journey to receiving your diploma wherever it may be from.

Take care and Buenos Dias! (I’m pretty sure that means good day).

Multiple Choice

For many of us, midterms loom on the horizon, or have possibly come and gone. I for one have two midterms this coming Monday, for which I am preparing as best I can. Lucky one that I am, I pulled a professor that does not believe in study guides of any kind and this midterm represents a the first exam of the quarter for that course. Faced with so much material to review in a week’s time, I often wonder what motivates instructors to pursue that mode of academic evaluation.

On one hand, I can certainly understand the underlying principle: the instructor feels, and rightfully so, that it is ultimately the responsibility of the student to take and maintain lecture notes. Ideally, one would have all of the required information to prepare themselves for an exam covering the material. On the other hand, it also represents confusion for many students when faced with an incredible amount of terminology to memorize and (in this case) refresh themselves on. Not knowing exactly what we will need to know has more than a few of my colleagues stressing out. So it goes.

For those of us that have been through the motions quite a few times already, this is perhaps nothing new, but relatively rare. In my personal experience, instructors have done everything short of giving you an answer key. They, perhaps, realize that by providing the key points and leaving students to conceptualize and flesh out these terms, concepts, and principles we might be better equipped to truly understand the material after the test has long since come and gone.

That said, I think there’s some merit to the argument that some students would benefit more in the long-term by being forced to keep comprehensive notes and rely on themselves to research the material. Whatever the case may be for you, I know there are a few things that, without fail, I must have – or do – to prepare for any major exam. I generally do pretty well, so I figured I would share some of my mid term preparation tips. (Nothing mind-blowing, but maybe it will help someone out.)

• Notecards. I’ve been utilizing them since probably the sixth grade and they have never failed to help me memorize key concepts in a class. They are especially helpful for short-term memorization, but they tend to not help all that much for retaining things for the long haul. They’re amazing for language classes (which I have discussed before), but they also give you the opportunity to study on the go. I have had more than one teacher that swears students who use notecards almost universally pass exams—often doing better than average.
• Coffee. Now, this is more of a personal thing, you could substitute coffee with just about anything that helps you concentrate. I personally believe in the theory that drinking coffee or associating study with some other activity that you could repeat during an exam helps you to remember the material more easily. The brain loves habit, so every little bit helps. Your mileage may vary.
• Plenty of time to study. While it’s common sense, it’s never a great idea to wait to cram until the night before a major test. It is just not enough time to get it firmly engrained in your mind. I usually start studying a week before exam day to adequately prepare myself—this is especially helpful if you have multiple exams on the same day. (Which, unfortunately, I do this quarter with some regularity.)
• Find a comfortable place to study. Being free of distractions may seem obvious, but also being as relaxed as possible will help you concentrate. I realize this is a luxury that some can’t afford (here’s to you, parents!), but finding an hour or two a day to review in relative silence can work wonders.
• Study with classmates. Scheduling this is always a chore, I know, but on the occasions that group study was realistic I felt incredibly prepared to tackle the material following our meetings. There’s usually at least one person in your class who would be more than willing to sit down with you and study. Don’t be a stranger, use whatever resources you have at your disposal.
• Last, but certainly not least, find plenty of time to relax between work and school. The more stress you put on your body, the worse it will perform when you need it to. Find time to enjoy what free time you have.

Hopefully the quarter is going well for everyone and midterms will come and go without much incident. I am going to try particularly hard this quarter to keep all of my study guides for the final exam (two of my finals are comprehensive), and refresh myself once a week or so on material that we have long since moved past. If I’m lucky, finals will be a no stress affair.

Good luck!

(edit: After getting home, I realized NPR had just posted a story about conventional studying tips possibly being ineffective. Haha, well, the more you know. You can check it out here.)

Counting Sheep

Sleep is important.  I would go so far as to say it’s up there with getting to class on time and making sure you’ve had your coffee in the morning, but all too often it falls to the wayside. I have always been kind of a night owl, so keeping a consistent sleep schedule has never been my forte. I mean, all of the most interesting stuff happens after the sun goes down anyway, right? Paging Dave Attel. As the years roll by, it seems like I slip past the witching hour and into the deep night easier and easier no matter what I have on my schedule.

With that said (and my preference for the night time being the right time aside) getting a full night’s sleep has been my white whale for a while. I am not big on taking medication to sleep, so I try to wear myself out as much as I can throughout the day. With impending deadlines, exams and just general academic anxiety, it’s hard to just sit back and relax enough to get my full eight hours. I think it’s about time to kick up the sleep campaign, otherwise this quarter is going to steamroll right over me. I’ve been trying to read up on it a little bit, and here are some great (albeit sometimes obvious) tips to get a better night’s sleep:

Stick to a regular sleep schedule. I know, crazy right? The human body loves regularity, so the more consistent you are hitting the hay at a certain time, the better off you’ll be. Managing when you take naps is important so that schedule doesn’t slip, as hard as it is to fight them off from time to time. (Now all I have to do is figure out how to keep myself from falling into the rabbit hole of Wikipedia articles deep into the night…)

Keep your bedroom sleep-friendly. Turning off the TV, reserving your bed solely for sleeping, and keeping the room itself dark and cool all help to whisk you away like Little Nemo. I am notorious for wanting to fall asleep to a movie or TV show, so that one is always hard for me, but it has helped.

Stress management, exercise and a healthy diet all play a part as well. I’ve written about all three in some length before, so I’ll spare you the redundancy, but I know regular exercise gets me nice and worn out well before bedtime. When I’m at all three regularly, I feel much more refreshed the following day no matter how rigorous the routine.

Almost all sleep guides stress the importance of just relaxing and not worrying about getting to sleep. If you’re up all night obsessing over not conking out, it only makes it worse. I know I’m especially guilty of this on bad nights, but just clearing your head and getting comfortable does the trick most of the time.

So, with that said, I hope my problem is a rare one, but I’m sure many students go through the same thing. If you have any particularly effective methods of combating sleep depravation, leave a comment—it might be just what the doctor ordered for someone.

Back in the Swing

So I have spent quite a bit of time this past weekend trying to get myself organized for the quarter. It has slowly dawned on me during this process that I have a knack for complete and utter chaos. Alas, it’s been a bit of a challenge.

A while back I did choose to take Freshmen Seminar (I no longer actually needed it for my degree requirements), and while I honestly knew 90% of what the course had to offer, there were a few gems in there. One tip that I have used ever since is creating a quarter calendar. With every reading and homework assignment right there, day by day, a little organization goes a long way. Now that I have all of my work laid out in front of me in a structured fashion it already feels a bit less daunting to tackle it all. Granted, you could always just buy a day planner for the quarter, but why not take half an hour and save yourself a couple bucks?

On the topic of saving money, I have also been trying to actively take my own small lunches for the day that provide just enough energy to get me through classes. Generally, I shoot for a small bag of pretzels and a fruit of some kind—say, an apple or an orange—and I’m pretty much set for the day. Barring the occasional drink here and there, doing this generally saves me about fifty to a hundred dollars a month that I would have probably just spent on fast food. Every little bit counts, I always say, and eating healthier is a pretty good excuse in and of itself. I like chili cheese fries as much as the next guy, but my lord… the lunches I have seen in the cafeteria.

Anyhoo, I hope everyone’s second week is coming along well. For those new to Columbus State, perhaps some of the veterans could share some general student-oriented tips in the comments.

The more you know, right?

Out of curiosity, I am also wondering how the parking experience has been after all the measures the college has taken to make it less of a hassle. Please take a second to chime in on the poll.

Around and Around We Go

Autumn Quarter has arrived, my friends, and it has arrived with a vengeance.

Maybe the year that has passed since the last one has made me forget the chaos of the first week of classes, but there are tons of students out and about this quarter. For a second today I forgot I was at school and wondered if I had stumbled into some kind of outdoor festival. Strangely, parking was not particularly painful the first day of class, which was a welcome surprise. The second day, however, is another story—as I am sure many of you have found out first hand. I do, however, applaud the efforts of the school to provide additional parking and constructing the new lots here and there around campus. While we will not be able to utilize them immediately, that kind of planning is always a good sight to see.

In personal news, my transfer to Ohio State has been approved and I received my admission acceptance letter in the mail just yesterday. Needless to say, I am incredibly excited that I will be able to continue my education and join the buckeye family. Now all I have to do is get my financial aid figured out and I will be good to go. I am going to miss Columbus State, but who knows, maybe I will take a few classes here down the road to save some money. I’ve talked to a lot of other students who took advantage of that option after their transfer, and it seems like a smart way to go.

In terms of my classes this quarter, I am pretty optimistic overall. While it seems like every teacher I have right now romanticizes the image of the draconian college professor, they do seem to be enthusiastic about their courses. That said, if I have to sit through another academic responsibility lecture again, I might lose my mind. Woe to the Freshmen who think they will never hear that speech again. Strangely, or perhaps unluckily, I do have quite a few class presentations this time around that I did not anticipate. They are never as bad as they seem like they are going to be though, so that is a comforting thought. All I do know is that my workload this quarter is going to be intense, but I am looking forward to the challenge.

I am kind of surprised that the library is still under construction, it seems like it has been a work in progress for ages. I am looking forward to its completion, because I used to spend a lot of time there in between classes. As it is now, it is almost too much of a hassle to consider. In the mean time, I am content to try to stay ahead of my reading in the commons areas in Nestor Hall. At least one of them is conducive to study! Party central in the other, 24/7.

I hope that everyone is having a positive first week and getting settled in early for the long haul to Summer. If you have any particularly harrowing stories from the past few days, please share them! If you, on the other hand, have had a pretty laid back first week, by all means tell us about it as well. If nothing else, maybe you’ll get a little schadenfreude out of the rest of us.

The Summer That Never Ends

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I am just about ready for Summer Quarter to end. It has been, for me, one of those quarters that just drags on endlessly.  I usually pride myself on finding something interesting in each of my scheduled classes to keep my head in the game until finals, but I am left sorely in this quarter’s final stretch. I imagine it has something to do with the workload (which has been pretty intense.) This isn’t my first rodeo though, so my guess is that I have had a hard time sitting in class when I could potentially be doing virtually anything outside. So it goes.

Autumn quarter is coming up, however, and that’s always an interesting time here. From the wanton chaos of finding a parking spot, finding your classes, deciding whether or not you’ll even stay in those classes… there’s a great deal to do. I really do love taking classes in the fall, though, when the campus looks its most scenic. It also helps that I’m not hiking half a mile in 90 degree weather, but hey.  Autumn Quarter always seems like the most interesting of them each year; whether that is a result of my scheduling or the course offerings, it’s hard to say. It’s refreshing to see my colleagues return from summer break with fresh minds (and seeing brand new students, for that matter.) Certainly something to look forward to with finals looming.

I had expected summer classes to be a tad more laid back but, as you have probably gathered, they have been arguably more intense than any other quarter I’ve attended. Sometimes you just have to keep your head down and plow through it. With the light at the other end of the tunnel, I am finding it increasingly difficult to buckle down and adequately prepare for finals week. Personally, I tend to wait until the last minute to complete assignments and study (I realize this is far from the recommended study method).  For now, I’m just trying to take things a week at a time and slowly ramp up my self-discipline to make up for my own procrastination. Next quarter, I am going to focus on getting myself organized a hell of a lot more than I have the past few. Staying ahead of the game is always much less stressful in the long run.

One absolutely amazing silver lining in finals week is that I’ll be done with math classes for the foreseeable future except for Elementary Statistics somewhere down the line. As someone who placed in Pre-Algebra through Compass testing at Columbus State, you can’t imagine how excited I am unless you took the hundred or so classes to get up to par for my transfer requirements. I frequently lament the fact that I chose to spread them out over so long, but everybody tackles things in their own way, I suppose. Despite what teachers have told us ad infinitum over the years, I am certain I will never use 90% of the math I’ve learned in College Algebra. That’s a terrible mindset, I know. One thing I can say in its favor, however, is that I’ve used alot of the fundamental algebra in other courses and I’m glad it is part of my skill set after so many years of struggling in math courses (and science, by extension).

Anyhoo, this is heavy on fear and loathing, but I wish everyone luck during finals week. Hopefully it will be a relatively stress-free experience for the majority of us.

?Como se dice?

The mind is a malleable thing, capable of integrating new information and retaining a lifetime’s worth of memories. This plasticity is exactly what I am thankful for this quarter as I try to tackle my first foreign language in a number of years. Prevailing opinion generally dictates that foreign language classes are a necessary evil for the sake of our degrees, especially for those of us pursuing bachelor programs. As someone who has been firmly rooted in English for the past 25 years, I can certainly appreciate the trepidation.

In understanding the sentiment, I also know first-hand how hard it is to take those first few steps. My experience in Spanish at Columbus State was difficult the first few weeks, but I found myself subsequently taking to the language much easier once I had fundamental sentence structures wiring themselves into my brain. Quite a few of my classmates have dropped off as the quarter’s marched on. I often wonder if one more week in class would have changed their minds at all. Moving at the pace we do in Spanish, I certainly do not blame them if they fell behind, whatever their reasons may be.

Truly trying to understand a foreign language is an incredibly involved process that requires far more practice outside of the classroom than most of my other courses ever have. It could just be me, of course, but I have to study it every night to keep my head above water. Each milestone sees greater returns than the last, however, because of the time I have put into it. Thinking in another language is pretty awesome the first time you realize you’re doing it.

I had taken three years of German in high school, so I initially considered picking it back up again in college. While I would have been a few steps ahead (even with as little as I remember) I have had maybe one opportunity to speak the language since I graduated seven years ago. I have mentioned my interest in Anthropology before in blog entries, specifically Mesoamerican and South American per-history. Possibly traveling abroad or doing field work in those regions seemed like an excellent motivator for me to learn the language as it would assist me in understanding Latin American counties and traveling among them. Spanish is everywhere in the ‘States as well, so why not learn it?

For those of you that may be struggling in your respective language class, I thought I’d share a few (possibly common sense) tips and study strategies that help me quite a bit:

• Speak it as often as possible in class, at home, wherever. Trying to teach friends and family outside of class has helped me.
• For vocabulary, use flash cards with pictures. Staring at a giant list of words isn’t great association for most of us—give your brain an image to associate with it.
• Listen to and watch media in the language (english subtitles help!) Just surround yourself with it when you’re trying to study or practice, it has really helped my listening comprehension.
• All language classes try to teach you about the culture as well. Try to read about it and get a better grasp for why a language is structured as a result of its respective cultural influences. If what you’re reading is in the language, all the better.

Pretty straightforward, but those methods have helped me a lot this quarter and honestly don’t require much effort compared to cramming the night before a test (and I feel like I have a test practically every day in Spanish.) If you’re struggling with a foreign language, hang in there, your mind will adjust and those gears will click into place with enough exposure. How long that takes varies from person to person, but anybody can do it. Put the time in and you will be amazed at how easy it can be.

Feel free to comment and talk about your language of choice. I’d love to hear about why you chose the one you did and how your experience has been so far, whether you are just starting or four courses into it. For those who are doing English as a second language, by all means, practice your reading/writing here!