Haitus Recap: End of Term

Around when I disappeared back in March finals were around the corner. Normally this would be a time of stress, panic, and chaos as I scramble to deal with assignments and papers while I struggle to fit in time to study.

Not this time. I mean, firstly I only have 2 classes. Secondly, these classes don't count towards my GPA because I need to have a minimum of 3 classes a term to qualify for a full course load. So as long as I passed, that's all that mattered.

More time for League of Legends.

For those unaware, last term I was taking the last few prerequisites in an attempt to get into a Business after-degree in the following Fall semester. Economics 101 and 102 were generally dry but I was passing all my assignments and doing above class average on all the exams.

It didn't help that the assignment answers could often be found via a quick Google search, in the exact same question and answer format. I mean seriously, some of these searches yielded results as far back as 2008.

And guess what, they were almost always correct.

Finals comes along and I'm not worried at all. Well, as is my nature, I start cramming half a week in advance because I'm an idiot. You'd think with all the schooling I've had at this point I'd learn to start studying a bit earlier instead of procastinating so much.

You thought wrong.

Still, the exams went fairly well. I was particularly worried about the Econ 102 exam because I only had enough time to check over 1/3rd of my answers. Then as I was getting up I saw the girl behind me scrambling to bubble in her answers.

The student in front of me put down B for the last 30 answers.

Why.

A few weeks pass, and without a doubt I pass. Not a problem. But what's the current problem I'm having?

I won't know if I got accepted into the Business program until August.

Why?

Because the administration is lazy.

Seriously, all my friends who got in didn't get notified until August. And because they make us send in applications in March, you'd think that it wouldn't take half a year to determine if we could get in. In the administration's defense though they were getting so many applicants that they had to raise the minimum GPA from 2.1 to an astounding (wait for it)

2.3.

My GPA is above a 3.0. I think I'll be safe.

Complications

Despite December just barely starting I'm looking ahead into January and trying to prepare for things. I decided that going back to school was the best course of action simply because the available jobs I could find were fairly terrible. May as well ride out the dead of winter and maybe try again in the Spring.

But things rarely if ever go according to plan. And before we get into that, I'd like to address a few comments on the linked post.

Seriously, comments are like fan mail and it's great.

Firstly, I have a bachelor's degree in Psychology, but I decided that going for a second bachelor's degree in Business would be the next best step. Keith suggested that I go for a master's in Psychology instead simply because it looks much, much better than two bachelor degrees.

And for the most part, I agree. I'm honestly not going into Economics because of interest. So why go the business route then? I'm going in because career and job-wise, it seems a lot safer and viable than Psychology. Grab an internship, get cozy or get connections with the people there, find a job, good to go.

But it's not just that. The Universities in my province have suffered mass budget cuts, I doubt they want to take on more grad students when they're kicking out sessional professors and support staff in the Psychology department. And EVEN if this wasn't an issue, I don't have enough professors to use as references.

I didn't expect Patt to go insane. A reference letter from him would probably hurt my chances of getting into grad school.

The last I heard he's currently in Malaysia or something with his new bride.

But I was missing 2 per-requisites to get into the BCOM (Business of Commerce) program, Economics 101 and 102. And while I easily added myself to the 102 class, the 101 class was completely full. Fine, no problem. The Psychology advisers were very helpful to me in the past, so I booked an appointment with the Business advisers to see if they could do anything for me. The conversation went like this:

"Yeah, tough luck. You and hundreds of other kids are trying to get in. All you can do is sit, wait, and hope a spot opens.".

Well that's just peachy.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised due to the aforementioned budget cuts.

A week passed. An average of one spot for the class opened up each day. And I was never able to grab it on time. I needed a back-up plan, what if I didn't get into Econ 101? There really was no point in just taking Econ 102, and I couldn't take Econ 101 in the Spring or Summer because the deadline to apply for the BCOM program was in March.

So I started job hunting again.

Some you asked why I don't like manual labour. It's simple, I'm lazy. If possible, I'd rather sit on my butt all day and not move from my computer. Almost all my projects are computer or online based, with the exception of Project Jason. I assure you, I don't workout because I like it, I workout because I'm tired of being thin and looking like a malnourished child in the mirror.

Back on topic, my friend Chase, managed to hook me up with an interview with an energy company. It's not the most amazing job, I'd be cold calling, there appears to be a lot of emphasis on making sales, and my pay is directly linked to sales. Still, better than nothing.

Hello sir or madam, please buy stuff from me so I don't lose my job.

And then yesterday a spot opened up and by some miracle I managed to enroll in the course before anyone else.

Wow, that was anticlimactic.

Why couldn't all my problems be resolved in this fashion?

Looks like I'll be heading back to school in January afterall. And with all my classes crammed on Tuesday and Thursday, I get that nice 4 day weekend again. Lovely.

Preparing for the Future

It's been about a week since I got laid off from my job. My last paycheque has come in, essentially being the last reminder that I ever worked as a dispatcher. But I'm not one to idle if I can help it. And after a few well deserved days of sleeping in, immediately I started job hunting again.

What I found was not promising.

Going to need a few drinks for this.

Many of the jobs I found I immediately didn't qualify for, requiring experience that I simply did not have and/or not enough of. What remained were often jobs requiring physical labour. There is one thing I will not do (out of preference and physical capability) and that's physical labour. No heavy lifting, no working outdoors, nothing that will get me dirty.

So what did we have left? A lot of temporary work, a few weeks, maybe a month or two at a time. And worst of all, they paid considerably poorly. Maybe a slight bump above minimum wage. My friends tell me that it's generally not a good time to job hunt now, something about budgets not being rewritten until Spring.

And after much mulling, I decided to head back to school in January.

I wish.

Yep. Back to school. I realize that as it is, just having a degree in Psychology isn't enough. I need a way to supplement it, and what better way to do that but by going back to school? I had a similar conversation back in this post. I could go get a Master's in Psychology, but again, situation at my University, not looking so great. And that left me with one remaining viable option.

A second degree in Business.

It makes the most sense with my previous degree in Psychology. If I get a Bachelors of Commerce (or BCOM for short) this opens up things such as Marketing or Human Resources. This would be a two year program with the option for a co-op program or internship thing.

And so I jump to register for the  courses that I still need before I qualify for the BCOM, Economics 101, 102, and a course of my choice so that I qualify for a full-courseload. Econ 102 I get through with no problem, it's the other two that have issues.

For starters, I am completely unable to sign up for Econ 101. Apparently it's reserved for a group of students who have English as a second language. I'm going to have to have a talk an academic adviser or something, because I am literally 2 courses away from applying for a BCOM.

Also, because I'm extremely fluent in English (at least, I'd like to think so) I'd have a massive advantage over my classmates.

As for the course of my choice, I was hoping to take something in Psychology. Though I shouldn't have been surprised when I discovered that there weren't that many Psych courses left. And those remaining I had already taken.

Damn those budget cuts.

So now I'm left floundering, wondering what to take for the remaining course. I want something easy because I'm lazy but something that will still be relatively interesting. Feel free to suggest something in the comments below.

Back to classes

Welp, the break could only last so long. And now we're back. Back to the school. Yay. No, really. I'm exploding with enthusiasm here. There's nothing I enjoy than pulling all-nighters and then falling asleep at the front of the class and then drooling on myself.

Not exactly my finest moment.

If you were Asian and male maybe you could be me.

I'm technically done. You know, now that I've got my degree and everything. Unfortunately, these days an undergraduate degree doesn't get you anywhere because nearly everyone has one. So that means we have to upgrade to a graduate degree.

And to do that, I need to do various per-requisite courses to even qualify for some of them. I need at least 4 more courses for Speech and Language Pathology. But taking into consideration what my prof said, maybe I should start looking into Marketing as well.

Which means taking some Economics courses.

This is my understanding of Economics.

I've also been looking into jumping provinces for grad school. But because my grades hover around the B level (as opposed to people with As who can go anywhere) I might have to go to Saskatchewan. For people who don't know the run-downs of the provinces of Canada, it's basically this:

British Columbia: Asians and the ocean.

Alberta: Oil and Canada's rednecks.

Saskatchewan: Flat lands and Native Americans.

Manitoba: Lakes or something?

Ontario: Capital of Canada and Niagra falls.

Quebec: Crazy French people.

Nova Scotia: Fish.

Prince Edward Island: Funny accents and potatoes.

Newfoundland: Fish and funny accents.

New Brunswick: More funny accents.

Yukon/Northwest Territories/Nunavut: Native Americans and cold.

Fellow Canadians may have deduced my home province based on these partially incorrect stereotypes.

In the meantime, I'll be taking Linguistics courses and a friend of mine looped me into a MWF Sociology course which killed my 4 day weekend. I don't even need this course, I really wanted a lax term but my parents kept hounding me claiming that unless my schedule was fuller I'd be wasting my time and my life. And so I caved in and added another course to my schedule.

Ian, this course better be the GPA booster you claim it is. I gave up my 4-day weekend for this.