Chunker's Blog » Devry http://www.chunker.net My name is Chunker...I wear a hat. Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:32:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Devry http://www.chunker.net/2009/09/11/devry/ http://www.chunker.net/2009/09/11/devry/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:27:22 +0000 Chunker http://www.chunker.net/?p=351 11 years ago I said to myself…I don’t want to be a computer tech…I realize now that I should play to my strengths rather than learn something new.  Why learn to walk at something when I can already run at something else?  So here I am…attending Devry which in all respects is a technical [...]]]> 11 years ago I said to myself…I don’t want to be a computer tech…I realize now that I should play to my strengths rather than learn something new.  Why learn to walk at something when I can already run at something else?  So here I am…attending Devry which in all respects is a technical trade school and not a 4 year university.  I realize this and will take from Devry what I need and not expect anything that it cannot give me.  I know that there are better solutions to getting a 4 year degree than Devry however the way they do their classes works out a lot better for me.  At a regular school they are on the semester system which means there are 16 weeks and 32 classes per term.  When I find myself in a tradtional semester system I tend to slack off and skip classes because I think…well if I miss one or two classes it won’t matter.  That snowballs in to 4-5 then 10-15 and low and behold I fail the class.  At Devry each session is 8 weeks long and we only meet once per week (for most classes) so if  I miss 2 classes I’ve already missed a quarter of my classes…this fact keeps me honest and going to class.

There was one thing however that made me think really hard about going to school at Devry and that was the “written” placement test.  As all of you now all colleges require you to take a math and writing class before you can go to school there.  It is used to gauge your ability and put you in the right classes.  Devry is no different.  I finished the math part pretty easily and placed in the highest level algebra they could put me in which made me happy.  When I took the English part I was required to write a 350-600 word essay that was concise, to the point, no grammatical errors, no spelling errors and that I would be graded more on the content of the essay rather than my ability to argue my point.  I was given an hour from the time I started to read the topic to finish the essay.  An hour later I have a 352 word essay that was concise, to the point and free of grammatical and spelling errors (sorta).  I hit submit and 2 seconds later I received a score of  7 out of 12 which would place me in the lowest English class they offer.  Being placed in the lowest English class didn’t bother me too much…what did bother me was that it took only 2 seconds for my essay to be graded.  Now I don’t care who you are…you cannot effectively grade something in 2 seconds time.  I surmised that the content had nothing to do with my grade and that it was the length that really mattered.  So when I retook the “written” test I wrote a crappy essay that was not clear, concise, strayed off topic and used a lot of filler words…in the end I have 550 words and when I hit submit 2 seconds later I got a score of 11/12 which placed me in the highest rung of English they had to offer.  This fact really bothered me…until it dawned upon me that this is a technical trade school.  They’re not here to teach me english or math or history…they are here to teach me well…things more related to the technical field.  So in the end I brushed off the placement exam,  gave my self a pat on the back for realizing the stupidity of the written exam and decided to move forward with my career at Devry.  I hope I made the right choice because I’m running out of time.

Quote of the day!

“Do you think God gets stoned? I think so . . . look at the platypus.”

–Robin Williams

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