Obligatory Stage Setting

I'm Katie.
I'm in a course entitled Critical Writing II at the University of Montana. It makes me wonder about Critical Writing I. No word on the existence of such a class thus far.


Honestly, I think the whole thing is a little ridiculous. To graduate, I have to take a 'lower division writing course' and there seems to be very, very few of these courses, at least that I am eligible for. So I just did a search and this 'Critical Writing II' was literally the only one that I was eligible and would fit into my schedule, so I enrolled. I really didn't know what it was, but I knew I wanted to graduate.

As the course progressed, I realized that it's essentially the very same class as this other class I was obligated to take during my freshman year. It was basically English 101 and it was really, really awful. It was super basic (like basically the same content from my English class in seventh grade, only in seventh grade it was at least free) and not even remotely engaging. I absolutely hated it and I did really poorly. The instructor was just some grad student who was clearly not too psyched to be teaching a bunch of people who didn't want to be taught anyway, and I have a feeling he was nursing some dreams of becoming some kind of prolific poet and teaching English 101 at University of Montana was NOT on the road to that goal. He kind of depressed me, to be honest. And I probably depressed him too.

The content if Critical Writing II is so similar that I'm starting to think it's some kind of scam with the University of Montana so that they can get more money.
At least, however, Critical Writing II is better functionally (and I'm not just saying that because I'm under the impression that my course instructor is obligated to read this blog at the end of the semester.) The readings in this course are usually relevant in some way (unlike in the English 101 class) and it's online so I can do the work when I have time and I don't have to commute across town to be on campus. And I know a lot of people disagree with this feeling, but I really think that the discussions (always required in these kinds of courses) are a lot more... I don't know, engaging and useful when courses are online. People just say the stupidest crap in on-campus classes just because they know they get extra points for letting some sort of words - any words - tumble out of their mouth. Also, have you ever noticed that the most vocal people in discussion classes tend to be the most annoying? I guess I'm just a bitter and judgmental person, but I've totally found a trend that the people who say the most have the least amount to actually say.
I guess some of the same is true in the online discussions, but at least people have a bit more time to really think about what they're saying and they can edit their responses before posting them. That's something you really can't do with verbal communication, unfortunately.

Anyway, I started doing really badly in this Critical Writing course, like basically just missing a bunch of assignments. I'm kind of a terrible student and I certainly blame myself for my failures, but I also blame other things too. For one, the whole system needs an overhaul in my opinion. And also, I'm just really busy this semester. I'm in this animation course that I would love to devote all my time too. It seriously takes so much time (though I'm even failing at that) and I'm also trying to pick up as many extra shifts at work as possible. It's kind of a catch 22 type of a deal because I keep trying to pick up more shifts so I can afford school, but then I start failing because I spend all my time working and not so much time actually doing school work.

So basically, that's where this blog comes in. We had the option to start a blog regarding the coursework for extra credit. And now I'm in need of that extra credit. So now I have a blog.

And now you know.