Needing Help and Knowing When to Ask For It.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Transy Blogosphere! I am going to have to start this blog out by announcing a change in itinerary. I know I told you all that I would talk about Greek Life for this blog, but due to a few complications I am going to hold off until next week on the Greek blog. I am sure at this point you are interested to know about the reasoning behind the change. Rest assured, next week I will let you know. Right now there are just a few knots that need to be untied before I can accurately report my perspective on “Going Greek”.

Anyway, this week has been pretty stressful on my end. Classes are now in full swing which means homework, studying, exams, papers and general busyness. I remember before I came to college reading a book called “The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College”. (picture left.) In it the author, Harlan Cohen, talked about how it was around the 4th and 5th week of school that first-years started feeling the most stressed. Well, I can personally attest that this is true. Since we have last talked I have had an exam worth 10% of my grade in Intro to US Politics, a four page formal paper for Foundations of Liberal Arts (FLA), an analyses paper for Philosophy, and this week I will have an exam in Latin: pretty heavy stuff.

There is a bright side, however. Halfway through the week I was feeling pretty stressed and just needed some help. I really had no idea how to start my analyses paper in Philosophy, and in Latin I had been having a really hard time memorizing all the different declensions (don’t ask—I can’t explain them well). I remembered all the professors talking about office hours, and I decided I would give them a try. I am so glad I did.

I went into my philosophy professor’s office first, and I didn’t have any idea what to even ask. I just knew that I needed help understanding what I was supposed to do for the analyses paper. I walked in his office and said exactly that. He immediately started working his pedagogic magic, and within minutes I was ready to get started on the paper with an air of confidence (Speaking of which, it is five days later and I still haven’t started on it and it is due at midnight tomorrow….).
I went to my Latin professor’s office too. I’ll go ahead and admit, though, that it wasn’t voluntary. I was handed back a quiz that I performed dismally on with the ominous note: “We need to discuss this… see me after class.” So, naturally, I did as I was told. I went in afraid that I was going to be lectured, but instead the professor helped me figure out exactly what was giving me so much trouble. He even offered me some amazingly useful advice on how to memorize things more effectively.

So the moral of this story: Transy professors are so amazingly helpful and accessible. Every single professor has mandatory office hours (I think they are required to spend the same amount of time in office as they do in class) and they want you to use those hours. Beyond that, all of my professors gave us their personal phone numbers in case we needed them after hours, and email is extremely helpful too. I even received an almost immediate reply to an email I sent to a professor at 1am!

So there is something else to think about when trying to get a vivid image of life at Transy. Like I said, next week is for sure, and without a doubt, going to be spent discussing Greek Life so you can mark your calendars!

Until then,

Jake Ryan Hawkins