Let’s take a break from class and talk about the influential people I met so far. One person is Josh, my Residential Advisor. Residential Advisors are college students in their 3rd or 4th year who volunteer to work over the summer to supervise the Summer@Brown students. He’s a really cool guy who doesn’t look like it, but is responsible and punctual. I feel really safe living right next to him and having his phone number in case of emergencies.
My roommate is Alex, who is a rising freshman, and he comes from Florida. Most importantly, he’s a total mess. He has all of his junk thrown across the floor and acts immature. He also has very little social skills and abilities to attract people. To me, he’s just another little kid. In some ways, he reminds me of myself when I took courses at CCC. I was young, naïve, and was incredibly smart in the midst of high school and college students. I now realize the feeling of having an underclassman taking the same course as you. It kind of makes me feel bad, too.
The final person I would like to talk about is Mrs. Halls because I love her way of teaching. She allows us to mess around with stuff and figure it out on our own. This promotes independence in all of her students. I also love the labs because I haven’t worked in a real lab condition before but I can have the same experience as a real biologist. Like today, I got to play with some more chemicals and lab equipment to extract DNA in many forms including using a gel to examine moving “bands” (Blue stained DNA that move according to their electrical charge). I also like Mrs. Halls’ lectures because she talks about lab results and then lectures over a PowerPoint Presentation. And plus, the lecture is only an hour long.
I hope to add some more names on this list but in the mean time I’m out.
William,
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read that your roomie was a rising freshman I thought maybe that you meant that he was preparing to enter college as a freshman. It then became clear that he was ready to start as a freshman in high school.
I hate tarring everyone with the same brush but I just don't think that students that age should be admitted to programs like this. With rare exceptions, students that age just don't have the maturity to be off on their own in a setting like this. There's a lack of muturity that few students that age possess.
From what you've described, it's almost as though he's confused an Ivy League college with summer camp. It's bad enough that he's like that but Cornell should never have allowed a situation like this to be possible.
From your own description it sounds like Alex needs some help. If you really were freshmen in college there would be avenues you could take to help straighten an errant roomie (many of them illegal and most being against college rules of conduct but still accepted when done under the radar) out but in a short class like this and the fact that you're all minors leaves you fewer options.
One option you might consider--aside from a one way trip to the woods--might be to sit him down and let him know the facts of life. Let him know what's expected of him and that any failure on his part would be met with actions going so far as to contact his parents. Treat him like an adult and let him know that he cannot continue to act like a child.
Of course, you can always bring your RA into the mix. Not only should he be trained about such things but he's probably getting paid to straighten things such out.