Today was my final day as a student at Alvin Community College, and as corny as it may sound, it was a bittersweet moment. Sweet because I graduated, and bitter because I may actually miss the place, at least for a week or two. I will take with me many memories of my four semesters there – almost all of them good. I will take a moment now to look back, however incompletely, on those four semesters.
When I began attending ACC in Fall 2007, it was my first time back in a public school setting since 1992, when I began homeschooling in the third grade. However, it was not my first college experience, since I had previously finished a long-distance degree with a Christian college. So I knew what to expect as far as college work, but I was a little rusty (to say the least) when it came to the classroom experience.
It actually turned out to be a seamless transition. In reality, college is not at all as stuffy and sophisticated as some may believe – at least not Alvin Community College, which to my knowledge has never been known as a chapter of Ivy League South. The people are normal, most of the buildings are at least 40 years old but not at all ornate or grand (though I grew to love almost every nook and cranny of that campus), and the coursework is very manageable – if you are on time, pay attention, ask questions, take notes, and study before tests. I know it sounds simple, and some may not believe me, but that really is the formula for educational success. Sometimes it’s hard work, but dedication pays off – at least at Alvin Community College, where you can get over 100% on your test grade. The math may be a little doubtful, but it’s the truth. Just ask my sister.
I mentioned that the people are normal. I meant the students, because not all of the teachers are normal. Just this semester, I had a math professor who had terrible people skills and even worse teaching skills. He expected us to be able to follow him when he launched into proofs of complex mathematical formulas we had not even learned enough to competently study (fortunately, such material never found its way onto the test). And under no circumstances would he allow open stretching and yawning during class – and if you were caught drinking something (out of your “drinking device”, as he strangely put it), you were doomed. The personality and teaching style of this professor coupled with the difficult subject of calculus made this one of the most boring yet unique of my courses at ACC. I was actually surprised that, given my poor math record in grade school, I made A’s in all three of my math courses.
I found that history, music, and English, my favorite subjects, remained right up my alley in college. However, though I still don’t consider myself a science nerd (forgive me, future and current science majors – “nerd” is used here in only the kindest of contexts), I was surprised at how much I enjoyed my two science classes, geology and biology. These classes took a lot of work, since they featured in-depth lectures (with large marker boards capable of holding gobs of test material) plus labs. Geology lab was stupidly easy at times, but biology lab was very challenging; the highlight there was a weeks-long dissection of a fetal pig. Some of the females and weaker men among us did not enjoy that. I thought it was rather interesting. But the “lab practicals” in which you had to memorize and identify organs and body systems of both humans and animals, as well as fairly complicated concepts and classifications, were just brutal to prepare for.
My degree program dictated that I take public speaking – otherwise I would never have taken it. I was extremely doubtful about this course, since I am not in any way comfortable speaking in front of groups. But I soon learned that there are a lot of other people like that, and that the more you do it the more comfortable you become with it. It’s still not my favorite thing, but I did pass the course, thankfully. The final assignment was a group speech, which was fun since it took a lot of teamwork. Our group had a lot of good ideas, but I was sure it would be a disaster since we barely even practiced before the final day. But sure enough, the teacher was impressed and gave us a full 100 (but not more than that; he didn’t go for the whole “105’s” thing)!
Other classes were not so fun. I had to take two government and two economics classes, mostly online. The subject matter, especially in economics (there’s a reason they call it “the dismal science”), was only marginally interesting, and the online tests were impossible. If you took the multiple-choice format (150-200 questions in all), you were assured no higher than a 75 – it was that hard. I usually took mine in the essay format, but that was still stressful because it would take about three hours – and the stress only grew when the internet connection was shaky.
My easiest course was without question the first of two English courses. The teacher (he has since moved on) was so incompetent as to be almost funny. Half the semester he didn’t even show up to teach, and the times he did, he would often forget where we were in the course or tell an only halfway-relevant story and let us out early. We had no tests, only “pop quizzes”, and the hardest assignment was a personal essay. But I did like his personality and was in a way sad that he couldn’t do a better job.
I am thankful that, as a Christian in an often anti-Christian educational system, I did not come across as much opposition to my beliefs as I had expected. The science courses never really went into detail concerning evolution, and I never had a teacher that was subject to random tirades against God and Christianity. I know some colleges are far worse. The hardest course for me to stomach, philosophically, was philosophy. Much of the material was interesting, but it was very hard to sit there and listen to teachers and students who thought they had figured everything out but were just as blind as ever to the truth. Many of the lectures went from covering the chapter to an in-depth examination of something like the justification for the war in Iraq. But even as annoying as that can be sometimes, there is even some value in listening to other opinions and differing worldviews – it makes us think about our own worldview and should make us desire even more to be well-anchored in the truth.
Perhaps the wildest experience I had at ACC never actually took place there. In September 2008, when Hurricane Ike struck the Texas coast, the college was completely shut down for weeks; but we managed to get as much coursework done as we could when we returned (and they extended the semester an extra week). The campus itself has still not fully recovered from the fairly extensive water damage it sustained during the storm. It was rather ominous to sit in class just a day or so before “the big one” hit, knowing that we might not be sitting in that classroom again for a while.
I am sure there are a lot more things I could say about my college experience. Of course, not every day there was a blast. In fact, being on campus two days a week and studying the other weekdays can become rather dull at times (especially when your course load keeps you on campus almost seven hours at a time). However, I never missed a day due to illness, though there were a couple times that I had to fight through a day because I was either getting sick or trying to get over something.
In all, Alvin Community College was a positive and rewarding experience for me, and I shall treasure it among my fondest memories – at least in the area of education. Each semester was different and had its own particular flavor – as did each building, classroom, teacher, and course. And so, ACC, as I move on, I bid you farewell. May each student who enters your campus find you as pleasant as I did.
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