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[Mesa]

Ooooh, what did everyone spend on textbooks? I managed to keep mine at around $450. Buying used is great, except the previous owner of this computer science book had a penchant for dicks.

Well, the new "basic" textbooks (English, German, Polish, History etc.) were supposed to cost about 290zł (~90USD), so the used ones costed less than that.
But there are still the "specific" textbooks (computer science, among other things).

Yeah, I'm not yet caring about the costs personally. But it's one of the last times like that.

[Aptus]

Ooooh, what did everyone spend on textbooks? I managed to keep mine at around $450. Buying used is great, except the previous owner of this computer science book had a penchant for dicks.

Around 300USD for this half-semester. More than half of it, roughly 190USD was for a single damn book on Signal Analysis, and the kicker is that it is only about 450 pages... grumble grumble. By far the most I have paid per page for a book so far.
I spent less than that on both my damn Calculus book and my Physics book covering three courses together and those beasts were massive.

[ggamer]

America started school a fucking month ago, we've already ridden the but-I-don't-want-to train and have stepped off at let's-buckle-down-and-deal-with-this-shit station

USA USA USA USA

Lessee... AP World History, AP Calculus, AP Government, DE English Composition, DE Human Anatomy & Physiology, and good old Economics. Luckily I don't have Spanish 3, they stopped offering that at my school once they realized that they were already assholes for only offering spanish and latin as foreign language classes. So instead of learning something interesting, I get to sit through rehashed bullshit and loads upon fucking loads of homework.

[freeformschooler]

America started school a fucking month ago, we've already ridden the but-I-don't-want-to train and have stepped off at let's-buckle-down-and-deal-with-this-shit station

ITT assuming all american schools start at the same time

My NYC friend somehow is starting 1.5 months later than I did.

Gotta say: I'm loving Statistics so far. Like, the math part of it is really fun (much like chemistry in which the math part of it was the only part I found bearable).

[Aptus]

America started school a fucking month ago, we've already ridden the but-I-don't-want-to train and have stepped off at let's-buckle-down-and-deal-with-this-shit station

USA USA USA USA

Lessee... AP World History, AP Calculus, AP Government, DE English Composition, DE Human Anatomy & Physiology, and good old Economics. Luckily I don't have Spanish 3, they stopped offering that at my school once they realized that they were already assholes for only offering spanish and latin as foreign language classes. So instead of learning something interesting, I get to sit through rehashed bullshit and loads upon fucking loads of homework.

I don't quite get american colleges. I mean I am studying to become a civil engineer specialized in computer science and networking. Which means my days are filled with math, comp.sci. courses, physics etc. A friend of mine is studying to become a math teacher, studying well.. math and courses about teaching etc. Another friend studied to become a lawyer and did all the law stuff.
What I am getting at, here, everything is focused, you choose what you want to study and get courses tailored to that¹, but whenever I hear about americans, they have things like you listed, a mish mash of World History and human anatomy. I guess there is a difference between swedish universities and american colleges I am missing here :p

In the lawyer example I guess you go to 'law school' for that, but how does that tie in with college?

Sorry for rambling :p I got up really early and I am tired as shit, if I made no sense what so ever, just ignore me ^^

¹You can choose courses outside your program of course, but at least in my case, there is no way I would have the time to take a course on philosophy in between my engineering stuff.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

What I am getting at, here, everything is focused, you choose what you want to study and get courses tailored to that, but whenever I hear about americans, they have things like you listed, a mish mash of World History and human anatomy. I guess there is a difference between swedish universities and american colleges I am missing here :p

ggamer is in high school if he's taking AP classes, not college.

It is also worth pointing out that, in the US, the difference between colleges and universities is that the latter performs research alongside teaching students, while the former only teaches.

In the lawyer example I guess you go to 'law school' for that, but how does that tie in with college?

You would go to a college to get a relevant degree, usually pre-law, and then use that to apply to law school to become a lawyer. The same system applies to doctors, and less often some other fields.

[penguinofhonor]

Personally, I still colleges in the US are still too focused. Science students can take an art history class and graduate without even attempting to make art in any form. Art students can get by with only the most rudimentary knowledge of science. Business majors can graduate with a fifth grader's writing level (that's an eleven year old for you non-Americans). English majors can graduate with a fifth grader's knowledge of math.

Gen eds were designed to get people outside their comfort zone and expose them to new experiences and areas they wouldn't explore otherwise, but they've frequently just become a search for the easiest way to fill your "Science requirement" checkbox without actually learning anything.

[quinnr]

But...tomorrow is Labor Day. I also don't go back till the fourth, so eat that. And I'm in America, in a public school. So yeah, not everybody has had to go back yet. Can't wait for this "high school" to be over.

[aenri]

I could swear that 1st May is the Labor day, but it probably is about those wacky US again with their nonconformity.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, September 2nd is Labor Day in the US.

[FearfulJesuit]

We wouldn't want to be, y'know, damn commies, or conform to a world standard, even though May 1st commemorates a labor protest that happened in the States.

[Mesa]

Unless something goes terribly wrong, my Wednesdays are looking really casual - only 4 classes for my group (of which there are two).
I'd explain more, but it would just result in confusion and me giving the Polish education system a bad name (not that it would be far from reality, though).

[Haspen]

Polish education is terribad already, therefore you can't make it worse

[miauw62]

Classes got assigned today (Well, they were assigned ages before this, but we didn't know it). I'm in the same class as some pretty cool guys of last year and my best friend, which is nice, I guess. My best friend jokingly said that he'd finally have a concurrent, because last year he was basically the best student in the class and the only one answering questions from the teachers.

Also, this new building I'm in may be less confusing than I think... Altough that'll have to come from experience, because somehow they managed to smash all the floors into one floor on the map, so the only designated hallways are stairs and we somehow moved from one end of the school to another without anyone noticing.

[DarkWolfXV]

Yep, the doomsday is tomorrow, and I have the worst day plan ever. I dont go on PE and religious education lessons, so why not put PE as the almost-last lesson instead of first or last? Almost every day? Makes me wait a hour wandering around the school aimlessly while a small change in the schedule could free my (and not only my) poor soul from agony. At least monday has religious education last, so I can enjoy freedom earlier, though thursday pulls off the same stupid shit with religious education being second-to-last. Wasn't it written somewhere that PE and religious education actually had to be the first or last lessons in a day? Fuck the polish education system.