Another newbie...

[wraxa]

Hi! I am new to the board. My name is Ashley and I am an 18 year old Biology major at Kennesaw State in Georgia. I have had a little bit of experience with fishkeeping in the past, but had to give it up for a little while. However, I am now back in the game with a new (small  ) tank and am very excited. I LOVE catfish and have three little albino cories. Pleased to meet everyone!  

 

[colesea]

Wow, another bio major...

My advice to all bio majors....run. Run as fast as you can. Turn around and don't look back. Switch into a more practical major like Eled, or business, or computers, or psychology for catfish's sake. Whatever you do, just, run as far from your science building as you can. And don't look back.

See, first it starts with Intro Bio, heck skip that, you've three AP credits anyway. That's easy enough, and Chem I is the same you had in high school. Heck, Chem II is a breeze, and Intro to Ecology you passed while sleeping late each day. But then comes Organics...and Environmental Chem turns out not to be exactly what you think. Ecology turns into a six hour field lab in the middle of a misqueto infested swamp, but once they've gotten their teeth in you. Once they're sure you're hooked on Animal Behavior and Aquatic Biology, they force things like Anatomy, Physiology, and Developmental into your electives. And, AND! You get locked in a dark closet with that one elective nobody can avoid, that one "elective" that you have no choice but to take, the one they forget to tell you about during enrollment, the...the *gasp* the three credits of a BOTANY LAB!

*shudders from the flashbacks* Whew, but once you're done with that. Once you have that BS piece of paper in your hands, and you've remained to be one of the 50 graduating seniors -still- a bio major after four years (your smarter friends have gone onto El-ed or english majors by then and are graduating summa cum laud while you're glad to be graduating at all after that hellish semester of Physiology and Organics) from an initial class of 200, you realize...it was all worth it...

...when you're making $8/hr at your local fish store!

~~Colesea (been there, done that)
Although I must say, the best class I had was Oceanography, taught by a proff who got sea-sick, and therefore did everything by telemetry. That rocked! We got to play with a multi-million dollar STD while he stayed on shore with the lap-top and yelled as us over the radio to keep fixing the up link.

 

[wraxa]

Well, I want to go to medical school, so I'm left with no other alternative. Thankfully, I don't have to take enviormental chem or botany.  

Oh... and Chem II is NOT a breeze.  > Not for me, anyway...  

 

[Somonas]

welcome to Myfishtank.net, wraxa.

 

[ChazECJr]

Welcome wraxa.

If you like bio and chem consider majoring in chemical engineering, and take whatever other courses you can to land you in the pharmaceutical industry when you graduate.  The Merck's of the world pay a lot better than $8/hr.

(Yes, I am a chemical engineer.  No, sadly, I am not a high paid drug company engineer however.   :'(  But perhaps you can avoid that mistake I made...)

 

[rummynose]

Another CHMEng, yes!!  I wouldn't reccommend it though, 4-5 yrs of, no I can't go to the bar, too much Pchem, reactors, kinetics,  blah blah blah.  Then when your hopping to get the lush pharmaceutical or R&D job, the economy dives and you take the nearest process/plant job you can find.  Can't complain though, pay is good.

Biochemistry was my favorite Biology class.  Never took Oceanography though, sounds like a good one.    

 

[Atlantic Fish]

Hey Wraxa
Your breaking my heart, medical school, come off it...(Sorry im a nursing student).  No seriously, good for you. Just dont become a Dr. without a heart! My outlook is that you treat all your patients as if they where your own family. They are not room #'s or the GI bleed in 256, they are people with feelings..Sorry about that tangent, Colessa, your rubbing off on me..hahaha. Good luck with med school Wraxa!
Johnmac

 

[colesea]

P-chem P-chem P-chem. OH I just love P-chem! All my chem major friends used to take a year and a half of everything they could just so they could dedicate a whole semester to nothing but P-chem. And they're soo funny about it too. Nothing is more amusing to watch than a bunch of P-chem majors sitting in the study lounge at 3am talking about how the end of the world is comming because the prof is the anti-christ and the entropy is increasing all around them. All it boils down to is discovering the compsition of Mountain Dew.<G>

I'm so glad I didn't have to take P-chem. Organics was enough for me. Doesn't look like I'll avoid Biochem though. I tried, that's why I took Organics, but Organics is not a Vet Tech requirement, and Biochem is. Drats.

But Medicine is a noble pursute all in all. One of my best friends is now in ther second year of med school. Over Thanksgiving dinner she and I had the most interesting conversation regarding her cardava dissection that sememster. We compared anatomy between humans and turkeys enough to disgust the rest of the family<G>.
~~Colesea

 

[dattack]

Comeon now, there are more doctors with hearts than without one.  

 

[jbfootin]

I think it is more of an ego problem than heart.  God complex I think they call it.

 

[Atlantic Fish]

Sorry there guys, didnt mean to go off on a tangent. You are right dattack there are many out there with hearts, I had just come off a long shift with a clinical clerk who thought he was  "all that and the bag of chips". Sorry. Just tell me to stick a sock in it next time....hahaha    
Johnmac

 

[Bleurble]

ha, I'm amy, 18, going to the University of New Hampshire, Marine Bio Major! lol.. ah good times. been a hell of a year! talk about stress.. ah well. all will hopefully come out good in the end.

 

[colesea]

AHHH, Another Marine Bio Major!

My advice to all those considering marine bio...

...run, run as fast as you can...run and never look back. First they'll get you all psyched about dolphin reasearch, then make you sit through lectures of identifying different species of copopods. They'll talk all about benthic organisms, then give you ocenography with a proff who's specialty is sattalite telemetry. Then...then! Just when you think you've survived! Just when you think you've made it out of the science building alive....they give you six weeks of field camp in a salt marsh counting quads of Spartina while wearing rubber hip waders on the unshaded tidal flats of a salt marsh DURING THE HOTTEST SUMMER IN THREE YEARS!!!

And after four years of all that and -paying- $1200 for nine months of a delphinic research internship that wasn't all it was cracked up to be, you end up employeed by your LFS making $8/hr because the major accredited zoos and aquariums won't hire you unless you have your masters and four years of paid experience working in an accredited zoo or aquarium, which you can't get because no zoo or aquarium will hire you without paid working experience in an accreditted zoo or aquarium...

Take a Secondary Education duel major if you're going to do marine bio. Most of my friend that did that who graduated with me are now High School Biology teachers making good money and living the good life while I'm still grovelling for a job that would let me shovel crap for $8/hr. They say it is all for the love of the animals, and don't get me wrong, I love animals, but I can't love it if it ain't paying back those student loans. Ecconomic forebarance only lasts for so long...then these annoying people start harassing your car...<G>
~~Colesea

 

[Bleurble]

lol.. i forgot to mention i'm starting my minor in Animal Behavior as well.. yes, i know, i'm insane.. and when i graduate i'll stand there with a lovely diploma and hat, saying "what the hell do i do now?????" but eh. it's better than sitting in lecture halls learning about boring history.. ahh but there are times where i wish i was a liberal arts major. they seem to do nothing! hehe  

 

[Bleurble]

lol.. i forgot to mention i'm starting my minor in Animal Behavior as well.. yes, i know, i'm insane.. and when i graduate i'll stand there with a lovely diploma and hat, saying "what the hell do i do now?????" but eh. it's better than sitting in lecture halls learning about boring history.. ahh but there are times where i wish i was a liberal arts major. they seem to do nothing! hehe  

 

[colesea]

You still have to take boring history, and speech, and english, and psychology (although psychology was quite interesting), and math, and chem, and the largest waste of educational dollars I have ever spent P.E!

Most colleges, as far as I know, require that you still have to take a certain amount of classes in the libral arts in order to recieve your degree. They want you to be a "well rounded" student. Honestly, I don't think I have yet used any of the knowledge I aquaried from "History of Pennsylvania before 1860". But I needed three credits of a social science, and this one was a snoozer.  So was "Early American Literature." Honestly, I like literature, "Bartlebe the Scribner" was quite interesting, although the way the proff presented it just, made the class another snoozer.  Waste of money, big waste, but when you're taking 18 credits with Organics, and Physics, you're glad for an hour to sleep.
~~Colesea
~~Colesea

 

[rummynose]

My favorite worthless credits:
History of American Jazz  *thumbsupsmiley*

and your definitely right about the sleep catchup.

 

[ChazECJr]

PE?  You mean physical education?  PE is not necessarily a total waste.

It was only when I took Beginners Swimming in college that I learned to swim (I'm embarrassed to admit).

I also took self-defense, something all men and women should take.  I liked it so much years later I got a brown belt in karate.  But with two kids now I never found the time or energy to get to black, maybe some day...

 

[colesea]

This is my rottie, his name is Defense, now, please, slowly back away or you might get hurt.<G>

Okay, I'm sorry but three hours a week of "Fitness Walking" for  1/2 a credit only to find out your entire grade was based on how fast you can walk three miles at the end of the year was a big waste of time to me. I didn't pick "Fitness Walking" I was assigned it my first freshman semester by the autoregistar. Then -THEN- my sophomore year they changed the requirements and decided to do away with 1/2 credit PE classes and make everybody take a three credit one. I paid for a whole credit (I also had Aerobics that same semester) that was utterly useless. $900 I'm still paying off... (yes I paid out of state tuition) and I had to retake PE anyway to make up for the two credits I couldn't earn when they dropped "topics in sports medicine" or "women's health issues" those lovely 2 credit "philosphy of gym" classes.

Honestly though, I know what you mean about swimming. I didn't learn how to swim correctly until I took my lifeguarding classes and we had to compete in timed swims for certification. There ain't no way the doggy paddle is gonna save a drowning person.

Oh, and if you're going to minor in Animal Behavior, I sincerely recommend you frequent the local Greek houses. After all, we ain't nothing but mammals. Desmond Morris and B.F. Skinner are my absolute idols, and Animal Behavior was one of my favorite classes. We got to play with cockroaches, and we did this one experiment in the library. This is really cool. If you really want to weird people out, just sit down next to them. Dude, you would not believe how freaked people get. The assigment was to observe "personal space" and the limits thereof, and when you've invaded it. One partern stood on the balcony (we had balconies on each floor that looked over the work space) and observed the target while the other person sat at their table. You could sit either diagonal, across, or next to. Well, I sat down across from this one guy, opened a book, and pretended to read, not paying attention to him, for fifteen minutes. My partner said he lost his concentration, never flipped a paged, figetted the entire time, and that he appeared totally unnerved. And all I did was sit down across from him and read a book.

Dude, that was the coolest experiment ever. Hey, don't even have to be in Animal Behavior class to do it, just take the seat next to someone anywhere, and watch their reactions. Note your -own- reaction when someone sits next to you. Do you cross arms or legs? Do you look down? Do you shift over to make more room even when there might be none available? Do you make eye contact? How much "personal" space do you need and when are you willing to have it infringed upon...in a crowded elevator, or in an empty library floor when the only other person there decides to sit across from you?

"Thirty inches from my nose, the frontier of my person goes
Beware of rudely crossing it, I have no gun, but I may spit"
--WH Auden

~~Colesea

 

[equinom]

Personal space is a major issue!
How about those people who stand so close in the checkout line that they comment on the way you write your check???

or those folks who carry a lunch bag, briefcase, purse and a laptop, get in the elevator and swing around... then they get offended if you say ouch as the computer smacks your face...

don't even mention those people who get close in the ATM line...

I used to commute on the train (60 minutes).  There is no personal space in public transportation.  I finally couldn't take it anymore and opted for the drive.  I would rather fight traffic than sit next to an obviously unwashed, alcohol swiging, self talking individual.  And then they ask for spare change...