alright, after getting things sort out, figuring out the classes I need, working out a schedule, mindlessly posting a thread about something I already asked about…I just want to ask some general questions and get some tips from you guys, like how stressful is cc life? how many hours do you guys put into homework, assignments, projects, etc, how much time in studying, what grades you guys get as a result, do study groups in college actually help? Or can you get the same sort of improvement by working hard alone? has any of you guys faced social anxiety? What should I look out for when registering for classes? what should I be aware of when taking classes? Thanks!!
btw how can I improve my reading speed? currently mine is around 390 words per minute, is that too slow? what sort of books do you guys recommend reading?
Oh and one more thing, looking on my student records on the cc website I’m listed under social_behavioral science, does that include political science?
^^^^ yes
CC life isn’t too stressful, so long as you stay on top of your work. It’s best to do all of the readings ahead of time (not always realistic, but definitely will help).
Study groups are helpful. Try to study with A students - that helps.
I just found out about a really excellent study strategy called the “Pomodoro Technique”. Essentially, you work assiduously for 25 minutes without any distractions, and take a 5 minute break from all work. Repeat, and after two hours total, take a 15-20 minute break. It’ll essentially make procrastination a non-issue. If I knew about this my freshman year, I would have been far less stressed. I cannot recommend it enough, seriously. You can modify the time constraints to better fit your personality/style. You should be fine with classes - just know they are generally more demanding than high school, there will be times where you will have to spend an entire day or two (or week ~O) 
) studying. It can get intense, but you’ll acclimate.
Check that technique out, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT70iCaG0Gs
http://tacticalstudent.com/overcome-procrastination-easily-by-tricking-your-brain/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
Try to exercise regularly. It’ll uplift your mood, make it easier to study, and give you more energy. Once you’re in the habit, it’s easy to do, and will help you. Try to create a schedule that will work best for you. Night classes are often burdensome. I advise against them, unless they are necessary (took 2 night classes last semester). I’ve found that I like a spread out schedule much more than a condensed class schedule. It’s just more convenient, often. Plan your time, and stick to it.
I just took a reading test, and I read 377 words per minute. I like to read leisurely, though - it’s sort of necessary with a major like philosophy. The primary thing is comprehension, I think. Read as you see fit. I find that I read faster once I’ve adjusted to a certain author’s style of writing.
Regarding books you should read - it all depends on what you like, what you haven’t read, etc. Here’s a list of a few books that I’ve read recently or particularly like:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (by far my favorite book)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (short book, but definitely read it if you haven’t already, it’s really good)
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (this book is a satire, but it’s pretty entertaining and was definitely a fun read)
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (just a classic)
The Stranger by Albert Camus (short read, the language is easily comprehensible, and is widely recognized by many college students you’ll run into - good to have read for general for conversations and whatnot)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Frederich Nietzsche (get the Hollingdale translation if the book seems interesting to you - I’d say it’s fairly dense, you definitely have to read and reread things to understand what he’s getting at, and even then you probably won’t, but this is my favorite philosophy book/novel and I really enjoyed it)
The Castle by Kafka (sitting on my bookshelf, I want to read it soon)
Invisible Man (just picked it up)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (I really enjoyed this book)
Puud’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain (EXCELLENT book, Twain is hilarious)
Definitely read Frankenstein and The Stranger. Dickens was fun, but his books are long. Same with Charlotte Bronte (I have Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights on my bookshelf - the Bronte sisters are apparently both great). I love Nabokov - he has tons of novels that are extremely well-written, so he may be good to look into. There are some really great books that are probably too lengthy to garner your interest, but if you’re curious, I can add to this list. I can recommend a good amount of books, but I don’t know what you’re interested in, what you’ve read, which authors you like, and so on.
I find myself reading books like The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and Devil in the White City by Eric Larson, I don’t know what it is about dystopian themed books that attracts me so much…
Hm, I haven’t really read those, but I’d suggest perhaps Invisible Man, and The Stranger? Maybe you’d like Hemingway, I was never into him but some people are.
I’ve read some of Hemingway’s books, mostly during high school for english classes, like The Sun Also Rises, The Lost Generation…I liked The Lost Generation a lot, the time traveling was interesting.
If you like time travel, you may like Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut.
read that, loved it!
it got weird towards the end though, the narrator basically becoming a zoo animal for aliens…or was that another book? damn it I mistake books sometime…I almost sure that’s how the book ended…Poo tee weet right?
edgar allan poe is another author I love, weird because I’m not an emo person at all. The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of The House of Usher…
I frankly didn’t like it. I recommend Nabokov, though. Definitely read Frankenstein if you haven’t, The Great Gatsby, etc. It’s pretty much expected that you’ve read some of these books. I’ve heard T.C. Boyle is similar to Hemingway but a bit more sophisticated. Read Plato’s shorter works, like The Apology - great for someone interested in PoSci. You’ll definitely run into that, too. You can find it online, or in many book stores.
Edit: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html
Also, you’ll probably run into MLK’s A Letter from Birmingham Jail:
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Otherwise, just try to read books, think of possible theses/arguments, etc. It’ll help you with your major especially.
funny thing is when the lower division classes were reading the Great Gatsby, my class was reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I recommend anybody to read, the narrator is very johnny depp-esk, which ironically the movie starred johnny as the narrator…
have you read Christopher Hitchens’ books?
I haven’t, but I doubt I’d be into him at a glance. Look into some of these.
PreClassical
Gilgamesh (epic, c. 2500 BC, Mesopotamia)
Classical
Aeschylus, Oresteia
Aristotle, Poetics
Euripides, Medea
Homer, Iliad
Homer, Odyssey
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Plato, The Symposium
Ramayana (epic, c. 550 BC, India)
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Virgil, Aeneid
Old English
Beowulf
“The Battle of Maldon”
“The Dream of the Rood”
“The Seafarer”
“The Wanderer"
13th Century
Dante, The Divine Comedy
18th Century
Novel
Austen, Emma
Pride and Prejudice
Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Fielding, Tom Jones
Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield
Richardson, Pamela
Sterne, Tristram Shandy
19th Century
Novel
Bronte, C. Jane Eyre
Bronte, E. Wuthering Heights
Chopin, The Awakening
Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans or The Pioneers
Davis, Life in the Iron Mills
Dickens, Bleak House
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Hard Times
Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazoz
Eliot, Middlemarch
The Mill on the Floss
Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles or Jude the Obscure
Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter and selected short stories
Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham
James, The Ambassadors or Portrait of a Lady
Melville, Billy Budd
Moby Dick
Shelley, Frankenstein
Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych
Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Wharton, House of Mirth or Age of Innocence
20th Century
Novel
Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God
Atwood, Margaret, The Handmaiden’s Tale or Surfacing (Canada)
Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain
Borges, Jorge Luis, selected short stories, such as “The Garden of
Forking Parths” or “The Lottery in Babylon” (Argentina)
Camus, Albert, The Outsider (France)
Cather, My Antonia or Song of the Lark
Coetzee, J. M., Life and Times of Michael K or Age of Iron (South Africa)
Conard, Heart of Darkness
Erdrich, Louise, Love Machine
Ellison, Invisible Man
Faulkner, As I Lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom, The Bear, The Sound and the Fury
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Forster, A Passage to India
Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Gordimer, A World of Strangers
Greene, The Quiet American, The Power and the Glory, or The Heart
of the Matter
Hemingway, “The Nick Adams” stories, *The Sun Also Rises
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man
Dubliners, Ulysses
Kafka, Metamorphosis or The Trial
Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Lawrence, The Rainbow or Sons and Lovers
Lessing, The Golden Notebook
Mann, Death in Venice
Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, or selected stories
Marshall, Praise-Song for the Widow
Morrison, Beloved, or Song of Solomon
Narayan, R. K. The Painter of Signs or Malgudi Days (short stories, India)
Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm
Proust, Marcel, Swann’s Way (France)
Sartre, Jean Paul, Nausea (France)
Silko, Ceremony
Woolf, V., To the Lighthouse
Wright, Native Son, The Outsider, or Black Boy
source: http://www.elon.edu/e-web/academics/elon_college/english/readinglist.xhtml
Try out some of these. I’ve omitted some, but tons of these are good/interesting.
Sorry for cluttering this up, to whoever is reading.
you’ve read all of these books?!
Goodness, no. Of those, I’ve read: The Death of Ivan Ilych (Tolstoy), The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), Pride and Prejudice (Austen), The Outsider/Stranger (Camus), Frankenstein (Shelley), Jane Eyre (C. Bronte), Great Expectations (Dickens), and am trying to tackle The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky). Probably some more that I missed, or books written by authors on that list that didn’t make the actual list. I’m familiar with many of the authors/books that I haven’t officially read. Books from that list are college level - try to read some, it’ll only help with getting acclimated to the sort of reading and work that you will be doing.