Selecting College Courses

Image from MSUapartmentsblog

This morning I finally finished selecting which courses I will take this fall semester. Registration at my college is rather odd. It opens for a week in early July, closes, and then opened again today. I'm not sure why this is, but it is a bit inconvenient.

I am taking courses in the following subjects: chemistry, neuroscience, Chinese, and philosophy. Choosing courses was daunting at first, but now that I am done, the process makes more sense. I recommend using an excel sheet to plot out your classes so it's easier to see if there are any time conflicts. At first I tried to do it in my head, but needless to say that did not work so well!

I need to take a chemistry course in order to fulfill a prerequisite for the sciences. I'm still not entirely sure if I will create my own major in cognitive science or double major in neuroscience and philosophy, but I wanted to leave my options open. If I choose to go into science, I'll need chemistry. Best to get it out of the way earlier than later.

I signed up for the neuroscience course because I have a genuine interest in the subject. 

For a while, I was not sure whether or not I continue with Chinese (which I studied for three years in high school) or switch to Hebrew. Because of my interest in business, I decided to continue Chinese since it will probably be more useful than Hebrew. Plus I can always pick up Hebrew in the future.

The philosophy course is partly for fun, partly for my potential major. I am very excited to take philosophy and I heard wonderful remarks about the professor from current students.

xxOlivexx

California Video!

To vlog or not to vlog...

I have not made a video in a while! For a while, I was working on my "How to Apply to College" series - the new, shiny one that may not be published. (See why here.) I want to get back into making regular videos. I'm thinking about making a "College Countdown" series since I will be leaving for college soon!

This morning I spent quite a bit of time converting video projects to Quicktime files and transferring those files onto my external harddrive. I also discovered that I had not uploaded a video from my California trip. You can view it below. It contains some footage from prom!

Yesterday, my good friend "L" and I went to the mall. We walked around, browsed stores, ate lunch, and talked. L is going into her third year at college. I appreciate all of the wisdom and advice she shares with me. 

xxOlivexx

The Big Decision - Goals for College

One lesson I learned from high school is that you should always have goals to give you direction. In high school, I floundered. I didn't know what I wanted and I felt to burning desire to work hard and make my dreams come true. I don't blame myself for this lack of motivation. Being young, I needed time to develop and grow.

But now I have grown and I'm ready to take things seriously. When I listen or read about people who are successful, I never hear them say "Oh, I didn't know what I wanted to do... so I just kinda did everything half-baked and this ended up working out." I have never heard that. Successful people know what they want and they figure out how to get it.

Over the past few weeks, I developed a clear sense of what I want and a basic outline of how I will achieve my goals. These goals are not set in stone. I'm willing to change them. But I need to enter college with a sense of what I am working toward.

So here are my goals for college.

1. Earn straight As.
2. Do research.
3. Be a leader, in community service projects and/or research.
4. Earn a score in the upper 700s on the GMAT.
5. Get into business school - Stanford's program is my dream school right now.
6. Write and publish a book about my time in college.

I'll break these goals down.

Earn straight As.

This one is fairly obvious. My GPA burned me during the undergrad admissions process. This will not happen again.

Do research.

For the field I am interested in (cognitive science), research is a must. I already have a potential "in" with a professor at college. I plan on meeting her and introducing myself with the intention of working in her lab.

Be a leader.

I am always trying to lead and not follow. I would like to take this a step further, through community service projects and/or research. This is also key for getting into business school.

Earn a high GMAT score.

While I did relatively well on the standardized testing for undergrad, I want to do even better for grad school. I purchased a GMAT prep book and I'll be preparing for the next few years until I take the test. 

Get into a top business school.

My dream is to start my own company. Going to business school would help in my preparation. Right now, I want to go to Stanford's MBA program. They recently revised their curriculum to make it more international and it's a good program for entrepreneurs. Also, after being on the East Coast for undergrad, I would like to branch out and go to the West Coast for grad school.

I plan on appying as a graduating senior. Stanford's program includes the option of deffering for one to three years (as long as you work during that time). I may take some time off to work. This all depends on how things pan out during undergrad.

Write a book about my college experience.


This one will be tons of fun. The book will be about my experience in college. I keep a journal (and this blog, obviously) from which I will craft a coherent narrative. Hopefully I will publish the book as well!

xxOlivexx

The Opportunity

I'm not going to comment about how long it has been since I last posted, because I don't want to sound like one of those pretentious bloggers that is "OH SO GUILTY" about not posting. That's not me. Nope. Not at all.

I'm won't make up any lame excuses, either. Like how I got my wisdom teeth extracted and how I have been packing for college etc, etc, etc. Lame, lame, lame llama.

Instead, I'll be a good blogger and just WRITE about what has happend to me the past month.

First, I have been trying to figure out what I will do with this blog and vlog. There is an amazing opportunity ("The Opportunity") that will probably work out and if it does, I will not be posting a series on how to apply to college. I apologize to my viewers who were looking forward to this, but unfortunately that's how it goes. However, The Opportunity involves college applications, so as soon as I'm able to divulge, I will.

I decided that I want to make my channel/blog fun, exciting, and helpful, but at the same time it needs to be professional. I need to keep long term investments in mind, and having a channel that divulges information about zits, sexy fruits, and silly stuff probably won't help me.

The past month I worked up to a major decision. I want this major decision to have a post of it's own, so bear with me...

More to come!

xxOlivexx