It's yet another J-Term

Hi, everyone!
I know it's 23 days overdue, but happy new year!
Ok, moving on.

So, J-Term. If you looked it up in the imaginary PLU dictionary, the definition would be: An intense month where your social life is temporarily taken away from you and replaced with books, some more books, topped with a few more books.
But, hey - both housing and the classes offered during J-Term as long as it's not more than 5 credits is free, so why wouldn't you take the opportunity? IT'S FREE, haha.

This J-Term, like last year's, I'm taking two classes; Education 320 - Issues of Child Abuse and Neglect (1 credit), and Communication 341 - Journalism and Conflict (4 credits).
It's a J-Term filled with tears from seeing pictures of abused children, and headaches from trying to resolve a conflict when it comes to journalism.
But, I wouldn't have had it another way this J-Term.

The Journalism and Conflict is somewhat special here at PLU because the professor teaching it, Dr. Joanne Lisosky, who I had last semester for my Communication 421 - Communication Law class, is actually using her own book for the class!
It's called War on Words: Who Will Protect Journalists? It's a great book, and Dr. Lisosky actually wrote it with a former PLU student in 2010!

The Conflict and Journalism class also attended a Conflict Resolution seminar last Thursday here at PLU, and I learned a lot about conflict sensitive reporting, as well as ways to approach a conflict, and above all, how to manage it.

Despite my crazy schedule, I love J-Term. (:

Best,
Lina.

Working On Campus

Hello all

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while.

However, here I am once again talking about my life and hopefully I can share some of my experiences with you guys.

So It's J-term and you know what that means: class like crazy or work like crazy.

I don't know if you guys are familiar with the whole J-term thing so let me just explain it so we all can be on the same page (well, at least I know that I was confused as heck when I first heard about it)

At PLU we have Fall Semester, J-term, and Spring Semester. Fall and Spring semesters are just like what you would see at other universities. However, J-term is when students can take up to 4 credits for the whole month of January. So let's do some math. If a normal 4 credit-hours class is taken in a a normal semester, that would be 4 hours/week over 3 months. Therefore, that would come to a total of 48 hours/semester. In J-term, we only have 1 month, therefore 48/4 weeks would come to 12 hours per week. And let say classes are from Monday - Friday, that would be 2.4 hours/day. However, most classes in J-term are either 4 days or 3 days/week, so that would make it 3 hours/day and 4 hours/day respectively. So if my math is right, that would be crazy for me to sit in a Nursing Class about Childbearing for that long without falling asleep or stressing my brain out.

Therefore, I decided to work for this whole month of January.

I work at the Office of Admission as an Admission Intern. What I usually do is sitting at the front desk, answering the phones, adding prospective students to our system, sending letters and emails about PLU, and helping out with Admission events on campus. But I only do this in J-term. Usually, I work with International Admission and that's something else :)

Anyways, working in J-term is fun because I don't have to worry about homework, projects, or any school related stuff. And because I am not taking any classes, I can work up to 40 hours/week. I love money but I also need to take a break for myself so I only work for about 30 - 34 hours/week.

Working on campus is great. There's always something for everyone. If you're interested, you can learn more about Student Employment at:

http://www.plu.edu/studentemployment/

However, if you want to see the job openings, you will need to have a PLU Student ID.

So that's what I've been up to recently. How about you?

Sincerely,
Henry

J-term: Concentrating on one class.

Happy New Year!!

My friends and I were happy to see these cute drawings on a wall in Ordal!

Hi, I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year! I wasn't able to go home to Japan for break, so I worked on-campus for a week, and then joined my good friend in Wenatchee for the rest of Christmas break. I would have to say that my first Christmas and New Year in America was definitely a good one! Since I am a first-year student, I am required to take a J-term class, so I was back at school on the 1st. It was nice to see all my friends in Ordal again (that's the dorm that I live in), and catch up on things that happened during break. So what's different about J-term compared to the Fall and Spring term? J-term is a month long term were students are allowed to take up to 4 or 5 credits. The content of the class is same as a full semester class, but the pace of the class is quicker since we have that one class everyday for around 3 hours. For J-term, I'm taking Norwegian. A common question I get from people: "Why?". I don't need to take a language class since I am an international student, it really doesn't have to do much with my major or minor, so why am I taking Norwegian 101? The answer is simple: I'm just taking it for fun. Though I would have preferred to take a class that would have helped me complete my gen ed requirements, due to the woes of registration and being a first-year student I decided to take a fun class that may benefit me someday. I've only had two classes, and so far I'm enjoying it a lot. I like learning languages to start with, and though it is a little challenging because there is a lot of content in the class, I'm really glad I decided to take it!