After the last two of my 161 posts, my brother, Ross Freilich ’09, complained that: a) I failed to mention his successful completion of the Pinesburger Challenge in 25 minutes and b) that my 161 column has become a list of all of the things I tried and failed at completing. Honestly, though, the second is just a case of his stealing a joke I made in that column and trying to make it his own. Not cool. Regardless of who thought of it first (me) and whose sense of humor is better (mine), this most recent column is about my successful completion of one of the 161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do: # 15 Register for classes during Freshman Orientation, then switch out of every single one by the time Add/Drop ends. Full disclosure, I’m in Human Ecology, and they enrolled us in classes prior to our first semester. For me, # 15. is register during pre-enroll and switch out of every single one within the first 10 minutes of Add/Drop. As my friend ES said, this is like therapy for me retelling my best and worst experiences of college, in the most humorous way, of course (his words, not mine). So here goes nothing.
I had quite the plan for my first pre-enroll…not. In fact, that first pre-enroll is something that has taken me quite some time to be able to move on from. Well, I could not log on to enroll (typical), and I am not ever calm in dire situations (unfortunately), and this was a life or death situation. Clearly, I’m good at keeping things in perspective. I wanted to cry. Then, I committed the most egregious crime ever: after finally getting logged on early enough to get a spot in PAM Stats, I didn’t continue clicking so as to actually enroll in the class. Suddenly, I had five classes in my shopping cart, and three of them were filled. At this point, I actually did start crying, and called my mom at 7:10 in the morning (which was apparently terrifying because me calling before 10 a.m. was in itself scary, let alone the fact that I calling in tears). I think she thought I was seriously injured or something. My mom’s response was something along the lines of, “I’m sorry, I can’t exactly help you, but add whatever and you’ll figure it out.” I love you, Mom, but not so helpful there.
So, eventually, I did figure it out…and then I decided to switch majors a mere four days later, just late enough to miss the end of pre-enroll. I know, I would. So I spent the rest of the semester creating alternate schedules to accommodate my new major while also realizing that I could do really well in school if I spent as much time studying as I did Schedulizing.
Anyway, in the end, it all worked out. My schedule changed completely come Add/Drop – so people, stop posting your schedules during pre-enroll. They change. It’s not necessary, just ask my roommates. And Ross, are you happy now?
Jaime Freilich is a junior in the College of Human Ecology. She may be reached at [email protected]. Big Red Ambition appears on Wednesdays.
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Original Author: Jaime Freilich