Ugh

I don't know if it was the plane trip or shaking hands with half of the professors at Cal Poly, but I now have a cold. I was hoping it was allergies, so I took my allergy pills, which meant that I had a runny nose all of yesterday. Today I figured it wasn't allergies, so didn't bother... so I got the runny nose AND a sinus headache. (Brilliant, self.) Then on the way home, I stopped for gas and cold pills. (And got the fun of buying decongestants with an out of state license.)

Incidentally, this reminds me of another weird culture shock; the area stores all charge for plastic or paper bags*. I don't know if I saved most of my tote bags from Ithaca; at the least, I'll need new ones.

I think 'lack of free grocery bags' was part of Mom's list of Why She Hates California. (The bags, the drivers, the fact there is a giant hill between my apartment and my office, the price of everything, the presence of too few restaurants that serve mild food**... pretty much everything except the ocean.)

Department retreat today: basically, we went over all the policies, I got connected with the astronomers on campus, and information about who I report to for Physics 141 (because there are eight instructors for at least ten sections, so someone has to herd the cats***), and more New Faculty information.

* Not much. Something like ten cents, or maybe fifteen.
** Most of that is just that Mom's stomach is sufficiently delicate that even pizza for dinner will send it into a tailspin of heartburn and regret. Which makes eating out far less fun, especially in areas where you don't know what the hell weird thing they'll do to food, or where they think raw onions go.
*** I have 48 students in each section; that means a good five hundred students are passing through calculus-based physics. That's about as many as we had at the University of Nebraska, where I took calc-based physics, but we did it in two or three giant lecture hall classes, and weekly recitations with grad students.

Cultural Markers

A couple of days ago, I mentioned ordering checks to a friend. I don't pay for much via check -- I still have my first box of checks from my local bank in Ithaca (which is why I had to open a new bank account here in California, and, thus, order checks) -- but they're handy for paying bills where I can't pay electronically. Said friend wondered why I didn't use money orders; her reasoning was that money orders might cost money, but they meant you could control when the money left your account.

It occurred to me that this was some kind of cultural marker; said friend had lived hand-to-mouth for some time, so couldn't trust that a badly-timed check wouldn't leave her overdrawn, while I've been broke but not poor*. Hell, this move is probably the farthest into debt I've ever been (even excluding the car loan), and I suspect it won't last until 2015.

The reason I think about this, is Monday the university president was all up about first-generation college students and making sure they graduated (at least at the same rates as their peers with college-educated parents). Like, apparently Cal Poly has a food pantry for low-income students and faculty can ask for meal vouchers for students they suspect are skipping to save money for tuition or rent. He read some letters from students appealing their probation, often explaining they pretty much had to save one quarter at a time.

I was considering this compared to my friend, when I overheard something a colleague was saying about assumptions. He said, 'don't assume your students will buy the workbook and online service; don't assume your students will even have the textbook'**. A lot of my planning was based on trying to get the students to read the textbook before class so we could focus on practicing the material in class (you know, where there's a teacher to help, unlike trying to do homework at home). A lot of my success tips focus on things like how to study outside class beyond homework, or showing up to extra things on campus. I wonder how much I miss since my college experience wasn't one where I had to work***, and I could go to office hours or meet study groups if I needed it. I also had a textbook scholarship.

OTOH, some of it is that you need the time to practice any skill you want to learn, and physics isn't any different. If the students can't get the time to study****, I don't know what else I can do. I can't wave my hand and give these students the money so they don't have to work full-time, or can live on-campus (cutting down the cost and time of commuting). The best I can do is listen, figure out ways to get students to tell me where I'm biased by my upbringing, and present things as options rather than YOU MUST DO THIS.

I'm going to head to the library tomorrow and make sure they have copies of textbooks. Possibly also the tutoring center. If I want students to read the textbook, I can at least offer ways they can do it without having to buy the thing. (At least the physics book is for three quarters. It's a doorstop. I could use it to kill small mammals.)

* The difference is one of immediacy. Before I got a job as a college student, I had little spending money, but I had food and housing, almost no debt, and the ability to call on my parents if I really needed something. Basically, I didn't have to worry about the cost of things, even though I had scant few monetary assets.

** A different gripe than a friend's annoyance that her students order from Amazon... and forget to factor in that it takes time for Amazon to ship books (unless you pay them) and don't make alternate arrangements.

*** My job (teaching assistant and undergrad researcher) was for spending money and CV building for grad school, and also because I liked it.

**** Well, or go to office hours, use the campus tutoring resources, etc. Most of these students, I suspect, were like me and learned how to get by in high school by doing what was expected and memorizing things. Which is going to fail them sometime in college, most likely. See: the story of my sophomore year. Also in grad school.