I registered for my Spring 2017 courses from the caf\u00e9 of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, between gapping at great works of art and iconic pieces of Beatle memorabilia (abroad is a weird time). \u00a0Somewhere in this art induced, fake intellectual atmosphere I made the choice to fill my last elective of college<\/i>\u00a0with Computer Science.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong. \u00a0Computer science is a great, and important, thing to learn. \u00a0But of all the incredible classes I could have taken, both within my majors and outside, I for some reason chose a class that would be completely out of my comfort zone and incredibly time consuming.<\/p>\n
As a journalism major, a lot of my work experience has been at online magazines. \u00a0And while many of those had their own Content Management Systems, which just allowed me to input copy into nicely laid out boxes, I always noticed that a lot of the other writers were able to do basic trouble-shooting of format errors on their own. \u00a0Watching their skills helped me start to learn basic HTML, though I was certainly not trained.<\/p>\n
Somewhere during the beginning of my internship in London I realized how marketable of a skill a basic knowledge of HTML coding would be. \u00a0That was the reason I chose to take Introduction to Internet Technology, also know as CAS CS103. \u00a0This basic level class provides overviews of the different codes and technologies that come up in working with internet programs.<\/p>\n
There were definitely moments in the semester where I really started to regret deciding to push myself into this course. \u00a0But the value of even gleaning a little familiarity from it was undeniable. \u00a0The struggle came as I found this introduction level class pulling down my GPA compared to my other courses \u2014 the ones that were asking me to complete tasks more within my comfort zone.<\/p>\n
It was around the time of peak panic (also known as right after the first midterm of CS103) that I got an email reminding student\u2019s about BU\u2019s new pass fail policy. \u00a0The program can only apply to classes that are not fulfilling some requirement, be it a liberal arts requirement or one for a major or minor. \u00a0Lucky for me, that was exactly what computer science was.<\/p>\n
The program is meant to allow students to explore other area\u2019s during their academic study without having to be concerned with the detrimental impact these courses could have on their overall GPA. \u00a0In my case, I am still receiving the benefit of learning basic things about internet technology from my computer science class, but when I do poorly on an exam or a homework because this sort of thinking is far outside my skill set, it doesn\u2019t have to be something that causes massive stress. I, in turn, can focus more on the learning happening rather than panicking about getting good grades.<\/p>\n
Though not all students have the time during their four years to fit in an elective or two, the chance to take these classes for pass-fail credit means a chance to take that class you\u2019ve always wanted to but been to scared too. \u00a0Learning upper level statistics, or basic finance, can be something that isn\u2019t going to ruin a GPA, rather it can be a true learning experience for a student looking to broaden their college learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I registered for my Spring 2017 courses from the caf\u00e9 of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, between gapping at great works of art and iconic pieces of Beatle memorabilia (abroad is a weird time). \u00a0Somewhere in this art induced, fake intellectual atmosphere I made the choice to fill my last elective of college\u00a0with … Continue reading Eliza: BU’s New Pass\/Fail Policy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2018,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44417],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2018"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3109,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3108\/revisions\/3109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}