Nuclear Engineering

First, a couple brief tidbits from today:

• Today we had elections for ΚΚΨ. My Big Brother, Mike, won the presidency for 2009-2010. Congratulations!
  
• As it turns out, my short time in Girard was overstuffed with things for me to do, and as such, my father forgot to have me sign my tax return which he prepared for me while I was there. So he sent it to me and now I have to go to the post office tomorrow. Yay for walking to the post office! Yay for exercise! Yay for setting a dozen alarms for a simple task, lest I forget to do it!

And now I turn to something that I don't think I've mentioned here before. (That's another reason why BEDA is helping me out a little. Even some relatively important things have gone completely unmentioned here.)

There's an undergraduate Nuclear Engineering certificate available here at Pitt that I've been thinking about getting. You see, to have anything nuclear at the undergraduate level is rare, let alone a whole certificate. So it's, you know, probably a good idea, since I actually like the class I'm in now. Unfortunately, I only heard about the program this past fall, and so I'll have only taken one of the three classes by the end of this term. The other two are only offered in the fall semester. And this is where the problem comes in.

They are all night classes, and although I took a night class opposite band this past fall, it was only one night a week and it was over at 19:55, so it wasn't so bad. In order to complete the certificate, I'd have to miss both Tuesday and Thursday nights completely, and that's when the band does most of its work.

So, when registration came around in March, I had registered for just the Thursday class in Fall 2009, and had talked to the chairman of the program to see if there was some way I could take the remaining class in Fall 2010 as a post-graduate if I should remain in the Pittsburgh area. I was somewhat okay with this option, although to be honest, I still wasn't completely satisfied and would have liked to have been able to complete the certificate this year.

But apparently, so many people signed up for the Tuesday night class that there is no more room. So to make room for the increased demand, they've opened up a Wednesday night section. And there's no band on Wednesday nights. Hooray!

There are a few things that aren't wonderfully desirable about that, though. First, that means that I have all five of my evenings taken up (although I'll have almost completely free mornings, so it will just take some extra motivation). Secondly, it will put me right back up at 18 credits instead of the 15 credits I was planning on taking... and none of that counts ensemble participation. Thirdly, my schedule is quite densely packed, due partially to when the classes I need are available, but also under the consideration that I'll be living 1.6 miles (2.6 km) off-campus next year. Unfortunately, you can look to the image at left and see what that extra class will do to my Wednesday schedule. Not pretty. Sitting in lecture from 12:00 until nearly 21:00, without so much as 15 minutes for a meal? Eek!

So my next step is to see if I can maybe move my Music elective or my EngLit requirement to a different time of day, preferably as late in the morning as possible. Like MWF 11:00-11:50 would be perfect. But I know that's a lot to ask, considering it was hard enough to get into those sections as it was. I'm a senior... isn't early scheduling supposed to work to my benefit?