Spring 2020 Semester Recap

Well, friends, freshman year is over just like that! I’ve actually been done for three-ish weeks now but I was waiting to get my final grades before uploading this post. I posted one of these recaps after my Fall semester too so if you missed it, you can click here to read. Throughout this series, I share what classes I was enrolled in as well as which professor I had, the grade I received, and a bit more about each class. I also share a bit about my personal experiences + social life regarding the semester so you can get the full feel of what went down each semester.

Obviously, this semester ended far differently than any of us could have imagined and while yes I was disappointed, I also think it’s important to recognize the privilege we have of getting a degree from the comfort and safety of our own homes. There are certainly far worse situations to be in.

For those of you who are new, or simply need a refresher, I am a Fashion Merchandising student at Kent State University. The biggest difference between the first semester and the second semester was that I dropped my second major, Journalism. I did, however, pick up a minor in Fashion Media which focuses on social media, marketing, the magazine industry, and basically every one of my interests wrapped into one minor.

Alright, onto the classes since I know that’s the real reason why you’re here! I took a total of 18 credits this semester, 6 of them being online prior to the whole Corona business. You will also notice that I have a really random assortment of classes. That is because I needed to knock out a good chunk of my core classes and wanted to get some of the random graduation requirements out of the way now so that I wouldn’t have to worry about them later on down the line.

Fashion Tech Lecture (1)

Professor Benitez, Monday 9:50-11
Rating: 8/10
Grade: A

I believe I mentioned this in my last post but all fashion students at Kent (Merchandising and Design) are required to take three lecture+lab courses. Fashion Fundamentals, Fashion Tech, and Fashion Fabrics. I took Visuals last semester and was enrolled in Tech this semester. This course is basically designed to teach you the ins and outs of Adobe software. However, in the lecture you are not doing anything hands-on, you are simply listening to the professor demo projects and assignments that will be assigned to you later that week during your lab. In all honesty, you really don’t learn anything during this hour. There is typically one assignment a week given online and they usually are videos (that have nothing to do with what was discussed during class) which you are then required to write a short essay response on.

Because there isn’t much to go over during lectures without beating a dead horse, she cancels class quite often leaving you with class only about half of the semester. This was my only Monday class so when this class was canceled, it was so nice to have the day off. She does not make you use your clicker for attendance she makes you personally sign in at the end of class which is very annoying and chaotic since there are over 200 students in the class. Do not schedule a class 15 minutes after this period because you will not make it for the sole purpose of attendance.

Fashion Tech Lab (2)

Professor Hahn, Thursday 8:00-10:30
Rating: 7.5/10
Grade: A

including some of my work from this semester so you can see!

Fashion Tech Lab obviously pairs with the lecture and there are several different professors who teach this course. The lab portion is split into different sections and throughout the weeks you will learn each of the Adobe platforms: Illustrator, In Design, Photoshop, Excel, etc. I had David Hahn who is said to be the best professor you could get for this class. While yes he is knowledgable, he loves calling people out in class which kind of makes you want to crawl in a hole and hide; but, he does know his stuff which makes this course a hundred times easier.

color + mood board project 

This class made me want to pull my hair out. It is so incredibly time-consuming and you will spend three hours on your homework to get a whopping ten points on it. I am not a technologically savvy person by any means so I found myself frustrated beyond belief trying to draw up falts, croquis, and other items for these projects. You also don’t realize how difficult it is to draw from scratch through Illustrator until you are left to do it on your own. There are five different projects for this class and they are incredibly time-consuming; like twenty hours time consuming so if you are a procrastinator, good luck Charlie.

I will say, as frustrated I was with this class, Professor Hahn was always very generous with his grading on my behalf and I could tell that he was giving me points for effort, not perfection. I also walked out of this class with immense knowledge on programs I had never used before which of course, is the whole purpose of going to school in the first place. (However, I am obligated to dock this class points because of the tears of frustration that came along with it, LOL)

Intro To Entrepreneurship (3)

Professor Heidler, Online
Rating: 10/10
Grade: A

This was my first online class and I cannot say enough good things about it. Mrs. Heidler is so organized and she made this course incredibly easy to follow. She breaks everything up into weekly modules. Each week there is a PowerPoint to take notes on, a couple of different articles to read, and then a discussion board to respond to. For the midterm, you are required to create a two-minute elevator pitch and submit it via YouTube; besides that, the only other grades are the mid-term and final exams, and a few different quizzes here and there.

She had amazing communication, sending out an email every week covering what we would be learning and what was due. So much so, that I never once needed to email her with an issue or visit her in person. You are able to work ahead in this class with the exception of the quizzes, and tests, those she keeps locked until the week they are intended to be assigned. Her exams are open note and the questions come straight from the power points so be diligent about taking notes as they will help you big time later on.

As an entrepreneur myself I found this class incredibly interesting— a lot of the information was stuff I already knew from personal experience and the rest was new information that I could incorporate into my daily habits as an influencer. This class counted towards my minor and was an easy A.

Greek Achievement (3)

Professor Whitcare, online
Rating: 9/10
Grade: A

Greek Achievement was the other course I took online and it too was very easy. For both of my online courses combined, I sent about 3 hours a week completing my work so it’s a super convenient, efficient way to get credit hours out of the way. I took this (terribly boring) class upon recommendation from many people as an easy way to check one of the required boxes for graduation.

Like entrepreneurship, this class is broken down by weeks. Each week you are supposed to read pages from three different books. I didn’t get the books because of all the people who recommended this class to me, none of them had purchased the books and they all got A’s, so I decided to save my money. After “reading” you have three different quizzes. Each quiz is worth 20 points and you can take each one twice, keeping the higher of the two grades.

The quizzes are the only grades with the exception of five essays. The essays are what got me and are the reason I got such a low A in this class. Mrs. Whitcare is very particular with her grading so it’s important to read through her rubric a gazillion times before handing in your work to make sure you checked the box on each thing. I loved this class because you could work at your own pace; when school was moved entirely online I took it upon myself to finish the last six weeks of the course in one week! In my opinion, greek history is like the world’s most boring topic ever but this class was an easy way to knock out a core credit.

Renaissance to Modern Art History (3)

Professor Medicus, Tuesday/Thursday 2:15-3:30
Rating: 8/10
Grade: A-

In high school, I took AP Art History and loved it. I had a wonderful teacher and passed the exam. My credit transferred over to Kent but when I found out I needed two art credits, I decided I should take Renaissance to Modern Art history because a huge part of my high school Art History course overlapped with this curriculum. Of all the works I was shown in this class, only about 20% of them were new to me as I had so much previous knowledge from high school. Because of this, one would think that this would be my easiest but no, this was definitely my hardest class.

There is a written assignment and quiz given each week online and three different exams with a written and scantron portion. The exams are incredibly hard and got worse once moved online, lol. And while Art History definitely isn’t the most entertaining topic, professor Medicus was an excellent professor, enthusiastic and exuberant about what he was teaching each and every day. His passion for this material really showed through.

In his defense, he is not the one who graded the work it was his TA so I suppose I have her to blame for my struggles, lol. There are definitely easier classes to take to knock out this credit but I would still recommend this one to people; just know that you’re going to have a work a bit harder for this A.

Science Of Human Nutrition (3)

Professor Blakely, Tuesday/Thursday 12:30-1:45
Rating: 8/10
Grade: A

I took Nutrition because again, I needed to knock out a core class for Science. I will have to take a science lecture/lab combo in the fall but once I’m done with that I will have all of my core classes complete. Nutrition seemed like a good fit because I am terrible with science and could not possibly be bothered with Physics, Chemistry, Bio, or anything of that sort. I actually found nutrition to be very interesting and am so glad that I decided to take this class.

The professor is boring (but nice) and about 2/3 of the class skipped since all she does is read off of the power point slides that she uploads to Blackboard + doesn’t take attendance. The only grades for this course are three exams and one project. She does however, give out a study guide before each test which if you study diligently you will get an A.

Intro To Human Communication (3)

Professor Miracle, Tuesday/Thursday 11:00-12:15
Rating: 10/10
Grade: A

So, most people do not take this class unless they are required to. However, I needed one last core class to be done with my requirements for the year, and I could choose from any category, not just Science or Art or Humanities, any course I wanted. I settled on this class because I wanted to take a communications class and this professor had excellent reviews.

This class is speech-based and is designed to help you learn how to public speak; I was the only fashion major in the class of 30, practically everyone was an education major as it’s required for them. I love public speaking and knew that even if I struggled with this course, it would benefit me in the long run as public speaking is a skill that will take you far past the classroom.

Mrs. Miracle is incredibly gifted at what she teaches and will do anything for her students. You have weekly quizzes, a midterm, and a final exam all given online. There are also three different speeches given throughout this class, an impromptu, informative, and persuasive that are six minutes long. If it weren’t for Corona canceling it, I was planning on entering the Kent State speech competition with one of the speeches I gave throughout this class. I learned so much throughout this course and know that this professor is one I will stay in contact with for many years to come.

Academically, my semester went really well. I am so happy that I decided to take 18 credits rather than 16 as I definitely could handle the extra workload, especially since two of the classes were online. I did have a harder time this semester as I was in a lot of core classes that frankly I had very little interest in. It’s much harder to get excited about your work when you have no passion for the topic. I am so happy to be done with this semester and am super excited for all of the fashion classes I will be enrolled in next fall. I scheduled next semester to be Tuesday/Thursday again since this schedule worked out so well for me this semester. Only having class two days a week really allowed me to separate school and work.

As for my social life, I definitely toned it back this semester, mostly because it was so cold out that there were many nights we all decided to stay in because our beds sounded better than walking to the frats in a tank top, lol. As far as blogging goes, I was working far more this semester so that also was a big contributing factor. Between freelancing my blog and YouTube I was clocking in roughly 30 hours a week on top of my schoolwork. I was also able to travel to New York City for Fashion Week in February and just a few weeks later we were sent home for the remainder of the semester.

I truly could not have asked for a better freshman year despite it being cut short; I miss my roomies and friends so much. My only complaint about freshman year is that I never made it to a spring baseball game :(. And while this year was full of change, excitement, fun, nerves, and more, I have to admit, I am looking forward to some downtime this summer and letting my body recharge for a busy fall semester. Keeping my fingers crossed that we’re able to get back on campus!

With love, McKenz

Latest Post: My Favorite Place To Buy Denim
Related Post: Fall 2019 Semester Recap
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