Thirty-Two Questions for College Graduates (or near graduates)

1. Where did you do your undergraduate work?

at the university of hawai’i, manoa campus. people were disappointed i chose to go there–they all thought i should go to the mainland. but with the $$$ issue and being away from family, i wanted to stay.

2. What was your major?

hawaiian studies. took me a loooong time to decide.

3. Did you have any minors?

well, they were called “concentrations” — language & literature, and marine options program.

4. If you hadn’t majored in __________, what would you have majored in?

probably linguistics–i almost entered the master’s program in this field. i also wanted to study marine life, but since that too was a master’s program, i’d have to have taken zoology or biology for a b.s. before i could study marine biology. and i actually tried to sign up for a compsci major…but the t.a. of the class i was taking told me it’s useless for me because 1) i’m female and 2) computers are going nowhere. yeah, what great advice that turned out to be…

5. What was the best course you took in your major?

structure of hawaiian (haw452) — we analyzed the linguistics and learned advanced grammar. LOVED it.

6. What was the worst course you took in your major?

i can’t remember the exact name of the course … and it wasn’t the content that made it the worst, it was actually pretty good. but the professor scared me. she tore apart my papers and ridiculed me and told me to meet her during office hours (which meant i had to skip a class, and the prof of that class saw me standing in the halls and scolded me for not going down to her class) but she never showed…it was one of a few not very good memories i had in college.

7. What was the best course you took outside your major?

hawaiian chant & dance (I, II, & III) okay, that’s 3 courses…but i loved all of them. or was it in my major? hmm. maybe it was. if so, then i’d choose … hmmm, i think i really enjoyed my creative writing class (eng313? or something?) i loved it because it was writing, which i like to do, but also because the classmates were all helpful and supportive (though can’t say that about the professor…). but i was amazed at some of the things that the writings that turned up in that class! wonderful stuff.

8. What was the worst course you took outside your major?

i can’t think of what was the worst course…hmm…i’m sure there were lots.
it was probably some history class…or something…i’ll have to think about this more.

9. Did you walk at commencement?

no…and yes. no, for my bachelor’s. i thought, are you crazy? why would i walk? high school graduation was hard enough. so i chose not to. then i find out later, that my mom really wanted me to walk. she wanted to feel the proudness of a mother of a college graduate–not that she wasn’t already proud, but i guess she wanted to hear my name and see me get my diploma. i heard her mentioning to someone how much she really wanted to see me walk and i felt sooo bad. so for my master’s, i indulged her wish and grudgingly walked. all for her.

10. Were you presented with any honors or awards?

no. well, i graduated magna cum laude, but i wasn’t singled out for it. it’s just noted on the diploma.

11. How often did you eat pizza?

not very i still lived at home, so still had mom’s cooking

12. What stupid behavior can you blame on just being a freshman?

i’d like to think i exhibited no stupid behaviors…

umm let’s see…i was stupid enough to think i could handle a higher level spanish class, which i found out later was supposed to be for spanish language majors…i think i just had a lot of confidence from high school that i could tackle “hard” or “higher-level” courses. but i couldn’t. i had no idea how classes were ranked when first going into college, so that was a big lesson learned during freshman year.

13. During your first two years, what was your usual bedtime?

10pm? maybe 11pm?

14. During your final two years, what was your usual bedtime?

about the same.

15. Did you have any short-term flings?

no. i went out on a lot of “rebound” dates, but they didn’t involve anything sexual, which i guess is how i define “fling.”

16. Did you take any school-related trips?

yes. we spent a week in lanikuhona on the big island for hawaiian 101/2, the summer i took it. awesome experience.

17. What extracurricular, school-related activities did you participate in?

i tried to make every hui kama’ilio meeting (it was every tuesday) but missed some if i didn’t have a ride (my parents didn’t want me to take the bus that late). i think that was all i did…

18. What kinds of campus jobs did you have?

let’s see…i was a tutor for the english department (a t.a. for the eng101 class–i handled the “L” part of the class)…i did research for the hawaiian language department, and part of my duties included tutoring, but i also got to write curriculum for the immersion schools, which i LOVED. they even put it on CD, how awesome is that?!?! ummm…was that all? i could’ve sworn there was one more…hmm, maybe not. i’m probably thinking of my airport job.

19. Who was your hottest professor (graduate assistants don’t count!)?

oh gee…no one stands out in my mind. actually, i hardly had male professors. the ones i did have were old, gray-haired individuals…OH! wait. *blush* i just remembered. i did have a crush on one of my hwn lang professors. he would often appear in my dreams. then i saw him at a sovereignty mtg with a child and i remember feeling crushed. but, like, i had a chance with him! heehee. but i know i wasn’t the only one. my friend (who was very fair-skinned, she was from the mainland) would blush so much whenever he came into class. i never called her on it, but i know she must’ve been lusting after him too

20. Did you switch majors?

well, not officially. i took the introductory courses to majors, but never got to officially “sign-up” for the major. i was either turned down (compsci) or decided to go in a different direction (away from the sciences). when i finally decided, i signed up for hwst, but it wasn’t until my 2nd semester of junior year. so i had 3 semesters in which to jam in all the courses for that major and concentration.

21. What was the most useless course you took?

hmm. i think it was geography or something. stuff i already knew, but had to take. oh, there was a class i had to take for my ed courses that my advisor MADE me take, and it was completely useless. all i got out of it was a huge case of embarrassment.

22. What was the easiest A?

math 100. sooo easy. and he even gave open book tests!!! (which i never needed to take advantage of because it was that easy.) i can’t understand how a high school classmate of mine got a C in that class. i mean, really.

and i guess my chant & dance courses were easy As for me. it was just fun, a “break” for me during the day. no studying required at all.

23. What was the toughest A?

hmmm…i think that one i mentioned above that was worst class for my major was a tough A only because of what i had to go through.

24. What song reminds you most of your freshman year?

well, this would actually be the summer after my freshman year…if i hear any pandanus club songs, i’m instantly taken back to that summer. we went every friday to hear pandanus club play at the hawaii prince hotel. but during the freshman year? hmmm. nothing in particular…oh! i think any janet jackson or paula abdul songs might remind me…those were in heavy rotation on my walkman i listened to while on the bus.

25. What song reminds you most of your senior year?

well, it’s more a chant than a song. and i actually didn’t learn it in my senior year, but i remember senior year because of all the controversies that were going on at the time.

26. What professor was good enough to almost make you change your major?

my philosophy teacher. i really enjoyed that class, even though it came at a time when i was going through major heartbreak. the class was one of the things i looked forward to when at the time, i mostly wanted to stay in bed all day. so i briefly considered going into philosophy…

27. Where was the best place to get lunch on campus?

hamilton cafe had delicious patty melts on thursdays and it was on my way between the 2 buildings i was at the most (spalding & moore). otherwise, i’d be at burger king, since that’s where the bus stop was.

28. Where was the best place on campus to go to the bathroom?

i can’t remember the bathrooms, which is strange, knowing i went to them a lot. i can think of keller’s blue-tiled bathrooms which were nice…now i’m thinking to the … is it porteus? … bathrooms … yeah, i think it was porteus. it was nice-smelling, tan-tiled bathrooms. come to think of it, i’d stop there and use the bathrooms there on my way to a class in busad, instead of using a busad bathroom.

29. Which of your college friends are you still in touch with?

gosh none of them. how sad. one of my college classmates works with me, but i don’t think he remembers us being in the same courses together. but we weren’t friends. oh, and once in a while, whenever we have program meetings, i’ll see some of my college friends. but that’s only once a year type things–otherwise they’re all the way on the other side of the island…or even on other islands. and since i stopped hula, i don’t see a bunch of them at all.

30. What about college took you most by surprise?

the humongous class sizes. wow. and what i never got used to was seeing guys walk around with tank tops and shorts, and having facial hair, and hair longer than the collar of their shirts. threw me off that first year! i was so used to our strict dress code that seeing guys not in dress code was disconcerting.

31. What was the best thing about dorm life?

i didn’t dorm, so i wouldn’t know. i got to see dorm rooms of friends who dormed, and i always thought … yeesh. so small. how can 2 people live in here?!?! i also had a friend who was a r.a. and so a bunch of us would hang out in the lounge area until she got off work so we could go out. those dorms were more like apartments, with kitchens and i think 4 or so people sharing the space…those were nicer.

32. What would you do differently if you could do it all over?

i’d be more efficient in the courses i take so i don’t have a lot of wasted classes that i would take because of switching majors. that’d leave me more room to take classes i want to take, like writing courses. i also probably wouldn’t go into my graduate program. i probably should’ve just hermit myself in the archives and do that all day long