Never-ending construction conundrum

Pierce College and construction. The two go hand-in-hand. It has come to a point where the situation is shrouded in more rumors than the illuminati and Sasquatch combined.

Seemingly every month Pierce is concocting brand new ways to make our campus look less like an academy of higher learning and more like downtown Miami.

The in-person orientation can answer questions that you may not have been able to have answered while going through the online orientation.

Students that complete the online orientation may come to counselors with questions about how and where to start when their questions could have been answered if you had signed up for the in-person orientation.

Some students choose the online orientation with the hopes that the sooner you complete it the sooner you will be able to meet with a counselor and register for classes and this is not necessarily true.

The online orientation is not interactive and only has a few questions that need to be answered once the program is complete. This is not an ideal way to get the full experience of how to navigate your way through Pierce.

Having an interactive in-person orientation is a better way to get a general introduction with even more information that you would not be able to get from a cyberintroduction to the school.

The in-person orientation is held directly through counseling. So while you’re getting all the information if you have a general question or concern it can be answered right away.

Regardless of whether you do an online or in-person orientation either way the orientation is mandatory but if you have to do something why not get the best experience from it?

An in-person orientation only seems more appropriate so that when you start registering for courses, meeting with counselors, attending classes and making your way through the nearly 430 acre stretch of campus you will know and have a better understanding of your surroundings.

Thumbs up &

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Library open for extra hours

A thumbs up to the Library/Learning Crossroads as they will be extending their hours over the weekend for students before finals start. This will be helpful for students trying to get a last minute cram session in.

Cafeteria still on the back burner

The cafeteria is still a ways off, set to be opened in Fall 2015, according to LACCD Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez. This leaves students to continue to rely on food trucks and their increasing prices for another semester if they follow through with their promise.

Why is their no monthly statement regarding construction on campus? Why isn’t the Pierce campus construction blossoming as fast as the community that surrounds it? Why does the North of Mall area look like the set of “The Walking Dead?”

With so much in the air about the subject it’s time to lay down what is absolute fact. In 2001, Los Angeles voters approved of a $6 billion program in an effort to modernize the nine campuses in the District.

According to the Los Angeles Community College District Building Program overview, the program’s goal is to “improve the nine campuses and advance the training for students, preparing them for jobs in such fields as nursing, other health care fields, public safety, manufacturing, automotive, technology, construction, and entertainment.”

Additionally, better facilities will mean that students transferring to a four-year college will be better prepared to take that next academic step. The program overview, released in July 2014, states that “the program passed the half way mark with $3.6 billion of the $6.2 billion total construction program complete.”

Of that $6.2 billion for the district, $648 million was allocated solely to

Pierce College. Of that $648 million, 64 percent has been expended in the span of 13 years. This is where some of the misconceptions lie. If it took 13 years to complete 64 percent of this program, Pierce might be looking at another 5 to 10 years of construction.

College Project Director Ed Cadena has released a statement Nov. 17 in an Academic Senate meeting regarding upcoming construction, yet even his own council is still unsure about meeting the deadlines.

The programs design is counter-intuitive, leaving us to suffer for what might come in the future. It is likely that Pierce is not even halfway done with its construction with no concrete end in sight.

For the full overview and Pierce budget regarding the LACCD building program, visit http://www.laccdbuildsgreen.org/sustainabledashBoardReport.

Are project finals a suitable replacement for exams?

another person while the student is given a good grade for a project he or she did not do.

Luis Ayala

layala.roundupnews@gmail.com

Final exams are stressful enough but a project as a class final adds more pressure, making the finals experience more stressful.

A test as a final is the traditional route professors usually take and it works. Studying for a final test is no easy task, taking a lot of the students time especially when a majority of students have jobs. Though time consuming, students will be able to challenge themselves, having earned their grades and professors will be able to see what they have learned throughout the course.

Doing a project as a final has its flaws as students are able to take advantage. Final projects focus on one topic instead of everything that has been shown throughout the semester. A final project shows that students are studying and prepared for one chapter and focused on one part of the semester.

When doing a final project it is something that the students are able to do from home and have other outside help from other individuals. Receiving help is not a bad thing but sometimes projects are done by

When doing a final test, students have to study everything that they have seen in class from the beginning of the semester. It sounds like a lot of work but if the student has been there and has paid attention in class the final should be a walkthrough of the semester. In a final test you have to give the right answer and some professors help you out with that by making it a multiple-choice test. Yes, some students do cheat on tests as they do with the projects but it is more difficult to do so as the professor is in the same classroom.

Professors make these projects difficult and can assign the project as a group project, where you would have to work with others. Working with others isn’t easy and sometimes can ruin your grade when not everyone pitches in and does their part. If one person is not up to par, the grades of all involved are affected.

Professors are finding new and creative ways to do finals in their class but why change anything if final exams have been around for a long time and have worked well within the classroom. Projects are an easy way out for the students as an exam may be difficult. At the end of it when the students pass the exam not only do they feel good about themselves but they also take with them what they learned in the class.

Andrew Escobar

aescobar.roundupnews@gmail.com

Instead of having students regurgitate their accumulated knowledge onto a single Scantron or essay book in a make-or-break situation, teachers should open up to the idea of giving more project-oriented finals.

Tests tend to cause students excessive stress due to the fact that many of them are somewhat unpredictable. A teacher may give a study guide, but it’s virtually impossible to know exactly what will be on a test.

This unpredictability leads to cramming and excessive amounts of stress for students. Some individuals get anxiety during tests that could cause them to blank on information they may have studied.

Projects differ from tests as they are generally assigned earlier in the semester, so students have ample time to develop their final piece.

Projects also allow students the freedom of trial and error. When working on a project, if an individual is underwhelmed by the way a certain element turned out, they are able to simply scratch it and try a different approach.

When taking a final test, there are no re-dos or second chances, and if mistaken can spell disaster for your overall grade.

Eraser residue and unintentional pencil markings can cause errors when the Scantron is graded electronically, and there have been times when students have failed tests simply because they wrote the wrong test number down.

Projects that allow creativity are generally more engaging due to the fact that the creator can actually have some fun while doing it. If given the choice between tedious studying and an interesting project with creative freedom, most students would likely pick the latter.

Projects place students in control of their own grades. Rather than worrying about how hard their tests will be, students can rest assured knowing that their grade will be representative of the amount of work they put into the project.

The same professors capture the attention of students by breaking the molds of traditional teaching techniques, project finals engage students by allowing them to express knowledge in an alternative way.

Assigning project finals instead of exams allows teachers to reduce the stress levels of their students, giving them a more interesting opportunity to display the knowledge they’ve gained from the course.

Flydoskope by Tobennh Dacanay tlanimator@gmail.com

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