u/Outrageous_Sea_Lion

Im coming to ucf as a freshman. I originally planned on Neptune, but unfortunetally the prices spiked up by 20%. Im looking at dorms on the more affordable side of the spectrum, such as apollo or libra, but I am still undeceive and considering all options. What dorms should I absolutely avoid?

I just want to say that the pegasus logo is cool as fuck and one of the reasons I think of UCF so highly. Like Gator, Seminoles, and bulls is cool and all but a magical winged horse from the heavens? Name one university's academic mascot that is cooler than that

Im an incoming freshman, and I am not going to cook.

I used to be deadset on getting a meal plan, but looking at the dining halls it looks much worse than every other university's dining halls.

Is the food really that bad? I saw that they jacked up their prices to the point where unlimited meals is now almost $3k instead of the $2.3k that it used to be. What other options do I have?

Its 67. Every answer is 67.

Source: It was revealed to me in a dream.

I don't feel prepared for the exam because the whole year I basically learned each topic on my own. My teacher tried her best I guess, but her explanations never made sense. I watched flippedmath videos, and did the homeworks assigned to us in class, but they would always be so much easier than the tests. The worst part about the class is the last few weeks of review. She assigned us "practice" FRQs that were counted as Summatives (Avg of summative grades count for 70% of the class grade). This would normally be fine, but she has assigned us pretty much one each day for the past 2 weeks. IN THE MIDDLE OF AP TESTING. That means I missed class almost every day this week, and had to make up 4 tests right before the closing of the grade book. You know what sucks even more? She took the RAW score. An 8/9 on an FRQ is well inside 5 territory, but it goes into the gradebook as a B. Do you think this is unfair? Is it just my fault?

Im looking to save money as a freshman. Is apollo really as bad as people make it out to be?

This isn't a specific question or request but I just wanted to say that Ozymandius undeniably the best poem we learned about in AP lit and if I see it on the exam tomorrow I will be really happy and perhaps even shine David Coleman's shoes

Anyway goodluck on the exam tomorrow y'all and godspeed on the exam

What is the best way to get from the Orlando Train Station to the main campus? Has anyone here done this on a regular basis?

edit: As in is there public transport to go between the two?

Should I use minecraft story mode on the literary prompt?

"Hell Yeah!"

Or

"Nah man what are we on about bro your going to fail this exam if you pull something like that"

lmk what you think

What is some advice you would give to a rising freshman?

I want to say that this is not an attack on any teacher or person. This is just a rant about the class itself.

I was unable to take ap lit at my school in person because of a scheduling conflict, and decided to take it online. From my experience FLVS classes had been WAY easier than in school counterparts, and I assumed AP lit would be the same. I had done really well in AP Lang, and was even excited for AP Lit.

AP Lit was a lot of unnecessary work. I will say that grading was lenient in a way, but I was spending hundreds of hours just on this one class doing what I felt was mostly busywork rather than exam prep:

• We have to read 8 books. There is only one literary argument essay that requires having read a book . I guess learning and arguing using these books can help for the other aspects of the test but 8 books seems excessive. It is the same number of books that I had in AP Lang, but it felt so much worse because it stacks upon everything else in the class. Wouldn't make more sense to just have 4 books and analyze them really in depth? 4 seems like plenty of variety to tackle the Literary prompt. Its really unnecessary to have to study all 8 of those books. You also only get to have a free pick over two of them, and even then your options are limited. These books are not really "easy reads", not just because of the english but because you have to force yourself to find interest in them. Any book that has "literary merit" is valid, I wish we had a bit more free reign, but since the course is designed around central themes (more on that later) it would require a complete overhaul of the curriculum.
• Critical Analysis guides: Not the worst assignments, but they were still a pain. I found myself working on them for upwards of 3 hours for each one. I feel that they are not even that useful in the long term. I guess doing it develops analysis skills, but it feels more like busywork than actual preparation for the AP Exam.
• Sooo many essays... Yes, preparing for the exam is important and practice helps but do we really need this many essays? There are only 12 assignments labeled "practice essays" throughout the class, but there are a lot more than that in reality. I did not count, but I think there around 20-25 essays, which means you do 4 each quarter, or one every 2.25 weeks. (Please correct me if I counted wrong). Its not the fact that we have essays so often, its the fact that it builds up fatigue and you start doing it for the sake of doing it, not to get better.
• The segment exams are high risk: You may spend anywhere from 75-200 hours in total on each segment, depending on how fast you are at working in ap lit. You can spend all this time getting an A, but if you take the segment exam, and do not do well, you can finish with a B or even a C if your really unlucky. This is because it counts for 20% of your final grade and after you are done, you cannot redo any assignments or raise your grade at all. I get this is how college classes run, but having hundreds of hours of work ruined by a bad 3 hours in the final exam? And not being able to do anything at all to fix it afterwards? This sense of uncertainty and dread not to mention the hopelessness after finding out your A turned to an unfixable B distracts from you from being able to actually prepare and focus for the ACTUAL AP exam. This isnt a fault of the teachers, its just that the curriculum and structure of the class really sucks.
• The Course structure does not make sense. Its focused around central themes such as "The Irony", "Love and Hate", etc. These themes are focused around the books that we read in each unit. Its structured like a traditional english class, not a class intended to teach collegeboard's curriculum. Now of course, loose and open ended nature of the final AP lit exam gives a lot of leeway for learning the class in a way that is not following a strict set of content, but that doesn't mean to just forego a traditional exam prep structure. In the class we kept jumping around between different exam concepts and at the same time jumping around traditional English class lessons that it becomes impossible to tell what ap exam concept you are actually preparing for. It would make so much more sense if it was centered around mastering each type of exam question and then have literary reading and analysis as a separate thing on the side.
  • TL;DR: It feels like a traditional english class with the AP exam as a side feature rather than an exam oriented class functioning like an english class.

Alright, since I said so many negative things here are a few positive things:

• Even with the uncertainty of the final segment exams, its quite possible to get an A each semester.
• Teachers are helpful and grade/respond quickly.
• If you are really good with english, you are probably going to be fine.

I have realized after taking this class that taking an AP English class online prevents you from actually enjoying it. I loved AP Lang because I got to have discussions with my peers about ideas in the class and we got to engage in conversation and debate about books, literary elements, etc. When doing AP Lit online, every assignment (minus DBAs) feels like talking to a brick wall, because you are not having real time discussion. Assignment start to feel meaningless after a while

A little note for anyone who is going to take AP Lit: Don't use AI. Apart from the ethical issues with using it to do schoolwork, It is so horrendously bad at writing essays and answering questions for AP Lit that you couldn't possibly get an A with it. Just something to keep in mind if one of you guys want to take the class with the intention of cheating on everything.

Feel free to disagree with me. If you do, please comment your opinions of the class.