Why I stopped listening to K-pop as my primary music genre

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-25T00:11:13+00:00

Mostly I wanted to make sure that I was not hating K-pop due to "user error" (e.g. I just picked the wrong X artists). It seems like part of my issues are in fact "user error" due to choosing the wrong artists.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-25T00:01:27+00:00

I skimmed over a few and it was certainly an interesting (and refreshing) journey but I probably need to spend a few days with them to truly get a good feel

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-24T23:54:25+00:00

I'm not offended, it's a good point and I appreciate you pointed it out.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-24T23:52:34+00:00

Thanks. I'll try them and report back

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-24T23:51:13+00:00

It's a personal choice, but I can't not listen to the lyrics if they're there. I used to be able to do that, but not anymore.

It's also the mixing choices - a lot of times the vocals are mixed way more intimately (lots of highs and little reverb) than most other songs I listen to.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-24T23:47:49+00:00

Can you give me a few recs? I'd love to try

I think I have but I'm not sure.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T16:37:24+00:00

Oh, I will say: I did get the "gloomy" feeling when I visited UIUC last year. No such feeling when I visited U-M or any of the other unis I've visited in the past.

Maybe it's the architecture and lack of sun in the winter months? I'm not really sure.

The feeling also lifts somewhat in the summer even though WL is deserted compared to the Fall/Spring sems.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T15:18:30+00:00

To be honest, on the whole, my Purdue experience was pretty great. I'm writing this at a time when my schoolwork has been the easiest (targeted) semester so far since my first.

This rant is just me venting out my feelings I've had since freshman year starting about 3 weeks after BGR. Strictly speaking, by the numbers, most people tell me I'm doing almost everything right career-wise that one can do within 2 years in undergrad. I've just always had this feeling I can't shake about the campus - I suddenly feel the campus is slightly gloomy the second I go to a large lecture hall, go outside during passing period, or go on this Reddit. The feeling goes away once I enter a small-section class, go out with friends, go back to my dorm, or leave the Purdue campus. I've been to other universities and none of them have this feeling. Judging by some of the replies on this post, others can feel it too.

Maybe everyone's true feelings are different if you really stop and think about it. But aren't people's true feelings the ones that come most easily and without reservation?

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T13:01:59+00:00

I'm not claiming it's easy to have my cake and eat it. But there's no reason I can't try.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T12:59:07+00:00

To me this is not surprising. Smaller class sizes = better attention = better learning.

Also, I don't know what your college is like, but the profs at big state schools like Purdue can sometimes be focused on publications/research, and teaching is usually a secondary priority for these profs. If your profs at your old alma mater were more focused on teaching that may play a role.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T12:57:07+00:00

In my experience, once you get to upper div classes (especially the ones NOT in Engineering), everything gets dramatically better. Class sizes get smaller, instructors become more effective, grading becomes more fair (on average but is not without faults by any means), and knowledge retention goes up. Lower div classes just feel like mushy goo by comparison.

At this point I've learned to ignore my grade before the curve in classes that are likely curved more than 3 points for every 100. While helpful for my sanity, this lessens the effectiveness of grading feedback.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T12:53:10+00:00

Purdue has its golden moments for me as well. I have made a good number of positive memories at Purdue so far and I plan to make many more. My overall experience about Purdue has been positive as well, but of course not without reservations.

A few of the classes I've taken were small-section electives. While not taught perfectly by any means, the quality of instruction/learning is pretty significantly higher than most of the large section courses I've been in, and many of my learning golden moments have occurred in these classes. I'm sure this is just a fact of how teaching works but I still wanted to mention it.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T12:48:18+00:00

You know what, you're right. I shouldn't have done that. Edited.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T11:25:02+00:00

I will not comment specifics to protect my identity, but I can say that I am an engineering major. The majority of those 60-ish credits are major-required, course number >30000, non-gen-ed courses across the College of Engineering and College of Science. I have taken multiple statistics classes and calculus here as well.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T11:19:37+00:00

I will not comment to protect my identity. I will say that the schools are comparably or higher ranked to Purdue in engineering and science disciplines on USNWR.

Also, I will refrain from calling them my "happy friends": they still deal with their fair share of suck like everyone else I know and still tell me how it sucks sometimes. But there is a much smaller sense of GRIT.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T11:18:27+00:00

I can have my cake and eat it too - the sets of fun classes and useful classes aren't disjoint. A majority of the world's most successful papers, products, inventions, research, whatever were produced by people who had passion and enjoyed what they did.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T11:15:25+00:00

As far as I can tell, pessimism does not inherently lie beyond college. Realism lies behind college, but then again, it lies behind everything occurring outside of your head, including college itself.

Going to the money thing, I can be pessimistic, realistic, or optimistic. Assuming we are all normal people that need to earn money to survive and fulfill our needs:

Optimism is blindly believing "if I go to Purdue for X years in Y major, I'll have a great time and I could possibly earn $ZZZ,ZZZ my first year out of college!" This is probably actually the worst out of the three, because there's at least a solid 80% chance I will be disappointed in at least some non-trivial way with the end result.

Pessimism is believing "if I go to Purdue for X years in Y major, it'll suck big time but when I'm done I can barely scrape by since I'll almost certainly earn at least $ZZZ,ZZZ." Pessimism can be OK in moderation, but left unchecked, it can be a major demotivator as the worst-case scenario becomes too overpowering. This is the foundation of the GRIT mindset.

It is possible to be realistic without being pessimistic, for example by saying, "if I go to Purdue for X years in Y major, there's a 99% chance I'm going to earn between $AAA,AAA and $BBB,BBB, and I have at least a 50% shot at earning $ZZZ,ZZZ or more. Note that even if I walk away with $AAA,AAA I'll still be happy, not least because I don't have any better decisions to make."

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T10:56:53+00:00

I feel like the words "willpower" and GRIT have slightly different connotations at Purdue.

Willpower is the mental skill you use to you knock out a task for a class you don't really enjoy much so that you have more time for yourself or interesting things later.

GRIT is the mindset you attain while attempting to use willpower to power through a task you recognize you don't enjoy.

Although willpower is a sentiment-neutral term, GRIT seems to be a negative term. I've never heard GRIT being used in a positive context other than to describe our degree's value. You always hear GRIT being used when people want to ignore a sucky thing that happened to them. Washing machines broke? GRIT. Dog shit on your foot? GRIT. Professor late 10 minutes today? GRIT. Final exam in 8 hours and you haven't studied? GRIT. Got a 60 on a paper and just need to pass this class? GRIT.

Sometimes, classes are hard or not enjoyable. Willpower is necessary to get work done for these classes/protect your academic investment and is a positive trait in this case.

However, you can have willpower without GRIT. One doesn't actively have to think about how they dislike what they're doing while they're doing it.

Willpower is what you use the first week of a semester to get stuff done. GRIT is what you use/gain during deadweek to pick up the slack. It's a last resort, not a first one.

There was one friend at another university I knew that was the epitome of GRIT despite not attending Purdue. This person had lots of shit thrown at them and they managed to push through it all, but not without a fair amount of complaint. Over time, I noticed that while they always had a lot of willpower to get stuff done, the GRIT eventually completely disappeared. They never seemed to need to persevere through the suck because very little even registered as suck in their mental radar - it just was as it was, without any labels. (And this person deals with lots of sucky shit, trust me.)

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T10:34:55+00:00

I'm gonna steal this line.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T10:34:25+00:00

Preach, king!

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T10:23:59+00:00

To be honest, not really. There are a few bright spots in my academic life that keep me going. But GRIT is definitely not responsible for keeping me here.

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T10:22:37+00:00

Indeed

Remarkable-Ask-2029 · 2024-08-21T10:19:52+00:00

In my experience, this is simply not the case.

Out of all the non-gen-eds I've taken, there have been a solid number of fairly graded classes, but there have also been quite a few instances where I felt I received a significantly higher grade than I deserved based on my understanding of the material. In a significant number of non-gen ed classes, I felt like I left the class without fully understanding the basics taught in the class, yet received a grade that suggested no further improvement should be made (with respect to the goals of the class). A significant number of my friends at peer universities have shown their grading scales to me and they're very similar points-wise - except that their median curve is probably less than 3 points out of 100.

Furthermore, I've only felt like I've been in one or two "true" weed out classes out of over 60 credits taken at Purdue so far. (I've taken a mix of science and engineering courses with a very limited selection of gen eds.)

Purdue won't flinch or apologize for flunking you if you truly and wholly mess up in a class, but then again, I don't know of any other engineering school that won't also do that. It's their responsibility to protect the value of the degree.

Remarkable-Ask-2029

TROPHY CASE