College vs Move-ins?

[kauliflower]

So I now know that I will be attending UCI (University of California, Irvine) the 2010-2011 academic year. I've started having a look at the academic quarter dates and finals and noticed that, if I may use phantom regiment as a yardstick, I would miss 3 weeks of move-ins due to college finals. I'd love to hear anyone's perspective and/or experiences on this and how it worked out.

Rach

[SynthLine09]

The best thing you can do....the day you find out what classes you will be taking, e-mail your professors and tell them your situation. Many of them will be gracious enough to let you take your finals early. It might also be wise to schedule your last quarter with some easy classes, or with classes you know do not have finals exams. You could even e-mail professors ahead of time before you enroll in classes.

You can definitely not get away with waiting till the last month of school and then spring it on your professor. I guarantee they will not be okay with this. You have to communicate as soon as possible. You might see if your corps director would be willing to write a letter to your professors as well explaining why you need to be there early, if they are unsupportive.

Also if you can afford it, you can always fly up on weekends between classes

[Adrian]

Yes, your corps director or brass caption should have a prewritten letter to give to your professors. If you want an example, I can e-mail you one. As long as you communicate, your professors should be willing to cooperate or you could take a look at your syllabi and do your work 3 weeks early and take your finals early. That's what I am doing and it isn't too bad as long as you are on top of things.

[glory]

Got to say I'm a bit shocked by this. Presumably it's not just the final exam itself at issue but perhaps two weeks of classes too? In four or more subjects? That's a lot of learning. As much as I love drum corps, I'm not sure the priorities are aligned properly.

HH

[CitBos]

I know too that most, if not all, corps staffs say that school comes first. If you talk to your director and caption head, they'll work out something too. But like everyone else has said, talk to your professors too, try to take your finals early if possible.

[Silver_King]

Majority of the colleges I know finish this week and last week. When I marched I was in high school and they said come on the weekends until I was done.

[mellodramatic]

Most corps will never make you miss school things for rehearsal, so you just show up to spring training a few days late and catch up. It's not that bad.

[AlexL]

Majority of the colleges I know finish this week and last week. When I marched I was in high school and they said come on the weekends until I was done.

Yeah, when i was in college i had a few weeks of dead time before tour. Hell, the year I interned i moved to la crosse (or rather, moved in to Brad Furlano's basement) right when i finished finals, and i was up there a few weeks before anyone else moved in.

Reminds me of my second year. I wasnt planning to march, and went on a week vacation after school. During the course of this trip I realized I needed to march, and was making calls to my trumpet tech and corps director from right outside the Millenium Force on how i could come back.

[CuriousMe]

The overlap is because his school is on a quarter system instead of the semester system.

To the OP: I would say that it depends on what you're taking that term. I'd try to plan to take a less challenging course load that term, so that it's feasible to finish early.

[poprocks]

As everyone has already said, just speak with the director/caption head and your professors, and they'll be able to work something out that will make everyone happy. As long as they know about it beforehand, they won't have any problem with helping you out.