This is what this page used to say:
“I’m Evan Cordell, and this is my blog about LSMSA.
Why? Because you probably won’t get a good idea of what LSMSA is really like from looking at their official website, and probably even going to visit. I’d like to try and give some insight as to the kind of work you can pursue if you choose to attend LSMSA. Now, certainly, you can do very different things than me at LSMSA – options are limitless – just consider my life as one of many possibilities. Specifically, if you like math, physics, or computer science, you’ll probably identify with a lot of what I write. And of course, I’ll delve into some of the social aspects of LSMSA as well.”
But now, I’ve graduated from LSMSA. And you’ll note that I never really got around to writing much on this blog – LSMSA, if you’re doing it right, takes up way too much of your time to keep up a blog. So instead, this is now my personal blog, but I’d still like to provide some “insider information” about LSMSA to those interested. For this reason, I have my “LSMSA” page, which you can view by clicking the link above. I’ll periodically update with work from LSMSA, maybe some notes from a class, a paper I did well on (or poorly on, for contrast), whatever floats my boat. Hopefully someone will find this useful.
3 Comments
Woah, Evan has a blog!
No real comment here, just a mom looking up information about LSMSA. I have not even heard of the things you were talking about, and I am not sure my son has either. Can LSMSA take a gifted child by the hand and walk them through the basics or is the child expected to know? In other words, what does a student need to know before entering LSMSA? What advice would you give a student who is about to be admitted to the school?
I’m pretty far along in my LSMSA career (just a few more weeks ’till I graduate), so you shouldn’t expect the academics I write about to reflect an incoming sophomore or junior. My plan is to post some examples of early papers, with teacher’s comments, just to show the level they expect – eventually. Getting a D on a paper isn’t something most people coming into LSMSA are comfortable with, but it happens to all of us, and you learn to improve. You can, for example, take a paper to a teacher multiple times before (and often after) a due date to get it revised, and for incoming comp/lit classes the comments they provide often reference writing style guides that are standard issue here.
It really depends on the person as to how they react to coming to LSMSA. There used to be a program called Excel that would help students from “bad” highschools catch up academically with everyone else; unfortunately that no longer exists thanks to a 17% budget cut. That’s probably as “take you by the hand” as it gets here, but the teachers are always willing to help if you’re willing to take the initiative to see them. There’s also “New Student Orientation” which helps develop the study and time management skills necessary to succeed here, if the student doesn’t have them already.
Any advice I have to give depends a lot on the age of the incoming student. If he or she still has a year or two at their old school, I would reccomend taking as many required classes as possible to give more scheduling freedom here. In general, though, I would say that being ready to apply oneself academically and being willing not only to meet other people but to ask for help when necessary is probably some of the best advice I can give.
So in short, if your child isn’t prepared for life at LSMSA, everyone here will do their best to make sure that s/he is. It’s the people that don’t try and don’t want to succeed that have problems. Don’t be intimidated by my technical posts – they’re not representative of the majority of the student body.
Feel free to contact me with more questions, if you like.
Evan Cordell
UPDATE: LSMSA has funding again, everything that was cut has been uncut, you may breathe normally again.