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Unpopular opinion but it's probably a lot more work to be a full time student at, say, a top public state school than at Yale. At least with most state schools there isn't rampant grade inflation and you actually have to work for the same GPA. My public state school friends work a lot harder than my Yale/equivalent friends. :P So I'd be truly equally impressed (or more) if someone could balance an education AND athletics at a state university for sure.

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According to an article I found on Google, Nathan's course load is four per semester.  Normal complement at most North American schools would be five. And if you went to my alma mater for engineering (like I did) you took six per semester and liked it that way. 

 

So yes, while it's obviously challenging to do a competitive sport and go to a famous school at the same time, Nathan's not killing himself at it. The media could drop the hype. 

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the truth is, in our generation many students do balance multiple activities. whether it's education&full time job or education&having family/children or anything else. it's a matter of time management and learning how to compromise. and that's the way Nate speaks about it. he is like: yeah, i do my job, i do what I have to do. I even noticed that he usually uses word "shool" in interviews instead of school's name. he is a nice guy. it's the US media that make us dislike him. funny, the more they speak highly of him, the more fanyus dislike and attack him....

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1 minute ago, Ania said:

the truth is, in our generation many students do balance multiple activities. whether it's education&full time job or education&having family/children or anything else. it's a matter of time management and learning how to compromise. and that's the way Nate speaks about it. he is like: yeah, i do my job, i do what I have to do. I even noticed that he usually uses word "shool" in interviews instead of school's name. he is a nice guy. it's the US media that make us dislike him. funny, the more they speak highly of him, the more fanyus dislike and attack him....

 

Very true. I think he himself is super sweet, humble and has great sportsmanship. But the judges and media are tainting him for me and I wish it wasn't so. I'm trying to control this reaction but they make it very hard. 

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10 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

According to an article I found on Google, Nathan's course load is four per semester.  Normal complement at most schools would be five. 

That's something I've been wondering about. Thank you for the information :)

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8 minutes ago, Ania said:

the truth is, in our generation many students do balance multiple activities. whether it's education&full time job or education&having family/children or anything else. it's a matter of time management and learning how to compromise. and that's the way Nate speaks about it. he is like: yeah, i do my job, i do what I have to do. I even noticed that he usually uses word "shool" in interviews instead of school's name. he is a nice guy. it's the US media that make us dislike him. funny, the more they speak highly of him, the more fanyus dislike and attack him....

It's the way they're doing it. Otherwise it wouldn't be so noticeable. 

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28 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

According to an article I found on Google, Nathan's course load is four per semester.  Normal complement at most schools would be five. And if you went to my alma mater for engineering (like I did) you took six per semester and liked it that way. 

We are getting OT again, sorry:

Spoiler

I know it's not really the same as an American education system,  but we have even 8 - 10 courses per semester at some unis... I wonder, what exactly is the  difference. I should look into US unis little bit more... 

 

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Oh boy. As someone who works in academia and has an issue with Ivy league (or any other prestigious university) name dropping that goes much beyond figure skating, I was originally trying to stay out of the topic. Because Nathan really seems to be a humble and pragmatic person from his interviews and I don't want to sound like I'm trying to drag him in the mud. I'm not.

 

But, the reality is that the US educational system is not one that is so heavy in terms of hours of class and workload compared to some other countries, even in prestigious schools. With few exceptions, the system is basically designed for students to be able to have a job on the side - partly because of the very high costs of college education. My own friends in the USA all had about half of my university schedule in terms of classes, and they were working another 10-20h/week on the side to pay for their education. In fact, Yale's own student employment rules allow students to work up to 19h/week during the school year, not including summer and recess (yes, I checked, because I'm that petty). So it is really not uncommon to combine university and a "side" paid job (or a sport for athletes) in the USA. At least for undergrads, PhD is another story. I think, sadly, that a lot of people are simply ignorant of how different school systems can be from one country to another. I'm not even arguing about which educational system is better (that's a very complex topic, each system has good and bad sides), I'm simply saying that in terms of pure time management, skating and going to a US university (no matter which one) at the same time is not such an incredible feat as far as I am concerned. Time isn't the issue here.

 

What *IS* a much more impressive feat to me, is the fact that Nathan is able to keep his level of competitive skating while being away from his coaching team for long stretches of time. Which means that he knows himself very well, understand what to work on and how to address issues. You can't do that without good work ethic and self-awareness. So, congrats to him for that. I don't mind people praising him in fact, but I really could do without the constant Yale name dropping.

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3 hours ago, Veveco said:

What *IS* a much more impressive feat to me, is the fact that Nathan is able to keep his level of competitive skating while being away from his coaching team for long stretches of time. Which means that he knows himself very well, understand what to work on and how to address issues. You can't do that without good work ethic and self-awareness.

Agreed. IMO this is the thing that deserves hype about Nathan - and Raf. They've figured out something good it seems. 

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8 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

According to an article I found on Google, Nathan's course load is four per semester.  Normal complement at most schools would be five. And if you went to my alma mater for engineering (like I did) you took six per semester and liked it that way. 

 

So yes, while it's obviously challenging to do a competitive sport and go to a famous school at the same time, Nathan's not killing himself at it. The media could drop the hype. 

Not true. Depends entirely on the school. It's mostly based on credits. At my college, a regular courseload was 16 credits, or 4 classes. Some classes were 1 credit (such as labs for chemistry or biology) or 2 credits (music performance). How hard each semester was depended entirely on the classes you picked. That said, I took 18-20 on average and worked about 15 hrs/wk, so it's manageable. Engineering students usually ended up taking at least 18 because of labs. 

 

And I'll clarify that I didn't go to an Ivy, I went to a school that was in the next tier below (an Ivy rejects school, basically), but they're all pretty similar. I wouldn't really say college here was hard, though. When I moved here for school I expected it to be much harder than it turned out to be. American high schools are probably harder than college.

 

I agree with @Veveco about the more impressive thing being long-distance training, though, not very many people could do that.

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22 minutes ago, guitarist said:

Not true. Depends entirely on the school. It's mostly based on credits. At my college, a regular courseload was 16 credits, or 4 classes. Some classes were 1 credit (such as labs for chemistry or biology) or 2 credits (music performance). How hard each semester was depended entirely on the classes you picked

Most Canadian universities, the regular course load is five courses per. At my school, engineers were just expected to do more because engineering. 

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Being a Yuzu fan and from the the US, Jason is the only US Skater I’ve followed. I’ve been mortified by the treatment of Yuzu and am having a hard time dealing with it. 

I’ve been a member of the Planet almost 2 years now since the beginning and don’t really comment because this wonderful site moves along so quickly. 

My husband is also a fan and enjoys watching Yuzu and saving all of his videos I send to him. I’ve really had a sick feeling knowing Yuzu is aware of his haters and yet somehow deals with that. 

My concern regarding Nathan is an interview posted on the Planet that Yuzu gave after Worlds. I don’t know if it’s a translation issue, but was Yuzu so isolated he didn’t really know how Nathan was doing this season?  

I’m also sick about the JSF and the judging, and I know that Yuzu’s main rival is himself, but I’m hoping he’s also aware of the status of other skaters he competes against. 

And because I’m a glutton for punishment, could someone please direct me on how to find the Protocols for Worlds so I can be more depressed?

Thanks. 

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12 hours ago, Plumqueen said:

Being a Yuzu fan and from the the US, Jason is the only US Skater I’ve followed. I’ve been mortified by the treatment of Yuzu and am having a hard time dealing with it. 

I’ve been a member of the Planet almost 2 years now since the beginning and don’t really comment because this wonderful site moves along so quickly. 

My husband is also a fan and enjoys watching Yuzu and saving all of his videos I send to him. I’ve really had a sick feeling knowing Yuzu is aware of his haters and yet somehow deals with that. 

My concern regarding Nathan is an interview posted on the Planet that Yuzu gave after Worlds. I don’t know if it’s a translation issue, but was Yuzu so isolated he didn’t really know how Nathan was doing this season?  

I’m also sick about the JSF and the judging, and I know that Yuzu’s main rival is himself, but I’m hoping he’s also aware of the status of other skaters he competes against. 

And because I’m a glutton for punishment, could someone please direct me on how to find the Protocols for Worlds so I can be more depressed?

Thanks. 

Well, given that he said he was impressed by the score he got at Nationals, I think he knew how Nathan was doing. Which interview are you referring to?

 

Protocols (under Judges Score): http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1819/wc2019/index.htm

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