QUANTA is Daytona State College’s premier learning community. It is interdisciplinary, meaning it merges multiple subjects into a cohesive framework. Instead of taking three courses in separate buildings with different professors and students, you get to stay with the same students and professors through six courses taught over two semesters.

I was in QUANTA 24 in the 2007-2008 school year, and I can tell you it is a hard set of courses. A lot is expected of you. You must have above-average ACT, SAT, or CPT scores to qualify. You are expected to have a firm grasp of history and the rules of English, and you will write over 20,000 words if you stay through both semesters. You must develop good habits and study techniques. You must manage your time well. Though QUANTA is based on creativity and flexibility, all your essays must make solid arguments citing other academic works. You must follow formal grammar and citation rules. This is a point-by-point guide to surviving in QUANTA.

Basics

How does QUANTA work? In the fall semester, it consists of English I by Professor Frank Gunshanan, Humanities I by Dr. Casey Blanton, and Introduction to Sociology by Dr. Michael Flota. Students who continue into the spring will learn English II, Humanities II, and American Political & Economic Issues from the same professors. Both semesters follow the same format but the spring semester is heavier. Though more advanced, we get more of the same from Frank and Casey in the spring, while Flota takes off with his analysis of the world economy, banking, and the evolution of American politics. I imagine his course will be even more interesting this year, what with the Obama administration, socialized health care, and the raiding of the U.S. treasury.

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I learned some tricks when I took my human nutrition course (HUN1201) online last fall. The college offers many courses online through a program called Florida Online, which was previously Virtual College.

They use Desire2Learn Learning Environment for their online classes and tests. With the exception of finals, teachers create their own tests, usually with multiple-choice answers, but sometimes essays or fill-in-the-blanks. The latter is harder for most students, but also harder for the teacher to grade, so you don’t see it often.

The time limits vary quite widely. My teacher, Myra Vergani, had six tests, with 50 multiple choice questions each, and a limit of 45 minutes on each one. This means you have to work quickly. You can cheat as much as you want through Google or by looking things up in the book, but unless you have a good system you won’t get to the information fast enough.

The answers for all the test questions are in the book, often worded exactly the same. There is no answer list in the book because the teacher makes the tests. The questions are jumbled up to discourage cheating. The surefire way to get an A is to know the material by rote so answering the questions is no problem. This would take about 10 hours of studying for each test in human nutrition. I spent about 2 hours studying and consistently got A’s. My study area looked like this:

1. An index of the chapter is open in a text file.
2. Google is open in one window for fast searching.
3. The encyclopedic CD that came with the book is open in another window.
4. The book is in my lap.

First, let’s give some background info. You need a fast Internet connection. Any time spent waiting for web pages is time wasted. …

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