Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Some more questions

Well, I can't be absolutely certain without looking up the script, Julie. But do remember that continuity was never exactly TPTB's greatest forte.


Wendy

i looked it up. lois knew molly in college.

as for paul, he probably was a senior, but i had a friend in school who, iirc, was EIC for two years. you could get away with him being a junior, but most likely he was a senior.

Paul

It's A Small World After All was TOTALLY out of whack with continuity. I just disregard a lot of. The whole premise about Lois being so popular and well loved and that's why she became a target made no sense since in PML, Lois and Clark had a conversation about how she never played hooky and Clark accused her of never having fun in high school. Her response was a very forced assertion that she did have fun and mention of the Math Club, or something like that. If she was this ultra-popular Class President or whatever she was, who dated a football star, you'd have think she'd have mentioned it then.

Annie

Ah! So I was wrong. Thanks, Paul!


Wendy

Thanks, guys! And Wendy, something a bit off topic- I'm reading When Larry Met Charlie right now and I can't help but wonder if the movie Victor/Victoria was partial inspiration for that story.

Hope you're enjoying it, Julie! And, no, although I've seen Victor/Victoria and also Tootsie, neither of those inspired me at all - I never even thought of them in this context until you mentioned it.

I think what inspired it was thinking of that scene at the very start of the Pilot, when Lois arrives back in the newsroom still dressed as a guy, and I wondered how Clark would have reacted if his first meeting with Lois had been with her dressed as a man. And it spiralled from there. <g>


Wendy

Okay, more questions<g>:

A. Do the students have to carry laptops with them? *thinks back to Legally Blonde*

B. What's the age difference between Lucy and Lois?

C. Does it ever mention the name of the guy Lois lost her virginity with?

Julie

no, julie, you don't have to carry a laptop around. while most college kids i know do have a computer, not everyone does, and a lot more have desktops than laptops in my experience.

otoh, there are colleges that rent out laptops for one reason or another. i know university of maryland allows students to borrow laptops while working in the library (the library-owned laptops have wireless connections).

closer to what you're asking is MIT, where i went. they started a program a few years back where some classes give out laptops as a teaching tool. you keep the comp for a term, to use for classwork and to run certain programs designed for the class. you're responsible for whatever happens to it. there aren't many of them, but there are a few more every year, i think. so, for those classes, you'd have to carry your laptop to that specific class, kinda the same way you'd bring your textbook. those classes are rare, tho, and i don't think there are too many other schools that do that.

so, like i said, in general, no. most college students don't carry laptops around with them.

besides, afaik most colleges have computer clusters scattered around campus.

Paul

edit: i see you've added a couple more questions while i was writing (or maybe i just somehow missed them the first time around). sorry i can't help. i don't think either answer was ever given, but i'm not 100% sure.

1. No, they are not required to carry them around, although some colleges are now requiring students to own them. My school, UNC, was the first to do so, instituting a program called The Carolina Computing Iniative. Along with requiring students to own laptops, they require professors to use more technology in classes and most classrooms, especially in the science buildings and large lecture halls, are wired for laptops at each seat. HOWEVER, since I'm guessing you are asking questions for a story about Lois in college, you need to keep in mind that Lois graduated from college in the mid-late 80s. She probably wouldn't have even had her own computer, let alone a laptop.

2. Like Paul said, there is no definitive answer. This has come up a number of times, and common consensus says anything between three and five years in acceptable.

3. Also not mentioned. Since we know that "every" relationship Lois has ever been in has been a federal disaster, we know whoever he was is not someone she stayed friends with. That rules out Joe (from high school) and Patrick. Paul is a good guess, though since we know very little about their relationship, it's quite possible she never slept with him at all. Could have been Claude, but I've always doubted he was the first. Most likely it is someone never named explicitly. Probably someone in college. Not a bad enough experience to traumatize her (Claude did that) but bad enough to be a "federal disaster."

Good luck,
Annie

It's amazing how much college has changed since I first started! I was in high school when I participated in the Case Young Scholars' Program, there wasn't even a computer lab in the biomedical engineering building. When I started, every student was required to have a computer, but not a laptop -- and we had the CWRU Computing initiative. By my sophomore year, we were the "Most Wired University In the US" as awarded by Yahoo. Now as a graduate student, we have a wireless network around the entire univerisity circle! It is really exciting, I can take my laptop anywhere and access the internet! However, people still think we are strange if we take our computers out during class. In legally blonde, they were in law school, and I believe it is more common for law students to have laptops, but I might be wrong. Just about all of my professors use Power Point to lecture now. However, wew still take notes with paper and pen . But Annie is right, back when Lois was in college, there is no way she would have had a laptop.

I've always thoght that Lois and Lucy were about 5 years apart, but like everyone else said, I am pretty sure they never mentioned it in the show.

I have no idea who Lois lost her virginity to, though.

I always thought she lost her virginity at the night of the senior prom, but now that I think about it I probably just read that in a fic and got stuck with that.
Thanks everyone!

Julie

Guys, I know a couple of you are journalists, meaning you have a degree, probably; can you send me some info about course structure, typical assignments, requirements, etc.? It would really help me a lot. Note I am looking for info assuming my character is a freshman. Plus, info about how universities are usually mapped- journalism school especially. I mean, I know some schools have buildings all over the city but that won't really do- not all schools are like that, are they (I tried to look on the net; the maps I found were incomprehensible)?

Thanks!
Julie

If your character is a freshman, most likely he/she won't be taking any journalism classes at all. If they are very lucky, they will get into a basic newswriting class. (Introduction to Newswriting) But that is pretty unlikely. Most journalism schools expect their students to spend their first year (and most of their second year) taking core classes at the university. Then, their junior year, they apply and are accepted into the school of journalism and begin taking journalism classes. If you really want your character to be in a newswriting class, basically they would spend the first half of the class learning about the parts of an article (lede, nutgraph, direct quotes, paraphrasing, etc) and how to write them properly. The second half of the semester would be spent writing articles. The professor assigns a topic or type of assignement (ie a sports story, a meeting story, a man on the street interview, etc) and the students write the articles as if they were writing them for a paper and turn them in. The articles are graded and handed back. They are not published anywhere.

As for the layout of a building, I really wouldn't worry about that. All buildings are different, so there's not much you could do that would be wrong. Basically the building should have administrative offices, a library, a computer lab, a production studio for broadcast majors, a couple of lecture halls and some smaller classrooms. Mine also has a hall of fame (actually multiple halls of fame). The walls are probably lined with plaques, awards and pictures of famous alumni. When you walk into the vestibule of my school the first amendment is carved in big, ornate letters near the ceiling. I can't imagine your story is going to list all the rooms in the building or anything that detailed. The only difference between some journalism classrooms and regular classrooms is that a lot of them now are basically computer labs with one student per computer. However, if this is Lois in college, you've got to watch the changes in technology. Back then they would have been just plain old classrooms.

Annie

Thanks! About the courses- do you think it would be okay for me to adjust that? I mean, I kinda need L&C in a journalism class.
But you've helped me alot!

Julie

If you need to adjust it, adjust it. It's not a big deal. However, you can't have them be the stars of the journalism school as freshmen, or something like that. They can't be taking advanced classes. But you can have them in a basic reporting class, and no one will know the difference. At my school, after you take Introduction to Newswriting, you take Introduction to Reporting. This is another very basic class that is a prerequisite for everything. Basically each student is required to write one news article per week. They are all given a beat (cops, town council, education, health and medicine, social service, university administration, etc) and they have to write six stories that relate to their beat. On top of that, everyone is required to write one cops story, one court story, two meetings stories, and one story of their choosing. The class meets during the week and talks about random things. (I was never really clear what the point of the classes were, we didn't do anything. But I think the professor was supposed to be teaching us about how to cultivate sources, interviewing techniques, etc to improve our skills.) The final is a long, in depth story on any topic we chose.

Most students who have any sort of journalism background at all think this class is boring and unchallenging. Because I worked for the student newspaper, I always did the least I could possibly do to get by on the stories I wrote for my reporting class, and focused on doing a good job on the articles that were actually going to be published. My friends and I always said we paid our tuition to work at the student newspaper. That was where we did our real learning.

Annie

Okay, guys, If they don't mention the name, do they mention anything at all about Lois losing her virginity (except for the fact that she did)? Like time, place, something?

Julie

Nope, they never say ... the only details we know for sure about her sex life is that she didn't sleep with Lex (she told him she wanted to wait for their wedding night and he was "so understanding") and that she slept with Claude fairly early on in her career at the Planet. (And, of course, that she and Clark decided to wait, as well.)

As I think someone said earlier in the thread, we can be pretty sure it wasn't in high school since she and Joe were still on excellent terms so he couldn't be one of her "federal disasters". So all we can assume is that it was sometime between breaking up with Joe and meeting Claude. It could have even been Claude, I suppose, but Lois doesn't say that he was her first, only that he was the one and only co-worker she slept with.

Kathy

Okay, great, thanks! That means I can traumatize her all I want in my new story! <eg>

Julie
Please don't throw a brick at me

Hi,

In episode 'The Rival' It was not clear what kind of relationship Lois had with Paul, that why Linda King was Lois's rival.

MAF

hi,
i've been reading here for a while and thought id say my experience since im a college student on the paper to get a BA in journalism takes 4 years are college has 2 newspapers we both get funding from the college (the city) we can (since we get funded by the city it might be a bit different) print wtvr we want but they can also withhold money from us but legally they cant stop us from printing we actually (both papers) have one small office with a few computers and a dry-erase board and my eic is actually a junior we have a few other editors (news feature entertainment photogrophy) and a buissiness manager as for majoring you can usually register for intro to newswriting as long as you have completed the basic english requirement (eng 1)
hope it helps