Freeeeedommmmm...
Dec. 12th, 2004 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwenSo in the end all of my finals weren't so bad except the one I thought wouldn't be a problem. (Well, the Japanese final took forever, and involved by far the most difficult thing I've ever had to translate, but I think it'll be okay.) It's probably because the class had been fairly low-stress and I didn't have to struggle to learn the material like in some of my other classes. The homework was short and not particularly intensive in anything. In fact, I wasn't really sure what the final would be like at all. He said it'd be "like the homework", but then again, it was closed book, so there wouldn't really be any equations, and the homework was largely plug-and-chug. It turned out to be a lot of struggling to remember a lot of things I barely memorized while studying, like the dry adiabatic lapse rate, pre- and post-industrial mixing ratios for methane, and the scale height of earth's atmosphere. It didn't really seem like what I was supposed to have gotten out of the class, and was just kind of disappointing, even ignoring the fact that I hated taking it.
So yeah, that was ESE148.
Both ChE103 and Ch21 didn't seem like a very fun prospect after their respective midterms, but both weren't too bad, I thought. Everyone else didn't seem very happy about the 103, though, so maybe I missed something important. I doubt it could be because the second half of term was largely solving the same partial differential problem with different boundary conditions, and I actually started understanding the problem-solving techniques after a few sets. I mean, that hardly helped me in 95c. The prof was kind enough to offer to email us our grades if we put our address on the exam, so I'll find out Tuesday.
I'm actually not particularly happy about how, for the last few weeks of Ch21, they seemed to just give up trying to teach us any material or problem-solving in lieu of telling us the answers ahead of time or giving really strong hints on the homework. It was certainly a more pleasant experience than the midterm, but I doubt there's going to be much spread, which means the grades are determined by the midterm scores. And being told in advance what questions are on the final is just a stupid idea. It's like how on the feedback forms they ask if the professor was able to "provide emphasis". Doing a thing like that just means he couldn't. Like on the midterm when it turned out we were supposed to know all sorts of things, some that wasn't even taught in class. To top it all off, the final was horribly typo-ridden. There were typos of all sorts: the ones that are immediately obvious, the ones that turn a question nonsensical, and the ones that give you the wrong sign if you believe their equations. It was almost like two exams in one: can you solve the problems, and are you sharp enough to catch the mistakes, with the confidence to go with your version. This has been my failing point on many past exams: when something seems weird, I don't usually trust myself, and I get flustered and end up writing down nothing. I guess I'm trying to improve on that.
So the last final I took was ESE175, which was basically like one of the homework sets with a time limit. One thing was that it was open computer and pretty much said we could use whatever software. Then there were questions that began with "Using the methods available to you, estimate..." So I wonder, if someone had a program that predicted the properties of a molecule given, say, its structure, could you just cite the result from the program? I don't really want to argue whether that would be a fair or unfair advantage, but I hope you see my point. But yeah. Again, it didn't seem like a spread-inducing final, which is unsettling, because I don't think I've been doing particularly well on the homework. But then I talked to someone turning it in, and he said he ran out of time, which surprised me, because I thought 3 hours was pretty good; I finished just around then, but that was because I'd spent maybe half an hour stuck on trying to figure out such irrelevant things as how to calculate unsaturation number.
So most of my grades feel pretty tenuous. Some things seem like they were easy for everyone, so it's very hard to resolve differences that might put me above another. And some classes were just crazy up and down, so I'm not sure where I ended up.
But I'm much less obsessive about grades this year/term, I think. Maybe because GPA points are more diluted now. Or something. I'm just glad finals are over, as un-stressful as they were this time.
So yeah, that was ESE148.
Both ChE103 and Ch21 didn't seem like a very fun prospect after their respective midterms, but both weren't too bad, I thought. Everyone else didn't seem very happy about the 103, though, so maybe I missed something important. I doubt it could be because the second half of term was largely solving the same partial differential problem with different boundary conditions, and I actually started understanding the problem-solving techniques after a few sets. I mean, that hardly helped me in 95c. The prof was kind enough to offer to email us our grades if we put our address on the exam, so I'll find out Tuesday.
I'm actually not particularly happy about how, for the last few weeks of Ch21, they seemed to just give up trying to teach us any material or problem-solving in lieu of telling us the answers ahead of time or giving really strong hints on the homework. It was certainly a more pleasant experience than the midterm, but I doubt there's going to be much spread, which means the grades are determined by the midterm scores. And being told in advance what questions are on the final is just a stupid idea. It's like how on the feedback forms they ask if the professor was able to "provide emphasis". Doing a thing like that just means he couldn't. Like on the midterm when it turned out we were supposed to know all sorts of things, some that wasn't even taught in class. To top it all off, the final was horribly typo-ridden. There were typos of all sorts: the ones that are immediately obvious, the ones that turn a question nonsensical, and the ones that give you the wrong sign if you believe their equations. It was almost like two exams in one: can you solve the problems, and are you sharp enough to catch the mistakes, with the confidence to go with your version. This has been my failing point on many past exams: when something seems weird, I don't usually trust myself, and I get flustered and end up writing down nothing. I guess I'm trying to improve on that.
So the last final I took was ESE175, which was basically like one of the homework sets with a time limit. One thing was that it was open computer and pretty much said we could use whatever software. Then there were questions that began with "Using the methods available to you, estimate..." So I wonder, if someone had a program that predicted the properties of a molecule given, say, its structure, could you just cite the result from the program? I don't really want to argue whether that would be a fair or unfair advantage, but I hope you see my point. But yeah. Again, it didn't seem like a spread-inducing final, which is unsettling, because I don't think I've been doing particularly well on the homework. But then I talked to someone turning it in, and he said he ran out of time, which surprised me, because I thought 3 hours was pretty good; I finished just around then, but that was because I'd spent maybe half an hour stuck on trying to figure out such irrelevant things as how to calculate unsaturation number.
So most of my grades feel pretty tenuous. Some things seem like they were easy for everyone, so it's very hard to resolve differences that might put me above another. And some classes were just crazy up and down, so I'm not sure where I ended up.
But I'm much less obsessive about grades this year/term, I think. Maybe because GPA points are more diluted now. Or something. I'm just glad finals are over, as un-stressful as they were this time.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 11:50 am (UTC)... I didn't even think of using a computer program like that on the 175 test. I though he just meant it for the graph (the only part of problem 4 I got to). I kinda thought he wanted us to use the estimation techniques save for when appendix C would also give the answers... oh well. ^_^
Anyway, have a fun break! We all need one.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 09:24 pm (UTC)Now I'm worried that I missed something on 175, too, and that's why I finished when no one else did. @_@ I guess I'm just the ultimate pessimist. "If you thought it was easy, that's bad. If you thought it was hard, that's bad." ^^;;
I didn't know 21b has a new prof. Raman thinks it'll be hard, though, and if it's hard for Raman, well. *whimper*
I'm sure he meant for us to use the estimation techniques in the book and not from some software. And I doubt anyone seriously used a program. I'm guessing he still wanted us to show some work and explanation of the method we used, so maybe it's not an issue.
103 grades emailed tomorrow. Ack.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 01:52 pm (UTC)