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So I have this philosophy class (Introduction to Logic) where the professor requires absolutely no attendance. This may not be as rare for some of you since some professors may be more lenient than others.
However, my professor not only requires no attenance, but he also gives you the option to take the course at your own pace. That's right. You can complete the course at your given pace if you don't want to attend the normal class sessions. The class grade consists of 80% tests and 20% finals that you may complete whenever you want. There have been students who took all the tests at the end of the semester, a few did well, but most have not.
Well, after the first two weeks of class, I knew I was in trouble when I started feeling completely apathetic to the course. The material was boring, had nothing to do with my major, and the professor had a monotone voice to boot. Not wanting to follow the "self paced plan", I decided to drop the course. That is, I thought I had until I checked my online college login and found an email asking me to fill an online evaluation form for the course. Thinking it was a mistake, I decided to confirm it as a mistake by clicking the course on my account when to my horror, I realized that the course was not dropped. Apparently, you need a signature after a certain date to officially withdraw from a course. Conveniently enough, my professor does not sign ANY withdrawal forms, as his syllabus describes. Oh, life. Kids, don't let this happen to you. Basically, I have essentially neglected almost the entire course until now and on monday, I face I believe 7 full tests from what I have missed during the semester. Then, if I don't have a 90% average, I must also take the finals for the course. Not to mention I have other finals the same week.
Fortunately, the course material lends itself to a self-learning pace. The material all comes directly from chapters 1, 3, 6, and 7 from Patrick Hurley's "A Concise Introduction to Logic", of which the difficulty depends on how well you can apply the information. I still have half of 3 and the full 6 and 7 left.
However! I have had similar situations in past semesters. During the spring semester, I had macro finals I needed to pull a perfect score to get an A (started in this blog and completed here). During the summer semester, I needed to pull a 95% on my physics final that I barely escaped an 89.45% (with gracious rounding) to pull another A. So I just have to think of those 7 tests as finals to 3 chapters of the course! The tests usually consist of around 15 questions, so 105 questions is about what I'm used to for finals. Can I pull off another clutch save for a course? Stay tuned to find out!
To be continued...
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Hahahah, I picked logic for a semester of uni myself, foolishly hopingfor some intense Sherlock Holmes style shit. God, what a fucking stupid mistake. Instead I got a course incredibly similar to maths (my one true weakness, next to science and Dark Templars) that i spent the semester not giving a shit about, with (poor) results. I also had a shitty professer, I attended only 1 lecture the whole semester.
Moral of the story? Logic is for noobs.
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Dude this semester, I was picking an elective course and somehow my eye caught on War in the Twentieth Century.
I was like holy shit this is gonna be awesome I can totally use my starcraft knowledge in here
wrong
Most reading of any class I ever took. And all about boring shit like german infantry logistics or moltke or clauswitz
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giving students completely freedom to do what they want when they want is about the quickest way to set them up for failure. students need deadlines....
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So you have 2 days to read 2.5 chapters? Jesus man that's nothing. I have to read 2 books for tuesday and a book for thursday, and write an essay, just work all day long.
On December 13 2009 01:36 BabyRhino wrote:
giving students completely freedom to do what they want when they want is about the quickest way to set them up for failure. students need deadlines....
I disagree, people need to grow up, I don't want to stick to some retarded schedule because my peers are idiots.
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I thought logic was easy and fun. Noob :p
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Thank god you got an email for the evaluation or you would've been fucked. Philosophy blows. Trying to do my take home final on Nozick and Rawls as we speak.
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What's with all these crazy courses people have where homework and tests and shit make up over 50% of their grades? This semester I have two courses where finals are 80% if and only if the results on the finals are worse than the ones on the one (optional) test we have, and two where the grades are 100% finals. Will this change as I start my 3rd or 4th year? Or is this just how we do it in Norway and nowhere else?
Just to clarify: Of course we have to do homework, it just doesn't count towards our grade.
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lol, that's ur own fault. i have had to take two finals at the same time in two different years though.
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Croatia9517 Posts
Actually, my finals are pretty easy.
I have yet to spend of more than 2 days on any exam I had so far...
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On December 13 2009 02:22 kerr0r wrote:
What's with all these crazy courses people have where homework and tests and shit make up over 50% of their grades? This semester I have two courses where finals are 80% if and only if the results on the finals are worse than the ones on the one (optional) test we have, and two where the grades are 100% finals. Will this change as I start my 3rd or 4th year? Or is this just how we do it in Norway and nowhere else?
Just to clarify: Of course we have to do homework, it just doesn't count towards our grade.
Yeah... only in high school did homework manage to account for something. My Calc II class last semester the midterms and finals were 95%-100% of the grade.
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I had one class (history) where the final was 100% of the grade.
Midterm was basically there for if you got better on it than the final it would count for a little bit but not much.
Sucks dude. GL.
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I've taken logic and used that book as well with the exact same chapters studied. The rules aren't hard, neither are the translations. It's a lot of repetitive work. Just do some of the homework and use the back to verify your answers. As long as you get enough practice, you should be able to get through everything no problem. Believe in your asianness.
Also for chapter 7 make sure you look over the hard ones using all 18 rules. Your professor should allow you to use a rule sheet for the exams, if not then memorize them and write them down first thing. If you get stuck, just keep trying every possible combination, remember you can distribute stuff like (P AND Q) v (A AND B), which would become [(P*Q)vA]*[(P*Q)vB], * = AND.
Don't forget exportation, and also for material implication you can both add and take away a tilda. Commutivity applies to stuff inside brackets too, don't have to single them out. And etc, etc,etc. Look over the strategies, do some problems and you'll be fine. Good Luck.
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I'm kind of embarassed to admit that this has happened to me more than once... I've had to learn most of a semester's material in a week because I'm just really bad at keeping track of stuff. Too bad I'm not as studious the rest of the year because at that rate I could be out of school in half a semester if I survived.
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On December 13 2009 03:09 eshlow wrote:
I had one class (history) where the final was 100% of the grade.
Midterm was basically there for if you got better on it than the final it would count for a little bit but not much.
Sucks dude. GL.
Damn our university policy says the finals cant count for more than 50%, that would be quite intense weighting so much into one test. Give the possibility that people can have shitty test days
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On December 13 2009 01:10 NFL2368 wrote:
Most reading of any class I ever took. And all about boring shit like german infantry logistics or moltke or clauswitz
Dude, Carl von Clausewitz was a genious and his "On War" is a priority lecture for anyone even remotely interested in war (be it military, sociology, psychology, politology and many other fields), hell, it's even greater priority than Sun Tzu.
How is StarCraft knowledge going to relate into IRL warfare? In no way. Trust me on this one, at first I wanted to write my thesis on modern warfare and did a lot of research into this subject.
For those interested, top 2 books:
![[image loading]](http://chicagoboyz.net/blogfiles/clausewitz-on-war_small.jpg)
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is awesome32277 Posts
You think your finals are bad? I have a class in my university where the teacher takes a final, and gives a score to each student (normal so far).
The he takes the average of all the grades and everyone above the average passes and everyone below fails.
....
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Baa?21244 Posts
On December 13 2009 03:56 Manit0u wrote:
hell, it's even greater priority than Sun Tzu.
Lolno.
And I need like a 100, or maybe like a 99 to get an A- in microecon. Sounds just like you with macro, the fact you did it gives me hope I guess? xD
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On December 13 2009 04:12 IntoTheWow wrote:
You think your finals are bad? I have a class in my university where the teacher takes a final, and gives a score to each student (normal so far).
The he takes the average of all the grades and everyone above the average passes and everyone below fails.
....
I hope he loses his job.
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I have to contruct a 1/4" = 1' scale model for my Studio Final Review, as well as the architectural drawings for it by Tuesday.
Along with 4 finals to study for.
FML...until Wednesday.
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On December 13 2009 04:12 IntoTheWow wrote:
You think your finals are bad? I have a class in my university where the teacher takes a final, and gives a score to each student (normal so far).
The he takes the average of all the grades and everyone above the average passes and everyone below fails.
....
Oh god, that's rough but I have faith in you agu! 
On December 13 2009 04:21 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2009 03:56 Manit0u wrote:
hell, it's even greater priority than Sun Tzu.
Lolno. And I need like a 100, or maybe like a 99 to get an A- in microecon. Sounds just like you with macro, the fact you did it gives me hope I guess? xD
Definitely have hope, but as a fair warning, my situation was also a little different. My tests were all multiple choice, including the final. Also, the final was optional and it was there to replace a grade for any particular section test that I poorly on. The final, thus, was laid out so there were 4 sections covering the tests we had throughout the semester.
Still, don't give up! Pulling off those clutch marks is such a great feeling of accomplishment, and I did it twice in two semesters. Definitely let me know how it went after you get the results.
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On December 13 2009 04:25 TOloseGT wrote:
I have to contruct a 1/4" = 1' scale model for my Studio Final Review, as well as the architectural drawings for it by Tuesday.
Along with 4 finals to study for.
FML...until Wednesday.
Ouch, that's really rough :/ Compared to that, my situation seems ezpz. Also, I think there was someone who made a blog about raping himself in computer science where he has shittons of papers and tests due in a week or two.
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On December 13 2009 03:36 Divinek wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2009 03:09 eshlow wrote:
I had one class (history) where the final was 100% of the grade.
Midterm was basically there for if you got better on it than the final it would count for a little bit but not much.
Sucks dude. GL. Damn our university policy says the finals cant count for more than 50%, that would be quite intense weighting so much into one test. Give the possibility that people can have shitty test days
Really? :o Over here it's 20% of the points can be made throughout the semester and then you have the finals which consist out of the remaining 80% lol :p (for some courses, I have other courses that are also 100% final exam :o)
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On December 13 2009 02:22 kerr0r wrote:
What's with all these crazy courses people have where homework and tests and shit make up over 50% of their grades? This semester I have two courses where finals are 80% if and only if the results on the finals are worse than the ones on the one (optional) test we have, and two where the grades are 100% finals. Will this change as I start my 3rd or 4th year? Or is this just how we do it in Norway and nowhere else?
Just to clarify: Of course we have to do homework, it just doesn't count towards our grade.
don't even start making it seem like your education system is so much harder because your finals count for so much of your grade. Yes, your final counts for almost if not everything, but you have the option to retake it a bunch of times until you pass! if we fuck up an exam here, there's nothing we can do about it unless the professor has a very special system in place.
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I had to learn the entire Introductory to International Trades course in 1.5 days. The exam was preceded by my Microeconomics exam, and followed by CS Algorithms exam (in other words, three exams in 24 H).
=.=
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Dude, philosophy is easy. Why even study?
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On December 13 2009 04:12 IntoTheWow wrote:
You think your finals are bad? I have a class in my university where the teacher takes a final, and gives a score to each student (normal so far).
The he takes the average of all the grades and everyone above the average passes and everyone below fails.
....
Is this a pass/fail course or actual grades? Irregardless, I think it does make sense. There's way too much grade inflation everywhere especially with teachers who only care about getting good reviews on their student evaluations. :\
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On December 14 2009 03:01 Dknight wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2009 04:12 IntoTheWow wrote:
You think your finals are bad? I have a class in my university where the teacher takes a final, and gives a score to each student (normal so far).
The he takes the average of all the grades and everyone above the average passes and everyone below fails.
.... Is this a pass/fail course or actual grades? Irregardless, I think it does make sense. There's way too much grade inflation everywhere especially with teachers who only care about getting good reviews on their student evaluations. :\
how does this make sense? this has nothing to do with grade inflation. In this system, a person who scores a 51 (normalized) gets the same grade as someone who scores a 99 (normalized). And the guy who scores a 49 fails. The whole purpose of grading is to create a metric to evaluate how much a student has learned, if the professors grading system is that terrible at differentiating different levels of achievement, it's a pretty terrible grading system.
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On December 13 2009 04:12 IntoTheWow wrote:
You think your finals are bad? I have a class in my university where the teacher takes a final, and gives a score to each student (normal so far).
The he takes the average of all the grades and everyone above the average passes and everyone below fails.
....
What am I missing here, why is this so horrible? Isn't a related method (having a pass/fail quota) relatively standard for courses with lots of students? Of course there you use the mode and not the average which probably makes more sense, but I somehow I don't see why this method is so obviously ridiculous.
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On December 14 2009 07:08 skronch wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2009 03:01 Dknight wrote:On December 13 2009 04:12 IntoTheWow wrote:
You think your finals are bad? I have a class in my university where the teacher takes a final, and gives a score to each student (normal so far).
The he takes the average of all the grades and everyone above the average passes and everyone below fails.
.... Is this a pass/fail course or actual grades? Irregardless, I think it does make sense. There's way too much grade inflation everywhere especially with teachers who only care about getting good reviews on their student evaluations. :\ how does this make sense? this has nothing to do with grade inflation. In this system, a person who scores a 51 (normalized) gets the same grade as someone who scores a 99 (normalized). And the guy who scores a 49 fails. The whole purpose of grading is to create a metric to evaluate how much a student has learned, if the professors grading system is that terrible at differentiating different levels of achievement, it's a pretty terrible grading system.
At least in Switzerland it's quite common in some courses that you only get the info whether you passed or not and not your actual grade. Reasons for this include stopping the kind of grade hysteria that (I've heard) exists in the US for tests that reveal very little about how well you're actually going to perform in your field.
Just realized ITW is talking about finals, don't know how I missed that (it's late). :p Yeah it doesn't make any sense then, I was talking about tests after your first semesters (where I still think that setting a quota and not getting a grade is annoying, but I can see the the reasons for it).
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EPT![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/412FKr91m5L._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
