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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
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UmiNotsuki
United States633 Posts
On February 25 2012 08:25 dAPhREAk wrote: may i point out some irony. you made this blog like a week ago. Haha, aren't we observant  I didn't play WoW at all during finals week, committed to studying. Nice try, though!EDIT: And by finals week I mean midterms weak, something wrong with me >.> On February 25 2012 08:25 BearStorm wrote: Look it's not a big deal. You still have many years of school left to maintain or surpass 3.3. Think of it as an early wake up call. Also it is a lot easier to be above average in highschool. It becomes harder as you go into college and becomes even more difficult as you progress (because weaker students are constantly dropping out or being weeded out). It will be even more difficult once you are in grad school. I know because I obtained my BS in chemical engineering being well above average. But in my phd program I am putting in a fair amount of effort and only obtaining the average on exams. It's not a big deal, you will grow as a student with time (especially if being below average upsets you so much). You will take so many exams throughout your time in school that when you look back at this one you will either laugh or not remember it at all. I know you're right, but it's so hard to see the forest for the trees right now. On February 25 2012 08:36 StorkHwaiting wrote: All you've done is high school so ofc you've never failed to get average at a test you took. School is child's play at that level. When you get to college, if you're taking a difficult major, you're going to have to learn more effective study methods because the material can sometimes actually be challenging. It's quite a normal phenomenon. To say you have experience with academics as a college freshman is kind of ironic. I know high school is nothing, I'd be the first to admit it. But I'm taking last semester as my history, where I didn't put nearly as much work in and did far better. I don't know if I really suggested I have experience... | ||
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AcrossFiveJulys
United States3612 Posts
Now if this continues happening then you might want to examine your study habits. Are you learning the material at a deep level, or a superficial "this is how one solves this kind of problem" kind of level? Do you keep up with the material consistently, or do you cram? Do you internalize the information, or do you learn quickly in the short term to get through homeworks and study for exams? | ||
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UmiNotsuki
United States633 Posts
On February 25 2012 09:16 AcrossFiveJulys wrote: Everyone messes up on tests sometimes, especially math tests. Often it's completely unforgiving; if you make one mistake, you get 0/20 on a problem. Don't beat yourself up about it. Now if this continues happening then you might want to examine your study habits. Are you learning the material at a deep level, or a superficial "this is how one solves this kind of problem" kind of level? Do you keep up with the material consistently, or do you cram? Do you internalize the information, or do you learn quickly in the short term to get through homeworks and study for exams? I felt like I understood it all along, and aced the practice tests without cramming beforehand... Just a little studying and looking up things afterwords (definitions and things.) We actually got to bring a cheat sheet to the exam, and it's not like I didn't bring a full page. And I used it, too... made sure I had a good understanding of all the formulas, everything. | ||
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KazeHydra
Japan2788 Posts
A 3.3 is hard to maintain, especially as a bioengineer but it is doable. Remember that for every A you get, that's a C+ you're allowed to have. However, while it's true getting that free year of tuition for your 5 year program is financially desirable, this does not make you more likely to get or maintain jobs. 5 year programs are done for smart people who want to graduate faster and/or for cheaper. I'm actually still debating to enter one myself (also bioengineer) but it's pretty damn intimidating. GPA is a much more important factor (which ends up being a confounding variable when you say getting in the program looks good), but even then grades aren't that important. If your concern is future jobs, then what you want to look into are internships, lab positions, and connections (the truth is it's not what you know, it's who you know). Again, I understand there is a financial desire and concern which is understandable, but you should realize that money is the real reason to get this program and not how good it looks on the resume and maybe it'll lift some stress about it. Also, curves can work in may different ways; they do not have to be bell curves. In fact, for exams with high averages, it's impossible to fit a bell curve to the scores without having a very strange grade distribution. Sometimes professors even arbitrarily make cutoffs based on the # of A's/B's/etc they want. True, you did relatively bad, but unless your professor said he was curving to a perfect bell curve on his exams regardless of the results, you *might* (don't want to get your hopes up for nothing) not be doing as bad you think. Also, sometimes professors respond to high averages but "averaging" it out with a stupidly hard exam....I kind of hate those but it gives you a great opportunity to fix your grade. Good luck in the future; I've learned that when you fail an exam the correct mindset is to not think about it and instead have the resolve to do better. | ||
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iSometric
2221 Posts
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UmiNotsuki
United States633 Posts
On February 25 2012 09:38 KazeHydra wrote: As someone said already, finding what you did wrong on the test is the most important thing right now. You said you felt like you may have gotten a 100% so it's possible you just did a ton of stupid mistakes, which is common in math and what I highly suspect happened. If this is the case, you don't need to worry about studying/grades so much as stop being overconfident on exams and doing the problems carefully, slowly, and reviewing your work. If, on the other hand, the issue is you just completely didn't understand what the questions were asking for despite thinking you did, then some action needs to be taken. Studying in groups, asking for help/clarification/verification, etc. I'm not sure how your specific class weights the exams, but typically 1 poor exam grade is recoverable, though not ideally of course. A 3.3 is hard to maintain, especially as a bioengineer but it is doable. Remember that for every A you get, that's a C+ you're allowed to have. However, while it's true getting that free year of tuition for your 5 year program is financially desirable, this does not make you more likely to get or maintain jobs. 5 year programs are done for smart people who want to graduate faster and/or for cheaper. I'm actually still debating to enter one myself (also bioengineer) but it's pretty damn intimidating. GPA is a much more important factor (which ends up being a confounding variable when you say getting in the program looks good), but even then grades aren't that important. If your concern is future jobs, then what you want to look into are internships, lab positions, and connections (the truth is it's not what you know, it's who you know). Again, I understand there is a financial desire and concern which is understandable, but you should realize that money is the real reason to get this program and not how good it looks on the resume and maybe it'll lift some stress about it. Also, curves can work in may different ways; they do not have to be bell curves. In fact, for exams with high averages, it's impossible to fit a bell curve to the scores without having a very strange grade distribution. Sometimes professors even arbitrarily make cutoffs based on the # of A's/B's/etc they want. True, you did relatively bad, but unless your professor said he was curving to a perfect bell curve on his exams regardless of the results, you *might* (don't want to get your hopes up for nothing) not be doing as bad you think. Also, sometimes professors respond to high averages but "averaging" it out with a stupidly hard exam....I kind of hate those but it gives you a great opportunity to fix your grade. Good luck in the future; I've learned that when you fail an exam the correct mindset is to not think about it and instead have the resolve to do better. This is all fairly comforting, thank you. You are completely correct but it's just disappointing. I don't know if I had overconfidence problems... I didn't go into the test expecting to ace it, I simply became confident as I saw the questions and knew I knew exactly how to do them. Or at least so I thought. I still can't figure out what I might've possibly done wrong... | ||
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lolmlg
619 Posts
That's honestly a pretty pompous and unintelligent-sounding comment. In a few years you might have some more perspective on this and realize how silly it was. | ||
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Ket
United Kingdom124 Posts
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thopol
Japan4560 Posts
On February 25 2012 11:17 Ket wrote: reading op reminds me of this video -snip- Wow! That was great. Thanks for sharing. | ||
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UmiNotsuki
United States633 Posts
On February 25 2012 11:17 Ket wrote: reading op reminds me of this video [Video] Thank you. | ||
ZeromuS
Canada13403 Posts
On February 25 2012 07:22 UmiNotsuki wrote: Yes, but the curve will be against a normal distribution. If a curve is applied to that test it will reduce my grade and sit me at a D or an F. I can, but then it'll take an extra year, cost a TON, and not look as good in the end. And on top of that, when I go back for a Ph.D., it'll be with way more debt to my name. I never said it was fair, I said that by my standards this is failing. I can't do what I want to do in life with a 73% average. If that's an insignificant problem to you, so be it. Look man, its one semester in your first year. To put that in perspective the last semester of my last year straight As would lead to a 0.2 increase in my GPA on a 10 point scale, and D-s straight would lead to 0.3 decrease. You've got a lot of time to get into a grad program don't worry about it focus on the rest of your exams youll be fine Also, its ok to have debt in schooling since its an investment when you get a job you can pay it back pretty quick. | ||
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deathgod6
United States5064 Posts
On February 25 2012 11:17 Ket wrote: reading op reminds me of this video *link* Awesome video, thanks for sharing. | ||
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KazeHydra
Japan2788 Posts
On February 25 2012 11:50 ZeromuS wrote: Look man, its one semester in your first year. To put that in perspective the last semester of my last year straight As would lead to a 0.2 increase in my GPA on a 10 point scale, and D-s straight would lead to 0.3 decrease. I agree with what you're trying to say, but this is just a bad perspective to use. It's because he's only 1 semester into school that he should be worrying about his GPA. Straight D-'s would lead to roughly a 1.7 point drop on a 4.0 scale. As you take more classes, grades have less and less of an effect on your overall GPA. The issue is not the end result; the issue is he can't ever drop below 3.3 and right now is the most likely time his GPA will dip below that. @OP: not understanding what you could possibly have done wrong is exactly why I think you just did a bunch of stupid mistakes. I remember my friend got a 75% once because he just assumed what the question was asking and his work wasn't relevant at all (25% of the test) lol. | ||
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UmiNotsuki
United States633 Posts
On February 25 2012 12:08 KazeHydra wrote: I agree with what you're trying to say, but this is just a bad perspective to use. It's because he's only 1 semester into school that he should be worrying about his GPA. Straight D-'s would lead to roughly a 1.7 point drop on a 4.0 scale. As you take more classes, grades have less and less of an effect on your overall GPA. The issue is not the end result; the issue is he can't ever drop below 3.3 and right now is the most likely time his GPA will dip below that. @OP: not understanding what you could possibly have done wrong is exactly why I think you just did a bunch of stupid mistakes. I remember my friend got a 75% once because he just assumed what the question was asking and his work wasn't relevant at all (25% of the test) lol. I guess so. I don't feel like I ever assumed anything, but when each question came up I feel that I kinda instantly knew how to get to the answer. I mean, it was all pretty basic stuff, definitions of dot products and cross products, distance from a point to a line, projections... I feel like I should've gotten it even if I made a couple mistakes. | ||
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n.DieJokes
United States3443 Posts
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UmiNotsuki
United States633 Posts
On February 25 2012 13:27 n.DieJokes wrote: You took multivariable before diff eq? That's awesome, seeing the vector calculus stuff later will make it easier to jump into pde's... Anyway, its one exam of one course your second semester. Do better than on the second one/final, stop being a baby its not the end of the world I think you might've misread the OP, I said that I got a 100% on my Diff Eq final last semester. Diff Eq first, and now I'm in multivariable this semester. | ||
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n.DieJokes
United States3443 Posts
On February 25 2012 13:32 UmiNotsuki wrote: I think you might've misread the OP, I said that I got a 100% on my Diff Eq final last semester. Diff Eq first, and now I'm in multivariable this semester. No, I read it correctly its when I read over my post before submitting I forgot what I was saying and changed "later" to "before". Herp | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
Also, don't worry too much about midterms, they don't usually worth too much. As long as you realize you've fucked up (which you have) and pull your shit together, you'll be fine. To make you feel slightly better, for one of my classes, I got 23/80 (max possible was 105) on my final take home (60 or 70% iirc) with the class mean and median at 62, s.d. 23. Most people fucking cheated by working in a group, while I tried to do it honestly. I still got a B though. Went in with an A though  | ||
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Grohg
United States243 Posts
Teaching people is one of the most effective ways of committing information to memory. It provides the repetition needed to encode information correctly and it activates various parts of the brain that you don't normally use when studying by yourself. The reason behind this is the fact that a teacher must not only have the raw information to present but understand how to logically convey the data and methodology. Explaining a process is much more engaging than trying to soak in facts and thus you will actually learn the material better. In a group built around studying, you should have plenty of opportunities to explain things. When you are in need of someone to help you out, you not only have peers to guide you but you help them understand the material in a more concrete fashion as well. Don't beat yourself up. Set a goal and work towards it...everyone gets a kick in the gut sometimes. For someone who seems to care a lot about it, you now have a reason to strive for better. High school is autopilot all the way through, it's good to have something that challenges you. You've got 4 years of a challenge and more after that if you want  . | ||
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