MrWOT Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 So, I felt the need to share this because it really shows how bad things are getting...... or maybee it's just the people around here... I'm a 2nd year college student, taking my first semester of *cue horror music* CHEMISTRY!!!! And I'm fairly abominable at taking notes.... so of course I get the teacher from hell who gives tests three chapters at a time.... things are looking grim for our hero. So I've been clawing my way through the book and the semester with equal parts frustration at poor teaching methods (imho) and very difficult test, and to this date I have yet to score better then 78% on any of her tests.... not good..... right??? So we just had a test last wednesday on another 3 chapters and of course as I'm taking the test, even with my mountain of notecards I STILL managed to bungle it fairly badly, that is to say today when I recieved my scantron I was very irked at the 69% displayed. At this point I'm at my desk, mulling over how badly I hate this class when I say outloud (venting) "I can't (censored) believe this! 48 notecards, 6 hours of studying and I get a dang 69%! percent?! ARRGGGGHHH" So at this point people are staring at me....... but not for what you would think, turns out the class average on ALL the tests to date has been around 38% and I've been throwing the curve....... as such I am one of 3 people with A's and over half the class is failing........ Don't that just beat all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim240z Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 That's one way to piss off your class mates!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest comeandzpa Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 Oh no...you're "that kid". I'm a freshman this year, and any tests I've had that got curved always had the curves ruined by "that kid" who scored 20 points higher than everyone else... That said, at least I'm not an engineer. One of my friends said the average score on their last test was a 15%, and his 17% got curved to an 84%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavyZ Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 If you're a Sophomore, I guess you'd be in organic chemistry right? In either O-chem or Inorganic, learn what you can on making "things" with the chemicals you are allowed to play with. The extracurricular actvity is fun, you'll learn a whopping amount more, and you may accidentally blow yourself up in the process--what fun!! Ah, I remember chemistry.... Davy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 I WAS a stright-A student until Chemistry. Studied, took practice tests, kept lots of notes. Just didn't get it. Lab sort of made sense, but I had a HP-11 calculator that would always return a number like 1E100001245 when mixing mols and milligrams. AAAAAAArrrrgggghhhh 20 year flashbacks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest goldraven Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 It is an interesting dilema. College professors are not required to have any sort of teaching experience, i find that hard to deal with some times when the prof is blatently making his/her job easier by just giving out the chapters to study, and testing on them later. For example, I am having the same problem in my physics class, the prof writes on the board the chapters she is covering until the next test....and the rest of the class she either has some lame demostration of physics, or dismisses class...usually it is a demonstration...but the tests roll around and 95% of the material is not covered in class. i find that total bullshit, i'm paying all this money to teach myself. sorry....ranting. I understand that the practical side of having all college proffessors have a teaching degree or any teaching experience is impossible. I just wish there was a little more effort with some of the profs, ya know? Nick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillZ260 Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 Exactly my thoughts Gold... That is why I found a good prof, THEN decieded on my major, the very subject the good prof was teaching HE HE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop N Wood Posted April 14, 2004 Share Posted April 14, 2004 Brings back memories. Worst class I ever took was a graduate level class in non-linear stochastic processes. I don't know how the professor gave final grades, because with 40-50 grad students the test scores would be uniformly distributed from 7% to 98%. No two people would score within 2% of each other, and you had as many people scoring under 10% as you had scoring over 90%. I have never seen a course like it before or since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted April 14, 2004 Share Posted April 14, 2004 A couple things to remember about college. 1) Always ask around because frequently the prof's will invoke a huge curve to keep their pass rate where it needs to be for the statistics to look right, and 2) Prof's are chosen based on their own academic performance and their ability to publish (attract revenue), NOT on their ability to teach. These are general truisms at nearly all schools except for a few very expensive privately funded ones that can actually afford to hire educated teachers, rather than mostly useless professors. There are always the exceptions - and generally they are really exceptional. Unfortunately they are few and far between. The system can work, though. Look at me - an engineer that can actually spell! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillZ260 Posted April 14, 2004 Share Posted April 14, 2004 I don't know how the professor gave final grades, because with 40-50 grad students the test scores would be uniformly distributed from 7% to 98%. The teacher was using the BELL CURVE. Some A holes think that the "curve" is the fairest representation of the class as a hole. This means that no matter what, someone will fail. This is sooo wrong to me, as everyone in the class could get 90% and above on the test but the poor souls that got the 90's would be at the bottom of the curve and receive F's. Total bullshit. My wife had to deal with one of these guys untill the class turned him into the head of the department, he was forced to change his ways. Not sure about all the details but it did happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drax240z Posted April 14, 2004 Share Posted April 14, 2004 I'd be pretty happy with 78% on anything in my classes! I remember my first term of 3rd year, out of 6 classes my best grade after the midterm was 48%. Man was I ever worried... I think I ended that term with nothing worse than a B-... and let me tell you, it wasn't because I was working harder after the midterm! Prof's like to scare you a bit to make life interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted April 14, 2004 Share Posted April 14, 2004 Yeah, I remember my first test in Dynamics - I got a 32. Knew at that point I was in trouble so studied my butt off for the next test on which I got a 28. THe Prof was grading straight university scale so, at that point I had no chance of passing. Stuck it out through the end and failed with flair. Took it over the next semester with this dried up little Japanese prof named P.T. Sun. His claim was that he may not teach us dynamics but he would "teach us to think like an engineer". He made one comment one day that turned the light on and I got a B+ in his class without even working hard. Amazing the difference the Prof can make. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWOT Posted April 14, 2004 Author Share Posted April 14, 2004 Heh, speaking of the prof check this out, so one of the first days (it's organic chem) we were doing a review of chem 10 (general intro chem) and one of the other students asked a question about hydrogen bonding, and the teacher looked straight at him, and I quote "What does it matter? I'm not going to test you on it." I almost dropped the class, but I do need the units Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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