And it's official: I flunked my first final (or exam) in my college career. It will be the last time that happens, I guarantee you that. I got a 51% on the CS 160 (Java Programming) final. Ouch. Very painful and atypical of me to get such a low grade. But, as my sister Jessie says, "must be nice to break up the monotony of success with a little failure!" Next time I take a programming class I will spend a lot more time writing extra programs, and practicing writing the hardest programs I can imagine by hand. My grade, as it stands in CS 160, is a 77%. Hopefully we'll get some good curve action going, and see that get brought into solid B range. At this point I'd even be psyched to get a B-.
Also, in my fear of doing badly on the Econ 313 final, I didn't study much for my Stats final. Consequently, I didn't do well on it either. I got a 78% on it, and got an 89% in the class. Pretty sad because going into the final I had a 96% in the class. On the bright side, my professor said that he appreciated having me in class, and because I'd worked so hard over the semester he bumped my grade up to an A-. Much appreciated, Professor Hayes, much appreciated.
Math 103 has ended up being a bright spot on the transcript. I pulled in a 95.6% in the class for a solid A. I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment because there was a time when I realized that I'd put off the class for a very long time (it's self-paced) and had a mountain of work ahead of me. In fact, the course supervisor told me, frankly, that she didn't think I'd be able to get it done. Well, I did. And with an outstanding grade.
The two remaining question marks are Econ 313 and Econ 201. I take the Econ 201 final on Friday morning, and should be getting back my Econ 313 final grade and course grade tomorrow hopefully.
Econ 313 was another challenging class for me this semester. It's structure, style of learning, and content was difficult for me to learn, study for, and excel at. However, I was the ONLY freshman in the class. Everyone else was Juniors or Seniors. So, perhaps I did just fine considering I was a relatively new student swimming in deep waters. It was an excellent experience though in that it revealed to me that there are some areas I need to improve in. I need to learn how to study for, and master material that doesn't come with a lot of ready-made practice problem sets. Thus far my ideas include: reading the textbook religiously, taking notes, making flashcards, and writing my own practice problems.
This has been an arduous semester. It's been exhausting in terms of time required to even do as well as I did. The classes I took were much more difficult, in general, than the classes I had the previous semester (which were all 100-level and not too tremendously difficult, mostly rote memorization). I also had an additional 4 credits of workload. I guess--in the end--I just kind of ran out of gas, too. I didn't have much motivation left to study for finals when we got to finals week, and in fact went out drinking two of the weekend nights leading into finals.
Also, it didn't help that I worked the weekend before finals. That was a horrible idea and something I will never do again. It's simply not possible to count on getting much productive studying done at work--even when it's slow. In the future, recognizing that, I'm just going to have to financially count on NOT working the weekends before I have finals. I suppose if I hadn't had to work that weekend I'd have done much better about studying for both Econ 313 and Stats, and that probably would be more reflected in my grades in both.
As it stands, my grades aren't bad, but they aren't great either. I worked so hard throughout most of the semester, yet I made a few strategic mistakes which cost me in the end. But, lessons have been learned, and mistakes have been made which will not be repeated.
Right now: A, A-, C+ (?), B (?), B+ (?)
Anticipated GPA: 3.2
Also, in my fear of doing badly on the Econ 313 final, I didn't study much for my Stats final. Consequently, I didn't do well on it either. I got a 78% on it, and got an 89% in the class. Pretty sad because going into the final I had a 96% in the class. On the bright side, my professor said that he appreciated having me in class, and because I'd worked so hard over the semester he bumped my grade up to an A-. Much appreciated, Professor Hayes, much appreciated.
Math 103 has ended up being a bright spot on the transcript. I pulled in a 95.6% in the class for a solid A. I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment because there was a time when I realized that I'd put off the class for a very long time (it's self-paced) and had a mountain of work ahead of me. In fact, the course supervisor told me, frankly, that she didn't think I'd be able to get it done. Well, I did. And with an outstanding grade.
The two remaining question marks are Econ 313 and Econ 201. I take the Econ 201 final on Friday morning, and should be getting back my Econ 313 final grade and course grade tomorrow hopefully.
Econ 313 was another challenging class for me this semester. It's structure, style of learning, and content was difficult for me to learn, study for, and excel at. However, I was the ONLY freshman in the class. Everyone else was Juniors or Seniors. So, perhaps I did just fine considering I was a relatively new student swimming in deep waters. It was an excellent experience though in that it revealed to me that there are some areas I need to improve in. I need to learn how to study for, and master material that doesn't come with a lot of ready-made practice problem sets. Thus far my ideas include: reading the textbook religiously, taking notes, making flashcards, and writing my own practice problems.
This has been an arduous semester. It's been exhausting in terms of time required to even do as well as I did. The classes I took were much more difficult, in general, than the classes I had the previous semester (which were all 100-level and not too tremendously difficult, mostly rote memorization). I also had an additional 4 credits of workload. I guess--in the end--I just kind of ran out of gas, too. I didn't have much motivation left to study for finals when we got to finals week, and in fact went out drinking two of the weekend nights leading into finals.
Also, it didn't help that I worked the weekend before finals. That was a horrible idea and something I will never do again. It's simply not possible to count on getting much productive studying done at work--even when it's slow. In the future, recognizing that, I'm just going to have to financially count on NOT working the weekends before I have finals. I suppose if I hadn't had to work that weekend I'd have done much better about studying for both Econ 313 and Stats, and that probably would be more reflected in my grades in both.
As it stands, my grades aren't bad, but they aren't great either. I worked so hard throughout most of the semester, yet I made a few strategic mistakes which cost me in the end. But, lessons have been learned, and mistakes have been made which will not be repeated.
Right now: A, A-, C+ (?), B (?), B+ (?)
Anticipated GPA: 3.2
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