Sunday, July 13, 2008

Summer, Fall, Spring, Summer

I finished up my second summer semester at TNCC, so that means I've officially been there a year. I'm a community college veteran. I'm finally free of classes that involve knuckleheads, and everybody that has made it this far is in it for the long haul. That's not to say the classes are getting any easier, or that everyone gets an A or even passes, but everybody needs the classes they take. I have been a little surprised that students still don't seem confident enough to contribute. Professors are like performers, and they appreciate a response. They also seem to reward students for actively participating in the class discussions. That must be how I got my B in Linear Algebra. A B is a weird grade to receive because it implies that I worked hard enough to get an A, but I simply never got the material well enough to receive an A. Linear Algebra is the first class I've ever taken where I can do every exercise in the book but not get an A on a test. This is a very important lesson. I can understand pretty complicated stuff when it's phrased in a way in which I'm comfortable, but this professor made the tests straight from his own notes which didn't really relate to the text. Luckily, a high theoretical mathematical ability isn't really necessary in order to be quite capable of applying the techniques. I've already gone back to my Statics text to use the techniques I learned in Linear Algebra, and my new skills are paying off in spades.


Also, I got an A in Microeconomics, but who cares.

1 comment:

Aunt So-So said...

I care about your A. I'm also glad that I don't have to go down there and kick your teacher's ass.