Re-Evaluation

After my first semester of UBC, I’m trying to think of a checklist of what I need to do next semester in order to substantially raise my average. I want to make realistic goals, but also high goals.  I’ve done it before, with SAT’s and in high school when I was months behind, but UBC is certainly on another scale.  Here are my goals so far.

– I think I spent the first 2-3 weeks thinking I was working hard, but I know what working hard is, thats what I did before my physics final, thats what I need to do from beginning to end.  So work harder! Duh!

–  Always pre-read.  I did this in the beginning for physics and bio, but had like periods where I’d stop(usually midterm season or when work piles) so I’d skip it.  Not knowing the readings before going to class is not fun, also leads to last minute cramming.

– Don’t force yourself into the position where you must cram!  When I give myself enough time to study not cram, I do so much better.

–  This one is a big one and may only work for me:  FORGET THE CHEAT SHEET:  I’m not use to having a cheat sheet available, this never really happened in high school, so when I found out, lets just say especially for physics, I didn’t stress too hard on learning everything because well, I had my cheat sheet!  Same with bio, how much do I need to know when I have a cheat sheet!  Big mistake, completely screwed me.  For the physics final, I left my cheat sheet till the last minute for the first time, and had the least on it, and did substantially better!  It was my best exam, same for my biology exam.  Why did I realize this so late?  So people, treat each test with cheat sheet’s allowed, like it doesn’t have a cheat sheet.

– Use some free time between classes that you know you’ll waste, and go to another sections lecture.  In Chem, I didn’t understand a couple concepts later on, and going to another professors lecture reaffirmed and helped so much!  Not a lot of other people do it, so give yourself a little advantage!

– Try, try, to get 5 hours of sleep before each midterm/final.  This number is different for everyone, but I only need 5 hours and a coffee to be very alert through the day.

– do the Practice Midterms!  I don’t know what I was kidding, they are definitely the best ways to study in my opinion.  After going through the subject matter, taking the practice midterms is the best way to know if you can actually do the problems.  I wish I did this for Math, Physics, and Biology.  When I did this, my grades went up, easy as that.

These are just the few I have so far, but I really wish I did all these things from the beginning, but now there’s no excuse not to do great next semester after being aware of all the mistakes I made first semester.  Well maybe that 8am math class 2nd semester is an excuse.  Ha, still trying to fix that.  Note to all math 103 students, please drop so I can get out of the 8am lecture! 🙂

Happy Holidays!

Finished my final, final! Review of my courses Winter 2010

So this semester has been the most insane 3 months of my life.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so stressed about school, and midterms, and finals.  And believe it or not I think my finals went better than my midterms.  I think it’s because I figured out what studying routine is the most effective for me.  A lot of times this semester I heard a lot of, “I just want to pass,”  “just as long as I pass.”  I want to do well!  SO I never understood that statement, 50, 51,52 they all sound bad.  But after a scare with one of my courses I understood the saying!  Imagining having to redo a course is not a happy thought people.  But I had a lot of problems finding the balance with school and fun, and after trying different things out, going through a stage of always eating in my room, and never sleeping but studying, I know in order to survive i need a balance.  I think 85%school 15% life sounds good?  or maybe 90/10, i’ll try and figure that out.  But I think the whole 3-4 hour sleep a night max thing is not going to be good for me for next semester.  Reflecting back on the year I almost want to take all the courses over again because of all the things I know I COULD have done.  Looking at midterms that now appear to be soo easy, concepts that appeared to be so easy!  It’s a nightmare pondering on what I could have done..especially with grades slowly creeping there way onto the SSC.  Here’s a review of my first semester courses.

Math 180

Why, oh why on earth did I willingly switch into this class from Math 104.  I feel like I inflicted personal sabotage on myself.  This course doesn’t have a huge amount of students, which can be looked at as good or bad. More personal interaction with your professor, but the smaller the people the more skewed that class average is going to be.  All I know is I was taking the same final with the engineers, and thats a punishment all in it’s own.  Here are some depressing statistics, the other math 180 class had over 40% of the class fail.  Over 40% people, that means they retake it next semester.  But I’d advise all of them to take MATH 102!!  Incoming first years when choosing a course just choose math 102.  Should it be unavailable detour to 104.  The averages for there classes are normal, not high 50’s-low 60’s like math 180.  Woah why am I saying normal, I think normal is 65, but there averages are around 75ish area.  So DONT DO MATH 180 or MATH 100.  But I must say I lucked out with my professor, he was great, it’s just the course that sucked.  My grade:  no comment..but im incredibly depressed that they didn’t scale it..atleast my grade, doing the calculations I got exactly what I got with midterms/homework/estimation of final.

Chem 121

Almost 2000 kids enrolled in this course, and I honestly think because everyone seemed to be in chem 121 people studied harder.  So that when countless people ask how you did, you weren’t completely ashamed.  Haha but chem 121 was one of my best courses.  Out of all my classes, chem was by far the easiest to study for, not the easiest concepts, but you knew exactly what to expect on the test because it’s pretty much everything in the intergrated book.  The only thing I can say is that the practice tests are very deceieving.  They give us the tests from the previous years midterms, and I gotta say you kids last year had it easy.  The first midterm I got a high 80 when I took it.  On our midterm I got…not so well.  The average was high 50’s, and this is before the quantum mechanics material.  Once again the 2nd midterm did some deceiving, but I was more prepared but made so many stupid mistakes.  *sigh*  who here hates dumb dumb mistakes? Like addition/subtraction mistakes(i got no sympathy marks), or not reading the question close enough?  The final was I think fair, once again much more difficult than the practice test, but fair.  I’d take chem 121 again!  Even the labs were okay..they were amazing compared to physics 101.

Phys 101

The bane of my existence.  Note to future first years don’t let premonitions of a course bring you down before you start it, because thats what I did.  Physics has always been my worst subject, I did AP Physics in grade 11, just so I wouldn’t deal with it my senior year, don’t ask be how I got an A, but I had a lot of help from my dad.  This time being miles away I didn’t have that same advantage.  And this course isn’t based on kinematics like my physics in hs was. 1st Midterm – didn’t study properly, had 4 midterms in a span of 4 days, and another one the same day as physics.  Long story short, my mind was screwed by the time I went in to take that test.  2nd midterm – didn’t sleep the night before..probably affected my performance, but I felt very prepared and knew how to tackle every problem..I did, except the one on the first page that had a friendly message on it.  “Here’s something new!”  all I know is that page screwed me, and with only around 4-5 pages it will screw your grade.  Final:  Probably my best test, felt good with all the problems, attempted the ones that looked impossible, and I think I did fairly well.  Especially when it feels like all the kids who did IB physics are in that course.  *sighhh*  Grade isn’t up on SSC but I expect a fair not bad grade, not A, but not C either, haha.

Eng 110

I probably put the least effort into this class, but as far as I can see it’ll be my best grade.  I’m thinking I need more arts classes next semester to save my gpa from a downward spiral.  *No hate to arts students* I just do better in those courses than science*  I found with this class that when I went with the flow I did better.  On the first in class essay I tried to be bold and do Freud instead of keeping it safe and doing Jekyll and Hyde like everyone else.  Not a smart idea being that it was the first essay I’d written in like a year.  I had a bunch of grammatical problems, but I made up for it on the second midterm and the final.  As for my grade, I’m satisfied.  But eng 112 sounds much more my style.

Bio 121

SMH.  My by far favorite course, and by some freak accident one of my lower grades.  My professor tests are short answer/cheat sheet, and all the others are multiple choice no cheat sheet.  Honestly, I really enjoyed my professor, he rapped the evolution song!  But I feel like the TA’s were so incredibly strict with marking, not just on me but everyone.  And the professor has a really laid back attitude always telling us, “dont worry about the details, understand the concepts, this is not a memorization course. ”  Well..when I go indept on a question and get 4/8 because you wanted more specifics(atleast from the answer key it appeared this way) then you can’t really tell us not to worry about the details, because thats whats on the answer key, details.  This can be such a frustrating course, but the classes are the BEST.  I don’t think I was ever bored in that class.  You learn a lot of cool things, but I think I got the hang of the course way too late.  I got the hang of the final lol.  I think I did  well on that.

LFS 100

Kind of an introductory course, really helpful information, not much more to say about it.

Finals Season….

Does everyone seem a bit more stressed lately?  Well Finals are about to hit!  I have my first one on Tuesday, Chem, and strangely enough it’s the one I’m least worried about.  Probably because I know if you study Chem well enough, do all the problems in the CHirp (chem 121 book) then you’ll do well.  Physics on the other hand has become a nightmare.  I try the hardest in that class, and still manage to never meet my goal.  This brings up the option of Prep 101.  Pro:  it’s suppose to fill you in and pretty much teach you a whole course in 12 hours.  Con:  over 100 dollars!  Now I don’t mind paying this for a potential better grade in Physics, It’s the risk that worries me. What if it isn’t that helpful, thats 12 hours of my time I could been studying by myself !?  And at UBC 12 hours is valuable when you always feel like your running out of time.  Not only that but it’d be a waste of money as well.  So if ANYONE has done Prep 101, how much did it help you?  And do you need to have a good grasp on all the concepts before going?  I say this because I know i’ve heard some people say there going cause they don’t understand anything and failed previous midterms.  So if people couldn’t understand the subject in a whole semester how are they suppose to get it in 12 hours?  But in times of desperation, getting prep 101 for phys 101 is very tempting.

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