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.
Are you really willing to do a 85:15 School:Life split?
MATH 100, 102, and 104 have the same curriculum. They just attract different students. Ie. MATH 180 might attract weaker students because it’s advertised as the pre-calculus math.
On CHEM, I wouldn’t say last year had it easier compared to you. Generally doing past years’ finals will seem easier than writing your actual one. However, it’s often due to things such as time and pressure as opposed to the material covered.
I know what you mean about BIOL being your favorite course but your worst mark. That’s my dilemma right now. All the courses I love most I’m sucking most at because they don’t test what I think is important–the big picture instead of picky details.
Not really a lot of things covered in 100/180 arent covered in the others thats why i could never get help from people in 102, 104, etc. eg. slant asymptotes, taylor polynomials, maclaurin polynomials, lagrange remainder theorem, and these were my worst topics 🙁 i would have switched back in a heartbeat had these things came up earlier.
for chem i timed myself, but factoring the stress of the actual test should deduct like 5-10% bleh
I believe there are a couple of things covered in MATH 102 that aren’t covered in MATH 100 as well. I think the differences are there only because they’re more relevant to that specific math stream (physical sciences vs life sciences vs social sciences).
Yeah I noticed 102 was doing like slope fields. With 103/105 which do you think is the more easier route?
I don’t know which is easier. I think generally MATH 103 has a higher average (if that describes anything at all… …some people think it can be used to judge “easiness”), but I think MATH 105 only has a lower average because that’s the math that people who struggle with math generally take (thus, because it has a concentrate of weaker math students, it has a lower average).