mundanity

[godream]

Got calculus test back. Was happy. Took chemistry test. Got chemistry test back. Was moderately unhappy.

It's interesting, though. According to the professor, understanding the concepts should get you a 50%, and that's his bare minimum passing grade. The other half is all in the execution. Or something like that. At which point my brain says "but, but, 50% == bad, not passing" and explodes in a small messy heap. I ended up with a seventy, by the way, which is therefore passing by a pretty decent margin, and which I probably deserved. And -- well, now we get into the typical mit freshman stuff -- I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've gotten a test score this bad (is it bad?) and have fingers left over. On the other hand, first semester is pass/no record, and this is squarely in the former bracket, under the category of "good enough". No one except me (and, uh, everyone reading this) will ever know if I aced 3.091 or just barely slid by. In theory this means I shouldn't stress, and I'm not, much. I am though sort of stressing about the fact that I'm not stressing -- shouldn't I be taking this a little more seriously? Oh well.

In the same vein, I have a paper to do for MAS.110, and I should be studying for this evening's physics test, and I'm totally consumed by apathy with regards to the letter and partially with the former. Everyone said my terrible high school study habits would screw me over in college. How come it isn't happening yet? Guess I'm still kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop or whatever. Which probably comes next semester when I'm on actual grades. :P

Comments

[minttown1.livejournal.com]

Everyone said my terrible high school study habits would screw me over in college. How come it isn't happening yet?
I don't know, but it isn't happening to me yet, either. I guess we should just be grateful for now. :)

[jessiehl.livejournal.com]

You should remember that at MIT, with the exception of a few classes, things are graded on a curve rather than with absolute grading. So your prof probably designed the test in such a way that 50 was an adequate score, and you shouldn't think "no, bad!" when your actual numbers are much lower than you're used to. In high school, there's more grade inflation - decent students are expected to get As and Bs - and there's an absolute scale; for example, in my high school an 86 was the lower limit for a B. So the tests were designed that an 86, rather than a 50, would represent adequate understanding of the material.

The point of pass/fail is so freshmen don't jump out their windows first term. My first term, there were classes I passed by a reasonable margin, but it was all I could do to pass 5.112. If you are doing well for now, enjoy it, but don't get overconfident, because classes can turn on you all of a sudden. I've known people to get an A on a first test and fail the class, and people (me, in 7.013) to fail the first test and get an A in the class.

Also keep in mind that "pass" means something significant here. It's not a given, like in high school, or at Harvard, or what have you. When I took 8.01, 11% of my class didn't pass, and these are some of the brightest kids in the country.

And by the way, I'm about to friend you, so that you can read the cool parts of my LJ, both from before and in the future. :-) Just remember that when I lock an entry, there's a reason for it - the contents shouldn't be public knowledge.

[godream.livejournal.com]

It's so weird how none of these percentage grades mean the same things anymore -- the idea of being overconfident after having gotten a 70 is such a weird one that maybe half of my problem is getting used to the concept that that's realistic?

And by the way, I'm about to friend you, so that you can read the cool parts of my LJ, both from before and in the future. :-) Just remember that when I lock an entry, there's a reason for it - the contents shouldn't be public knowledge.
Woohoo! Will keep that in mind. :) I just read a few entries, and wow -- I figured there must be pretty serious organization and planning going on to run those activities, and it's really interesting reading about some of that stuff that goes on behind the scenes.

[godream.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a plan. :)