Journal #8374

OMG Good Will Hunting math! <RUNS>

Im an engineer, not for long I think though

How much did you ACTUALLY study for this exam?

I'm doing aircraft engineering, although I had a maths exam on Wednesday that I think I screwed up as well. There were three questions, and we had to do two of them. Due to nerves I forgot the very first step (and only the first step) for one of the ones I had intended to do, and so couldn't do it. I had to do the question that I had not prepared for at all, and ended up getting that question very wrong.

I think part of engineering is screwing some things up. Including your exams. There are things I studied last year that have simply vanished from my mind.
Also, I found out that most of engineering is not about hard math. It's about knowing a lot of things, and combining those things.

This test doesn't look that hard, but because I forgot most of Physics and AP from last year it looks crazy.

Stojke, I've been at the university library pretty much every day for the last couple weeks.
We've just not been taught the course. We've been taught examples of questions and a few things like how to deal with dot products, cross products, determinants, matrices and that shit. Same with differential equations. But we've not been taught what any of it means or represents so it's really, really hard for us. Like literally, they've just taught us examples, not the actual theory behind it. Most of us came out the exam entirely confident we'd failed.

Who the hell lets you scan exam pages? I'm quite sure I'd be frowned at if I was even seen taking pictures of it with my phone. Where are A*, B3, and B4?

I could (maybe) do B1(a). The answer to the rest would be "Fuck You". In bolder lettering each time.

This is why I quit engineering and moved over to Architecture.

Ah, another case of a professor who doesn't give a fuck.
But still, is it really that hard for you guys? I mean, there are resources everywhere on the net :/

When we here study for things we gather up information and than solve different things and help out each other who don't understand.

I know you have the potential to pass this, every one does.
When i study i start from the most basic of tasks that need to be done to complete an task. Than move on up to more complex tasks and read on why is something required to be done as it is done to get the solution. To understand what i am actually doing. After that i do a few runs on my own and get another set of tasks to complete as well.

I'm sure you live in another dimension where you can put time on pause. Most of us don't have the ability to focus that easily.

I live in a dimension where i think about what can i pass with out torturing my self and only apply to those subjects.
If you already applied to all subjects that you well know you wont be able to pass don't blame any one but your self, it wont solve anything.

Stojkens = brainiac, this is well known

How many years of math(after PreCalc) do you need to understand this stuff?

I found physics/chemistry/maths EXTREMELY boring, but now later in life i think i could have a genuine appreciation for it.. IDK

Discostu, we were permitted to take the exam questions out of the exam hall after the exam had finished.
Stojke, its very much a case of a shit professor. She's not gone to the effort to recommend us any external materials and actually stated to not buy any other books or anything. Weve got a handful of workbooks but they've just got really really shit content. It'll state 2 or 3 things, then go "from this we can get" and plonks out a seemingly random convuleted equation with little to no explanation as to what it actually means or represents. Its then followed by only 1 worked example which has no explanations as to what is happening at each stage, so youve just to guess or make a rough assumption. Its a very, very poorly organised course.

The only things I can apply to that first question is that-
Dot product represents projection of one vector onto another
That being u.v = |u||v|cos theta
As u is a unit vector, |u| = 1.
The angle between uv & uw is the same, and as v has the same magnitude as w,
U.v = u.w
Therefore u.v + u.w = 2 (u.v)
U (v +w) = 2 (u.v)
And thats pretty much all I did for the first one.
If you could divide by u and take v onto the other side, itd work out, but ive No idea why 2 (u.v) is multiplied by u...

When you assume you make an ass out of u and v.

/irrelevant pun

Stojke, I don't get to choose my subjects. They're all compulsory.

But you did choose the college and to study it.
Get some responsibilities and priorities.

ITT: Stojke is still a butthead

I fully understand his feelings, but what is there to say.
You can not rush into life with out thinking about anything and complain later .
Cornholio.

Considering the amount of effort I've actually put into trying to learn this peice of shit, I'm going to take that as an insult, stojke.

"You can not rush into life"
I'd like to dispute this statement. Not necessarily the truth of it, but the arrogance behind it. Not everyone has the liberty of knowing exactly what they want to do when they leave school (or otherwise change direction) no matter how much thought they've put into it. More so, not everyone has the liberty of actually being able to do what they want to do due to circumstance.

I personally didn't know what I wanted to do after school. Based purely on the fact I had achieved reasonably well during school, I went into university to study Multimedia Design. After roughly two years, I can now confidently say I wouldn't make the same decision. Besides, how was I to know whether or not I would enjoy the experience unless I did it? How dull would life be if we knew exactly what we wanted to do, and spent our whole lives following that course? Ever heard the phrase "life is a journey, not a destination"?

More on topic, while I have generally enjoyed my university experience, there are some aspects of what I'm studying that I have not. We can choose the general subject we study, but there are many courses that must be completed to progress, covering many different areas. If you have to do 24 courses and struggle with 1 of them, I wouldn't say that's justification to abandon the idea of following that subject as a whole, which sure sounds like what you're implying.

@ Instant Mix
You wouldn't get offended if some one said - i like my coffee with suggar, than why get offended with some thought inducing sentence?
It should be clear the older you are that the way some people made things today is not gonna benefit every one and you need to be prepared for those things. Bad schooling system where professors and teachers dont spend enough time with their students is one.
I personally had too much theory and too little practice more than 90% of my schooling and hated it. That got me into thinking that i should do things my self and inform on what to expect in the future from what professor/term.
Some things i don't even like to do, like for example Java Script, but i still sat down and practiced only to make it easier to finish that term and be able to invest more time into something else.
Being aware that you can not score 100% on something if you don't understand it enough should be familiar to every one.
Even though i can easily understand practical problems i always had trouble with social science like sociology, economics and mother language. I found it extremely annoying and time taking to study it. Especially sociology and similar terms where they write about things like humans know nothing about anything. I felt retarded reading that. But i clenched my teeth and tried to give it enough understanding just to get an passing grade of 55/100.
I failed a few times on those terms, even though i did try to study it, but in the end i focused a lot of my free time just to get it over with. Some of those things from economics are very important for personal business and i am glad i did study a bit of that.
It might seem absurd that some one can get vectors and formula logic pretty easily but be a total "butthead" about something as simple as Sociology and Economics where you just need to hard learn all the shit thats written, but i hate to study something that has so little logic in common with me. It is annoying. Example (or a try to write one )

• Humans in groups are called an society.

No fucking shit its called an society, but why should i write it like that, why do i have to study all those annoying terms and not use my own words?
The logic in math is to learn how to write it, but what ever way you take to get the solution doesn't matter as long as the calculation is correct. Over time you will improve efficiency.

You can not rush into life is just an random sentence that makes sense only if you take a look at what is happening around you.
Too much people confused with what should they do with them selfs, too much people thinking they should force rules upon you, too much people living off leaching others. Wrong people with power. You can get harmed for something absurd on every corner.
I also did not know what to do at start but i got a lot interest into electronics at a very young age, but nowhere and nobody could help me with that. I felt empty that i can not do what i like and that i have no resources to do it on my own. I lost interest into everything that i studied . But later in life i started thinking about it differently, and that is to walker pass by what i don't like to do to be able to do what i like to do.
I found that it is much more satisfying to help others understand that they can do what ever they like as their hobby than just to be destructive to everything and everyone because i didn't get what i want.

I very much understand how do you feel about all of these things that you NEED to study in order to do something you like, but dont lose your spirit if you didn't understand it at first.
You are still young and have a lot of time to give to many things. Relax and try again, try to understand others as well. You can't make it far alone.

"... it's very much a case of a shit professor. She's not gone to the effort to recommend us any external materials and actually stated to not buy any other books or anything."

Is she good looking? If so, there's a way to get back you know... >:D

TL;DR

Sorry Stu, next time i will draw it with crayons.

Suits you better