I love College.

[Garawr]

I had some form of these finals for like 8 semesters straight...

Calculus
Organic Chemistry
Physics
Chemical Engineering
Computers

don't you love it!

That sounds like my last semester.

 

[Ranchman]

Just think of the poor profs who have to score all those exams and critique those papers - I know many pawn them off on their assistants but I never do - it takes days and days and days to do a decent and fair job, and we are constantly hounded by students at our office doors... "Have you read my paper yet, Dr.?"

Good Luck on your exams and papers and projects guys!!

 

[LilBit]

Just think of the poor profs who have to score all those exams and critique those papers - I know many pawn them off on their assistants but I never do - it takes days and days and days to do a decent and fair job, and we are constantly hounded by students at our office doors... "Have you read my paper yet, Dr.?"

Good Luck on your exams and papers and projects guys!!

At my school, grades are due 72 hours after the final exam. Except when the registrar fucks up and schedules graduation too close to exam week. I had 36 hours to grade my exams. Fortunately, it was a small class, but some other people weren't so lucky.

 

[Absolut]

I miss college.

I don't, however, miss finals. What a waste of time and unnecessary stress.

 

[justsimon]

At my school, grades are due 72 hours after the final exam. Except when the registrar fucks up and schedules graduation too close to exam week. I had 36 hours to grade my exams. Fortunately, it was a small class, but some other people weren't so lucky.

That sounds stressful, but it must be nice for the students.

 

[PabloZed]

Imagine writing papers before computers - typing and lots of white-out. Imagine researching in libraries and using books.

 

[justsimon]

Imagine researching in libraries and using books.

I still do that.

 

[Jory]

me no smart fur skool

 

[Jersey Domino]

Political Science Term Paper - 5/15
Statistics Exam - 5/19
Physical Science Term Paper - 5/20
Anthropology Exam - 5/20
Political Science Exam - 5/22

Gonna be so much fun.

Man when I opened this thread I thought it was gonna be about that Asher Roth song.

Oh and I just took the ONLY final I had Thursday and I did pretty well(I think) so I'm in the clear.

 

[Blatino]

I miss college.

I don't, however, miss finals. What a waste of time and unnecessary stress.

Sooo true! but I guess employers have to have SOME way of determining who's better and who to hire.

 

[relaxin13]

Today was the last day of classes in my undergrad physics career. I have two finals, one Thursday and one Friday. I have yet to decide what I want to do next, but am thinking about finishing up a math degree, and my dad seems to think I should go to law school, so that is on my mind as well.

First thing I'm going to do, though, is take a little bit of a break. Good luck with your finals/papers/everything...

 

[Ekim23]

Done with finals...back home in CT for the Summer....miss my friends and getting used to living with the whole family again

Connecticutttttttttttttt FTW

oops srry LOL

 

[treanir]

Imagine researching in libraries and using books.

*looks at massive stack of books next to him*
I don't like internet research much. Unless it's on JSTOR/MUSE (massive collections of scanned journals) or for something very minor/only tangentially related, I prefer a book over a website any day.

I have only one final this semester. But then again, I'm also writing my Master's dissertation, so it evens out.
Good luck Garawr. I'd offer to come help you out, but *ahem* I doubt you'd get much work done.

 

[Kulindahr]

Political Science Term Paper - 5/15
Statistics Exam - 5/19
Physical Science Term Paper - 5/20
Anthropology Exam - 5/20
Political Science Exam - 5/22

Gonna be so much fun.

I see you haven't learned on of the most important lessons you should from college -- actually, a set of them:

don't wait till the due date
don't let stuff stack up on you
stay ahead of the game


One reason I managed to graduate with honors was that from the start, I was determined I was going to let things drift so that when I got to the end of a term I was scrambling like an ant climbing a sliding sand dune. My first rule was simple: if any term papers don't require knowing everything in the course to finish, do them at the start of the term! The second was to assign a piece of the term to each paper, with another simple rule: have all term papers done two weeks before finals, finishing them a week apart. Yes, sometimes something I learned in a course meant altering a paper, but that was simple editing.

Sure, sometimes when everyone was dashing out for pizza or something, I'd be staying at my desk working on a paper or project. But when finals time came, I was actually studying for finals, and getting sleep, while everyone around me was slapping together papers in a rush, trying to get something down on hardcopy that would at least let them pass.

Unless you're brilliant beyond measure, odds are than a rushed paper will be a half- to full-letter grade lower than it could have been, and studying for finals while finishing papers will mean at least one course will bring you a grade a full step below what you could have had.

A further comment on studying for finals: to be effective, that's something you should do every day of the term; when finals time comes, you should be just revisiting the confusing and difficult stuff. I learned an easy trick: every day I had a certain class, that evening I'd read through the entire term's notes -- just read them, don't try to memorize or anything -- and mark one spot I didn't quite get for asking a grad assistant to explain. By the time finals came along, I practically had the term's notes memorized, without trying, and instead of frantically trying to cram data into my head, I could spend time polishing my understanding.

 

[Kulindahr]

Imagine researching in libraries and using books.

I can't imagine any courses I took where I could have done research online, except introductory courses. In geology, physics, chemistry, botany, oceanography, education, and even phys ed, papers had to refer to up-to-date material in professional journals and other respectable publications. Rarely was any of that online, and generally then only in summary form.

My housemates in business courses said the same thing: research had to be up-to-date, and that meant using the library. Information from books had to be cited properly, with footnotes indicating the page, and a bibliography detailing all the standard information -- title, author, publisher, publication date, place of publication, edition....

Further, I can't recall any course where a footnote referencing a web site would have been acceptable; more likely, it would have meant my paper just went in the trash -- and information without a citation meant a drop in grade, from most professors (we had a touchy-feely liberal in a geography sequence who let things slide, but there weren't many others).


What are you studying that you can get away with using what's online???

 

[treanir]

What are you studying that you can get away with using what's online???

Well, there's JSTOR, and MUSE, which are catalogues of a myriad of scholarly journals. And in my field (English literature) there's LION, which basically is a catalogue of rather old texts. Try finding an 18th-century treatise on curing syphilis without the internet - I would have to go to London for that...

And that made me think of another point: nowadays one is expected to have a broader selection of sources, thanks to the internet. Libraries no longer carry journals and books that can be found online (an increasing number), so one would have to use the internet for that. In addition, rare and old texts can now be scanned and used by everyone.

I don't see any merit in using Wikipedia or personal homepages as a citable source, but there are plenty of very trusted sources out there. Aforementioned journal catalogues are one, but a company's or organisation's website can be useful. I have, for example, quoted from the GMHC (Gay Men's Health Crisis) website for my dissertation. One could also think of a company's press releases or the like. These are areas where the internet can be useful.

 

[Kulindahr]

Well, there's JSTOR, and MUSE, which are catalogues of a myriad of scholarly journals. And in my field (English literature) there's LION, which basically is a catalogue of rather old texts. Try finding an 18th-century treatise on curing syphilis without the internet - I would have to go to London for that...

And that made me think of another point: nowadays one is expected to have a broader selection of sources, thanks to the internet. Libraries no longer carry journals and books that can be found online (an increasing number), so one would have to use the internet for that. In addition, rare and old texts can now be scanned and used by everyone.

I don't see any merit in using Wikipedia or personal homepages as a citable source, but there are plenty of very trusted sources out there. Aforementioned journal catalogues are one, but a company's or organisation's website can be useful. I have, for example, quoted from the GMHC (Gay Men's Health Crisis) website for my dissertation. One could also think of a company's press releases or the like. These are areas where the internet can be useful.

Back in '90 I could have found and gotten an 18th-century treatise without going to London, thanks to inter-library reference services. We had no trouble discovering the existence of materials in libraries in other countries, or getting copies of them.

What we did have trouble with was getting anything up-to-date, and as far as I can tell that hasn't changed: when I want information from journals in the last year, I have to subscribe, or pay a fee, to see them online, while at the library I just pick them off the shelf, or if they aren't present, find what library has one, or get a copy zapped from another library. As for recent scholarly books, I have yet to find any of them on-line; publishers like to get paid for what they print, and the best that's out there are excerpts, which are of little use in most cases.

Last time I was at OSU, they carried a lot more journals than when I was there, not fewer. Some of those had additional articles online, but again you had to subscribe or pay a fee... which just made things harder, not easier, for students.

BTW, I can't think of any discipline where a company's press releases would be of any value, unless maybe you're in communications and studying the techniques of propaganda!

 

[treanir]

Back in '90 I could have found and gotten an 18th-century treatise without going to London, thanks to inter-library reference services. We had no trouble discovering the existence of materials in libraries in other countries, or getting copies of them.

The thing with the internet is that because it's available online, libraries won't carry it any more. There's still the option of getting books from another library, though - I use it quite often!

My uni has a long list of online databases that come in handy sometimes. Still, I too rely mostly on books. Like I said before: I like looking things up in those instead of on the net.

 

[Puzuzzu]

I thought they were the scores..LOL

 

[heartfly77]

I am sure glad those days are long and gone. I did pretty well in college. However, schoolwork will never be what I remember about college. Most of the time, I learned the information to pass the test. I hardly remember much about some subjects, including those in my major.

Good luck to all of you who have papers and finals!