(no subject)
I HATE CALCULUS!!!
Tomorrow is my calculus final exam, and if I pass the course, NO MORE CALCULUS EVER!!! It has been an agonizing past four semesters (two semesters of calculus I, and two of calculus II--they are only one semester courses, though), and I fucking loath it. This semester was going alright, in fact, pretty good (83% and 70.5% on my first two term tests, a big improvement from the 41% I received last term on the first term test), and I finally got the hang of integration and was pretty comfortable with the various techniques of integration that baffled me last semester. So I have to admit that I wasn't totally hating calculus with all my being, until we got to Sequences and Series. I just don't fucking get it.
Sequences and series is this section that is crammed into the last few weeks of the course, and it is just too damn much! My brain has shut down, and I can not absorb anymore calculus. Also, I don't think it has any applications unless your major is math or physics, yet everyone must suffer. Can't they just cut this crap out and make all the math and physics students take a separate course?
And sequences and series is just so damn boring. Who cares if a series converges or diverges?! Not me! You do all this work, and at the end, you have an answer, but it's so anticlimactic. "The limit is one/zero/infinity, therefore by the [such and such] test, the series converges/diverges". Whoop-dee-doo! At least when you take the integral of a function, the answer is somewhat interesting, or at the very least, the answers vary. Determining whether or not a sequence converges or diverges is like having sex with my husband: it takes 10 to 15 minutes, it's agonizing and boring, and when you're done, it's such a letdown.
I understand that calculus is a tough course and that people are going to struggle (unless you're a super genius like Physics Boy or Dave), but something is wrong with the course if average students can barely pass. They really need to change the course, because it is fucking ridiculous. The amount of work for the course is absurd (I don't mind having to do a lot of homework, but it's very frustrating when you spend hours and still have no clue what's going on), and there is not enough time to thoroughly learn and absorb the material. The best you can hope for is to memorize a bunch of formulas and then plug and chug (a strategy that worked well in physics, but we were given the formulas). And that's another thing: this course relies too much on memory. What's the fucking value in memorizing that the integral of cscX is ln|cscX - cotX| ? Give us a break and just give us the damn integral! Not knowing that integral does not mean I don't know how to integrate--it just means I don't know that integral, but that doesn't matter on a test; I'd still get zero. I can understand how memorizing that integral would come in very handy if you were on Jeopardy! and the "answer" was "ln|cscX - cotX|". But what are the chances?
The last term test was on sequences and series, and I just could not study for it. My brain was on overload (I'd get physically exhausted after doing only a few questions), and I was so busy with chemistry. Because I had done well on the other two tests and this one was worth only 10% (the other two were worth 22.5%), my plan was to blow this test, and hope I do well enough on the final to pass the course. I was almost tempted to not even write the test and just get a zero, because a zero is a zero, whether or not you write the test. Well, just as I predicted, I failed miserably: 12%. I left the majority of the questions blank, and only attempted a few questions. Apparently, four people got over 90%, but despite that, the class average was 47%. Clearly, many people totally bombed the test as well.
On Wednesday, the last day of class, we did a teacher and course evaluation. I gave the teacher a good mark, but gave the course itself a bad mark. (There were questions asking about work load, pacing of the course, etc.) Hopefully other people complained about the course, and hopefully they will consider revising it. As of now, the amount of material we have to learn in the allotted amount of time is fucking ridiculous. Some of my suggestions were to cut out the sequences and series crap, and to have three lectures a week instead of two.
Is it really fair that I should be prevented from getting a degree in microbiology because I can not figure out the fucking radius of convergence or change a function into a Taylor polynomial? I know enough of the basics of integral calculus to get by, yet it is fucking sequences and series that will determine my future. When I was talking to my teacher, I told him to keep in mind when he's assigning our final grade that I have greatly improved over last term (he was my teacher last term) and can now integrate, and that I am not pursuing a math or physics degree.
Well, I better get to bed, as my exam is at 8:30am.
Tomorrow is my calculus final exam, and if I pass the course, NO MORE CALCULUS EVER!!! It has been an agonizing past four semesters (two semesters of calculus I, and two of calculus II--they are only one semester courses, though), and I fucking loath it. This semester was going alright, in fact, pretty good (83% and 70.5% on my first two term tests, a big improvement from the 41% I received last term on the first term test), and I finally got the hang of integration and was pretty comfortable with the various techniques of integration that baffled me last semester. So I have to admit that I wasn't totally hating calculus with all my being, until we got to Sequences and Series. I just don't fucking get it.
Sequences and series is this section that is crammed into the last few weeks of the course, and it is just too damn much! My brain has shut down, and I can not absorb anymore calculus. Also, I don't think it has any applications unless your major is math or physics, yet everyone must suffer. Can't they just cut this crap out and make all the math and physics students take a separate course?
And sequences and series is just so damn boring. Who cares if a series converges or diverges?! Not me! You do all this work, and at the end, you have an answer, but it's so anticlimactic. "The limit is one/zero/infinity, therefore by the [such and such] test, the series converges/diverges". Whoop-dee-doo! At least when you take the integral of a function, the answer is somewhat interesting, or at the very least, the answers vary. Determining whether or not a sequence converges or diverges is like having sex with my husband: it takes 10 to 15 minutes, it's agonizing and boring, and when you're done, it's such a letdown.
I understand that calculus is a tough course and that people are going to struggle (unless you're a super genius like Physics Boy or Dave), but something is wrong with the course if average students can barely pass. They really need to change the course, because it is fucking ridiculous. The amount of work for the course is absurd (I don't mind having to do a lot of homework, but it's very frustrating when you spend hours and still have no clue what's going on), and there is not enough time to thoroughly learn and absorb the material. The best you can hope for is to memorize a bunch of formulas and then plug and chug (a strategy that worked well in physics, but we were given the formulas). And that's another thing: this course relies too much on memory. What's the fucking value in memorizing that the integral of cscX is ln|cscX - cotX| ? Give us a break and just give us the damn integral! Not knowing that integral does not mean I don't know how to integrate--it just means I don't know that integral, but that doesn't matter on a test; I'd still get zero. I can understand how memorizing that integral would come in very handy if you were on Jeopardy! and the "answer" was "ln|cscX - cotX|". But what are the chances?
The last term test was on sequences and series, and I just could not study for it. My brain was on overload (I'd get physically exhausted after doing only a few questions), and I was so busy with chemistry. Because I had done well on the other two tests and this one was worth only 10% (the other two were worth 22.5%), my plan was to blow this test, and hope I do well enough on the final to pass the course. I was almost tempted to not even write the test and just get a zero, because a zero is a zero, whether or not you write the test. Well, just as I predicted, I failed miserably: 12%. I left the majority of the questions blank, and only attempted a few questions. Apparently, four people got over 90%, but despite that, the class average was 47%. Clearly, many people totally bombed the test as well.
On Wednesday, the last day of class, we did a teacher and course evaluation. I gave the teacher a good mark, but gave the course itself a bad mark. (There were questions asking about work load, pacing of the course, etc.) Hopefully other people complained about the course, and hopefully they will consider revising it. As of now, the amount of material we have to learn in the allotted amount of time is fucking ridiculous. Some of my suggestions were to cut out the sequences and series crap, and to have three lectures a week instead of two.
Is it really fair that I should be prevented from getting a degree in microbiology because I can not figure out the fucking radius of convergence or change a function into a Taylor polynomial? I know enough of the basics of integral calculus to get by, yet it is fucking sequences and series that will determine my future. When I was talking to my teacher, I told him to keep in mind when he's assigning our final grade that I have greatly improved over last term (he was my teacher last term) and can now integrate, and that I am not pursuing a math or physics degree.
Well, I better get to bed, as my exam is at 8:30am.