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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Got a "B" on an Exam Today

So I graduated from Purdue University not too long ago with an engineering degree.  I did very well, and have done well at work since then.  I recently decided to get my Master's degree in my spare time, so that is what I do when I'm not designing new product lines and testing them out, or performing research.  The thing I hate about getting my Master's is that I have to redo the things that I have already done years ago.  One course I am taking is a math course, focusing on upper level differential equations.  I took this same course at Purdue like four years ago, and got an A with no problems.  But this course is different.  It seems as if the professor likes math to be done his way, and not the traditional way.  So we had our first exam and I got a "B".  Not a big deal, but I usually do better.  Solving proofs is not, as I see it, the duty of an engineer.  Especially solving them without any reference material.  I hate closed book exams.  The way I see it, my job as an engineer is to apply these math concepts, and if I need to solve some equations, that is what I write Matlab and Excel programs for, or I can look them up in differential tables.  Oh well, the school is paying me to get my Master's, so I don't really care too much.  It is just something to do and gives me extra spending money on top of my work salary and patent income.  So I got a B... I have the rest of the semester to turn it into an A.  Or am I just being too picky?

8 comments:

  1. thanks for the vote. I just joined you
    Mr Monkey

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  2. I dunno... I'm still working on my bachelor's degree xD
    but really, I don't think it matters too much that you got a B rather than an A... considering you've gotten an A before, I think you'll manage your way back to an A as well this time around :)

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  3. Congrats, I was mainly a b/c student =]

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  4. I donno. B's are not bad. Im sure if you put the effort in you'll attain your A

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  5. being a C/B student,that would be a good grade for me :D

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  6. As a senior math undergrad I would say your right engineer's historically don't need the proofs. Nor do Chem, Bio or Econ people etc. And I'm kind of surprised grad school would do a closed book test on proofs. My Number theory class did closed everything tests but there was a good deal of computation; hence, it was possible to do well while missing some of the proofs. The A's required a great knowledge of the theorems. I only scored an A once. Math profs don't waiver on the need to be able to make the argument. If you wound up with a B then its still not all bad. I'm taking PDE next semester and I'll be shooting for the A the whole time so I understand that drive. Hope the class went well.

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