Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

I will hopefully conclude my tale about finals week today. Details as to my somewhat prolonged absence are in the student friendly journal, so they will not be repeated here.

Just a few more complaints from Deiv's part as we wound down his consultation before the Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism lecture final exam.

First, he was asking if there was another way to get the currents in Kirchhoff's rules because he remembered that he didn't do so well in the Systems of N Equations in N Variables in Mathematical Methods One.

I just went through the list of methods for him (elimination, substitution, determinants) since it is a worn out "warning" to the students, especially those in engineering, that the topics there are merely tools that will be used - and extensively - in subsequent and advanced courses.

Second, he gave almost the same attempt at an argument about some equations (weight is equal to mass times acceleration due to gravity) I used in this term that are from the mechanics class last term, which I don't provide in the questionnaire. Little did he know at that time that their finals contained another such recollection (summation of forces equals mass times acceleration).

I reminded him that they are not supposed to forget all about the previous subjects once they are done with them. That is why they are called pre-requisites.

He also voiced his opinion about not knowing when to use what equation, and about providing the units and the meanings of the symbols. I told him that's the part that I expect them to study on, otherwise, the exam would just be open notes, and extremely more difficult. At least they don't have to use part of their brain for memorizing all of the formulas.

Maybe next time though, there will be a part about memorization of units, symbols and prefixes just so that they will keep them in mind and not take them for granted.

And even with all these tips, he still had a lot of questions during the exam, including about using a separate piece of paper for showing his trial and error method for the system of three equations in Kirchoff's Rules. I just told him to include in his submission all the pieces of paper he used.

Afterwards, he also complained that the time was not enough for answering all the questions I posted. That - I replied - is why I take the percentage over the highest score from the class, and not over the total number of points.

I will definitely be instituting a new rule next time he is my student, about our exam being like the one for their licensure, where they cannot ask questions of the proctors because they don't know anything, and they will have to rely on their own deductions as to some parts that are unclear.

Oh, yeah, and he wanted to get the letter back from his mother. I refused though. After all, it was addressed to me. I hope that will make him think twice next time about using the same tactic to talk to me.

Besides that, I also gave in during the last few minutes of the exam and wrote on the board the preliminary solving method using three by three matrices, without admitting that they needed only three by three matrices in the exam.

And with that, I'm done with finals week, which means that in the next entry, I can already give the statistics of passing and failures in my four classes this just concluded term.

I will also take this opportunity to say that I will be busy from Wednesday to Tuesday next week in a series of post-graduate talks by Swiss computer science professors in the country. Again, I will not be sure if I will have time to post before, during or immediately after those day-long seminars.

And session 739 gets its course card at this point as well. Class dismissed.