October 17, 2002

Midterm Review (Of Sorts)

So check this out: EE midterm coming up and we get some review problems (a week before the midterm) but no solutions, because we are to try to solve them. Well, that's just great—so what we are really doing here is doing problems and have no way of telling whether we are doing them correctly or not. Why not look at the homework and see what you did wrong, and then do the review problems?? Well, HAVEN'T gotten a SINGLE homework back in 8.5 weeks of school!! Oh OK. All right. Use the book to try and figure out if we are doing the problems right or wrong. Wait, the book has no problems or examples anywhere near the difficulty of the problems assigned, nor does it use the same conventions or notation. Meaning? That's right, you guessed it...entirely useless. Well, let me be clear: I have tried to do the review problems and now it is 12:30 a.m. on the night before the exam, and I would like to know if what I spent many hours doing is correct or just completely off so I can brace myself for failure (because at this point, it doesn't even matter if I realize I don't know how to do a certain problem, because it's to late to do anything about it). BUT wait, I can't even brace myself...why?? NO SOLUTIONS...NOT ONE SINGLE PROBLEM. All the review sessions were scheduled so they conflict with OTHER classes' midterm reviews & midterms themselves. HOW?? Well, I knew where & when my CS review was going to be the first day of class. How did EE get scheduled at the same time when more than half the people in EE are also in the same CS as me, and more importantly, WHY!? So what does this all mean?? This means one simple thing...I am going to go into this test completely unaware of how well I know/understand the material, because there are no resources to indicate to me ANYTHING. This is rather frustrating because in a subject such as EE (i.e., MATH & PHYSICS), having review problems with no solutions is even worse than having no problems at all. And it's not like there is any excuse either! Solutions could be posted the same time as problems, and we could take it upon ourselves to try the problems or not, instead of being force fed high school crap such as try the problems so you won't cheat. WHY THE HELL WOULD ANY ONE CHEAT ON REVIEW PROBLEMS THAT ARE ENTIRELY OPTIONAL?? Does that make sense AT ALL??? What is the harm in posting the solutions at the same time as the problems, so we can check our answers rather than solve the problem in the way we think and pretend that we know that this is the right way to solve the problem. And now, to study for math.