| corrections |
[Nov. 12th, 2006|05:16 pm] |
So I realized that my last entry (two months ago) was misleading. The classes I'm taking are totally different than my list two months ago would lead you to believe! Here's what I'm taking, complete with commentary on how they're going:
8.03 (Waves and Vibrations): I'm horrible at classical mechanics, awesome at the e&m portion. Also, Nick and Nelson are in the class. Also, Walter Lewin. The end.
8.033 (Relativity): Classes like this remind me why I'm a physics major. And give me hope! I have a feeling I'm going to do a lot better in higher-level physics classes than in the lower-level ones. I'm not sure why, although I noticed this trend before college too, that I tended to do a lot better as my classes got higher-level, probably because they also got a lot more interesting as they got harder, and my interest in a class is really a major factor in how well I do in it. Although I've also noticed the teaching of the class making a much bigger difference in college. I did fine even with really bad teachers in high school, but now I really need to actually enjoy the class and the teacher to do well in it. The point is, Tegmark is an amazing professor, recitation is occasionally helpful, and the class is *really* interesting. I'm doing well in it. Anyway, continuing...
12.003 (Physics of the Atmosphere and Ocean): Really really interesting, and with a hilariously insane teacher, but the kind that actually isn't that great at teaching. Also I don't start the psets on time, ever. So my grade is sorta up in the air for that...I should find out how I'm doing before drop date, since this is the class of choice to drop if I'm doing badly in it. (They hand back our problem sets with grades on them, but have totally neglected to tell us how our grades compare to everyone else's, so I have no idea how I'm actually doing in the class.)
12.102 (Environmental earth science): Boring, only marginally good teacher, not very interesting, made it Exploratory, unfortunately doing quite well in it. It would almost contradict my theories of what makes me learn, except that I'm not doing well in it because I've learned anything in the class, but rather because it has a lot of stuff based off other classes that Lanthe and I have collectively taken (for the psets) and because I was really good at bsing on the test -- in fact, the grader gave me half the points on my REALLY AWESOMELY done rock cycle that was detailed and based off 12.001 (geology), but lanthe got full points for what was literally a few scribbles. Anyway, I would drop this class, but as I said before, I made it exploratory. (Also, that horrible run-on sentence from two sentences ago...I'm sorry for everyone reading this. I wish I could still communicate effectively.)
3.986 (archaeology): It conflicts with 8.033, in that the last half hour of 8.033 overlaps with this class. So mostly I leave 8.033 early to go to this class, unless we're doing something *really cool* like deriving why space is expanding, or how you can unify the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces by using a certain metric and then considering different symmetries for the universe, or other similarly awesome things. Anyway, 3.986 is *really* fun. We've learned about the archaeology of the Middle East, and the reasons why agriculture first arose there, and how writing started, and how they invented mechanized farming equipment like automatic seeders, and lots of other fun stuff. Now we're studying Mesoamerica. All we've learned so far is that the Mesoamericans had very few large mammals for meat, so they bred huge fat chihuahuas for their meat. And stuffed them with corn. hehehe. I'm also doing quite well in the class, because it's interesting, my teacher is awesome and good, etc.
So I'm really posting this because I'm in a boring execcomm meeting...but now the meeting's over and my laptop is just about to run out of batteries. crap. Anyway, it's time for me to eat and tool tool tool. |
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
zellia's journal
sleepy
sick
hopeful
rejuvenated