Time for a rant
Thursday, March 30, 2006
When did time decide to rewind itself back to stoneage? I seem to have missed the transition. Wait...what do you say...it has NOT gone back to stoneage? Then why the F#$% is my "Modern controls" professor hellbent on giving midterms that do not allow a calculator. No, not just graphing calculators (which I understand are more powerful than your average computer sometimes ) but *any* calculators.
Im mad because this is a course that I had previously done in AUS and it wasnt a least bit of trouble because I had the company of my trusty calculator. For the uninitiated in Electrical Engineering, "Modern Control" deals in electrical systems in general and their stability. The problem is that most of the course depends on complex trigonometric calculations along with magnitudes, arguments and manipulation of complex functions.
I believe that with all the genius of mankind, if there is a simple invention that helps people do these computations in a fraction of a time than it would take to do them manually, then why make them sit and scratch their head over something as simple as 'tan 50' (yes I was trying to figure this one out in my exam). While studying for the exam and doing the HW not once did I have to sit there thinking about such trivial things because the course is not MATH or TRIG, its fricking CONTROL and should just test us on those concepts.
Ok, he gave us some common trig angles as a supplementary sheet, but why do that? In a pressure cooker situation, the brain sometimes picks out the wrong value from the table and there goes your two page long solution because your answer to part (a) was just off by some tenths of the degree. Does the real world offer no calculators when doing this stuff as a job?
My other gripe over this same exam is probably a case of weak mindedness, I think. Fighting an oncoming headache from all the number crunching, I was barely finishing the paper on time (yup, the bastard made sure we had no time to revise) when my eye just caught a glimpse of the solution of a particular problem (a graphical one, root locus, if anybody asks) of the person in front me (no I wasnt trying to look, just cracking my neck) . Needless to say it was different than mine. Now I wouldnt care two hoots if it was somebody else, but this guy was Chinese and knowing their track record, my feeble mind couldnt help but doubt my half hour's hard work. Luckily (as I found out later that I was right) I didnt have enough time to even glance over my solutions as a revision so I had to leave it unchanged (although at that time I felt all hope was lost).
If you fell asleep half way through my rant or my atrocious grammer offends you, heres the low down on this post, **I effing hate my Controls professor, bloody stoneaged bastard.**
Thank you for bearing with me.
P.S: On a cheery note, the temperature hits the 20C/70F mark today. Time to bring out the summer clothes :D
at 06:50
Somewhere in India, Zahabiya's head is exploding. How she'd gloat if she heard about this!
You should do a course in financial derivatives... then wonder why you even bothered with the major alone, and the curse the German bastards who spawned your professor, then curse the american twit who hired him, and then curse the chair for assigning him to the course.
Then, if you have time, curse the weather... it's sunny, cloudy, dusty, rainy, hot and sunny all in the space of one day... 4 seasons in 1 day... gimme a break
i have new found respect for you. i dont even member wth 'tan' is or any nonsense like that. at least u got thru it. i hate profs like that....i bet they do it bc either they have sorry lives and are letting it out on us kiddos or they are just plain evil...
Ai! You have my sympathies... I can't imagine functioning without a calculatorlhe last time I used log books and trig tables was in 10th grade. Hope you do well despite everything!
Man, log books were so cool (I don't know why), but I've gotten fatted with my calculator. And as if that wasn't enough, then I was introduced to MATLAB, not that I use it to even a fraction of it's full potential, but it makes life a hell load easier!
If it makes you feel any better, I'm doing ELE 251 with, well, one of the control profs (not the good one). Yeah, I'm doing machines, not only am I doing machines, I'm doing it with Him, and yesterday was the last drop day! JOY!!!
Word verification: icuqbmb
"ICQ bomb?"
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