Feeling crappy...

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MopaR&D

MopaR&D

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Well as some of you may know I'm currently attending my freshman year at UCCS for a Mechanical Engineering degree. I'm taking Calculus 3 and Physics 2 and they're both pretty challenging but today I got really discouraged. This past Friday I took our second Unit Test (Partial Derivatives) in Calc and I thought I did great on it. I studied really hard and when I took the test I answered all the questions easily and completely. But when I got it back today I saw that I got a 72% !!!!! I haven't felt this bad about school since I was a little kid. I've gotten plenty of bad grades in the past but never this bad on something I put so much effort into. I know college isn't a joke like high school was but damn, I had no idea it could be this bad. I hope I can do better on the next test and the final for this class so I don't start off with a low GPA, but I'm not sure yet how exactly I'm going to do that. I'm also scared now as I have no idea how much harder the classes after these are going to be.
 
Don't let it get you down. If you knew it all, you wouldn't need to go to school right? You are there to learn. Study the returned test, find out what you did wrong and most likely a light bulb will go off. A year or even a few months from now this will all look so easy and you'll wonder how you ever got it wrong. At this stage it's more about the learning process than the content itself. Your professors know this.
 
Keep the chin up man and keep doing your thing. My classes for my senior year at my high school here are actually pretty hard since I am at a college prep school, so I know the feeling of getting a test back and thinking you did better than what's on the paper. All you can do is keep on goin.
 
Keep plugging along. Once in a while they will throw one at you that they don't intend on you doing good on!! Just think of it as though they are trying to beat you down before they build you up! It is one test, just keeping working and you will get better and do better!!
 
Must be going around. Just a small bump in the road of life. Do your best and try a little harder. The next one will be better. My 18 year old just started at Iowa State for computer engineering. High school was a breeze but college will be a challenge. (we were warned about that. His first calc test was a bust and
his calc grade sucks. I hope he buckles down and gives it the extra effort needed to bring his grade up. It's hard work but worth it in the end. Good luck and study hard! Keep your chin up. Work hard. You're a bright young man. toolmanmike
 
I wasn't lucky enough to get to go to college, but I do know you have to go to your professors' office hours. If I were you, I would take that test in to the prof and let them explain what you did wrong.

Remember, you are paying them to teach you, so if you aren't learning, they are doing something wrong.

And remember, there can be no highs without lows.
 
i never thought of it like that pedalpowerceo, i got to a private school, so tomorrow when i bomb my science exam, im gunna take it to him, and let him explain it to me ( i know im not in college), just keep truckin, you'll get there
 
Don't worry.. Just look at the returned test and it will probably be painfully obvious where you screwed up. I got a 45(luckly he will drop the lowest) on my first exam but it was because I messes up on my negative powers. I'd say you just missed one or two things that were on a couple problems.. Oh.. And watch for extra credit opportunities! They are a godsend! Most professors will help you out if you show that your trying hard. they want you to succeed and so do we!
 
Hey Kid, like everyone says, it's a bump in the road. It's a big deal now, but after you've got your degree, you'll almost have forgotten the grade on this test. Your degree doesn't throw up a red flag saying "Kid Bombed His Calc Test!" And bjkadron is right, when I had a problem in college, if I approached the teacher during office hours and showed him or her in earnest I really wanted to get this stuff figured out, they always helped me.
Best of luck!!!
 
Calculus is a bugger for sure. On the bright side ... you have your test back and can see what areas you need to focus on. Also don't be shy and make an appointment with the instructor to see if he/she can guide you in the right direction. I TA'd several classes during grad school and those students that actually took advantage of my office hours usually improved dramtically. And FYI, I think I got a B in calculus and that didn't stop me from going on to get a masters degree and now I'm back in school working on my PhD.
 
I was M.E. for BS and MS. Don't get discouraged. 72% isn't bad, it means you know most of the material. You must be bright to be in those classes your 1st quarter. Later engineering tests may have average scores of 60%. That isn't failing, just a challenging test that separates the workers from the whiners. We loved Calc III in Jr College because the prof was a retired civil engineer and could readily explain integrating pressure on a dam. The same concept to calculate Mean Effective Pressure in an engine cylinder. Perhaps you have a math dweeb like my Diff Eq prof who couldn't even derive the spring-mass oscillation.

The math doesn't get harder, except electives. Diff Eq is mostly learning little tricks that nobody uses today. Variational calculus is challenging but interesting. The problem with engineering is you don't start most classes until junior year, but maybe sooner since you are way ahead. Statics was amazingly easy. I got 100% on every test, with minimal effort, just Physics I again. I couldn't understand why others were flunking. Thermo was the most challenging, but also so interesting I switched to ME. ME mostly expands on classical Physics. You can focus on thermal/fluids (interesting) or structures (boring). ChE is just ME in a process plant and AE is just ME for aircraft. EE is the only one a bit different. I have worked as ChE, AE, and EE.
 
Thanks for the kind words guys. The real reason I was bummed was because I knew the material well but goofed up in some places (Algebra, calculation errors, etc.) and got burned for it. I still have one more unit test and a final for the class and can bring my grade up to a B if I do better on those. I really don't want to get a bad grade in the class because I'm planning on transferring schools (up to CU Boulder) next year and I want to have a strong GPA.

Maybe next semester I won't take an English class and just take math, science, and some easy electives. Maybe something cool like Astronomy...

EDIT: And BillGrissom, is Thermo really much harder than E&M? Some of that stuff is almost impossible to wrap your head around...
 
MIPEkidD-3,
I can't say I understood E&M or Optics well on the 1st pass. However, I later did research in Optics and taught Physics in college, and nothing like having to explain things to others to force an understanding. E&M has a fascinating history where each piece was discovered incrementally, once while lecturing in front of a class. Maxwell tied it all together in a small set of equations that predicted the speed of light, at a time before homes had electricity. Thermo developed over the same time, but towards practical applications of refrigeration and engines. In engineering, E&M stops at Physics except for EE's who go deeper into fields and waves. Thermo has always been more in engineering. You just skim it in Physics and Chemistry classes. It gets deeper in later engineering classes (run into Maxwell again), with heat transfer and fluids extending it. You have to know all of the above to understand automobiles, plus EE and software for modern engine controls. The guys who drag race know many things not in the textbooks, most learned empirically (trial and error), with lots of the later from bright ideas that didn't work.
 
Not ever going to collage myself I can't tell you too much about it however my son is a senior science major at a very good school. Your in the hardest part of collage right now the post-highschool freshman year. Stick with it your doing ok and you will get a better handle on it in time. Good luck to you.
 
Discouraged? You wanna hear about "discouraged?" I took a course in atmospheric physics, which was taught be a Dr. J. V. Geschwendtner. He was Austrian and a meteorologist for the German Luftwaffe before WWII. He left Germany, went to England, and ended up working on the Manhattan Project here in the USA. That guy's mind operated at light speed compared to our feeble attempts to understand advanced physics. Well, all three of his classes were taking the midterm exam in one big room. Looking at the exam, the printing might as well have been in Greek. It was like hitting a wall at 100 m.p.h. My mind went blank. Almost nobody had a clue about where to even begin. About half-way through the alloted time, one guy balled up his test, threw it into the air, and left the room. Well, the highest grade out of the three classes taking the test was 34. Yup, 34.

P.S. Dr. G. had us taking a daily quiz (which he pronounced as "kvizz") for the first 15 minutes of the class. The quizes became so difficult after the first two weeks, that we would show up at 7:00 a.m. for the 8:00 a.m. class.

Remember, all is not lost...yet.
 
well hey.. on the bright side.... your alot smarter at it then me ;)

I do not do math. My brain is not wired right for it. However... I am a visual hands on learner. So..... all is not lost... you understand more then alot of other people and with the stick-tuitiveness attitude and strive... you will reach your goal. I bid you "good luck" and hope the best for ya.

-RPM
 
FISHBREATH said:
Discouraged? You wanna hear about "discouraged?" I took a course in atmospheric physics, which was taught be a Dr. J. V. Geschwendtner. He was Austrian and a meteorologist for the German Luftwaffe before WWII. He left Germany, went to England, and ended up working on the Manhattan Project here in the USA. That guy's mind operated at light speed compared to our feeble attempts to understand advanced physics. Well, all three of his classes were taking the midterm exam in one big room. Looking at the exam, the printing might as well have been in Greek. It was like hitting a wall at 100 m.p.h. My mind went blank. Almost nobody had a clue about where to even begin. About half-way through the alloted time, one guy balled up his test, threw it into the air, and left the room. Well, the highest grade out of the three classes taking the test was 34. Yup, 34.

P.S. Dr. G. had us taking a daily quiz (which he pronounced as "kvizz") for the first 15 minutes of the class. The quizes became so difficult after the first two weeks, that we would show up at 7:00 a.m. for the 8:00 a.m. class.

Remember, all is not lost...yet.
Click to expand...

Where did you go to school? See, I actually wouldn't be as discouraged in that case because I'd know that it wasn't really my problem I wasn't doing well.
 
MOPEkidD-3 said:
Where did you go to school? See, I actually wouldn't be as discouraged in that case because I'd know that it wasn't really my problem I wasn't doing well.
Click to expand...

Free your mind. Sleep, go for hike, etc. Don't hang out on line, it will numb it, no ****. I used to go for 20 mile rides on my mountain bike and write. I got A's on every class. Find what free's your mind naturally before and after you study. It's what your brain needs. :cheers:

Oh yeah, and quit smoking pot while you study. ~~
 
You're gonna be OK, MOPEkidD-3 !!! :cheers: You can't be too off the mark.
I mean Good Lord son, you own a MOPAR!

:burnout:
 
ramcharger said:
Free your mind. Sleep, go for hike, etc. Don't hang out on line, it will numb it, no ****. I used to go for 20 mile rides on my mountain bike and write. I got A's on every class. Find what free's your mind naturally before and after you study. It's what your brain needs. :cheers:

Oh yeah, and quit smoking pot while you study. ~~
Click to expand...

Well, I have a lot of free time during the day and get plenty of sleep. I seriously go online primarily to learn stuff on info sites as well as FABO, as well as look at Facebook every once in a while because I actually communicate with friends not close to me any more. One thing I am going to start doing is going to the gym; my arms are basically two sticks with skin stretched over them, and I'm sick of having no strength or stamina.

As far as that last part, it seems to neither help nor hinder, so I figure it's a waste if I'm not doing something fun. I save that for sleeping, eating, and hanging out. 8)

Thanks again for all the kind words. My mood has improved since then and will definitely get a boost when I go get my dual exhaust put on my Duster tomorrow. This new chapter in Calc is also looking to be pretty easy so far.
 
Fire it up man! You do what's right for you and everyone's body chemistry is different. The rush I got and get from a hike or workout puts my brain in overdrive. Faith helps too. :)

Right now my dog Merlin has laid his head so hard on my right arm that I have made a choice in regards to potential employers, plus, he and Maximus let me know what my priorities are. Odd but true. I'd rather have loyal true friends then rich and wonder who my friends are. Food for thought......

True thought about where you are and what you want to be are key. Learn everything! Please don't let money be your driving force. I hope you are taking a course in Philosophy.... Be balanced.

Body, soul and mind. These are the triumvirate of a happy human.
 
Wow This is an inspiring thread :read2:
I wish I could add to it 8) But it looks like you are well on your way MOPEkidD-3 :cheers:
 
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