I can't believe it!
Yesterday I was on the plane, looking out of the window to the rolling planes below, where the quaint, pretty as a picture town, Launceston lay. Thinking to myself: 'What's in store for me this year? Will the subjects be harder? Will I survive Engineering this time around? How will the lecturers be like?' Now, I am in front of my laptop, typing away... And all the questions swimming through my head at that time are now answered. Because you see.. I have now finished my 1st semester as a 2nd year Engineering student. It officially ended with my last paper of the semester: Project Engineering. I am well into the 4th day of my 3 week break. Or is it more? I've lost count already... I felt I must tell what a twist this semester really turned out to be. Starting out, I had a look through all the units I had to take for semester 1 and the lecturers that will teach them to me:
1. Calculus of Several Variables: Dr. Irene Penesis
Hmm... this subject is only a maths subject. So far, I've topped my class for maths..at least for MATHS II that is... Irene is such a good lecturer and the way she teaches maths makes it look way more interesting and easier to understand than any teacher that I've ever had before. So it can't be that bad. Can it?<--- this is me back then
I have since sat for the exam and I'm telling you...everything before vector calculus was a piece of cake but it all went down-hill straight after that. Where do I begin? Double Integrals? How about TRIPLE INTEGRALS? what was really annoying about it was the fact that it wasn't all that hard. The problem was how to SKETCH the damn thing in the first place! INTEGRATION has always been my weak spot. Ever since high school. I always thought differentiation was way easier to handle. Don't get me started on the exam paper! Oh my GOD... it was ultra hard. So hard in fact that the previous papers looked like a walk in the park... So much for wishing my streak of good luck would continue(this was before the Calculus paper)
2. Thermal Engineering: John Seaton
This unit has Engineering in the title. Anything that has the word engineering in it has gotta be hard. So I'm betting that this subject will be a tough nut to crack. Possibly the hardest subject yet this semester. I wonder what it'll be like...hmmm..
The verdict: It wasn't all that hard since everything was based on formulaes. The neat thing was we got to learn how to use the Steam tables and interpolate! But... the tutorial questions this guy gives are super tough. I mean, so tough in fact that nobody knows the answers except him! He gives us loads of new stuff and a gazillion questions every week for each topic. The kind of questions he asks are supposedly to get us to think in an application type way.. you know all that critical thinking crap... At first, I thought I'd be able to handle it but the questions became more and more difficult to decipher, without his help. I mean, come on man, is this how you teach a student? let them struggle for a bit cause nothing's in the notes, then if you can't find the answer go to the lecturer? oh please.. I have no faith in that way of teaching. The exam paper? Beauty... all of them were repeats of past years.. they seemed simple enough but on 2nd thought, I might have made some silly mistakes. Poor me... All in all it was definitely not the toughest subject. Not by a mile...
3. Hydrostatics : Paul Furness
Statics? with hydro in front. If you ask all the engineering students, my batch particularly, everyone would grimace at the mention of the word STATICS. It was a horrible, freaking nightmare that I hope to GOD will never happen to me again! From the free-body diagrams, the 3-D vector calculations and the trusses? It was HARD... So when I saw the unit's name and the lecturer Paul, who I happen to know from last year's field trip (asked us not to call him Sir just Paul...good habits die hard..he looked like a jolly sea-captain without the jolly demeanour) The seniors told me that this unit is quite hard. They only just scraped through it.
And I'm thinking to myself: How the hell do I get a Distinction for this one??!
After all is said and done, I really think that when Paul said with great confidence: 'what' your favorite subject? that's right! It's my subject...' He really knew what he was talking about. I really do think it was the best subject of the year. This subject was an introduction to Naval Architecture. The basics. The nitty-gritty stuff. And none of it was the least bit boring. Everything was new. From the terms that we got bombarded with to the neat techniques we had to learn to find centroids of area. And most importantly, it was all straight-forward, simple and nice. The exams turned out exactly the same way. And for a time... I was happy.
4. Project Engineering: Art Shrimpton
what my seniors said: project has got to be the most boring unit ever taught at the AMC. Nobody turns out to Aji's classes. The maximum number of students he gets is 4.
Me: Wait a sec...Aji? The lecturer is Art.
Senior: Art? last time he was the tutor... o that's right. Aji's left. So Art had to fill in for him
Me: what??! is this a good or bad thing?
Future me: It's a mix of good and bad. But personally I think the good far outweighs the bad.
The good:
Art made the lectures way more interesting. He re-structured the coursework. He made everything more hands-on. He loved YOUTUBE. Some materials he got it from there. And he loved using BBC video tapes to teach. And most importantly, he listened to us...the students and he was a really really nice bloke.
The bad:
the assignments ate up too much of our time and the weightage became really imbalanced. The MS Project side of it was not properly taught. It was more of a crash course, with us being the instructors!
The ugly:
Art did not tell us he wanted the assignments in a specific format and deducted marks off for not submitting it in the format he wanted. Some 3-D smart art that I put in my design brief, he absolutely shot down, saying only the marketing people use it. It was not professional. And to top it all off, making the stuff pretty, in landscape mode for the MS Project got me a B+ while Yasmine( my roomie and classmate) who printed hers off in portrait(which had the same content as mine...helped her all the way) got an A-!
The exams: beauty.. so putting the grudge thing aside... Project Engineering put 2nd semester in a much better light as opposed to the bad-ass calculus paper.
So my secret wish for this semester was to get a 70% or more for each subject. Before sitting for the papers that is. This was somewhere around June 1st. I said to myself: This feat is not impossible. Where there's a will, there's a way. I can do this!
After calculus, correction: 15 minutes into the calculus paper: holy s**t! this paper is going to be the death of my secret wish!
And all thanks to Irene... last year, Maths II was my shining glory(and I had Irene to thank for that too) This year, I just hope that Calculus won't tarninsh my results as much
Let's see what semester 2 will bring?
It's all in the life of an engineering student like me
thanks for reading :)
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