Thursday 20 January 2011

Off-Topic: How an idiot ruined my day (and probably more than one)

They are depriving some village of its idiot. 

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to make a gold-related post today, since I'm too angry for what just happened to me.
I had an exam (I'm studying Physics at the University, I won't say which one), a stupid exam of Analysis. I already passed all the physics related exams, and I need to give very few exams before I can get my bachelor degree.

In the same room people where giving two different, but very similar, exams (two questions out of three were identical... they basically are the old and the new version of the same course). The professor gave to each of us 3 exercises, asking to each one what exam he/she was going to do. I clearly stated what exam I needed, but he mistakenly gave me the wrong exercise.

I didn't notice it, since there is no clear way to see the difference between the two.
It was a "strange" exercise for the course, and I was quite sure the thing that was asked in that exercise wasn't in the course... But since my professor isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, it would not be the first time he adds something we never done in one of his exams... And you can't make him reason about it.

So I stupidly tried to do the exercise (It was something I had done in another course, some years ago... quite rusty in my mind, but with some time I was sure I could do it) before finding the official... uhmmm... "program of the course"? "list of subject of the course"? I don't know how it is called in English. I had printed it in a flash of genius exactly to contest problems like that.
This happens after one hour and an half (I did part of the other two exercises in the meantime). The total time we had were three hours.
I suppose I lost half an hour because of this error the prof. made.

I finally get the real problem I had to solve, and I do it fast. I get back to the other two, and things go quite well... But I'm a bit late with everything. In the last minutes of the exam I ask him if I can get 10 minutes more, since I lost time due to his mistake.
And... He actually didn't understand what I was asking.
He told me "all the other students are giving the completed exams now, it cannot advantage you over them giving you other ten minutes" (well, this is a bit of stretch in the translation... the actual words were more like a mumbled "there are also the other students", but the meaning was this). I tried to explain again, but he was clueless. I didn't get my ten minutes.
Afterwards, in the same instant I got out of the room, I realized that in the last minute of the exam I made a mistake because I hadn't the time to double-check part of the text (I remembered a vector wrong... It was written (-1,1), I wrote (1,-1)). This error alone will count a lot on my final mark, since it led me to wrong results.

Now, this is it.
Let me just rant a little more about this poster child for birth control, so you'll see how he actually is just one IQ point above brain death.
Our University asks to all professor to fill some paper about their course, which then gets published on the website of the University. Things like the office number, the subjects touched by their course, the hours in which it will take place...
One of the question is "What are the expected learning results of the course?"
The answer should be a concise summary of the subjects, pointing out the more important ("The students will learn how to do <this> and <that> and will know about the existence of <this other thing>"). My prof answered:
"adequate."

Ah, I must admit that writing this post I used a lot this "Not too Bright List", which I found googling "sharpest knife in the drawer" (I wanted to be sure to say that right)... It's quite funny, go see yourself.

7 comments:

  1. Ok, I'm back and I'm a little calmer than before... Just that little I need to notice the awful lot of mistakes and misspells I made (two-->to, my-->mi, too-->to, though-->thought... and so on). So I'll edit and correct all of them.
    I hope I don't write this bad always... I should re-read more often.

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  2. You know, I'm known to edit my published posts up to half a dozen times, Kreaton - at least you had a reason for it.

    Sorry to hear about your exam. Your professor sounds like a real D-Bag, giving old material to 2/3 of the class and new material to 1/3 of the class... how would that not advantage one group over the other?

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  3. Uhmm.. I think I didn't explain myself well, I'm sorry ^^
    He surely is a D-Bag!
    There was a change in the course (decided by the University and not by him)...
    Actually they just merged two courses.
    Now, the law says that they need to keep providing the exam any discontinued course for some years (for those students who didn't passed the exam for that course in time).
    Since the subject of these two exams is nearly the same, the prof. makes two questions covering the common topics plus a specific question for each exam.

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  4. Damn, Kreaton, that's rough! I'm sorry to hear the professor was such a fail. Hopefully you'll be able to talk to your professor and sort everything out.

    Since misery loves company, I'll share a little misfortune that happened to me last night. I was checking my auctions on the remote AH, and noticed that a Maelstorm Crystal I was flipping had sold! So I went to post more. Little did I realize that the remote AH program automatically lists things like MC in stacks. So, I accidentally posted 8 MC for the price of one... And they sold before I realized it! Yeah, what was supposed to be a 20k profit just turned into a 10k loss. Oh well, c'est la vie!

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  5. Ouch, Vince! That's rough! I just started using the remote AH a week ago, and while it's nice, it seems a bit... rough around the edges. I can't say I fully trust it, and it's definitely 10x slower than logging on and letting my add-ons do the grunt work.

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  6. That's bad!
    I haven't tried the remote AH yet... I've heard a lot of negative comments about it (and you just added one more!).
    It would be great to have the ability to check auctions from my mobile... I'd really love that!
    But I'm rather annoyed by its faults, and in these months most of the time I'm at home... I have just to prepare the last exams and I don't have to follow any lesson this semester.

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  7. Yeah, the remote AH is basically just like the normal AH interface: complete crap. However, it does have some uses. It's mostly nice for snatching good deals when you're unable to access WoW directly. (e.g. the new Meta recipes!) I've also used it to repost some of my big-ticket items if they expire while I'm on campus. But for normal selling, as I discovered, you really have to pay attention, and it's totally not worth it.

    One great thing about it is you can access the Neutral AH directly, to buy or to sell. This keeps you from having to park a toon there. So right now I have an Enchanted Lantern posted, no competition, and I can keep reposting without ever having to drag myself over to Booty Bay. I can also check for deals, such as 20+ cat carriers for <5g that I've been selling for 50g, without ever having to venture over to a neutral AH!

    So it has it's pros and cons. I mostly got it in a panic when I thought 4.0.6 would be released while I was gone all day. I doubt I'll renew my subscription, but it definitely has some uses.

    ReplyDelete