Don't worry, no one stole my brain

It’s over! The seven week term of death is over!

It wasn’t really the term of death, but it was pretty intense. After a pretty crazy four week term of accounting and business law, I went straight into a seven week term of multivariable calculus and differential equations. And now, six and a half months after starting school again, I am seven classes down with twelve to go. That puts me at 37%—as Dennis would say—of my second bachelor’s degree, with a 4.0 GPA in the holster.

I called Karen as soon as I was out of my last exam.

ME: It’s over!

KAREN: It’s over! How’d it go? What was it like? Tell me everything!

ME: I got A’s.

KAREN: Awesome! You feel good about it?

ME: I graded it myself, and I got A’s. Well not literally, but I’m sure I got A’s.

I did feel really good about both exams. There were some obvious trip-ups, but there weren’t any of the who-stole-my-brain kind of trip-ups.

And I finished right on the dot! I used up all the time allotted for our calculus exam and I finished my differential equations exam right on the nose at 3:15 pm. It felt so, so good to walk out of that classroom and be done.

Not that I didn’t enjoy my classes. Because I really did. I learned so much in seven weeks, and I know the things I’ve learned will come back and be useful. You know—multiple integrals, flux and circulation, eigenvalues, null space—all the stuff you’d expect.

Karen was very happy. She and Rich were waiting for me outside when I was within a few blocks of walking home.

From a treacherous week one to 104%

Monday’s test came back today toward the end of our calculus class. I’ve been thinking for several days that I probably have at least a B on the exam because it was a little challenging but I felt good about it. As he handed them out our teacher said, “Just remember, if you got a 67 or something like that, you figure you can add about 7 to 10 percentage points and that will probably end up being your grade. Someone got 104, but mostly the curve will bring you up.”

As soon as he said 104, everyone started talking. “How is that possible?” “Who got 104?” When he handed me my test, I looked at it and froze. On the front was my score: 104/100 with a big green A next to it. I just couldn’t believe it. I literally sat there for probably two or three minutes just in awe. After a very rough beginning in this class, I pulled out with 104% on my first exam. Still, even just thinking about it, I’m shocked. (I guess the only downside is that it's not possible to have more than 100% in his class, so no extra points for me. But at least I'm sitting well halfway through the semester!)

During my spring semester, I scored 100% on a statistics exam, which gave me the most incredible feeling. Since then I've been thinking, "I wonder if I'll ever get 100% on an exam again."

Suddenly, I feel much better about this semester. It started picking up at the end of last week and now that we're about halfway through I'm very excited for the rest of it. I'm confident this can turn out well.

On my way to some sort of cum laude

Update: I had another 4.0 semester! My grades have been finalized and everything turned out beautifully for both my accounting and business law classes. I'm not obsessing over my 4.0 status and I won't panic if I drop below that during my time at Utah State, but it's rewarding to see that I can actually do this. After getting a 4.0 in my first semester, I realized that I can do anything.

On Monday, my next two summer classes begin. Multivariable calculus and a combo class of linear algebra and differential equations. What's not to be excited about?

I did my very best this semester

Well, my first semester at Utah State is over. I knew it was going to happen when I woke up at 5:30, but it was a long road to get there. I took the eight o’clock bus to campus and studied until 10:20, and then went to the Fine Arts Visual building to take my calculus final.

It was a pretty relaxed one. I was prepared for most of the things I saw and surprised by a few, but I knew I only needed a C+ on the final to keep my A in the course. My final hasn't yet been graded, but I’m certain it’s good enough to keep my A. In fact, I’m willing to bet I got an A- on the final alone.

Statistics was not as fun. Alek (my stats buddy) and I met up a little more than a half hour before the exam to go over some last minute details in our notes. But once we got in, the test went by in what felt like 15 minutes. In all, we had an hour and 50 minutes, but it was not enough. Alek told me before going in that he was probably going to skip to the free response section to knock that out first. After two multiple choice problems at the start of the test, I knew I should move on and take care of the big stuff because there were more points at stake. As it turned out, I had about 10 minutes at the end to go through the multiple choice and true/false questions, so I guessed on a lot of them.