Maybe the end of economics

The first half of the third economics exam was a breeze. I sat there in class and went through the first 20-ish questions so quickly and so confidently that I was looking forward to getting out of there very early. But of course an easy first half meant an overwhelming second half, and I finished right at the very end of our allotted time. (I still think I must have done fairly well overall if the first half was that simple.)

Dr. Findley paused us about ten minutes into the test to make a few announcements, which included...the final is optional! He will soon post our grades up to this point in the semester and give us the option of individually bowing out of the final if we are satisfied with our grades. Considering I have about a 98% average on the homework and always have an above average grade on the exams, I hope this means eliminating the final and ending this class early for me. (Also, it helps that he double counts our highest exam grade, bringing up our average.)

Unemployment is actually a good thing

Dr. Findley addressed the unemployment rate in my economics class:

Unemployment Rate = (# of Unemployed) / (Labor Force) x 100

However, the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) doesn't include certain categories of people among the number of unemployed workers, like full-time students, homemakers, and discouraged workers. Such discouraged workers are those who want work but have forfeited the job hunt, at least temporarily. Even the number of unemployed workers is restricted to those who have looked for employment in the past four weeks.

I didn't get the job with the math department on campus. But my economics class has taught me that being included in the unemployment rate means you haven't given up.

Grades don't mean anything . . . unless you did better than everyone else

My second economics exam, as you know, was a doozy. Just recently, my inbox had this little gem inside:

Name: Tyler Heasley
  You scored: 31 out of 40 for 78%
  You ranked: 32 out of 131 who took this test
Average score: 26.8 +/- 5.8 (std.dev)

That means I did very slightly worse on this exam compared to the first one while the class as an average did better. Truthfully I'm shocked that my score was this good because I didn't feel good at all when I walked out of that test.

In Dr. Findley's surprising generosity, those who came to class after exam day were given another bonus assignment to do. Since I've done both bonus assignments now, I'm sure my grade will remain an A. (Even without them, I'm rockin' this course....And I'm very humble.)

Economics can kill

The economics exam was brutal. I could have prepared better, but it was also very difficult to know how to prepare since Dr. Findley doesn’t give study guides. Overall, I had a harder time learning the material. The first half of the exam was formula heavy, so it didn’t help that I constantly searched the textbook for what I needed to use. (I wrote the formulas on a piece of note paper so that I would have them ready...but I left that note on my desk at home. On accident.) I imagine my grade on this exam will be much lower than my grade on the first exam (95% after the curve). But at least I did the bonus assignment!

Me vs. The Bus, part 2

Missing the first bus this morning presented a minor temptation. I could probably justify skipping one class and sparing Karen the inconvenience of driving me to campus, but after walking about half a block home I realized I could still make it to the transit center if I ran a stretch of the way. So I took off. And made it in time to catch the second bus.

And you know what? Dr. Findley announced a bonus assignment that is due right after spring break, and he noted that those who took spring break early are missing out. (This comes from a professor who doesn't believe in extra credit, so that's saying something.) I’ve missed maybe 5 points overall on my homework assignments, but the bonus is worth 20, so I can bring my homework score above 100%, which may make up for whatever I’m lacking in my test scores by the end of the semester.

Take that, bus.

Me vs. The Bus, part 1 was a few years ago when my car slid on an icy road in Provo and put me a little too far out on the main street. A bus drove by and swiped off my front license plate, sending it through the air and landing it in the gutter about 15 or 20 yards away. 

Somewhere between overjoyed and worried

The exam was not at all what I expected and yet everything I suspected I should expect. Let me explain.

The bus drops me off about 5 after the hour every day. I went immediately to the bookstore to purchase a few scantrons (it’s smart to have extra) and headed straight to class, with some time to spare. I looked over a few notes, and a few minutes later I was ripping into the exam.

A few problems in, no surprising content. And that carried through to the end of the 40 multiple choice questions. From start to finish, there were maybe 2 questions explicitly dealing with lecture, but even then they weren’t terribly challenging. AND the test was open-book and open-note (but not open-neighbor, as Dr. Findley reminded us a few times this semester). So either I grossly misinterpreted the problems on the exam or it really was THAT easy. We’ll see when it’s graded. For now, I’m feeling good about my first econ midterm.

Only, there’s a problem with that. With every previous college-level exam, my expectations in regards to my grade are inversely related to the grade itself. When I feel good about it, I did bad. When I feel uneasy, I did well. Which means I’m trying to be happy about today’s exam while not overly confident that I knocked it out of the park. Maybe that means I'll come away with a B or something...?