Archive for June, 2004

Last Thursday, in my Calculus class, we had one MONSTROSITY of a test. I say this because usually after the test we would go over a section or two but at the end of the test (I heard from a friend) that there were only 4 out of 20-so students in the class. The teacher thought it’ll be smart to flip the exponents of a rational function we had on our practice test and give it on the test. Let’s just say switching one exponent doesn’t make the problem similar to the original one. The problem was for us to sketch the graph of the given rational function so we were suppose to find the derivative of the first and second to help visualize what the graph would look like. Well, the second derivative looked like it was nearby impossible so he told us to skip it. That and all these other mistakes he made (this is a man who doesn’t bother doing the problems himself to see if we are able to do it) FRUSTRATED everyone into knowing they failed when they turned in the test.

I am starting to like calculus. Maybe it’s the fact that our teacher actually argued with a student that resulted in him turning into a 3 year old and repeating “We aren’t going to do that.” Or maybe that he looks down on us, since he is a Stanford graduate and thinks the world is as smart as him so he speaks on another level compared to us. It’s like he is speaking down at us or something. Or MAYBE, it’s cause his tests problems are one point a piece so every single mistake I do costs me greatly. Whatever it is, it makes me want to stay in calculus more and more. I don’t know whether to like him, admire him, or plan some sort of murder against him. All his reviews on those rate a teacher community sites have all been the same– “don’t take him,” “he’s hard,” “he touched me in a naughty way.” I don’t know, I just hope I pass. And it’s true what people say about calculus, everything you use to know…is now something else. And it sucks because now you have to shift your mind and realize that it could be one or the other.