The Mind of Daniel McCormick

ast night from 1730-1930 I had my first exam of the semester (the take home test in ME341 the first week of school doesn’t really count as an exam). It was in Fluid Mechanics and rumor had it that this Prof, Woody, gives the second hardest engineering tests on campus (more about the hardest engineering test giver later in this blog) and I hadn’t really studied. You could say I was a little more than scared. I go the library about 1530 to do some serious cramming and wonder out to go take the test about 1515. I show up at our regular classroom JEB 126 right around 1525 and look in. EVERYONE is already there and working on the test. I knew he told us we could come early and start early but I didn’t think the WHOLE class would show up and be working five minutes before the scheduled start time, WEIRD. So I venture in and try not to disturb everyone, take my seat and begin working on it. As everyone is frantically scribbling the stress and tension in the room is tangible. Five minutes later, Woody in a quite loud voice says, “OK, start NOW!” We all STOP and look up in confusion. He responds with, “What? I said you could start, not that you had to stop?” accompanied with the most innocent look you have ever seen. We finally figure out he is jostling us and all breathe out a sigh of relief. He succeeded in calming us down. And if their was an anxiety left, it all got broken up then this girl’s cell starts ringing with a loud ass song as the ring tone. It might of made her a little embarrassed but it definitely lighten things up for the rest of us.

The first hour of the exam is open book and was really pretty easy. Straight forward problems, directly from our homework assignments. The second hour, was more difficult but still do-able. I didn’t really need my book for much. Overall it was way simpler and straight forward than anyone expected. It was tempting to over think each problem. I am pretty sure I avoided that for the most part and should pull a high B if not an A.

Now for the hardest engineering exams on campus. Carl Rink, the ME exclusives expert, prides himself on exams that average he claims in the 60’s. However, talking to former students it sounds like the true averages are usually in the 40’s or 50’s. That’s plum ridiculous. I my first System Dynamics exam from him in just over an hour. So I suppose I better go cram a little more. I will let you know how it goes and see if he lives up to his reputation.

Sorry to write such a NERDY blog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.