The effort I had put into studying has not been too much. Definitely not. I would have needed so much more time and skill to fully cover the material.
Although I had spent weeks in the library I felt so unprepared when I headed to my exam, and I kind of prepared myself to, for the first time in my university "career", fail an exam. While I walked towards the building, I saw a guy who had been in the same course as me, coming from there on his bike, talking on the phone. He said ".... and got a 2.3, yessss, can you believe it?" So he had obviously just taken the exam that lay before me.
Okay, this was bad. He had always been pretty good in the tutorials, better than me. If he got a 2.3...... weeeell, I thought, as long as I pass, it's fine!!! So I tried to calm myself down.
I arrived at the examination place and was guided to the examination room by the lady who had done the tutorial during the semester and would be witnessing the exam, as the professor made a telephone call. While we waited for the professor, we chatted a little and I could relax.
I was nervous, but then again a part of me was totally calm, like "You can't do worse than fail. And failing's not the end of the world."
When the professor arrived I was really impressed that he first of all made sure to shake my hand. I am not used to professors being like that, they usually avoid physical contact and draw a sharp line between themselves and the students. This professor did not, and I really liked that. (He's pretty much down-to-earth in other ways as well. For example he would be dressed in jeans and a simple pullover instead of a suit when holding his lectures, his assistants all call him by his first name, and he's pretty young for a professor, not older than 45 I think... So maybe it's about the generations....)
There was also water offered on the table, so if I'd been thirsty or my throat was dry..... I have never felt so "welcome" in an examination room. Great!
He once more explained to me how the examination would be done. I was to draw cards with different questions on them. I had to answer 5 cards. I could use one "Joker", meaning that I would be allowed to skip one question and instead draw a 6th card. I was so about to say "And can I also call someone or ask the audience?" Haha, didn't do it, though.
Then the first question was drawn. I read it and thought "WTF, explain the Linear Pulse Quantization and how the Quantization Error can be reduced"??? I don't even know what a Linear Pulse Quantization is!
Oooooh, dammit, I must say something, I can't use the Joker for the first card!
And I started with the real basics to get some more time to think about my answer, and was highly surprised to see the prof already being like "You go girl, that's completely right!", and that gave me a lot of confidence, and then I realized that the "Linear Pulse" just sounded so unfamiliar to me because I had studied the "Linear Quantization", which is exactly the same thing, just that I did not write down the word "Pulse". Soooo I could explain it.
Next question was formants, hey babe, that was like the best thing that could happen to me! After all, it's formants I have been studying for 4 years now, it's like asking Michael Ballack to explain the offside rules.
Easy as pie!
The next question was ok as well, then there was one that I could not answer well. Haha, buuuut I had the joker!!! The funny thing was that I had already started to answer the question, and I sucked, at least, I thought I did. The professor was like "Do you really want to draw your joker? You're understanding what it's all about, after all, just continue a little further." But I had no more knowledge left to continue, so I insisted on the joker.
The next 2 Questions were pretty good and easy to answer, though I didn't know everything you should know about them....
And then, I had to wait outside until they decided on my grade. When I got in, he said "Well, this was a refreshingly well done exam." and then told me that I had scored an 88 out of 100 points in the exam, and that I got 8 bonus points for my homework I had handed in, and so, with a total of 96 points, this was a 1.0....
I was like "Oh my god, are you serious???"
....
Yeah, so I got the top score. Did I deserve it? I'm not sure. When I look at my knowledge, I think that I was far too stupid to get such a grade. On the other hand, I studied really hard and gave it my all, so that's telling me that I did deserve it. And as I was not the first examinee that day, I think if he was mild to the others, who, as it seems, did much worse than me, it is definitely fair if I am treated as kind as they are.
Still, good grades for Gambaru-Ki.... Maybe Germany is more japanese than we're aware?
As always, I had some music that accompanied me through the days of studying and helped me ignore the people around me.
My iPod featured the following albums:
Onitsuka Chihiro - This Armor
Michael Bublé - Michael Bublé
Mike Oldfield - Songs of a Distant Earth
Katie Melua - Call off the Search
James Blunt - Back to Bedlam
Dune - Greatest Love Songs
No comments:
Post a Comment