Now that 6/6/06 has passed and we have all lived through the fourth projected apocalypse of our lifetimes (including Nostradamus night, the Millenium, and the other one in 2002 that I can't remember), I think I can safely write about that favourite among posts - the exam results report.
The story so far: I entered the last semester of university with a 16.4 average, on the sliding shapeless scale of 20 that is designed to be impossible to understand. Nevertheless, this was a frustrating position to be in, because in order to get a first, I needed to average 16.5 or above. So, in other words, everything relied on getting 17s this semester.
Professional and Social Aspects of Computing - 17.0
This ranks as the most unsurprising grade, as I already knew what I had for this course - it's one of the very welcome modules that don't have an exam at the end. Instead, all marks were based on turning up to lectures, listening and writing reports on what we'd learned (or just make it up). My grades for most of the practicals were distinctly average, but I managed a 19 in the all-important essay, bringing my mark back up to an acceptable level.
Computer Security - 17.8
Happily, this is the highest mark that I've ever received in an Honours module. While I felt the exam was reasonably easy, my grade was no doubt helped by the impossible pair of 20s that I got for my coursework. I imagine that because of the strike, the lecturer employed a quicker marking algorithm equating the grade to the number of pages written, or something like that.
Human Computer Interaction - 17.5
I could hardly have asked for a better mark in this course either. It's an example of the kind of course where there are no correct answers to anything, and you can only answer exam questions by making something up then trying to prove it by name-dropping as many famous HCI enthusiasts as possible. The exam is also the second paper in St Andrews to have almost made me laugh out loud while taking it, thanks to James' unique way of making up names for his example questions (MacroSoggy's Awffice suite, SuckLessInk, and of course TessCo with their T-1000 automatic checkouts - slogan "You'll be back").
Solitaire Specification, Simulation and Solution System - 17.0
I had been fully prepared for the project to bring me down a couple of points, as I thought that expecting a 15 or 16 for it would be optimistic - my supervisor didn't seem incredibly enthusiastic about it until very near the end. This constitutes a very pleasant surprise. In the past, I may have given the impression that Mr. Gent was a fairly rubbish supervisor who took very little interest in any of the acres or reports and code that I sent him on a regular basis. I now realize that he is a shining example of academic brilliance, master Solitaire player and possibly the greatest person who ever lived. (But his taste in shirts is still appalling, there's no way round that.)
Naturally, as soon as I got the results I grabbed a calculator and spent the next half hour working out various means and medians to make absolutely sure where I stood. In the end:
Weighted average for semester 2: 17.3
Weighted average for fourth year: 16.9
Weighted average for Honours: 16.6
A weighted average of 16.6 is just, just inside the definite area for getting a First.
Nothing's definite yet, though - for my actual classification, I'm going to have to wait until Saturday. However, after a long time navigating the labyrinthine St Andrews website, I was pointed to this reasonably helpful PDF document, which you can use to estimate your own classification, and it looks to me like things are pretty definite.
P.S.: Wine related carnage.
The story so far: I entered the last semester of university with a 16.4 average, on the sliding shapeless scale of 20 that is designed to be impossible to understand. Nevertheless, this was a frustrating position to be in, because in order to get a first, I needed to average 16.5 or above. So, in other words, everything relied on getting 17s this semester.
This ranks as the most unsurprising grade, as I already knew what I had for this course - it's one of the very welcome modules that don't have an exam at the end. Instead, all marks were based on turning up to lectures, listening and writing reports on what we'd learned (or just make it up). My grades for most of the practicals were distinctly average, but I managed a 19 in the all-important essay, bringing my mark back up to an acceptable level.
Computer Security - 17.8
Happily, this is the highest mark that I've ever received in an Honours module. While I felt the exam was reasonably easy, my grade was no doubt helped by the impossible pair of 20s that I got for my coursework. I imagine that because of the strike, the lecturer employed a quicker marking algorithm equating the grade to the number of pages written, or something like that.
Human Computer Interaction - 17.5
I could hardly have asked for a better mark in this course either. It's an example of the kind of course where there are no correct answers to anything, and you can only answer exam questions by making something up then trying to prove it by name-dropping as many famous HCI enthusiasts as possible. The exam is also the second paper in St Andrews to have almost made me laugh out loud while taking it, thanks to James' unique way of making up names for his example questions (MacroSoggy's Awffice suite, SuckLessInk, and of course TessCo with their T-1000 automatic checkouts - slogan "You'll be back").
Solitaire Specification, Simulation and Solution System - 17.0
I had been fully prepared for the project to bring me down a couple of points, as I thought that expecting a 15 or 16 for it would be optimistic - my supervisor didn't seem incredibly enthusiastic about it until very near the end. This constitutes a very pleasant surprise. In the past, I may have given the impression that Mr. Gent was a fairly rubbish supervisor who took very little interest in any of the acres or reports and code that I sent him on a regular basis. I now realize that he is a shining example of academic brilliance, master Solitaire player and possibly the greatest person who ever lived. (But his taste in shirts is still appalling, there's no way round that.)
Naturally, as soon as I got the results I grabbed a calculator and spent the next half hour working out various means and medians to make absolutely sure where I stood. In the end:
Weighted average for semester 2: 17.3
Weighted average for fourth year: 16.9
Weighted average for Honours: 16.6
A weighted average of 16.6 is just, just inside the definite area for getting a First.
Nothing's definite yet, though - for my actual classification, I'm going to have to wait until Saturday. However, after a long time navigating the labyrinthine St Andrews website, I was pointed to this reasonably helpful PDF document, which you can use to estimate your own classification, and it looks to me like things are pretty definite.
P.S.: Wine related carnage.
No comments:
Post a Comment