Good News

"K-Roll-PorscheTamer" (k-roll390) 12/06/2016 at 20:47 • Filed to: 944life

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The 944 is running again. The bad news: thanks to another anxiety induced brain fart, I’ve flunked a math exam today that I can makeup on Thursday and has me again questioning my life, future, and purpose, again.

TL;DR (944 runs again and I really fucking hate my brain.)

That’s my Tuesday

OpposResidentLexusGuy - USE20, XF20, XU30 and Press Cars > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:02

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I have three 300/400 level accounting finals in a 24 hour span. You can do it.

RacinBob > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:05

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I got D’s twice in differential equations. Me learning advenced math, was as about as likely as me being fluent in Latin. I concluded that if Chem E required differential equations, then Chem E wasn’t it for me.

Smartest thing I ever did, I changed to Industrial Engineering and never looked back. Study things you are good at. If you know what that is, do it and you will be happier and successful.

Ps, nice job on the Porsche. 90% of modern humanity can’t explain how a car works. You are among the 1% that can actually fix one. There’s fewer people who can understand this stuff every day. Work towards your strengths and you will be fine.

What degree are you going for?

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > RacinBob 12/06/2016 at 21:12

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I wasn’t smart enough for mechanical engineering, so I switched to engineering technology, which I’ve been told is the easier version of the former that no one gives a shit about.

I can’t just go and do something else again. I refuse to because that’s defeatist and I’ve already been defeated one too many times and continue to be so.

I also don’t have many useful strengths that are useful to a majority. I don’t know what they are anyways. I just know they’re pretty useless.

bob and john > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:13

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yea, I’ve got my math on friday. crunch time.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > bob and john 12/06/2016 at 21:19

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Good luck. You’ll do better than me. And I’ve more exams this and next week.

Mercedes Streeter > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:22

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I went to ITT Tech and got reamed for $50k that the Dept of Ed doesn’t want to refund. At the end of the day, I’d rather fail at math (and I do, like I freaking suck at it) than lose two years and $50k.

I have to start all over again. :(

Ignore your brain love, you’re greater than you think. :D

jimz > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:31

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if you don’t mind me asking, who’s your instructor? I had a bit of a rough go at some of the math courses at Larry Tech; I got through calc 1 but calc 2 was an absolute bastard. I pronged Differential Equations the first go-round, but I didn’t feel too bad since the average exam score that semester was 40%; I re-took it in the summer with a different instructor and got an A-. Plus, for some reason or another I got a B+ in Advanced Engineering Math.

my biggest problems were 1) I like dealing with concrete things; objects I can see, touch, and watch move. If I can see it, I understand it. Math is abstract, so I have difficulty connecting it to real-world situations. and 2) I basically cruised through grade school, I didn’t need to study at all up through about 8th grade. then when stuff started getting difficult in high school and university, I had no idea how to study.

jimz > RacinBob 12/06/2016 at 21:33

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when I was in college, Differential Equations was abbreviated “DiffEQ.” Which we quickly corrupted into “DiffyScrew.”

jimz > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:35

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“I wasn’t smart enough for mechanical engineering,”

you’re in your first year, right? Don’t talk like that. You’ve just run into the first real obstacle.

hell, if my dumb ass can get an ME degree and work in the auto industry, you (who got accepted to Larry Tech) probably can too.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > jimz 12/06/2016 at 21:36

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Most, if not, the majority of my professors are adjunct....this one is no exception. And there’s only one instructor teaching the class. It’s even more pathetic that it’s Tech Math 2...

I passed TM1 with no difficulty and now I’m all over the place. I too like dealing with concrete things but those seem few and far between now. I still have no idea how to study. You may know my advisor though. Prof. Cuper.

E90M3 > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:39

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Don’t give up.

When I graduated high school, unlike a lot of people, I knew exactly what I wanted to study chemical engineering. Well, I got into my number one choice of school, Georgia Tech, and enrolled in chemical engineering. My dumbass doesn’t take advantage of the AP credits I earned and take gen chem, biology and calculus 1. Because I pretty much taken these classes before I didn’t really have to put an effort in and I got 2 Bs and a C.

Since I never developed study habits in high school because I didn’t really need to, I was completely and totally unprepared for spring semester of 2009. I fucked up so hard, I passed 2 of the classes I was taking.

To try and fix this, I retook Calc II and Physics 1 over the summer. Still not knowing how to study and having a Calc II prof who didn’t give any partial credit, well I think you can guess how that ended up.

Yeah not well. This GPA dropped my over all GPA from a 1.8 down to a 1.68. This is when I should point out that the minimum GPA you need to stay in Tech as a sophomore, I had 30 hours thanks to AP credits, is a 1.8. I’ve dipped bellow the minimum GPA so I receive this email:

I have just done the unthinkable, I failed out of school. Luckily, since I had taken physics 1 before, and Georgia Tech allows you to replace the grades in 2 classes you take in your first two semesters, I’m eligible to replace the physics 1 grade and not have the F count on my transcript. So I drive down to Tech on the Tuesday after finals week and hand deliver the forms to the necessary people to sign so I can attend school in the fall semester. It works, I check my online account in the evening and my standing has gone from “dismissal” to “probation from dismissal.”

You get one free fail out from Tech, get one more and that’s it you’re done. I was on thin ice. I fuck up again, that’s it, this is all over. The week between summer and fall semester was the worst week of my life.

So I struggle all throughout fall semester with school. I still haven’t learned to study. I’m so close to failing to achieve my goal of getting a chemical engineering degree. Well some how I pass my classes and go from “probation from dismissal” to “good standing”. 

I struggled the rest of college, it wasn’t easy for me at all. There were times when I would make myself physically sick from stressing over a test or a final exam. It’s not easy, but you can do this. I failed out of school and still got this one day:

Don’t give up, you can do this.

Cash Rewards > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:51

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I would make learning how to study priority #1, if you don’t mind a bit of unsolicited advice. I was one of those who did not study for more than 3 exams total in high school, and graduated 10th in class. Could have been much higher if I gave a shit. First semester of college was the same, 3.8 GPA. Second semester started getting into real shit. Blamed first round of bad tests on a cold, didn’t study for second, tried studying for 3rd round but had no idea what i was doing. Had a 1.8 that semester, barely kept scholarship. Took a couple years to pull over a 3.0 again, but went on to get a master’s and PhD in biomedical engineering. People learn differently, and figuring out what works for you is huge. Whatever resource your school has, use them. Figure out what type of learner you are (visual, audio, etc), and what you need to do to retain info. One class let us make cheat sheets. For me, usually the act of writing things down in an organized fashion was what I needed anyway, and I barely used it once I made it. My wife needs to do practice problems over and over to feel prepared, I just want the concept, knowing I’ll figure it out at the test. I have zero test anxiety though, where she has a lot. Going over every possibility is what makes her feel prepared.

Tldr, there’s a way of studying that works for YOU, and it’s totally normal to need to invest time to figuring out what that is. Good luck!

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > jimz 12/06/2016 at 21:52

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I’ve been here three years...and still have a high freshman number of completed credit hours....my dumbass is pretty hopeless.

Sam > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:58

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We finally got our lift installed, so the 924 should finally be in running condition. Also, I’m going to take the mufflers off the E34 for teh lulz.

Sam > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 21:59

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Oh damn, I thought I was the only one. I have 29 credit hours after 2.5 years. Don’t worry about it. It’s not about how long it takes to get there, just that you do get there at some point.

jimz > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 22:01

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nope. I graduated in 1999, so it was just a long shot that I might know. I will say when it came to Diff. Equations I did way better under an adjunct instructor than I did with a full professor. Mostly because said full professor (Zaven Margosian, may he rest in peace) was more interested in pushing some computer program called DERIVE. I retook Diff. EQ. in the summer under an adjunct instructor (Atallah Turfe, who I believe is still teaching there) and thrived. I mean as in “went from an F to an A.”

I realize I’m probably making a bunch of assumptions here, but it sounds to me like this is the first time school has really challenged you hard. I read a lot of your posts here, and you come off as a pretty bright guy. But we all run into a wall at some point in our lives. I ran into one in high school, and ran harder into another one at Larry Tech. But the important thing to know is that there is no shame in failing. I think I failed/dropped 4 or 5 courses at Larry and re-took them because I just didn’t get them the first time. This isn’t Apollo 13. Failure is an option. It’s how you respond to failing which matters. I failed more than once. I recovered, tried again, and have since spent the last 17 years working in the auto industry. I wasn’t the best student, I didn’t have a summa or magna cum laude GPA , but right out of school I went to work for Alpine for 8 years, then Intertek for a year an a half, then for Sony for 5 years, and now I’m coming up on my fifth anniversary working for Ford.

the point is- don’t give up the instant things get difficult. don’t fall into the trap of believing you failed because you’re dumb. that’s nonsense. the simple truth is that nothing worth doing is easy.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > jimz 12/06/2016 at 22:10

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The problem isn’t that they’re just failures. They’re expensive failures. Every time I have to retake another class, that’s money that could’ve been saved had I been smart enough to pass the first time. Every failure is an additional loan that has to be taken out and deferred to whenever I graduate; if I graduate. I just want to work in the auto industry, I want to work for Ford, work on ford performance models and such. That’s not happening...

Cuper has been there at least 30-40 years so you may’ve heard of him or seen him. The guy who’s had multiple mustangs.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > Sam 12/06/2016 at 22:10

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Are you gonna drive back up here and reclaim your sunglasses finally?

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > Sam 12/06/2016 at 22:11

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If it takes until I’m old and decrepit or dead, or until the world ends then there’s no point because it’ll all have been for nothing and useless. That’s a fact.

bob and john > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 22:26

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I haven’t even started studying for my other exams (some environmental course and a business class I took as a fluff course.) Math is the only one that actually scares. Hope your re-exam goes well

Sam > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/06/2016 at 23:06

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Potentially. Probably once it’s warm, though.

RacinBob > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 12/07/2016 at 08:10

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College is really just academic hazing. All this stuff is learnable, but the problem is having to learn it all in such a compressed time. And that is why you go to college, so to teach yourself that how to learn stuff.

Engineering Technology is a plenty of a good degree to get you interesting worthwhile work. All a good technical job demands is you have native understanding on how stuff works,how to win and how to not F it up. The world will not give a crap 5 years from now about some D in a math class as long as you are an effective, self motivated person who gets things done. That is what matters in the working world.

Take some business classes to round out your experience, do a communications class, do a marketing sales class. Do formula SAE. Do something you can get an A in. Then build your college portfolio from there while you get your engineering degree.

There is always room in technical companies for people that can take a problem and solve it. As they said back when I was in school, Those that got A’s ended up teaching, those that got B’s worked as professionals, those that got C’s made all the money....

The success when you graduate depends not on getting A’s in math classes that you will never apply again (unless you want to be a professor) . Success depends after you graduate on being smart enough to figure stuff out and win.

Get out of school with a mid two point and a demonstrated experience at being self motivated and successful at things you have a passion for and you will be fine.