Study hard, correct harder

On saturday, the experimental physics V course had its written exam. Since I’m one of the TAs, we were on the job for the entire day: First, we supervised the exam itself, then we corrected it in a single marathon session.

The day began at 8:19, when a slammed door woke me up. I’d somehow missed the alarm clock at 7:30, and I was supposed to be at the university’s main building by 8:30. Through one of those oh-no-I-slept-in rocket starts, I managed to be there by 8:36, which was close enough that no one noticed. We had three adjacent lecture halls that had to be supplied with paper and exam sheet. When the students filed in, we had to announce the rules one last time (cheating is forbidden, you may use only simple calculators blah blah) and mark down the exact time. We spent the next three hours walking around silently, trying to catch people cheating. Some needed more paper, others had questions. In the end, nobody was caught cheating, which means they either didn’t or were rather good at it. Several people had very dumb questions though, like “how many megawatts does a 1000 MW powerplant produce per day. After a boring three hours, we were done with that, collected the exams, met up with the other TAs and supervisors and moved the entire show to the physics department, where we had a fitting room available.

Once arrived, we helped ourselves to some tea, coffee and fruit and started organizing. Who corrects which exercise, how long do we have per exam, what gets points and what doesn’t and where to mark the points given. Due to the rising number of physics students in Aachen, we had an amazing 165 exams à six exercises to work on, with eight correctors. My own class (2002) started with fewer people than that, and by fifth semester, we’d dwindled to below a hundred. So this is nice in principle, but it meant more work for us. In fact, going a steady pace, we took until late afternoon to make a significant dent. That’s when I first started seeing exams that had half of their exercises marked. At 8 PM, we ordered some pizza, on the institute’s bill. As we’d been working non-stop for almost twelve hours (on a TA salary), that was perfectly okay. After the pizza came and had been eaten, we settled down to finish, which took another hour. Then some organisatory stuff, and people wanting to find out who of their groups had passed and who hadn’t. We moved the tables back into their former positions, closed up and left. It was 11 PM, and I was really, really finished.

Voluntary exams

Today, I voluntarily spent two hours on an exam I didn’t have to take – the reason being my TA job and the upcoming diploma exam. The exam is the one that is being set to the people in the course I’ve been TAing for, come saturday. The people who have written it wanted it done by somebody who hadn’t designed the exercises, to check for ambiguities, mistakes and appropriate difficulty. So they invited the TAs to volunteer some time and take a whack at it, which I was glad to do – I consider it another element of the preparation for my own exam next friday. I certainly did well enough, taking 1h40 for a three hour exam, with only a few minor mistakes. We also uncovered a few problematic spots, so it was definitely worth it.

Apart from that, I’ve been using index cards a lot – each card contains a topic header and a few relevant notes or a graph. For example,  the possible radioactive decays fill one card. I have something short of a hundred of those, and they encompass the central information for the exam. A lot of my preparation now is picking cards from the pile, just looking at the topic and explaining it to the room in general. I’m talking a lot that way, and getting practice and smoothling introducing the important concepts, something I cannot do fluently the first time I try, no matter how well I actually understand it.  As a little modification, I’ve played the same game with my neighbor, a first year waste management engineer who naturally knows rather little about physics.  Explaining things so that they are understandable to him is a challange, but a refreshing one, and definitely something that will help me stay in the saddle during the exam.

But not everything going on at the moment is centered on that exam. For one, I’m still painting stuff, although output has dropped to about one piece per week, due to larger pieces and more detailed work with acrylics. Check the “My Art” link on the right for more. Besides that, I’m getting involved in a student-organized exchange with the university of Warsaw. Our group will go to Poland for the first two weeks of june, visiting Warsaw and Krakow (with an afternoon at Auschwitz, which will probably be depressing but enlightening), then in the first two weeks of july, the polish students will come to us, so we can show them the heart of Europe, including Cologne, Paris, Berlin  and some other cool stuff. Now we just have to plan all of that and get sponsors.

Standing orations in the storm

Preparation continues, and since I discovered that I can’t smoothly put things into words even if I know precisely how they work, I started talking to myself while reading. I have kind of a hard time making the sentences flow smoothly, and explaining things in sipmle ways without seeming dismissive of secondary aspects or implying things that are not entirely true. The first comes from having a good idea where you want to go, and the second comes from precise word choice. Both ought to improve with practice, hence I’m explaining physics to my screen. It’s also less boring than simply reading a book, and feels more active. I definitely get the feeling I’m remembering stuff better, too. Naturally, this kind of explainations skips most of the complicated formulas, and concentrates more on verbal information and graphs.

At the same time, I’m perfectly motivated to stay inside today, as the weather outside is absolutely horrible. There’s a severe storm warning out for tonight, and the weather is already gearing up, with rain and strong, gusty winds. Expected wind speeds for tonight are 140 kph. , enough thtat it can actually be dangerous to be outside, due to falling roof tiles and branches.

I  have choir rehearsal this evening, the first one for me in the new year. Apparently, we’re doing a spanish mass, the Misa Criolla. I’ve sung it before a few years ago, and it’s a pretty cool piece of music, while none-too-difficult.  Before the choir, I’m going to study some more and hopefully spend some time painting. I haven’t done anything artistic in over a week, and I’m missing it. I just have to decide on what to paint; after all, a painting takes ten hours plus, and I don’t want to put that much time into a motif I do not really really like.

Picking up speed

I’m at a point in my life where most of my attention goes to university. I’m still in the exam phase prior to my thesis, which means I prepare for months, then talk for 45 minutes with a professor and take home one sixth of my final grade. It’s the period in university that requires the most self-motivation, and it’s certainly pushing my limits in that regard. I have never been what could be called a hard worker, and have always gotten by on interest, talent, insight and – occasionally – biting the bullet and just flat out working. But that has always been a last resort.

After my theoretical physics exam pretty much crashed and burned – a C is nothing less in this business – I’m loath to risk something like that a second time, so for my upcoming experimental physics final, I’m doing a lot more. The conditions are much better, too: I know and like the professor, I clearly remember the relevant lectures (which I did well in), I have applied the subject matter constantly in the past semesters, and I’m right now doing a TA job that covers the topic as well. Basically, ideal conditions for another A+ – remember, the first exam was laser technology and it set the bar quite high. To assure success, I’m covering all of my old notes, several books, doing old exercises and trying constantly to recapitulate and articulate what I have learned.

After the exam, I’ll take a week time-out to do some groundwork on my thesis, then get back into swing for 2-3 weeks and a second attempt at theoretical physics – the C must be beaten.

Apropos nothing: I bought a candle at the supermarket yesterday. It promised a subtly changing colorful glow. What I took this to mean was that the wax itself slowly changed color under the heat of the flame – a thermochemical color cylce. That would have been very cool to see. What was apparently meant, though, was that the base of the candle contains a number of LEDs, which light it up in the most subtle fashion since the new year’s fireworks. It’s garish, gross and smells too strongly of jasmine. I’m thinking about disposing of it. For the moment, I’m simply appalled that somebody thinks LED-laced candles are a good idea.