One semester to go

I've been back to school for the last couple weeks, we had in-person classes from the start, and I feel old.

The pandemic seems like a thing of the past at this point, at least here in Mexico, but that’s because I got used to facemasks, even if the rest of preventive measures, like social distancing and avoiding hand-shakes aren’t really as enforced.

This semester is the last one where I’ll have classes. Next time I’ll dedicate myself to labor practice, so I’ll get a job at some place and then get my degree.

That’s the plan at least, I need to keep my average high if I don’t want to have to do a thesis. I would really like to avoid doing that.

The new classes

My schedule is quite messed up, I go from 9 am to 8 pm most days, I have 7 courses during this semester, plus my social service, which I have to do for 2 more months, give or take.

I have Artificial Intelligence, given by a knowledgeable teacher who wants us to do everything by ourselves, I also have Expert Systems, which is given by him too. His teaching consists of laying out a problem and expecting us to find a solution in the time left of his class. He helps when we approach him with questions, but we don’t know much theory, to be honest.

I also have 2 business management courses, one of them, Business Planning, is more focused on the math, economy and spreadsheets, the other, Business Management, is more theoric, and wants us to do hand-written homework. It seems like both teachers are quite chill, so I hope I get to keep my grades high.

I also have a Fuzzy Control Systems class, which is quite a novelty for me, the teacher is pretty cool and does his best, when we have questions it feels like he just gives us the reason even if we are wrong but, its fine since he explains stuff well enough. Fuzzy Control seems like the most complex course, but I feel confident for now.

Then, there’s Digital Signal Analysis. This one is given by a decent teacher, but its the first class during the morning and its really tedious for me, thankfully its not really that hard and shares a lot of topics with previous classes, as long as I don’t feel sleepy. I think I need to sleep better if I want to have energy for this one.

Last but not least, Material Mechanics, for now it seems like the same as Statics was, since it was also given by the same teacher, he is quite a nice guy, even though he over-explains himself a little, thankfully it seems like his homework is not much, we just solve some problems, and while they take time, they ain’t hard.

Of course, these impressions may change as exams approach in the distance, lol.

The teacher I avoided

I chickened out on one of the courses I had registered myself into. Production Systems didn’t sound like a bad class to have, the teacher was also really good, I had taken some classes with her before, so it would be all good.

Or so I thought.

In first semester, I had a teacher that, I felt, was quite decent, but that’s because I was just too innocent. The guy had us make hand written reports of every single topic, didn’t allow us to arrive late at all, and would look at every little detail to remove you points.

No graphics? you are done for, no explanation for the graphics you added? its as if they didn’t exist, not enough lines of text? you sure know it all already, right? Weird letter spacing? Disgusting.

But hey, that’s honestly reasonable enough, if a little tiring and not really useful when you are just speed-writing this to get it over with, without actually learning at all, but you can force your way through it and even write homework in advance, since you know all the topics from the first class.

Then he gives you 4 exams and a project of like 30 pages that has to be hand-written too.

Remember all of your reports with information you had to look up yourself because there is also no bibliography? Well, it does not matter, because all the exams are based on the presentations done by your classmates, in fact, they are literally copy-pasted paragraphs, with mistakes and all, with wrong concepts or whatever it was, as is, with just a couple of phrases removed.

And there is like 20 or 30 questions, out of like 15 or more presentations with a bunch of slides full of text because university students don’t know how to explain stuff without reading aloud.

Back to 2 weeks then.

I hadn’t realized the change of teacher. And then I saw him.

I honestly had forgotten about him, my brain must have blocked my memories as a way of self-defense, until my classmates started to whisper and mentions trying to quit this class. I decided to check on the system which classes I had had with him, and then I remembered it all.

The worst thing is that the system was not supposed to let you turn down the class, but, thankfully, there was actually a way, without having to do any paperwork and annoying stuff. As soon as I could, I quit. I could not afford to get a low grade, not when I don’t even need the credits of that class anyway.

The class was being taken by a bunch of students in lower semesters than me, as far as I know, 24 people out of 45 left, I wish the best to those brave (or innocent) enough to risk taking a class with that teacher.

Finishing up

Wow, I wrote a lot more than I expected, I am pretty sure nobody actually cares enough about my university life to actually care, but if you do, make sure to contact me however you want and mention the course of the ones I am taking, that you find the most interesting (just to prove you read it lol).

Also, to make the “I feel old” part of the description, like half of the classes I am taking are flooded by students of lower semesters, which is quite interesting, at least there is more people to try and talk to (failing miserably).

I even actually surprised some folks when I solved my Rubik’s cube in 20 seconds or so, most of my classroom already knew I can do that, but not the new people :P

Overall, I hope I manage to get high grades on everything, it looks like all the teachers are good and I will also do my best to break my limits on this stuff.

That’s all folks.

https://fosstodon.org/@joel/108881029302424890

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