Wow.
Exams are finally over along with the rest of the spring semester.
I had planned on writing a post about prepping for exams before exams, but I guess I got a little wrapped up.
The studying for exams was not too hard. I had paid enough attention over the course of the semester – not enough attention to know everything, but enough to know what I was missing. I knew what the professors wanted us to learn from the courses and where to find info I was rusty with. In short, I was prepared to prepare.
The question of whether I prepared enough will be reflected in my grades.
For me, the harder part of the end of the year was the projects. For a number of my courses, I had to complete major projects at the end of the semester. Completion of these projects would demonstrate a true mastery of course material. And, in my case, a few helped me to achieve that level of mastery.
I had projects in every class except physics. In English, we had an essay that tied together some of the major ideas from the term and included organized peer editing and a 1-on-1 session with the professor for guidance. In Operations Research and Linear Algebra, the professors let my friend and me combine projects for the classes to produce a paper on a particular method of optimization. In Foundations of Applied Math, my group wrote a paper about the Collatz Conjecture.
Lots of good stuff, and I know I learned things this semester.