The Customary Report

Another semester has come to a close! The last day of the Proseminar was yesterday, and the results of the exams have all come out already. Here they are (from worst to best):

Technische Informatik (3,3): This was the first result that came out. It was rather depressing at the time, because it was worse than I expected, and because I suspected that the other results wouldn't be much better.

About the exam itself, it was the only one this semester where I left several answers blank. There really was still a lot that I didn't know (let alone understand), and a fair amount that I thought I knew, but apparently didn't. Even the scheduling problem, which was actually very easy, led to a fair amount of confusion and uncertainty.

I'm going to try to take the Nachklausur more seriously. Even if I don't manage to improve my mark, I hope to learn at least a little more until then.

Algorithmen und Programmierung (1,7): This mark raised my spirits enormously, even if it is only a 2+ in disguise. The exam itself actually didn't go particularly well, to the point that I was somewhat cringing at my own answers as I was writing them. But, partly because most of the other students also had difficulties, and partly because I wrote something for (nearly) every question, everything turned out fine.

Analysis I (1,3): Well, it's the same mark as my mark for Lineare Algebra I, so I'm content. In truth, I should have done better, because the course and the exam weren't as challenging, but such is life.

I suspect that I lost a fair amount of points on the induction problem, because it involved logarithms, and I wasn't sure whether we were allowed to use logarithmic identities directly (without a proof of some kind). After all, although we probably all learned them in school, I didn't remember them being taught or used in this course. In hindsight, it was a stupid thing to be confused about, but I was feeling rather flustered and under pressure as it was.

By the way, it occurred to me afterwards that the identities may well have been discussed in one of the weekly Zentralübungen -- not that it would have done me any good (I couldn't attend the Zentralübungen, because it would have meant skipping the TI lecture).

Proseminar Theoretische Informatik: I won't know my mark for this course for a while, but the instructor for the course said that none of us needs to worry about passing (comforting, I suppose?). That said, I don't expect a high mark. My own presentation didn't go badly (I would say), but there were other people in the course who had better, smoother presentations for more difficult topics. Well, I suppose it depends on the instructor's generosity.

My main worries about my presentation are that there were awkward parts (where I hadn't thought of a good way of formulating things), that the audience looked somewhat bored, and that (although there were two questions during the presentation) there were none at the end. But, as I said, it wasn't bad.