You can check my blog archives, but I don’t think that I’ve ever complained about graduate school before.  (No need to actually check.  Here are the links to my school complaints - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7)  So, since I’m such a good sport about this school thing, perhaps you’ll indulge me a moment to complain.

books_and_papers_0978_2This semester came to a close last night as I took a final exam.  I’ve never been one of those to take the full amount of time allotted for an exam.  I’m usually one of the first ones to walk-out, as a matter of fact.  It’s not because I’m smart or super-fast, it’s just my approach to exams.  I figure that I know the material or I don’t.  So, I put down what I know, fake what I don’t and move on.  For this exam, though, almost everyone was in the classroom for the duration. I allotted myself 30 minutes for each problem (5 total) and figured that I’d have nothing to do for the last 30 but maybe verify a couple of steps.  Nope.  I spent the entire time crunching numbers.  This wasn’t an exam in investment analysis.  It was an exam in using calculators.  I made so many calculations and wrote so much that one of my mechanical pencils broke.  One of the test problems had an entire page of text to read through just to find the six or seven numbers pertinent to the problem.  The professor insisted that this “case study” was a real life application of what we’ve learned.  Yeah?  Well, in real life, I’m not limited to three hours and I have a paycheck waiting when I’m done.  So I deem your problem silly and trivial….but I’ll still do it.

At any rate, the semester is over and I can catch my breath before diving back into a new semester in January.  The holidays now seem a little cheerier and my evenings are a bit more free.  I don’t have a care in the world!  Well, except for the fact that I have a compulsive need to check the school website every half hour to see if my grades have been posted yet.  I’ve already checked three times while writing this post.  If his final were really so important, you’d think that he’d have the grades posted by now.  Jerk.

UPDATE: Behold the power of my writing!  An hour after posting this the professor posted our grades.  I was joking about it, but this is the first time I’ve had a class where we took a final and less than 24 hours later, the grades were posted.  Now pardon me while I find something else to complain about.