Scusami, I meant to reply to your message a long time ago, maxdb71.
I have been busy with the University and playing GT4 in my free time
You wanted to know how the University works here, so here it goes.
You take a certain number of courses (minimum load to be considered 'Full Time Student' is 12 hours per semester). Most of the courses are worth three hours each (by that, it's meant that you go attend that course three times a week - Monday, Wednesday, Friday - for 50 minutes each day, or two times a week - Tuesday, Thursday - for 75 minutes each day - as you can see they add up to the same amount, 150 minutes, each week). Labs are worth (usually) just one hour, even if you usually go at least 3 hours, one particular day of the week (or split in two days - really depends on the situation).
The course work is divided into homework assignments (that need to be turned in on time and are graded), tests, and a final exam. They are worth a certain percentage of the final grade (usually the teacher is the one that decides how much everything is worth, and it communicates that to the students at the beginning of the semester, in the syllabus). Example: assignments 15% - tests (3 or 4, sometimes 5 are given) 50% - final exam 35% - total possible = 100%.
The grading is divided as follows:
A = 90 - 100%
B = 80 - 89%
C = 70 - 79%
D = 60 - 69%
And so forth.
It's not at all like in the Universities in Italy. A final grade of C or above will grant you passing the course. Therefore you can archive it, and move on to the next course. Anything below C means failing, and you have to retake the
whole course - it's not like in Italy, where you can just attend the whole entire course once, and if you fail the exam, all you have to do is show up to the next session. Here when you fail, you fail. You have to redo all the work again.
The good points, though, are:
1) Homework Assignments and Tests take up a huge portion of your grade, therefore you can afford to do halfway decent on your Final Exam and still get a good final grade (provided you had a good average on the Homework Assignments and the Tests - which by the way, are usually graded on a 100 point scale)
2) The Final Exam only consists in a
Written Exam (at least in the University where I am - MSU) - no Oral Exams here. That's a BIG plus
3) The teachers (some of them, at least) curve the grades: if the class average for a particular test is quite low, the teacher will take the highest grade of the class and add to it (and everybody else's test grade) the amount of points needed for that one test to get bumped to a grade of 100. Example, let's say the class average is a 65 (very bad), and the higest grade is an 85, the teacher will add to that test 15 points (in order to bump
IT to 100) and then add 15 points to everybody else's test grade.
4) If a teacher doesn't usually curve, he would give at least some
bonus points, if the average is extremely bad, or give some extra take home work for the students willing to do it and bump their grades, or even regive the whole entire test again (sometimes the same one, most of the times a different one) and average the two, or drop the lowest indivudual grade. The possibilities are endless - here the teachers are really willing to help the students. I can't say the same about the teachers in Italian Universities: I was in Universita' di Padova, before ending up here - I hated it.
5) Teachers always welcome you when you go to their offices and ask questions.
Not every teacher curves the grades, though, and most of the times there will always be the mofo that makes a 95, therefore
killing the curve (only 5 points will be added to everybody's test grade) - I am, most of the time that mofo
This semester I am taking 21 hours worth of course work (as I did last semester) - which implies I am taking 6 regular courses (@ 3 hours each) and 1 laboratory course (@ 3 hours). The average American takes 15 hours per semester (5 courses).
So, yes, I am pretty busy with College work, right now
Hope my description helps you figure out the American Education system (which, if you haven't understood so far, is way better than the Italian one - in my opinion, at least).
Ciao.
P.S. GT4 is
not part of my homework, but is what I do mostly in my (albeit rare) free time
The Wizard.
One more year!
)
