By the numbers

i got 100 on my first Physics exam! Now all I need is an 80% or so on the next one to guarantee myself a D! It wasn't too hard, just a couple of sneaky math-related tricks that you couldn't do on a scientific calculator (we couldn't use our TI-83's, 89's or the like). I wish the rest of my classes were like this. AME 300 is pretty easy, but aggravating, especially with these labs that nobody really wants to do. And I think I did well on the AME 455 exam, but I'm still waiting on that one back.

AME 324B is a different story, though. It's supposed to be a pretty easy class, but I'm having a hard time keeping up with the homework. Sure, it's only one or two problems a week, which I think is far from sufficient, but the other problem I think is that almost everyone but me has the solutions manual in their back pocket. It seems uncanny to me that 90% of the class gets 100% on an assignment that I only got a 30% on. Hopefully that will be the one that I get dropped, unless I screw up horrendously again. But these graders don't believe in partial credit. I suppose in a work sense it's either the part works or it doesn't, but seriously, come on! And secondly, I don't want the solutions manual. I'm tired of being in a major where everyone thinks it's ok to "use resources" on the homeworks. I don't know, maybe I'm the stupid one, trying to believe in something called integrity, but I find it very dismal to be in a class where even the teacher (he's not a professor- he's a guy that works at Raytheon) says to just look everything up because somebody else has done the problem before. What about individual contribution? Does that have no merit in this field? I signed up for Engineering because I wanted to learn about ways to build things better, learn how they work, how and what the signs of failure are, but the more and more I delve into Engineering, I don't like what I see. Most companies force the parts to fail after a certain time (that way, they can stay in business!) and there's a part of me that just finds that disgusting. I don't want to builds bombs, either. It seems like Engineering is turning into everything I despise, which I sure hope isn't the case, but it's downright depressing. I don't know, I'm already this far into the major, it'd be pretty stupid to bail out now. But that was why I signed up for Mechanical in the first place. To be an Engineer, go to grad school, get my Master's, and work at an awesome company that gets to make something awesome that lasts for a long time, and when that floods the market, we make something entirely different, unique, but equally helpful and appreciated. I love the idea of Engineering, but it's real-world applications have been a serious letdown.

Night.