5 Homework assignments that require substantial hours of work, two exams where 75% of the score is 'take home' written answer, and a group project with multiple types of deliverables.
So far, I have a B and an A on the first two homework grades.
The midterm grade just came back, and I got a 72.5%. Class average is 64.75%
The syllabus states that he will curve the class average to a B. If I can keep doing slightly better than the rest of the class, maybe I can luck into an A, but I'm not holding my breath.
The overall grade average is listed at 64.75%, but the MC 25% was auto-graded, so I figure he's stating that the written 75% of the test came in at 70% mean. My part 2 score was 72.5%, so still ahead of the game if that's the case.
Prior to the posting of the written grades, my MC grade was 72% with a class average of 60.5%.
I don't have to ace the course, I just have to do better than most of the others.
The midterm is 25% of the grade. I have a 90% average on the graded homework on the 10% of the grade those represent, and I'll max 2.5% of the total grade on our knowledge checks (MC, infinite retakes)
My effective grade is 79.13% at the moment, and there's not much room outside of the midterm for anyone to improve on me there. Since I'm ahead of the overall midterm grade by almost 8 points, I've almost convinced myself that I'm in good shape.
The grading policy I operate under has hard cutoffs at 70-79 C / 80-89 B / 90+ A. The target is a middle B. No curve. My current class has been fairly harshly graded and I didn't get detailed feedback about what cost me credit on any assignment. Just general feedback. I'm hard on 88% and have only earned a 94% on anything meaningful once so I'm pretty sure I'll get a B. Oh well blew my 4.0.
El Guapo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:26 pm
FWIW curves are widely used in law school grades.
You're not helping.
I guess the "tone" for the program I attended as well as a few others I am aware of is that if you're earning lower than a (B) average, you're likely not geared for whatever is being asked. I think it was fundamentally a design issue in how exams and projects were offered and graded - and that's why the curve sounds strange to me. Undergrad was an absolute grind. Graduate school was more of a demonstration of understanding, not regurgitating facts and figures. YMMV.
El Guapo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:26 pm
FWIW curves are widely used in law school grades.
You're not helping.
I guess the "tone" for the program I attended as well as a few others I am aware of is that if you're earning lower than a (B) average, you're likely not geared for whatever is being asked. I think it was fundamentally a design issue in how exams and projects were offered and graded - and that's why the curve sounds strange to me. Undergrad was an absolute grind. Graduate school was more of a demonstration of understanding, not regurgitating facts and figures. YMMV.
The other thing that surprised me about law school grading is that generally speaking the more prestigious the law school, the more generous the curve. Yale Law - probably the most prestigious law school in the country - uses what is essentially a pass/fail system, and pretty much everybody passes. I think the underlying assumption being that Yale Law students are better than pretty much everyone else by virtue of being Yale Law students, so there's no point in trying to distinguish much between them.
Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:28 am
5 Homework assignments that require substantial hours of work, two exams where 75% of the score is 'take home' written answer, and a group project with multiple types of deliverables.
Didn't see this. This captures my current class. Hate it. Maybe it is the professor but I was looking forward to it...now I just want it done. I have an assignment a week that takes massive amounts of time for 2% or 10% of my grade on alternating weeks and it is graded opaquely so I never know what to improve. I am traveling M-Th on top and losing all weeknights and Sunday to schoolwork. This just sucks.
El Guapo wrote:FWIW curves are widely used in law school grades.
You still have to pass the bar exam.
Those Yale and University of Chicago pass-fail schmucks get really scared during the pressure cooker of the bar.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein "I don't stand by anything." - Trump “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 “It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
Finished my Data Mining class last night. I might eke out an improbable A which was surprising. I had been running a high B but I nailed the second to last paper with the highest grade I received in the class so far.
Anyway we will see since the last paper is a group project and the group leader didn't care to follow the assignment instructions. I need it to be a high A and specifically I am afraid we will get docked for formatting issues and not using the section titles specified in the assignment.
For my part, I wrote up all the drafts in my APA formatted template that I've used from undergrad. I mocked it up with the proper section titles and everything. Somewhere between us agreeing on the draft as final and submission he pasted it int something that wasn't spaced properly, didn't have properly formatted seriation, changed key section titles, footnotes were not APA, etc. Group projects...amirite?
I started working on spreadsheets to make fake data insertion easier, an unholy amalgamation of concatenations of fields and punctuation (and yes, coop, I remembered the ampersand this time). We've got two weeks to get it all done and turned in. In addition to the two remaining homework problems to turn in by this Sunday, and the 30% of the final, 75% of which is take-home, which means more homework problems.
All told, between the group project, final, and ungraded homework, over 50% of my grade remains outstanding at this point.
It is 20% here and I'm at 71% right now on the absolute scale. I need this thing to land at a 95%. Not impossible considering I landed a 99.9% on the last paper and the guy who mostly developed our script was a mad genius with R.
Well, the take-home portion of the final is done. I’m pretty much done with my heavy lifting on the group project, and just put in an appearance or two through Sunday. All else is studying for the multiple choice portion that is 7.5% of the grade.
At this point, I’ll be happy with a passing grade so I can put it behind me, even if it costs me $1,200 for a C.
I had more work to do tweaking tables and keys through Sunday morning as final work commenced on the project.
I made an 88 on the MC portion of the final. Everything was done Sunday. It’s now Friday, and I still don’t have the final course grade. Per the registrar’s site, grades are due 48 hours after the final.
I'll say that is my favorite thing about UMUC. They get the grades in *fast*. Easily inside 48 hours. It puts time pressure on us for the last few weeks where the professors turn the screws since they have to get grades in but I'll take it. It has made tuition reimbursement much cleaner.
Our BI class is using R for the practical applications. The labs pretty much consist of step-by step instructions on one data set, then asking you to repeat them on a separate data set. Not the most challenging tasks.
Took the midterm on Saturday, which was 20 MC questions, and three math problems involving ID3 Entropy, Neural Network math, and a Naive Bayes problem. I waited until Saturday, crammed all the learning for those three problems into the afternoon, then took the test in the evening. Despite feeling that I had a good exam, it didn't stop me from having dreams about failing it all night.
The front half of the course consisted of seven lectures. The back half has three, but this is when we get to do the project, thankfully solo.
They gave me 100% for my final project, which I was sure I wasn't going to get. Rather than use three different data analysis modeling types, I applied the same one
(k-means clustering) to a summary dataset and three subsets. My proposal included a section indicating that I would perform some prediction (naive Bayes), and I didn't do anything along those lines.
Isgrimnur wrote:Next up: Information Technology Audit
By my count, the closed-notes midterm that I get to take in 3.5 hours is expecting me to memorize and be able to regurgitate approximately 150 different terms and concepts and attribute them to the appropriate model.
Grade came in. 177 / 250; 70.8% So that's better than I was hoping for.
Several hours later, this gem drops:
I know that some of you have not done as well as you'd like and I would like to give you an opportunity to improve your score. Completing the midterm improvement opportunity will give you a chance to earn back half of your lost points.
No admission that the format was terrible, it's all on us. At least there's the opportunity to do more work by re-doing the missed sections and get a ~14% increase.
Those last two classes have been an absolute struggle to get through. I'm lucky to have escaped with Bs in both cases.
The home stretch is:
MIS 696H - Master's Project Report
MIS 507A - Software Design & Integration
696H is a Business Communication class focused on a 20-page report and supporting written and, I believe at least one video, assignment. 507A will be design patterns.
Victory dance. Or do you still have that Design class?
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein "I don't stand by anything." - Trump “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 “It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
Design project is posted. It's crappy, the report and demo are too short, but it's only 20% of the final grade.
I have a 95% on the homework, which is 45% of the grade, and the final, which is similar to the homework, is the remaining 35%.
I fly out on Wednesday to Tuscon, take the final on Thursday afternoon, Friday is my sister's birthday, Saturday is graduation, Sunday is wide open, and I return Monday.
As the Winter sale doesn't start until three days after my return, you guys will have to work together to keep everyone informed.
