Eduventure: The AR Edition - School Chat

Aw man, complex thingies are the best. Know those times when you're solving real world equations and get imaginary numbers in them somehow? My brain gets all like "WE ARE GONNA MAKE THIS UP AS WE GO" and then we sometimes accidentally break science (or maybe I have to read up on Fourier Transformations. One or the other.)

complex thingies are hella simple actually! just treat the i as an x and you'll go a long ways

I juuuust hope I can absorb all this new information D:

Hokay, I'm either fully missing my first lab or I don't have one at all.

Not being properly enrolled for things is a pain in the butt.

Filling out an application so I can teach delinquents math and science maybe.

Who had twelve minutes left before Online Assignment 1 for Biometrics closed, tried it once, did no better on her original 8/10 score, then aced it with three minutes left on the clock?

This bitch. If this isn't the universe's way of saying "leave everything to the literal last minute ever" theeeen that wouldn't surprise me because that is a pretty shitty bit of advice for a universe to give.

Guys the modern physics lab at my university might possibly be the best lab ever! (the name is because all the equipment comes from the modern era)

Apparently buying new measuring devices is extremely expensive and my university is poor, so we're stuck with this super old ones. Which can't be interpreted by non-old computers, so we also have this relics with little screens that show how they are running at the impressive clock rate of 33 MHz (but they have a TURBO button so it's okay). Also floppy disks.

Anyway one of those computers decided to go rebellious on me yesterday (i think they know we can't replace them) so, after half an hour resets, recalibrations and various failed attempts at negotiation, I ended up setting up some an improvised paper grid in front of the screen and using a ruler to determine where the peaks were in the graph I managed to get.


A couple minutes later it was working properly again.

to be frank that doesn't sound very modern at all!

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maybe it's actually modem physics and it's called that because the pcs are so old they still go online through your telephone line

Funfact: "Modern" physics is physics from the last 120 years because the way we teach introductory physics is still based on 300-year-old ideas.

AKUMU > regale us with stories of being a TA.

Man I don't know I am not much of a story-teller.

ONE TIME I was in a bar and a former student was there and they wanted to buy me a drink, which was cool except I couldn't remember their name.

ONE TIME I was running a lab on springs and a student asked how they were supposed to apply the equation ω=√(g/ℓ) and I laughed because that's the equation for the angular frequency of a rigid pendulum, not of a spring! And the student got really mad that I laughed at them and hated me for the rest of the semester.

ONE TIME another TA was not suitable for direct interaction with other people and I was asked to step in and take over one of his labs. When the TA coordinator introduced me to the lab and told them that the other TA was not going to teach them anymore, they all applauded.

ONE ZILLION TIMES students are not able to replicate the same thing they have done every week for the past three months. The same god-damned thing. Learn already, geez!

Akumu I need to know exactly /how/ you laughed at that pendulum kid. Was is a casual snicker or an unrestrained HA! right in their face?


Geeze pendulums arent springs what a dummy!

I think I just said "ha ha ha" out loud, you know, the way people do when laughing. It was sort of an automatic reaction but then the student put their super-angry face on and I felt bad and embarrassed. I explained that the equation they were looking at in their text-book was for pendula and not for springs and they just spat out that it was what I had told them to use. Which is of course ridiculous, but sometimes when you go looking for an ω you take the first ω that comes along without stopping to ask questions about it.

The moral of this story is two-fold:

1. Control your reactions to things. Keep a poker face at all times.
2. Make sure you understand the context something is presented in.

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot the third moral.

3. Pendula aren't springs, dummy!!

Hahaha oh MAN what does gravity even have to do with springs haha

A friend of mine got tricked into assisting in a thermodynamics lab for freshmen this semester and I just can't wait for it to begin so I can hear some stories about silly students burning themselves with boiling water and/or liquid nitrogen.

to be frank that doesn't sound very modern at all!

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maybe it's actually modem physics and it's called that because the pcs are so old they still go online through your telephone line

wh- what is this "online" place you speak of?

Pendula aren't springs, dummy!!

This should be the new thread title.

So how does one get "tricked" into assisting a class?

(also when you talk about silly students do you speak from experience? Did you lose all your skin in a thermodynamic boiling water / hand interaction?)

I'm actually not sure how that happened but it went from "I might have to assist on the thermodynamics lab a couple days this semester" to "okay i'll be a couple days a week on the lab" to "ARRGH I'M GONNA BE ON THE THERMODYNAMICS LAB LIKE THREE HOURS EVERY DAY" in less than a month.

(also i'm a very good student in most labs! the worst thing i think i did was burning several amplifiers on the electronics lab)

(oh and that time in the chemisty lab when i misread the instructions and added like ten times what i was supposed to add to a solution and it suddenly went purple and started boiling. But that was on my first semester so it barely counts)

Guess who's on Spring Break right now and is reading this thread for shits and giggles

:3c

I originally came here to complain about how hard is the future and choosing what to study and finding information on it.

But then I realized that in abouth a month, I've figured out what I want to do*, found a couple interesting places where I could do it, one of them specially great-looking, and where I can apply to without rushing my schedule ridiculously.


The only things standing in my way is a less-than-excellent academic record and the lack of some kind of certificate proving that I can speak english. But surely the long days spent on the anglophone corners of the internet will allow me to get it easily.

Now I just need to get over the OH GOD I'LL BE SO FAR FROM HOME AND SURROUNDED BY GERMANS OH GOD OH GOD feeling and I will be on my way to SUCCESS. (Asuming they don't toss me out for bad grades, I guess.)


Anyway, thank you Eduventure thread you made me see the light.

*Master's degree on MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS OH SHIT I AM A NERD AMONG NERDS.

yay physics! physics are cool

and the board of science claims another eaglesoul, XX wipes her sexytear and makes it into a diamond earring.

You jerk, it took me a couple of years to figure out what the hell I wanted to do

Well, I figured out what I want to do next year. I don't even know what kind of jobs I could do after this.

Also apparently I'm pretty good at making fast choices and rolling with them without thinking about it too much???

As evidence, The Story Of How I Ended Up In Physics.

On the last year of compulsory high school (~16 years) we had to do some kind of presentation about what would we like to do/study afterwards. We were supposed to pick a degree or something and investigate it.

So one day, our teacher was asking the class what they were doing their presentations about in a pretty rushed way. But everybody had an answer ready, apparently!

Until me. I panicked and said "SOMETHING SCIENCEY I DUNNO! D:", to wich she answered, "NO, SOMETHING SPECIFIC CHEMESTRY PHYSICS BIOLOGY SAY SOMETHING QUICK QUICK". "uuh... uuh...", I had no clue what any of those names actually meant, and at this point rapidly shifting pictures of colorful liquids, plants, lighting and equations was all think about. And then, "PHYSICS!".

She noted it down and I did my presentation, discovering what "Physics" actually meant and loving it in the process. And the rest is history.


Actually I'm pretty sure that if I had answered something different to that question I'd be happily studying that right now.


P.S: Woffles, my eaglesoul was claimed a looooooong time ago.

So the "molecular" half of my "behavioural and molecular ecology" is basically "genetics."

If I don't kick absolute arse on this course I'm quitting science forever.

Skulking back in to maaaaybe admit I might've been counting my metaphorical chickens there

Anyway! I learnt today that I can access full-text journal articles with some logging-in shenanigans.

This means I can complete reports by referencing information from the actual articles, and not just the abstracts which is what I've been basically doing for the last year and a half while studying off my laptop.

My classmate was legit astounded that I'd gotten this far without actually sourcing actual articles when trying to write reports. I always figured if they didn't chuck it in the abstract, chances were the markers of my report hadn't read up on it either. Shrug.

So I'm currently freaking out because i don't know what to do when i finish studying graphic design in a few months.

I have a few options- I want to study illustration, and can do that at a couple of other universities. The problem is that they require moving to the North Island, and I don't have much money. Chances are I wouldn't have enough.

I'm looking at scholarships now and most are just one giant payment, and that's if you get them... Also most of them are for students wh are already enrolled or have been studying at the place for a while by the looks of it. I want to know if i can afford to eat before i commit to moving to study D:

My other option is staying with my graphic design course for an extra two years, which changes it to fine arts and is via correspondence with Whitecliffe, the best art school in the country (which would be a nice way to sneak in without going up against all the other amazing student artists in the country). I'm not sure if that's exactly what I want to do, though... It might end up being a bit too bent towards graphic design. Guh. At least that way i could still live at home and not end up haemorrhaging money.

On the upside, the scholarships for D&A (where i am currently studying) are apparently the best in the country that i can find, because i can get a whole year's tuition paid for.

Is there nowhere good right now to study illustration in the [strike]South Island[/strike] Christchurch? Or would a degree like that here not measure up to a degree from one of the institutions in the North Island?