Summer nightmare...

And the summer i'm referring to is the summer course, to be more specific, the Electrical System 204 (ES204) Summer Course. summer course refers to units offered to students for study during the summer break. I was thinking about this course right after my finals in 2006, so much so i brought the course materials to Australia during my holiday (at least i studies a bit there.It helped a lot with my understanding process suring the summer course).

Whenever people in campus meet me and ask what i'm doing, i'll say that i'm taking summer course. "Ei, but i though you're engineering. Engineering got summer course meh?" Haha! Yeah, i guess first time in history - SUMMER COURSE FOR ENGINEERING! The fees we pay is for a 25credits subject (i.e. RM2500 + RM150).

In the past, i used to wonder why summer courses were only offered to Commerce and Business students. I envied them because they had the chance to either speed up thier studies (by taking units in advance), or space it out (by dropping some units during the normal semester and take it during summer) or take things a little easy (because if they failed a unit, there is a possibility the particular unit be offered during summer...hehe)

But soon i began to realise that unlike engineering units, commerce and business units runs more of like typical clasroom setting - lecture, tutorial, perhaps some presentation. On the other hand, engineering units will include the usual lecture, tutorial, and labs (and reports) - and i tell you labs are BIG things for an engineering student. Just to figure out something sometimes take so long! Add on the assignments, mid-term test, quizzes... So imagine a summer course for an engineering unit. But still, why not offer summerfor units that do not require any lab experiment, such as renewable energy principles?

So how come i've got summer course?
Answer:Because we asked for it.
"Your class must be quite big in number, like 20 or so" some say.
NOPE! THERE ARE ONLY 5 OF US IN OUR CLASS!
"WHAT?!!" (so surprised!)
Yeah. It all began like this. Once upon a time, i mean 2 years ago (2nd sem 2005), a group of us failed this unit. Somehow, some of my friends had a brilliant idea to request from  our lecturer, Dr. Nader, to consider giving us summer course for this subject. After submitting a formal letter of request to him, amazingly, he agreed to it, on condition that we can find a minimum of 5 people from our batch. And yes, we got 5 people :D So instead of resitting this unit in the 2nd sem of 2006, we were to take this unit during the (southern hemisphere) summer break of 2006. I guess he agreed to give us this course partly because we have gone through the unit previously - we weren't a newbie to the course.

So what's so 'nightmarish' about this course? What makes it a nightmare:
1) The time frame of the unit
2) The workload of the unit
3) I just dread studying... (have to fight this feeling)

Believe it or not, although the course is run through 3 weeks (only), the number of class-day contacts are only 9. In other words, WE ONLY HAVE 9 CLASSES!!! Generally, we have lecture in the morning, followed by tutorial, then lab in the afternoon (we need to write report for the lab). We also have quiz (worth 10%) and a mid-term (worth 20%).

Well, actually i personally feel that having been through this unit before, i can sort of grasp the knowledge much better, This is true for me - every time i repeat a unit, i seem to get much higher marks as compared to my previous marks.

But this time, really thanks to David & Victor, who are so kind to assist me by lending me their study material for this course. Also thanks to Dr. Nader. You know, this course made me realise that Dr. Nader is a nice guy - he's actually very willing to help students pass. their units :) (although he appears moody at times. Who doesn't anyway?) On my part, i hsould study and try my best. Thanks also to Hafis and Adrus who made this summer course possible by coordinating our request. Thanks to Navyin and Don for signing the letter too :D.

As i write this, i've gone through 95% percent of the course time - what's left is our final exam (worth 50%) this Thursday. We will be sitting the exam together with those sitting for their supplementary exam. Wishing all my mates the best for the finals & supp!

A lesson learnt from the whole thing:
1) Don't be afraid to ask for help with regards to studies.
2) Have a preview and a fast read-thru of the subject before studying the actual unit.
3) Just try my best.

I hope to be able to continue to apply the lesson i've learnt from here. I MUST!

Comments

[Kim Bua Li]

wow...so good u guys got summer course! gambateh ya! =D

[John]

i'm indeed glad that engineering has summer course :)

Wah, so tiring....

Dr. Nader....yeah...he is very human...

All the best in your final exam.

Go, go, go, Adrian!!

[Adrian]

to Kim: yeah, very blessed to have it :) Gambateh to you too :D

to John: hehe....Dr. Nader :) Thak you for your support John!