worst moments

[ABBA]

Since it is exam revision time and misery loves company: what is your worst academic moment?

[Duggeh]

I'll post mine in about 10 days.

[Power Metal Dom]

Coming out of a Comp Sci exam feeling really confident, then getting graded 2 for it

[Delts]

My whole time here after the first semester at a guess.

[RandomMusings]

Dissertation.

[The Dude]

With the impending feeling of a bad monent comming on I have a question. In history honors courses do you loose your P to P if you get below a five in coursework, or does it only get taken away if you avarage for the course (coursework and exams) is below a five? The website makes reference to sub-honors moduals but not honors ones.

[Lukey2]

Nothing is worse than Sports Hall Exams. No matter how well prepared I am, I can never shake the Jew-on-his-way-to-a-shower feeling that I get being herded through that long Hallway.

[Haunted]

My worst moment is also one of my best.

Third year physics, electromagnetism, the worst exam ever (coincidentally the course was taught by the worst lecturer ever). 20 minutes into the 2 hour exam I had answered all the questions I knew, I looked around and saw similar expressions of "ohfuck" on the faces of my peers. But then, in a jedi-like fashion, a voice reminded me of that old exam technique for bad situations; THE BRAIN DUMP.
In the time remaining I ignored all the questions and just dumped everything I knew about electromagnetism onto my answer sheet, relevant to the exam or not. I got a 12.7, the average was something like an 8, with a whole lot of people not even getting 5.

Remember the brain dump kids, it may save your life one day.

[Jono]

With the impending feeling of a bad monent comming on I have a question. In history honors courses do you loose your P to P if you get below a five in coursework, or does it only get taken away if you avarage for the course (coursework and exams) is below a five? The website makes reference to sub-honors moduals but not honors ones.

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/infoug/ptp.html

The School regulations don't say so. Oddly, they specify a required average of 5.0 at sub-honours, but not honours. I don't believe that the School of History withdraws permission to proceed from Honours on the basis of individual pieces of coursework, but I can't be 100% sure. I'd advise you to check at St Katherine's Lodge as soon as possible just in case!

[Darkwind]

I was about halfway through my dissertation and thinking I had another week to finish it. I then just checked a couple of e-mails from the person supervising the whole thing and noticed that instead of week 11, I had to hand it in in week 10. After panicking for about 30 mins I pulled a series of all-nighters to get SOMEthing handed in. Got my viva for it tomorrow.

[Jono]

For the sake of caring and/or sharing:

My worst moment (well, period of time) was when I got my first essay returned second semester of last year. It was an utter rush-job. The deadline was nestled snugly between SABRE 08, which I had to organize, and the Association Elections, which I was running in. I knew It was going to be bad, and I wasn't far wrong. The final comments were something like: "Time to work harder!"

When that's your only frame of reference for your academic potential, it really fucks up your confidence. I was continually paranoid about what my tutor thought of me, it made attending in that class an utter nightmare, and discouraged me from contributing to the discussion (which in turn, probably reinforced the preconception (imagined or otherwise) that I'm useless). I did better with all my other marks, and managed to pull my grade up to something halfway-alright. Unfortunately it wasn't until after Easter that I was able to feel like a competant individual again!

[/emotional baggage]

[Hennessy]

Told a lecturer once I'd handed in an essay when I hadn't, then he caught me in the library writing it later that day in 1st year!

I think at the end of this academic career I'll always be able to say I can fight a brilliant rearguard action against being forcibly removed by committee from the department, surely that's a skill?

[Sketch Artist]

Fell asleep in a tutorial. Sitting right next to my tutor.

[Freaker]

Hmm, spending 47 hours in Butts Wynd straight and falling asleep on the keyboard while writing dissertation conclusion was not a happy time. I think that was the worst moment for my academic health.

Nor was blacking out completely in an exam. I spent more than an hour just looking into the air and have absolutely no idea now why I didn't just answer the questions instead. In the end I ran out of time, having answered less than half of the questions with something of a brain dump. I think that was the worst moment for my academic sanity.

Finally, a lecturer once questioned whether what I had said (and she found remarkable) was my own work (it was indeed) and suggested, that if it wasn't my own work, I would have plagiarised. All was fine after a talk, but definitely worst moment for my academic confidence!

[the Empress]

last year: still writing my dissertation the day it was due and the printers refusing to work.
this year: falling into a bog on a field trip. Humiliating.
I'm going away tommorrow for residential course - I'm desperately hoping nothing disastrous or embaressing happens. Everyone keeps telling me it's going to be *fun* . . . .

[zipporah]

Probably the test I got back in second year with a five scrawled over the original four and a comment along the lines of 'And that's being generous - appalling effort'.

Or the "panic attack" (apparently - I thought they were episodes rather than lifestyles) I gave myself throughout the entirety of my first Honours exam period.

Or any unseen translation I've ever done under exam conditions.


I should be graduating with a good 2:1 though. Honest.

[fluffy]

I just got back an essay that I worked *so* bloody hard for, and amongst the illegible scrawl I made out the words "strange", and "needs more work" - despite having a fifty book bibliography for 5000 words, i only got a 13.5 overall. and i put sooooo much effort in. then the essay i didn't try as hard on, i got a 17. wtf?

[Duggeh]

I just got back an essay that I worked *so* bloody hard for, and amongst the illegible scrawl I made out the words "strange", and "needs more work" - despite having a fifty book bibliography for 5000 words, i only got a 13.5 overall. and i put sooooo much effort in. then the essay i didn't try as hard on, i got a 17. wtf?

I fucking hate that sort of bullshit. Had a backwards happen to me where an essay I slaved on got a worse mark than one I knocked together in less than a day. I think that it all comes down to how strict a marker the lecturer is.

[ct3012]

My worst moment in St Andrews had, up until the moment in time when I foolishly clicked on the link in Duggeh's sig (you utter bastard....), been when I found out that the courses I've been doing so far aren't enough to get into honours because of the school's specific amount of non-subject credits they want you to have done. I need to man up about it because it could be a whole lot worse, but I didn't think that much bad stuff could happen to you before honours?
Unless they didn't tell you that you had lost your PtP somehow...

[Andy Monkey B]

Possibly in an exam answering two out of the possible six questions with plenty of time to spare, just missing the last half hour mark which forced me to stay till the end. Then subsequently reading the instructions again and finding i should have answered three questions. Hurriedly answered an hour long question in five minutes and got an atrocious mark.

Or this semester when I went to work in a lab in Sicily. Slept in almost every single day, didn't turn up most days and became the absolute idiot of the lab by accidentally leaving some important information at home and obstructing everyone else's research. Then trying to write up a dissertation based on completely unrelated experiments on completely unrelated bacterial strains into a cohesive scientific investigation because the lab supervisors completely failed to understand what the purpose of my project was after me explaining once a day for 14 weeks. Will let you know how that all turns out by friday.

Honestly though, I think since freshers week i have gradually become stupider and stupider, and less able to think clearly, work hard and do my subject. St Andrews has destroyed me academically, and still I seem to be getting a good 2:1 grade. A job in science is not on the cards.