Stanford Classes

So after taking 4 classes in Stanford,  one Business plan (2 failed ideas), One Elevator pitch competition, 2 Business Plan Competitions, 1 Business Case + Analysis, 75 classes, 9 deadlines, 2 exams, and 1 heart stopping moment,

I am glad I survived relatively unscarred.

(=

Mind you, Stanford Students are smart! Why do I say this?

I took an Mech Engine Module here (bad choice....way bad choice.)  Fuel Cell fundamentals. I thought well, you know.. level 2000 module.. shouldn't be too tough, and the pre-requsites were Thermodynamics and engineering maths. Both of which I (thought) have covered.

So I happily went for class, the lecturer was nice and interesting. And the subject was interesting too. Then came tutorials..

They ask you questions like:

Qn:Why do you think the fuel cell is more practical than standard combustion engine?

my answer; 2 sentences, 3 lines.

my classmates' answer: 2 pages of graphs and explaination, generated from one long page of equations and workings from Mathlab.

When we got our assignements back, no surprise that I get scores between 34 - 75 while my classmates average 115/100.

Yes. They acutally score 115 over a total of 100. Incredible.

Then I start to know them better, and I talk to them.

me: so where are you from?

Kim Byuen Yong: Oh, I am from Korea, did my honours at XXXX University in Korea, so I'm here for further studies.

me: so you are master student?

Kim: yep.

me: what about you chang?

Chang: Oh i did my undergrad at Michigan.

me: so you are master student here also?

Chang: that's right.

me: Zhengjie, you master student also?

zhengjie: no, I am doing my phD

me: !???!?

zhengjie: Ryan and Lee over there also phD students, we working in the same lab.

So that kinda sums up the story. I am in the freakin wrong class. The only year 2 mech engine student seating among a class of pHDs and Master Students. 

So it wasn't surprising that I flung both my mid-terms and finals. (that what they call final exam) But luck was with me cos somehow, the tutorials were graded and maybe they took pity because I was in the wrong class. The last I checked, I had less than half of the marks for Midterms and Finals but I still got a C! To think i slogged so hard for the exams. Well worth it!

Yeyyyyyy!

Morale of the story, don't think of doing post grad technical classes, especially in stanford, if you don't have what it takes.