To anybody in Bitzer's section, are we doing the review session or not? I STILL haven't gotten any e-mail from him or the TA's about it. If not, it's no big deal because the material covered isn't really all that difficult. But just in case, I have one question; on the review with the section about sets and subsets, what does AxB mean? I can't find the "x" symbol anywhere in the notes.

10/7/2007 5:28:37 PM

x means multiply...no seriously, you're screwed

10/7/2007 6:46:21 PM

Yea, I assume the review section is cancelled.

That sucks for me, because I have no idea what the fuck is going on in there right now. Here's hoping for that guaranteed C (or better).

P.S. For sets, I think the x means cross multiplication?

10/7/2007 8:04:02 PM

Quote :

"Here's hoping for that guaranteed C (or better)."

That's only if you go to all the office hours, and redo your tests until you do the problems right and do all sorts of things. That basically means if you do all that, you'll know the material well enough to get a C regardless.

10/7/2007 8:18:42 PM

Well if I've completely fucked up two tests already, I don't know if I could recover from that unless he bumped my grade based on "going the extra mile."

10/7/2007 8:33:18 PM

hmm...I think I got a B in this class and sure as hell didn't do all that great on the tests.

10/7/2007 10:16:42 PM

Quote :

"For sets, I think the x means cross multiplication?"

Have we even covered that? That was about the only thing in the review practice problems that I didn't understand. Everything else I managed to do.

10/7/2007 11:44:58 PM

Doubt it.

It is bullshit that there wasn't some sort of review session. I need someone to help me decipher Bitzer's handwriting.

I'm gonna start sitting near the front so I can read that shit, and not have an excuse to do something else besides pay attention.

10/7/2007 11:50:50 PM

that test was pretty fucking rough

10/8/2007 12:11:16 PM

I'd be pleasantly surprised if I got above a 30.

10/8/2007 2:18:36 PM

I ALMOST finished it. I got the normal form for the last problem, but ran out of time to prove it by induction. Like, the moment I finished putting the final answer down they called time. This shit wasn't impossible, but it was needlessly crazy.

Overall the questions weren't too hard (they just taking fucking forever to write out), so I think I'm gonna do well enough. However, there's always this disconnect between how well I think I did and how well the graders say I did.

10/8/2007 2:44:02 PM

Does Barnes still teach this class for him? If so, I'm not sure how you guys are bombing the tests.

10/8/2007 3:46:07 PM

^

Some guy taught for the two weeks who was really sarcastic and generally angsty.

Since then, Bitzer has been teaching.

10/8/2007 6:53:09 PM

Heavy set guy?

10/8/2007 7:01:17 PM

No.

Tall, bald(ish), worked as a Flash programmer before coming to teach/TA?

10/8/2007 7:09:42 PM

He's talking about Jeff, and he was a good ta who has been teaching Bitzer's class for years and years and he's the reason everyone recommends taking it with Bitzer. Unfortunately now that Bitzer is behind the helm things have taken a turn for the worse...

10/8/2007 9:00:22 PM

Because bitzer is senile?

10/8/2007 9:16:46 PM

sometimes can be quite hard to understand, his handwriting is damn near impossible to read, sometimes solves things halfway and quits and starts lecturing instead of solving to completion so that we could actually understand it.

With his handwriting, if I dont see him writing it as he is saying it, often you have no idea what he is doing. His writing is small and very scratchy, his brackets can barely even be qualified as scribbles, I could go on and on.

His age probably plays a factor in that though. I mean he's a brilliant person and cool to know but I'm wondering if he might be just a little past his prime teaching wise...

10/8/2007 9:32:29 PM

I recall him not actually lecturing but telling stories (that admittedly i found very interesting) of his past. Of course, this was when he only actually lectured maybe every other week or so.

10/8/2007 9:35:24 PM

I have found his lectures to be pretty good, personally. Maybe a little dry at times, but not too difficult to follow. But I suppose it helps that I sit down near the front.

10/8/2007 10:16:18 PM

^

I bet I know you are, when did you take CSC116?

10/8/2007 10:34:47 PM

When I took 226, Bitzer "taught" (quotes because all he did was talk about recursion and do magic tricks) maybe 4 or 5 classes. The rest were taught my Jeff, who kinda came off as a douchebag IMO.

it's not a bad class, but the exams can be a bitch. Go to all the office hours and if they have review sessions, DONT LET ANYTHING STOP YOU FROM GOING. They helped me a lot when my grades were shitty, and were led by either TJ or Andy, who teach much better than Jeff.

If you can walk into the final exam with an A average, you can be exempt from taking most of the exam and just do 1 section. If you do have to take the whole exam (which I did), good fucking luck. I don't even think I finished it, it was a freaking marathon. Still ended up with a B+.

10/15/2007 7:43:07 PM

I heard from some guy that the other section with Savage, the exams are like the webassign, proofs with one side or the other filled with answer bank given. Rest are multiple choice and fill in the blanks (again with answer banks). Makes me

10/15/2007 8:33:08 PM