Psych 101

Before I finish university I wanted to take a bunch of 100 level art courses. Well so far, I have succeeded in taking philosophy 101 and sociology 101. Next was Psych 101. I had taken those other courses without knowing anyone in my class, but this time, Edmond and Cary also took it at the same time. It was by far the largest class I've ever taken....there were about 700 students in that one class, which I know doesn't compare to UofT class sizes, but for Waterloo, that's as large as it gets. It was also weird to be in a first year course, because it was so obvious that these were mostly first year students. Just the way they talked and acted. And plus after class there would be this huge column of students walking back to the dorms. Also, there were a lot of females, which was very abnormal, since all my engineering classes are dominated by males.

Anyway, previously, my lab partner, Scott (who's wife is due for twins next term!!!), had taken the course (but with another teacher) and he got %100 (there were several opportunities for bonus marks, like participating in psych studies). He's a really smart guy, but I thought I could do just as well since I would have a chance at bonus marks as well.

I did quite well on the midterm and after writing the final, I was pretty confident I had also done well. But when I got my mark a month later, it was 77%. I thought that was strange. I wanted to go see the prof about it and check it out, but he was only in every monday during the summer term. So when I finally got a chance to see him and after some investigation, it turns out they had made a clerical error. My real mark was 93% (which is good for a 4th place tie out of 669 students)! They had made a mistake that was worth 16%! Wow. It's a good thing I checked it out.

So let that be a warning to everyone...the university can make big mistakes and it might be worth your while to make sure everything was done properly. I'm sure glad I did.