Re: Reading papers

Peter Brooks (FISM) <Peter.H.M.Brooks@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 3, 8:06 pm, pas...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Peter Ashby) wrote:


I was a terrible swot I'm afraid. At least in physiology, my major, I
formed the habit of reading the textbook in advance of the lecture. This
left me free to listen to the lecturer and think instead of scribbling
incesantly like my classmates. I only noted down those things which were
in addition to the textbook. Thus people only ever borrowed my lecture
notes but once ;-)

I think that that's sensible. Where we had a textbook I certainly read
that early on in the year - not that they always made all that much
sense at the time!

I was allowed to read English one year (they had an enlightened system
allowing students to get a couple of courses towards their degree from
other faculties - my view was it shouldn't be allowed, but compulsory)
and the problem was to prevent the reading of the set works taking
over all the other stuff that I was supposed to be doing. I really
envied my sister who had the treat of four years reading for her
English degree. Hard work, certainly, but lots of fun - it's probably
quite a good place to get reading lists, actually, from curricula. You
get a wider selection than if you just choose stuff that you want to
read - as long as you don't get it from a place that has the Dutch Elm
disease of post-modernism.

I did two first year English papers, after all it was my best subject at
school. I value it for several reasons, but primarily because it exposed
me to the poetry of Gerald Manly Hopkins as well as Chaucer. Those two
alone made it worthwhile.

Supplimentary exams were the bane of most of my years - I sympathised
with the chap who was told by his tutor that, in scraping a third,
he'd shown supreme economy of effort. In the long run it is a good
thing - you end up with a pretty good knowledge of things that you've
had to learn and write exams for twice. It also means that you're
ahead of the rest of the class the following year because it is all
fresh in your memory, while they have forgotten most of it during the
hols. It also helped having a compulsory hobby to fill in the boring
hours working as a barman before the crowds arrived.

Third class in our time basically meant 'did no work' yes. In the case
of one chap it was because he spent most of his time in the University
car club workshop trying to make Morris 1300s do 100miles an hour.

However nowadays he half owns a company he and his partner founded that
reverse engineers Honda engine chips and makes new chips that take
sporty advantage of the overengineering in the V-tech engines. He is
doing very well indeed. Last I heard he still holds the NZ land speed
record for his class in his modified CRX. He graduated to better cars
;-)

Peter
--
Add my middle initial to email me. It has become attached to a country
www.the-brights.net
.

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