The most horrible History Course EVER!

Okay, so History started in the third week of my new job in January. YUCKO

It was the last of the pre requisites that I needed to complete for SUNY

I was not looking forward to it.

Then the textbook arrived, and I began to dread it. Smallest print possible, tons of information crammed into every page. No colour or variation in text. No veritable chapter summary to reinforce learning. From the perspective of a psych major, the textbook defied everything I knew about effective learning materials.

The course started, I did my best to keep up. The weekly workload was equivalent to the 2 chapters per week, short discussion question assignment, test and short essay every 3 weeks kind of stuff I had done in my second and third year university courses. Ouch.

I plowed through, missed one discussion due to misuse of my dayplanner (like, not opening it and reading it), hated every minute of it, but managed to keep a mid 80s mark. Didn't do so hot on the essay, but who cares, still had the mid 80s mark.

Then, after my week long vacation (first ever) I hit the books hard, studied as much as possible despite many setbacks, and headed into the exam. It was worth 35%. If I didn't do well, then it would have a huge effect on my mark.

The exam was yet again, awful. I have never written an exam where the answers were all long essay, no choices. I forgot how the French Revolution changed France - duh, democracy stupid. I forgot the name of the Bastille, calling it some important government building. According to my recollection the cold war was pretty much over after the cuban missile crisis. Hmmmm, not so according to my mother and uncle who lived through it. And I really didn't think I could compare the totalitarian regimes of Stalin vs Hitler. The only difference I could identify was that Hitler didn't attempt to brainwash all people, just those who fit his mould, the rest got to be killed.

I dreaded getting that mark. My mom said she'd never seen me so genuinely sick about an exam before.

I flinched everyday I checked the system, waiting to see my 81 turn into a grade that would mean I had to repeat the course. I refreshed, and rechecked, refreshed and rechecked.

Then one day, BAM, all the marks were displayed.My grade was slightly better than 80. HUH ?! I scrolled, my discussion mark was where is should be, and then.........

76% on the exam. WTF? Excuse me Lambton, I think your instructor is broken. She graded a poor excuse for an exam as well as an essay at the B level. I personally thought low c for both. But hey, what do I know.

Anyhow, I ended up with an A-. AMAZING and definitely a good enough mark that I don't have to repeat. Thank goodness, cause I don't think I would have survived another month of it.