Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Midterms are over ... almost!

Why is it that the last exam is always the hardest to study before? I just get tired from all the exams and the studying, and it all feels like it has been going on forever. While studying for the last exam you can think of a dozen other things that you should be doing, and you get tired faster and an all-nighter seems impossible. On the other hand, when you do well on your last exam all the other grades seems irrelevant and you just want to celebrate.

There are only two courses that any student graduating from UAEU must to take: Islamic Law and Emirates Society. Emirate society is a nightmare to most students in the university and I really didn’t understand why and so in a moment of idiocy I decided that I will take it in Arabic instead of English, I had many reason for doing that one of which is that it is about time for me to improve my Arabic and learn more about my country – in Arabic. Don’t I regret that decision now though, oh yes I do. The teacher seemed like a nice guy, I enjoyed the lecture in general and actually listened to what he was saying, I wrote pages and pages of notes (in Arabic!) and was very confident about doing well, I went to the exam and thought I did great since I wrote all the points needed. Here is what I’m proud of; I wrote two essays in the exam each a page long! The teacher was not as impressed about my answers as I was it seem because he didn’t give me a 100 (I think he really hated my handwriting!), he previously warned us that anyone who questions him about his grading in the essay questions will regret it because then he will open the book and if the student didn’t answer word for word from the book he/she will lost marks. After the exam he said something about the students having bad handwritings, misspelling some words and not underlining key words.

I was so mad, and still am because this course is for all students in the university in all levels and I don’t see why they should make it such a nightmare to the students, why not make it interesting to learn about your culture and history for once?!

I don’t care though because I did great in all my other exams so Egyptian Professor teaching Emirates society and enjoying a power trip is not worth ruining my day. (Can you tell I’m trying to convince myself? I really should have taken that course in English.)

1 comment:

shshshsh said...

the Egyptian professors teaching these courses and free electives have the attitude that we selected these courses because we have a lot of interest in it.......believe me we a particular free elective bcoz its the only one tht doesnt conflict with our schedule......and abt taking it in English....i had taken both emirates society and Islamic thought in English.......by Gods grace i was the highest in the class and i got B+.......so welcome to some of the realities of UAEU......coz changing the egyptian docs is somethign liek wiping out the pyramids.....nobody wants to do it...but no body really cares .....;)....its my opinion.....