The last day of STATISTICS class

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Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008

The day before our 1 week Fall break and our official last day in statistics class was, by any accounts, a very long day. Like any other students, or even more so, we were ready for a “jail break.” Not to insinuate that CIMBA is like jail, it’s just … as in any school, with any class load, sometimes the students are in desperate need of a break.

We listened intently on Dr. Ringleb’s lecture, chiming in at the proper moments. At the end of the day, we were asked to run a DA, a Decision Analysis in the KT method. This is when we are presented with a packet about a company and something isn’t working right. We are asked to split off into groups and solve the problem. Normally these cases are from real cases that the real company screwed up on for an extended period of time before the true solution revealed itself. It takes time, but is highly effective at uncovering the right answers within minutes and hours, not weeks and months. Each group takes a large piece of flip chart paper and brings is back to show their DA with solution.

Once the groups had returned to class and displayed their DA’s, we told that we would be doing a DA in question-answer session with Dr. Al. We went around the room, only able to ask 1 question at a time, and then the turn would pass to the next person, and so on around the room. This was torture for some of us. Some people, clearly didn’t know the right questions to ask even thought they had it right in front of them on a KT DA card. As I sat there, I took out my notebook and made the DA chart of answers. After an entire round of questions, Dr. Al made the comment “Gosh, it sure would be helpful if we could all keep track of my answers.” Knowing he meant he wanted someone to make the DA chart on the board for everyone to see. I quickly jumped out of seat to do it, because I already had a good portion of the answers on my page and I also had the courage to be “Vana” in front of the entire class and Dr. Al. (that's called leadership PEOPLE)

After I got the chart and answers put together, we moved on. Magically, things started to move a bit, just a bit, more in the right direction. I would occasionally point to a blank on the chart to hint to someone to ask that question. Also, Dr. Al would answer stupid questions that he knew had nothing to do with the answer in order to waste everyone’s time. I got to the point where I would stop him from going off on an unnecessary tangent by saying “No, no, we don’t need to know that. Thank you. No. Next question?” The man would literally waste a half an hour of our and his time drawing diagrams and using made-up words to teach us a lesson about asking the right questions. (the made-up words are really unkind to the non-English speakers) We finally came to the root cause of the problem, and we were right, but it took us a lot of time to reach it.

We were handed back our Statistic Mid-term. We were told if we received a C or lower, we would be given the change to take an take-home exam to raise the grade by 1 letter grade. I was praying for a B. Statistics, as my friend and past tutor, Elpida, could tell you, is not my best subject. I can get it, but it is very difficult for me. I know how to read them, but it’s difficult for me to make the reports and numbers in the first place. I am surprising doing well in statistic, thanks to massive amounts of studying and getting help from my classmates.

I held the test in my hand for a moment before opening the front page to reveal the grade. “B B B” I chanted to myself and I turned the page. "C+ … crap! Now I’m going to have to take that stupid take-home test with me on my “break.”" So angry with myself, I quickly flipped through the pages to see where I had missed points. There were 10 major questions on the test. There was 7 points possible for the math part and 3 points possible for the explanation part of each of the 10 questions. I received a 1 out of 3 on every explanation, because I stated the answer but not why that was the answer. Basically, If I had explained my answers better I would’ve had a B, and not had to take the take-home test. I wanted to be as homework free over the break as possible.

And then Dr. Al passed out a group project, due a week from Monday! Now I was pissed, “GREAT … now I might as well not even go to Florence and Rome!” Let’s just run through a quick check list of homework that is due within 3 days of returning from break. 1. Stat take-home test 2. Stat group project 3. Accounting group project, 4. Accounting Monopoly assignment, 5. The Accounting mid-term on Wed.
I was officially screwed and wouldn’t get a moment of peace while on break! I WANTED A BREAK!!!! You know, like, not having to think about class for 6 whole days kind of a break! 😞 sniff sniff

The day before, Dr. had mentioned that if we stayed on track on Saturday, we would most likely be finished by 1pm, it was 5:30pm when we were released from class… dam.



Anyone want to go out to the club tonight? (yep)

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