Most useless and time consuming course work

[Kanamori]

So what has been your most useless project or big assignment for your courses?

Mine is very clear in my mind.

For Landscapes of Literature -- just look at the name! -- I had to spend two sessions in the Natural History Musuem totalling up to twelve hours looking at exhibits and taking notes to answer one hundred odd questions about the Caledonian Orogeny, various Silurian would-be-Shropshire-dwelling ammonites (what type of limestones do they form, eh?), and reliable index-fossils. Ten pages typed in single spacing, and nearly twenty hours wasted.

[Kongamato]

Most recently, it has been the Improved Euler and Runge-Kutta numerical methods for solving differential equations. MS Excel is a must for multiple iterations.

[Reverend Joe]

The vast majority of my work in junior high and high school counted as useless and time-consuming; I don't even remember what topped all the other horrible things I had to do, because my mind has blocked out about 99% of my public school memories in a desperate gambit to save my sanity. And the risk of uncovering those memories is exactly why I can never drop acid, or eat mescaline. I shall never hear Hendrix the way he was intended, and it is all because of busy work.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

For Landscapes of Literature -- just look at the name! -- I had to spend two sessions in the Natural History Musuem totalling up to twelve hours looking at exhibits and taking notes to answer one hundred odd questions about the Caledonian Orogeny, various Silurian would-be-Shropshire-dwelling ammonites (what type of limestones do they form, eh?), and reliable index-fossils.

Are you doing some kind of weird Paleontology & English Literature Duel honours or something like that? That's a fairly freaky assignment.

When were you last in the museum? I was interviewing for Imperial today and popped into the NHM while I was there, I might have just missed you.

[Ianofsmeg16]

French Courswork...nuff said really

[BelgradeWar]

for me, being a law student, everything remotely related to pshysics, chemistry and every form of somewhat advanced maths. I did like biology, though.

[BDC]

My biology coursework sucked. 6 hours on an exposed ridge in the driving rain for a bunch of results which proved nothing. Half of them were irrelevant anyway. That's where I learnt to ignore what anyone with an ecology degree says.

[discovery1]

Most recently, it has been the Improved Euler and Runge-Kutta numerical methods for solving differential equations. MS Excel is a must for multiple iterations.

Matlab+iode is the answer, none of this Excel. And Mathmatica.


Hmmm, in recent memory it would have to be some debate piece done for Modern Latin American history. Something about cultural influence of the US on latin America. Pity all I could find were a bunch of acedotes. Some people voulenteered to debate it in class. They hardly touched culture.......

[Kanamori]

Are you doing some kind of weird Paleontology & English Literature Duel honours or something like that? That's a fairly freaky assignment.

When were you last in the museum? I was interviewing for Imperial today and popped into the NHM while I was there, I might have just missed you.

Geology and English Lit... It is by far the worst class I've ever taken, and probably the worst honors class ever offered; it had potential and was ruined.

I was there this Tuesday. It is quite nice when you don't have to write pointless notes in a hurry. I assume that the interview went well, no? My favorite is still the British Museum though, everyone who goes to London should stop in it for a bit and go to the library in it.

[doc_bean]

Matlab+iode is the answer, none of this Excel. And Mathmatica.

I was wondering why he didn't just use matlab too...

We once had a group assignment that counted for an entire course where we had to build a robot to compete in a competition. We barely knew the basics of electronics, sensor technology or vehicle mechanics. Worst of all, our ordered parts arrived a few months too late (the course only lasted about 10 weeks) so we had to pull a few all nighters to get it done. I also managed to burn up a $250 component...

Worst of all, when we were finished and it worked relatively good (the only problem was that our current battery weighed to much) they decided not to let us enter...

But all but one of us passed

[Kongamato]

I did the work at home and I don't have matlab or mathematica at home. Excuse me for being a troglodyte.

[Duke Malcolm]

The entirety of the Higher Physics course. Nothing that wasn't in the data book of equations was asked, except for a couple of little questions...

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Most recently, it has been the Improved Euler and Runge-Kutta numerical methods for solving differential equations. MS Excel is a must for multiple iterations.

Ahhh I had to do that too. I just wrote a program that printed out all the work and the answer for me

[Mount Suribachi]

Oh this ones easy. When I was doing my Chemistry degree, for some inexplicable reason they made us do a course on the archaic computer language known as FORTRAN77. The 77 stood for the year it was invented, I did the course in 1993!!

Did I mention that the course was taught by a Chinese lecturer who barely spoke a word of English who regularly made mistakes with what she was writing on the blackboard - so much so that students in the class with computer knowledge would get up, take the chalk off her and correct her mistakes.

In case you don't know, FORTRAN stands for F*&^ Off Right Tedious Rancid And Naff 69+8

That course is 30 hours of my life that I will never get back