Grading in university is different from highschool in that your performance is always either measured against your 1) classmates or against 2)historical performance in the class.

So basically,

1. Being measured against your classmates is where the class is "curved". Simply put this makes it so your grade depends on the class average, it depends on the prof but typically a B grade will be assigned to those with a grade within 1 standard deviation of the class average. Those one standard deviation higher will be assigned a B+ and then one standard deviation higher than that is an A-, etc. etc. The same applies for lower marks where 1 standard deviation lower than the average gets a B- and continuing downwards.

For example(just made up numbers), in a particular class the average may be 70% with a standard deviation of 6%. Those at 67%-73% are given a B grade. Those at 74%-80% are given at B+, those at 81%-87% get an A-, those at 88%-94% get an A and 94%+ get an A+. Assigning grading brackets according to standard deviation is not a hard and fast rule however, it depends on the prof, the number of people in the course, alot of different factors. Std. Dev. wil always be considered however.

The main exception to this curving is profs may set a course minimum % necessary to pass, ie) 40% or 50% or whatever the prof decides may be the bare minimum necessary to pass no matter what the class average is.

2. Graded historically means the prof assigns your grade according to how people have done historically in the course. If typically over the last few years classes get an average around 70% that means you can typically expect a B grade to be assigned to people around that %. Now this may sound similar to curving according to the class average but the main difference is the grade brackets don't take in to consideration what your current years standard deviation is.

Now you may take smaller classes with 20-25 people and typically those classes will have a hard set distribution for the grades(like high school) simply b/c the class size is too small to assign any sort of curve. Historical average may still be taken into account when assigning the grade brackets but you'll never see a curve in smaller classes of 25ish or less people.

WOAH... 4.5=C+ and thats already enough to put you on probation? I thought my university was strict but you won't end up on probation until you get below 2.0 and thats a C- or lower

If your combined GPA for 1 year is under 2.0 you have a meeting with the dean or another high ranking person in the faculty and then are placed on probation where you have to take a year break. You are not allowed to take any courses at the university for that year period. After the year has passed you come back, have another meeting with the dean and can continue where you left off. However after you return you are still on probation and if your gpa ever goes below 2.0 again for a combined year, you are kicked out of the university permanently.

Unfortunately no matter what people tell you, you really can't get a guage on how suited you are for Engg until you actually try it yourself. For undergraduate degrees, enginneering is the biggest shift up in difficulty vs high school. For other undergraduate degrees the amount of work can be equivalent to or only a little more compared to high school but thats definitely not the case with engineering, expect to be challenged.

The best advice I can give you is decide early on if engineering is where you want to be after you've experienced some of the course work. I know too many people from my engg classes who tried to "grind it out" and ended up on dean's vacation as a result. I don't know how it is at other universities but at my school, faculty of engg had very strict requirements and very few second chances and as a result if you did poorly it could end up screwing up your entire program at that university.

I'm not saying to switch majors at the first sign of trouble but find a good balance. If you find yourself putting in huge amount of work and only getting average or poor returns then you should think about whether engg is right for you.

Most do, they won't care if you view NSFW material in the privacy of your own room, what they do care about is piracy as well as simply the amount of data you download. I know at my university each student ID is given a maxium of 1gb a day. That may sound like a lot but if you live on campus I wouldn't be surprised if people exceed that.

It depends on what degree you pursue/your major/minor. I've never taken computer science so I can't speak for that but when I first started uni I was in engineering. Every day of the week was pretty much 8-5 consisting of lectures, labs and seminars. Tack on an extra 2 hours a night for course work/reviewing and that equates to very little spare time.

On the other hand, when I switched to a business degree my course load lightened considerably, suddenly I was having 8-12 days, no labs, no seminars. Very little coursework. The material itself was also much simpler and thus required less daily reviewing.

It also depends on how early you make your schedule. If you're ontop of things and create your schedule as soon as registration opens you can get the most ideal classes. I know people who have structured their schedules to have 2 or 3 days a week completely free of any lectures.

Edit: I just remembered a story a buddy of mine from high school told me who just graduated with a computer science degree. He told me the worst thing about comp sci isn't writing the code, its finding the errors. IIRC he told me in the more advanced classes he ended up writing code that took hours just to compile or initalize or whatever only for it spit out an output that was full of errors. He would then go back and correct some problems only to have to wait a couple hours again for the code to compile once more.

[QUOTE="UnknownSniper65"]

SGU is worth watching if your a big fan of stargate and need some level of closure for the franchise. I really didn't likeSGU, I felt that the main reason it got cancelled because they didn't make any of the characters ,besides Eli who was a support character, likeable. SG1 and SG:A lasted as long as they did because the characters in those shows were memorable.

ThePlothole

I can agree with the sentiment that SGU isn't really "Stargate", its definitely a large departure from the formula used in SG-1/SGA. That being said I personally found the overarching story and the conflict/sentiment between the crewmates to be quite enjoyable. A lot of Stargate fans got turned off in the first 5-10 episodes and I can't disagree that those episodes were pretty weak. I think the main reason it got cancelled really is because(and really any type of show can suffer from this) it uses an arc story format. Basically you have to have watched from the beginning to know whats going on in the main plot points. It wasn't like SG-1 or SGA where you could just tune in for an episode, miss an episode and then tune again and not have any issues.

People lead busy lives these days and dont' really want to commit to having to have to watch an entire series to enjoy the show. This is why the most popular televsion shows these days are episodic stories like sitcoms like HIMYM or Big Bang Theory or crime shows like Criminal Minds or CSI. People can miss a couple episodes and not become lost.

Watch Firefly! I can't recommend that series enough, despite its brief run it is absolutely incredible. However, Its much more in a Stargate SG-1/SGA vibe than BSG; Firefly is more comedy than drama and it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Otherwise I would say you should finish up SGA, that series is fantastic and in the latter season, IMO even better than SG-1.

O the one other thing I can recommend is SGU(Stargate Universe). SGU is much much more of a human drama set in space however. There are action sequences, but the show is much more focused on the interaction between the crew members on the ship. If you do end up watching SGU please give it more of a chance than just the first 5 or 10 episodes. Those are the weakest part of SGU, the later half of season 1 is great and season 2 is even better. Shame it got cancelled after that.

Contrary to what alot of people seem to think suicide actually takes an incredible amount of courage. I mean you are going completely against your body's natural survival instinct. For most people, staring death in the face would freak them out and cause them to panic.

This is why alot of people contemplate suicide but don't do the deed, the thought of death is incredibly terrifying even for those who are in the thralls of depression.

My mom once bought food from a grocery store where it turns out one of the employees spread some sort of virus(I cant remember what now) to some of the fruits and vegetables because he didn't wash his hands after using the toilet. It was bad enough that a PSA was made about it and there were clinics opened up specifically for people to get vaccinations for the infection.

This type of thing is very serious and if I had been in your position I most certainly would have reported him. If you're afraid of being called a snitch or something most workplaces have some sort of annonymous reporting box or email to allow employees to report theft or misconduct. You should look to check if your workplace has such a system.