Oral Examinations on Exchange

Just finished 2 oral exams in 2 days.

Just wanna tell everyone how unbelievable everything is...

33250 Semiconductor Technology (24th May 2007)

I went into the room and picked the worst qn possible.. the qn i studied at the last minute.. anyway u r given 1-2 mins to look thru all ya notes and psyche urself... and i started.. I talked abt what i can remember... for like a good 7 mins..

seeing i had nothing to say.. the prof started to ask me qns to help me out..

Prof: So what can u tell us abt Step Coverage?
Me: (blah blah blah)

Prof: Good. Can u tell me abt (....) ?
Me: Erm... well.. u can (starts smoking..)

Prof: Ok.. (smiles) can u den show me on the board (....) ?
Me: (Attempts to draw something logical)
Prof: No.. think about how (....)
Me: (Attempts to draw anything logical)

(Prof stand up and walks towards white board, starts drawing for me)
(my heart beat so fast it nearly came out...)
(Prof starts to present to me the things he wanted me to present)

Me: I see...

Prof: Ok.. what can u tell me abt the order of magnitude of the pressure?

Me: (silence for 5 seconds) it would hv to be low.. ard 1 torr?

Prof: Its much lower.. ard 10^-5 torrs... now do you have any idea abt the mean free path in this case?

Me: (silence for 5 seconds)

(Prof gives a solo Q&A session by himself for the next 2 mins... i juz smile and kept saying "ok"..)

End of exam.

(and somehow.. i miraculously passed... i din they'd really fail me but i was looking at a mediocre pass grade (like a 7 == 'C').. but i got a 9! (9 is equivalent to a B) hahahaha... )

Next..

31428 Advanced Electromagnetics (25th May 2007)

(Masters course in EM)

I went into the room and picked one of my most answerable qns! .. the qn i understood quite well.. this time i hv to start immediately..

Me: (blah blah blah-ing in a very confident tone)
Prof: Good. Good.
Me: so now lets look at how to derive the (..equations..) and the (...equation) ?
Me: (mind becomes blank... stares at paper...) I know u can start of with (...) (writes the 1st step of the derivation)

Me: (continues staring at paper)
Prof: Ok. why dun you look at the (...)
Me: (write next step of derivation down)
Prof: (keeps quiet and seemingly expects me to go on)

*Silence*

Prof: now we want to find the total equivalent fields, lets look at this and this and lets see how u can manipulate them..
Me: (writes what he points at down and follow his instructions)
Prof: (keeps quiet and seemingly expects me to go on)

*Silence, again*

Prof: OK. (starts to direct me and continues doing it until we reach the final solution)

Me: *cham... this time gone liaoz... hope the CA can pull me up... tolong tolong dun fail me pls...*
Me: So now we can see that... (concludes the presentation)

End of exam.

(and somehow.. i miraculously passed... with a freaking 9!!! in an oral exam where the prof talks more den u do and does the practically the entire derivation by himself...)

Maybe there's a de-facto grade for SEP students? cannot get lower den 9...???

What can I say... DTU rox...

to all my Profs:

may you discover the next biggest thing in technological invention..

and win the nobel prize

or hv some constant/equation/anything-used-in-engineering named after you...

*amen*

1 down!

woohoo! cleared 1 exam today! shiok! oral exams seem easy cos juz tok tok tok.. but the amount of pressure u hv before and after entering the room is HUGE! the heart pom pom pom until want to pom out liao...

and the fact that u hv only 20 mins to show what you know doesn't really help when u hv to ans the qns thrown at u right on the spot.. (at least written exam can sit there take the pen poke at the head and think for a few minutes...)

anyway...

i was damn heng i chose an easy qn.. hahahahha... so cleared it rather smoothly.. *yeah!!*

next up is the absolutely dreaded 42542... sibei sian.. 1 f***ing day left to finish the bleddy report..

P.S. : Happy birthday to Ruoling! (who got to hv a little celebration last night!) and Cheewei! (who had the mouth-watering beef steak & tolberone ice cream!) =)

EXAMS

My exams in DTU are like this...

"The examination is an oral examination without preparation. This means that when you enter the examination room, you will pick a question (they hv little pieces of paper with questions on the table) and start to talk about the relevant concepts of that question immediately. (Exam questions are released 2 weeks before.)

During the examination we may ask you some supplementary questions, if there are relevant concepts that you haven’t talked about.

The examination will last approximately 18 minutes per student, and you will be informed of your mark within a few minutes after you leave the examination room."

But still need to study alot one ok... need to prepare a bloody presentation for each question..

The Oslo-Bergen Train Ride

The reason for the train ride being the highlight of this trip is cos u get to see the fjords (pronounced as fee-ords)! well... what are fjords anyway?

A fjord is a landform created during a period of glaciation.

Typical characteristics of a fjord include: a narrow inlet, a bottom that is eroded significantly below sea level, steep-sided walls which continue to descend below the sea surface, greater depths in the upper and middle reaches than on the seaward side, and communication with the open sea.

A lot of info.. but lets juz focus on a single "criteria" -- Narrow, Steep-sided walls which descend below the sea surface. (we'll get back to this..)

Anyway, Zer pangseh us for this trip cos she has too many reports to rush... but since today is her birthday (Happy Birthday Zer!).. i think i'll stop here.. =P

27th April ~ Oslo

the sights of the capital of norway

The Parliament Building

Oslo City Hall

Nice flowers.. but dunno wat name.. heh..

Nice little harbour

Akershus Fortress

View of the sea from the fortress

National Theater

Oslo University

Royal Palace

Guard (duh...)

VigelandsParken
(Vigeland Sculpture Park)

Statues!

they're quite life-like.. and each seem to say a story
about human r/s and human emotions...
(i'm trying to be chim here.. so bear with it!)

The angry baby... its the icon of this place..

My fav statue... hahaha..
dun hv too many kids.. u might end up like him..

More statues!

This is the most erm... "attention-catching" thing in the park...
i dunno the real name.. but i can think of a few names for it myself.. ;)

End of 1st day in Oslo. Everything here is SUPER EXPENSIVE!
almost 3 times more ex den Singapore i think. (A 500ml bottle of coke costs 20 NOK = S$5)
We adopted our most cost effective method of survival... grocery shopping...
bought 1 loaf of white bread and managed to survive on 3 loaves of high-fibre (super-hard-to-eat-but-v-ez-full) bread for 3 days!
bought tt bread cos the white one no more liaoz... -_-"

THE OSLO BERGEN TRAIN RIDE

A good breakfast! (like tt for S$5...)

From this point on.. all the scenery pics were taken on the train..
(try to spot the fjords! after all they are the HIGHLIGHT OF THE TRIP!)

fjord? hmmm... narrow enough.. but not very steep-sided..

but still.. its quite nice la..

twin peaks!

this is when u hv nothing better to do on a 7-hr train ride..

Credits to my Nugati! The sai squeezer!

top left: cheewei enjoying his thousand-island minced tuna

The train climbed into the highlands...
the snow regions of the mountains..

The Flam Railway train... to see real fjords!
but.. too little too late..

the real mineral water... its so clear its blue!

going back down to greener scenery

fjords? nah... fjords dun hv roads beside them..

or some mini beach..

this one looks quite real hor? maybe can consider as 1/2 a fjord?

and before u know it... we've reached Bergen!

sibei zuay yachts by the harbour!
Norwegians really know now how to enjoy life sia..

Thanks Cheewei! =)

Sitting the Floibanen Funicular up Mt. Florien!

Fantastic View of Bergen at the top!

cheewei is so cooooool.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yip oso v cool la... but still lose to cheewei..

but the coolest of them all is...
*insert Beethoven Symphony 9 here*

no words...

more cool pics!

This is the sunset.. at 2130hrs...
we waited like 2hrs++ for this..

Bergen Church.. its 300 years old!

The next morning..

Had a little bit of time to see more of Bergen
b4 sitting the same train back to Oslo..

Bergen's quite a nice place actually..

On the train, another good breakfast to start of the morning.. =)

more fjord-like photos...

to be honest.. i took a lot more.. but i think this is enough.. =P

Some photos i took on the flight back to Copenhagen..

its Sweden below...

This is (finally!!) the last trip b4 we embark on the 1 month long trip to the rest of europe.

For now, its time to rest and start mugging for our exams which start in 2 weeks... anyway here's a little map of where we've been (red) & where we'll be going in June (blue)... not everywhere is covered though (cos not on the map)...

not bad eh?

=)