MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

Iowa State University (continued)

I remember only two things from the courses I took that first quarter. Yes, Iowa State was still running on the quarter system long after many other colleges and universities had changed to the semester system. The first was this unheard of 6-credit-hour EE course. I thought the instructor was lazy, but actually, as I discovered later, he was just too busy doing his own research and was planning to reduce his work load in this class by giving only a midterm and a final exam to determine one’s grade. No homework to be done nor graded and no labs nor lab reports. I didn’t do so well on the first exam. I got passing marks but more like a high C or low B. So I complained to the professor in his office that I didn’t think a 6-credit-hour course grade should be based on just two exams. I was berated in front of the class for my complaint, but enough others in the class agreed with me and we got a third exam scheduled. I did better on both of those exams and got a better grade in the course.

I remember coming to final exam week and for a few days I had a migraine headache. I had never had such a thing before, I guess it was the stress I was under to do well. I remember going into the Strength of Material final exam with a head that hurt so much I could hardly think. It was a two-hour exam with only 6 problems to work. I worked all 6 problems then looked up at the clock, only 1 hour had gone by. I panicked, this could not be this easy. I started looking at the problems again and nothing on the paper made any sense to me. So, I got up to turned in my paper. I remember the exam proctor telling me before I turned in my work that I shouldn’t give up so easy as there was still an hour left. I told him “you’ve got all I have to give” and walked out. The next day the scores were posted, I got 97 out of 100. I had aced it and the course. Within an hour the headache was gone.

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