MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

1969 - College Years III

Masters Degree

I aced most of my computer science classes. If the course was well structured with graded homework and exams based on the lecture material I did quite well. I got some less than stellar grades in a couple computer science classes. One in particular got me in real trouble when the final exam was a take home exam where the questions had nothing to do with any lecture or work done during the term. I didn’t do well. I had to beg for a C grade.

In another case the class spent the entire term studying the architecture of the IBM 360 computer. It was very interesting. There was no textbook, no homework, and no exams except for the final which was another take home exam of 10 problems related to the lecture topics, however it was graded in a binary fashion. Either you got it completely correct according the instructor’s point of view or you got zero for the problem. Out of a class of 30 students, there were 2 A’s, 4 B’s and the rest of us got C’s. That hurt.