Today I gave exams: “General Chemistry” in the morning for first-year undergraduate students, and “Structural Chemistry of Biological Systems” in the afternoon for first-year master’s students.
And here, don’t worry, my diary ends and my vision of the university world begins.
I’ll focus on the second exam session. Two students, the kind who embrace challenges and aren’t content to study just to pass the exam.
Yes, because I give my students a double option: answer three questions on three topics from the course, to be evaluated on the relevance of their answers, the accuracy of their statements, and their depth of knowledge on the topic. A classic exam, in short.
Second option: they choose a protein, searching for it in the global database, and usually they choose an enzyme, because it’s satisfying. And they study it thoroughly, first delving into the literature and then setting out to explore it with the bioinformatics tools I’ve taught them to use. In this case, the challenge is not to copy what’s already there, but to discover it, strip it of its veil of the unknown, as scientists do.
Because, I forgot to mention, they’ll be food scientists. So, someone has to push themselves to ask “why” it’s like this, not just “it’s like this.”
To them, I’m a Martian. And in fact, most of them opt for the traditional exam. Few dare to face the uncertainty of what they find, but when it happens, the incredible can happen.
Today, there were two students. 45 minutes for the first assessment, 30 minutes for the second. A 30/30 with honors and a 30/30 were assigned.
Anyone who knows me understand that these two grades, with me, are a nice haul. Not because I’m stingy with concessions, on the contrary. More than a few have passed with the benefit of the confidence that they’ll catch up at more propitious times.
However, when I have to evaluate excellence, the student must be aware that they’ve achieved the maximum that could be expected. Some may have identified with the two students and imagined their excitement, their pride.
Nothing compared to mine: they gave me the award, giving me their time to let me know that my time is not wasted.
I wish my colleagues the same satisfaction!