Ole Bakstad's blog » School

The grades are in

Ole Bakstad — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:38:31 +0000

Today I got the grade on my last exam. Overall I’m happy with the result. I got three B’s and one D (BBBD).

B in:

Physics
Linear Algebra
Object Oriented Programming (Java)

D in:

Electronic Circuits and Digital Design

Like I commented earlier, the exam in electronic circuits and digital design was one hell of an exam. 40% of the students who showed up failed the course, and ~50% of the students who passed got an E. Seems to me that something was wrong with this exam. See the full statistics here (Norwegian).

My courses next term are:

Christopher Langan, a very smart man

Ole Bakstad — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:51:43 +0000

I just found a really fascinating documentary about Chris Michael Langan. He has an IQ between 190 and 210, had a very bad childhood, works in a bar and has many interesting views on the world we live in. Particularly the part where he talk about his experience with the school system is interesting. As he says in the documentary:

I found the whole experience of school to be highly annoying. I think I could wrapped the whole thing up in a couples of years. Instead they managed to keep me around for twelve. [...] My teachers just didn’t particularly care for me.

I totally agree with him. We have to realize that smart people need special attention. They should be inspired to learn more about fields they find interesting, and maybe one day make a breakthrough in their field or fields. We need more people like Newton, Einstein, Euler and so on.

The school system in Norway takes care of the people who are less fortunate than the average person, but they don’t seem to care about people who are more fortunate, i.e. people with high IQ. The politicians should really sit down and do some drastic changes to the school system. We need to get back to the basics of learning and get rid of all the pedagogical bullshit that’s being suggested.

See the documentary on YouTube:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Online lectures

Ole Bakstad — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:42:34 +0000

Ever had a crappy professor, missed out on a lecture or just wanted to recapture one? Well, MIT got an ingenious website which they call “MIT Open Course Ware”. Here you can find lecture notes, audio from lectures and best of all video lectures! I’m taking physics this term, and I must say that Walter Lewin is my hero. His energy and passion really encourages you to see the beauty of physics. He teaches the courses 801, 802 and 803 at MIT. The video lectures in Linear Algebra and Differential Equations are also OK to watch.

If you’re a mac or windows user you can find these lectures, and many more, on iTunes U. There you will find lectures and audio from tons of other universities in the USA as well.