A look into the probability of me failing math

Everything related to my life somehow ties its way back to math nowadays. For example, this article is being frantically written after an intense Monday night Calculus III PILOT session.

Speaking of PILOT, I thought it was supposed to be for people who needed extra help for Calc III, but it seems more like a session for people who already know the material to do more math. After all they probably feel like there’s a shortage of problems for them to do. The complete problem set for Calc III is never posted by Monday. (The professor also didn’t post a practice midterm until two days before the exam. I can relate to her tendency to procrastinate).

Thankfully not all math news is bad news: I don’t have to drop Calc III or Introduction to Probability. (Is that really good news, though?) I haven’t gotten my Probability midterm score back yet, but I managed a 25/30 on my Calc III midterm despite forgetting how to calculate the Hessian matrix, which was on two problems (out of five).

If you didn’t understand that sentence, it’s okay. Trust me, I don’t know what a Hessian matrix is either. Actually, I don’t understand what a matrix is. I just remember that the first Matrix movie was amazing, but the others were okay. You’re probably wondering why I’m even complaining about my grades. 25/30? That’s 83 percent (see, math). Well, just for reference, the average was over 27/30.

I thought for sure I was going to fail the test, because I guessed on over half of it. I’ll be eternally grateful to my TA for his generosity in scoring. I didn’t appreciate him before, because he told me to read the textbook the one time I asked him a question about the homework. But hey, if I get enough partial credit to bump me from the 20/30 I deserved to a 25/30, I’ll gladly listen to him and his non-advice.

When the average for a midterm is an A-, you know the next one’s going to be tough as nails to make up for it. That means I’m still contemplating whether or not to drop Calc, because I could still very well fail the next ones and then get below a C for the class. However, I really do enjoy ranting about math, and if I drop Calc then I’ll have half as much material to work with in this column. In that case, I might have to drop writing this column too. It’s a slippery slope, guys.

I obviously need extra credit for these classes, but I actually ended up missing the deadline for the main extra credit opportunity for my probability class. Each month, the professor hosts a joke contest for probability-related jokes. I should calculate the probability of not procrastinating submitting one for October. So I guess the probability of me ever winning any of those joke contests is probably zero. You know what else I should calculate? The probability that I’ve overused this joke (I’m pretty sure it’s one).

And for now, I suppose the probability of me dropping these classes is close to zero. It’s funny to talk about the probability of me dropping Intro to Probability, and probably not funny at all to my faculty advisor, who happens to be my probability professor (oops). It’s a very unfortunate situation.