As promised, here is my sophomore year year-end wrapup. As you'll see, this post is a bit more optimistic than last year's.
Credit Hours != Actual Hours
I took 15 hours first semester and had homework nearly every night. This was clearly due to my Physics and Linear Algebra classes. Physics was crazy; I had at least four assignments per week, two of which regularly took at least two hours to finish. Linear algebra had three assignments per week, though they only took about an hour each.
This semester I took 17 hours and had all sorts of free time. My statistics class had one assignment per week; Digital Circuit Analysis had six over the course of the semester; Computer Architecture had two assignments and two projects; and the rest of the classes were just lectures. The only downside was the schedule, but it wasn't too bad because it allowed me to take my time between classes.
Environment is Everything
Last year I roomed with a guy named Tony who was a race car driver and punk rock drummer. We got along okay, but had absolutely nothing in common. On top of that, the room we lived in was small, dark, and tended to get messy. This year, on the other hand, I roomed with Michael whom I have known since high school. We lived in a large, bright room that managed to stay clean most of the year. Having a bathroom that wasn't halfway down the hall and suitemates that I also knew from high school wasn't bad either. All this summed across the entire year made living much more enjoyable.
One-Fifth of a Percent!
I came within a hair's width of a 4.0 GPA this semester. For a while I was worried how my computer architecture class would swing, but it was statistics that ended up bringing me down. I got a B despite an getting an A on the first exam, getting As on all the homework, and feeling like I had owned the final. I knew I had a B on the second exam and a few low quiz scores, but I didn't feel those could have hurt me too much. After all, I understood the material and learned a lot from the class.
I emailed the professor to ask what might have happened. He replied that I hadn't owned the final as much as I had hoped and that I had the highest B in the class, a mere .8% away from the lowest A. If the cutoff was a whole number, that means I was just .2% away from an A and a 4.0 GPA for the semester.
I don't swear, but that .2% makes it tempting to start.
A Third Internship
I've come to realize I have it pretty good this summer. I have evenings and weekends completely free of homework and projects; I get to live at home where rent is exceedingly cheap and the meal fairy appears magically every night; and I work just 15 minutes away at an enjoyable software development job where I can look out the window and laugh at those poor souls who actually have to deal with traffic during their commute. I can't ask for a better summer than that.