<p>Even if you didn’t show work I don’t see how they could accuse you of copying because I can’t imagine anyone else doing it this way. J/k. :)</p>
<p>OK, having seen @eurekameh’s solution, i still believe the professor was too harsh. One of the three terms was actually in the expected form. IMO, @eurekameh should have been given partial credit.</p>
<p>What was the original question on the test? Just simply taking inverse Laplace transform?
Did you show your work to get values for A, B, C?</p>
<p>I wonder if you substitute cosh and sinh by e^t/2 and e^(-t/2) terms you will get the expected answer.</p>
<p>If the question is 2 + 2 = ? and you write 3 + 3 - 2 then you are 100% right, but you are gonna get a zero.</p>
<p>@ #104: Not from me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you make that substitution and simplify it is the identical answer to the simple factorization method… Unless both the OP and I made the same mistake somewhere.</p>
<p>As I said upstream the majority of the probelm is getting the constants so I assume s/he showed work.</p>
<p>I still think the intermediate format is not the most useful for engineering courses, but that doesn’t seem to be the question s/he was asked.</p>
<p>I was trying to figure if there was some problem with where the function was defined or anything like that but I don’t see any. But I’m not a mathematician.</p>
<p>And as yagotta notes s/he got one portion of the problem correct AND in the form the teacher wanted, so zero seems wrong to me, unless the problem states “put in terms of exponential functions”. You could argue it’s not in the “simplest form” but that would still deserve partial credit.</p>
<p>Now you can go to the Dean, or President Obama, or the Pope, or God and say CC believes I deserve atleast partial credit. Or, having already run through the proper channels and knowing you’d be risking significant damage to your reputation and ability to get recommendations if you go further, add the first mark to your “I Got Screwed” tally, buck up, move on and learn from the experience how to cope. There will be a next time. There always is. It’s life. There will be times when friendship, money, job security and health concerns will be on the line, not just “20 points.” I know right now it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. That goofy solution to a problem you now realize had an easier more apparent answer, shows me that you have the creativity, drive and reasoning power to succeed. Most would have left it blank if faced with the same mental roadblock. Move forward with that knowledge and devote the energy you are spending here and on this issue to kicking butt on the tasks infront of you. Good luck.</p>
<p>Your post is a bit off the mark, eyemgh. I think OP is mostly venting. He has a point. His solution was hardly “goofy” and I don’t think most, after missing something, would have left it blank.</p>
<p>He is being advised by some to go to the school president or the school newspaper and accelerate this beyond any rational measure when placed in the context of he real magnitude of the issue. I’m simply advising him to move on because his energy will be best spent moving forward.</p>
<p>The answer, BTW, isn’t the issue. It is how we choose to move forward when faced with adversity, even when it is undeniably unfair.</p>
<p>I’m sure any suggestion of going to the school President or newspaper were in jest.</p>
<p>eyemgh, why would taking action damage my reputation and ability to get recommendations?</p>
<p>Because I you take action in any way that is even semi-public, your name will get out and will have a stigma attached for an professor you have in the future who caught wind of the situation. Why would it have a stigma? Because this is such a small peanuts kind of problem over the course of the semester. If there was evidence of systematic bias against you in the class that would be another thing, but for one unfortunately-graded problem, it’s not worth the potential problems.</p>
<p>I think most of us were in agreement that the way he graded it, he was in the wrong. That doesn’t mean that you are immune from also being in the wrong with how you handle it. If it ends up being the difference between grades at the end of the semester, then you could consider revisiting the issue.</p>
<p>Even if you were to pursue this more with the prof alone, you still have the rest of the semester to get through, OP.</p>
<p>Boneh3ad, I couldn’t have said it better. </p>
<p>There may be times in life where the nuclear option, full court press, whatever you want to call it is warranted, but this isn’t one of them. The risk simply isn’t anywhere proportionate to the reward. You risk creating a perception that will simply be a caricature that will be very hard to ever dissociate yourself from.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, I’m suggesting you choose your battles carefully and that you marshall your energies into doing the best you can on your remaining tests and projects.</p>
<p>Again, good luck.</p>
<p>I love this thread.</p>
<p>So hi, eurekameh, how are you? Are ya on the quarter or the semester system?</p>
<p>eurekameh:</p>
<p>When I read this, I can’t help but be reminded about the common experience of growing up in a somewhat protected environment and then moving away to college, only to learn how unfair life really is.</p>
<p>I think every one of us who have been in your shoes have tried to seek support for situations that weren’t fair. For me, sometimes I found that support. But more times than not, I learned a hard lesson about life and growing up.</p>
<p>You’re fortunate everyone didn’t stand up to agree and defend you.</p>
<p>Isn’t clear to me if you got only 1 problem of many graded at 0 or the entire exam. Most exams have many problems to solve, so perhaps you are making more of this then warranted. Escalating this beyond the professor would be a big mistake and as others have mentioned, probably won’t make the rest of the term any better with this professor and perhaps could make things worse. Are you the only person in the class who misunderstood the instructions or did many others have the same issue? Obviously, we are only hearing your side of this without the benefit of any other objective inputs.</p>
<p>STOP USING THE JOB EXAMPLE.</p>
<p>On the job, people work in teams. On the job, you’re able to ask clarifying questions. On the job, you can redo your work. On the job, if you’re designing something to the nearest 1 millionth of a percent and your process works and is reasonably efficient, nearly no one will care.</p>