People in my life have often told me that what matters is not my love of learning or what I know, but instead my ability to convey my thoughts to other people. I get reminded of this every now and then, when I fail to communicate enough with my friends and family, but today I received quite an unexpected shock of proof at Brown.
I am pretty good at thinking, I think; I'm pretty sure that's why I'm at Brown in the first place. So my algorithms class is not only a lot of fun but also somewhat understandable. In fact, I'm pretty sure I understood this past problem set completely, in terms of the concepts, correctness, and runtime. Apparently that didn't matter, or at least was insufficient: I was in the bottom 20%.
Why? Something along the lines of style, presentation, coherence, precision, concision. That is, my lack thereof. This was somewhat of a first time occurrence for me. To have understood something so completely and yet utterly failed in my endeavor...so bizarre. Well, I suppose I am at college to learn, and this is an important lesson. :)
I am pretty good at thinking, I think; I'm pretty sure that's why I'm at Brown in the first place. So my algorithms class is not only a lot of fun but also somewhat understandable. In fact, I'm pretty sure I understood this past problem set completely, in terms of the concepts, correctness, and runtime. Apparently that didn't matter, or at least was insufficient: I was in the bottom 20%.
Why? Something along the lines of style, presentation, coherence, precision, concision. That is, my lack thereof. This was somewhat of a first time occurrence for me. To have understood something so completely and yet utterly failed in my endeavor...so bizarre. Well, I suppose I am at college to learn, and this is an important lesson. :)
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