0 Motivation

Here I’d like to emphasize two key arguments:

• All outlets are created equally.
  • For CSPO undergrad students, there are mainly three outlets: grad school aborad, grad school at home, or jobs.
  • We cannot judge one of these over the others, since there’s no a silver-bullet outlet for anyone. NO, espcaially grad recommendation.
• GPA sucks.
  • I personally hate those who pursuing so-called “excellent” GPA, especially those who regarding people with low GPA as “losers”. To be honest, I myself is among those “losers”. But those who stick to GPA would find in the end, that, GPA is just a certificate, and should definitely never be such a focus.

1 My Policy & Situation

So first comes my policy: for my GPA, I’d maintain a lower limit of 3.4/4.3, and a upper limit of 3.6/4.3. And here’s a grasp about in what situation I go for such a policy.

• #1 I don’t care about what my teachers told me.
  • Seems a bit hurting, but that’s the truth. It hurts for me to told you, but that’s the truth. And actually, you should definitely apply this rule to anyone who’s gonna give you advice they boast (e.g., me), since they don’t really owe you any responsibility (a.k.a, they can teach you with some ancient knowledge, boast that “it’s gonna be useful”, and escape in the end for misleading).
• #2 I don’t care about grad recommendation.
  • That’s it, I don’t want a grad recommendation, although most would absolutely die for it. At least, in my opinion, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to pursue a PhD at home, thus no grad recommendation, no thanks.
• #3 What I care about: a leading-position foreign PhD offer, or just find a job elsewise.
  • Once again, I’ve got a tip: those are only my own choices, and should never be simply copied by anyone else. I’m just provide myself as a sample point, for illustrating why I’ve decided to go on such a policy.

2 Contents

Thus, I’m gonna work on specific courses. For each one, I’d offer a metric containing these evaluations: 1) difficulty 2) Value 3) GPA-contribution (how does this course contribute to my overall GPA). For each course, I’d also attach a simple description afterward.

• Political Courses
  • difficulty: 1/5 to 3/5, it varies since team project/closed-book exam might be involved. For most cases it wouldn’t be quite hard to earn a GPA over 3.9 if you’ve chosen a normal lecturer (perhaps to do so would be the most hard part).
  • value: 0/5, trivial.
  • GPA-contribution: +5/5, all those courses contribute positively to my overall GPA, and some even ranks quite high.
• Calculus & Linear Algebra
  • difficulty: 4/5, although it could be due to my poor efforts spent on them, I’d still rather call it something bothering.
  • value: 0/5, not so trivial.
    • Some may argue that I’ve rated it quite poor due to my poor performances. Well, yes and no.
    • The key critical point is actually due to its low-efficiency: some lecturers would argue that “this bluhbluh would be useful in your engineer application/research”.
    • However, it turns out that most of time these so-called “useful” things would not be something really for actual usage; instead, they would only be used when you try to fill out all these annoying blocks on your exam papers.
    • And sadly, those who claim “useful” do NOT have to be responsible for their arguments, and they even have the power to judge others who being frustrated with math problems.
    • Thus, that’s all I could say. Undergrad math course sucks.
  • GPA-contribution: -5/5, it really sucks to be bothered with those useless math.
• Physics
  • difficulty: 3/5, to be honest, the most significant issue isn’t about physics itself, rather how to outperform those who cheat on quizzes, especially when you’ve decided not to cheat.
  • value: 0/5, trivial since most of these wouldn’t be used. Although I’ve been a PhOer during my senior high years and really enjoys physics, I’d still claim that, as an undergrad course, physics sucks as well.
  • GPA-contribution: 1/5, I don’t cheat after all.
• English
  • difficulty: 3/5, the similar case for physics, you gotta try to outperform others (no cheating this time), especially when you don’t wanna waste most of your weekends to recite textbooks.
  • value: 0/5, trivial. It contributes nothing for my English proficiency, literally not, even spending on those time on only-English furry games would contribute more.
  • GPA-contribution: 1/5, I’ve been depending on my odds and basic English knowledge accumulated before.
• C Language Programming
  • difficulty: 2/5 to 4/5. What’s fun is that it’s trying to teach programming as some botanical courses. What’s even more fun is that some’re trying to learn programming as some botanical courses. I hate reciting, but if you have to, just go for it.
  • value: 3/5. Despite all these annoying things, it’s still the very programming course for freshman.
  • GPA-contribution: 2/5, I didn’t really put much focus on it.
• Discrete Math
  • difficulty: 4/5, the same as calculus.
  • value: 1/5, it could only be of a bit of value for being a basis for Fundamentals of Data Structure and Digital Logical Design.
  • GPA-contribution: -3/5, it’s quite hurting.

The following two courses would be udpated later.

• Digital Logic Design

• Fundamentals of Data Structure