Campus Conversations

End of Midterm Season 1

October 31, 2011

Hey all, Hope this post finds you well! I'm sorry for the infrequency of my posting, but as all of my friends here will know, midterm season one is coming to an end, and it has been one really hectic month. I have been taking a bunch of photos all over the place and all the time at Oxy. As far as midterms go, I had three - 1 each in Economics 102, Calculus 2 and Music 101. I find that exams here are different in style and grading to the way I'm used to taking them ; coming from an IB (International Baccalaureate) background, I'm more used to a curved system of grading with numbers instead of letters. In the IB, scores are on a scale of 7 from 1 through 7, a 4 being the minimum passing grade. I do find a parallel between this and the letter system, 7 being an A+, 6 being an A-, 5 being a B, 4 being a C and so on and so forth. The first couple of months of college have definitely been easier than the hardest part of the IB program, and I'm a little relieved that I'm more comfortable with the workload than some people I know. Anywhoo, here are some more photos that I took in the last few weeks: The one above used a 1/2.5 second exposure at the top of Mt. Fiji, at around 5 AM. I'm not nocturnal, I just pulled an allnighter and thought I'd make use of the opportunity to get some great morning shots, as the lighting between night and sunrise is really perfect for nature shots. You'll see what I mean: I used an application called Poladroid on this photo, which is a fun way to get a saturated, vintage-y vibe from your photos. This one was taken immediately after sunrise. Oppositely, this was taken pre-sunrise with the camera placed on the road up to Mt. Fiji. And lastly, I'll leave you with a photo I found recently, one that I took when I was still living in Singapore, around 3 months ago: Here's to more midterms in the next three weeks!