Finally got my grades for the semester that just ended, i.e. year 3 semester 2, or 3-2. And I NAILED IT! Yeah, I’ll brag a bit. I guess I deserve that much given the amount of work that went into this!

So, as you see, As in all except Process Dynamics and Control in which I got an A-. A short description of our grading system. We have a scale of 2 to 10. 10 = A, 9 = A-, 8 = B, and so on. The grading is relative, meaning that the top 5% in the class get an A (in general) and so on. Such a grading system in also called grading on a curve. The picture also shows two cumulative grades, my semester GPA (grade point average) which is 9.875 and my total GPA, also called the CGPA, an average of all my semester GPAs, which is 9.29. Though it is a decrease comparing to my last semester when I got a semester GPA of 10, but still, I am too happy to complain. So I won’t.

Chemical Engineering Lab II was by far the most taxing. 2 lab sessions of 3 hours each every week, 2 viva and 1 hand-written report per lab session, for the entire semester. To conclude the course, we needed to give a final exam and a viva. Continuous evaluation at its cruelest. Even though it was demanding, it was fun, to be honest. To see theory getting realized physically, moving from an ideal system approach to a real system and understanding what problems the real systems need to overcome to come closer to ideality, it is enlightening.

I am specially ecstatic about my result in Mathematical Mathods in Physics, Theory of Relativity and Transport Phenomena. Mathematical Methods in Physics was a bit boring for me, given that I already knew some of it, and learning about properties of Legendre and Bessel functions really doesn’t interest me much. Contour integrals, complex analysis and Green’s function were by far the best part of that course. Due to my lack of interest towards a considerable portion of the course, I faltered a bit in the first test. So, looking at the result now, I am happy that I was able to compensate for it in other evaluative components and the final exam.

Theory of Relativity, on the other hand, I took in my 2-1 as well, but I had to drop it when the instructor told me that I’ll need considerable knowledge of Electromagnetism to proceed, which I didn’t have then. Having the the Electromagnetism course in my 3-1, I took Theory of Relativity again in 3-2, and boy was it a rewarding experience. I was already familiar with special relativity, so that wasn’t a surprise. After special relativity, we went on to formulate a covariant form of Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations. I don’t know why, but it felt as if I was writing poetry. It was so fluent, the language was so beautiful. Every derivation gave birth to these majestic pieces of equations which when put together described all of electromagnetism in a covariant manner. We moved on to general relativity, the portion I was most excited about, and it did not disappoint. Though we did not dwelve into the mathematical rigour of the theory, given that this was a foundational course in relativity, we did learn how to find the Ricci scalar given a metric. I am omitting a lot of the details of the course here, explaining which would undermine the point of this post. Also, I was the Course Topper for this course, so that was good to know!

Finally, Transport Phenomena, my favourite course offered by the Chemical Department, and guess why, because it actually is a physics course. I was very nervous before the exam, trying problems again and again in order to assure myself that I understood stuff well. Turns out I did, given that I topped the final exam and was the Course Topper as well. These three courses I have mentioned specifically because they, in some manner, portray my knowledge in physics. Getting a good understanding in these subjects matters to me the most, and so, as I said earlier, I am “specially ecstatic” about doing well in these three.

In hindsight, all the stress I had to go through during the exams and in some small intervals during the semester, a good result like this one makes it all worth it. All the sleepless nights, early morning classes, missing out on fun activities due to workload, crazy schedules, everything seems worth it at the end. I guess that itself is what motivates me and drives me to do it again and again. So, to you who is reading this, if you want to take anything out of this, remember, when you have worked hard for days and feel burned out, and no destination is in sight, remember to not stop, because when you have succeeded and you look back, it will all be worth it.