I am so screwed Feeling less screwed now Nope, I was right the first time, I was screwed

My Marketing final exam is in 12 hours.

I've been awake for over 24 hours, and thus must spend most of the remaining time sleeping.

I still know NEXT TO NOTHING about "Marketing" as it was taught in this class, despite having studied for this exam for approximately 20 hours over the past 5 days.  I wasn't a very good student in this class, but I did attend almost all of the lectures and discussions and read about half the textbook (yeah I should have read more, but I wasn't getting anything out of it except a cure for insomnia).  I have not been able to find an effective way to study and learn this material.

What's really frustrating is I don't know if starting earlier or studying more would have even helped me here.  I have prepared literally hundreds of little flashcards of definitions and assorted "facts", but neither the professor nor the textbook provided any sort of coherent framework to organize this information around.  I'm not having any luck inventing my own framework either because... well... I think most of it is BS and I don't see how all the BS fits together.  I really, really suck at memorizing large amounts of apparently unrelated, irrelevant information.

The exam is rumored to be quite difficult.  IIRC, he said that it will be around 20 short answer questions.  So, although I think I might have achieved a recognition-level knowledge on some of the material, there will be no multiple choice strategy games for me.

The final exam is worth 25% of the grade.  So it is quite possible that I will get such a low score on this exam that I will only get a C in the class.  Which is awful because so far, other than this class, I have a 4.0 graduate school GPA.

:(

(Note: I'm not asking for advice, suggestions, or other help -- it's too late for that now -- I'm just whining.)

Update: Also, I totally *knew* 6+ weeks ago that I should withdraw from this class since I was leaving the MBA program anyway, but I let my husband talk me out of it against my better judgment because the credits would still count as elective credits for my MS Accounting and he didn't want the time and money already invested this semester to be wasted.  So now it's 150+ wasted hours of my life later and while I'll probably manage to pass the class and get those 3 elective credits it'll be at the cost of a fucked GPA.

So, I am sticking to my guns the next time we have a marital debate over sunk vs. marginal costs. :)

(Note: I'm not blaming Hubby for my decision, it was my call and I made the wrong decision.  I'm just articulating my realization that one cannot let oneself be swayed by faulty economic reasoning, even if it's coming from one's spouse.)

Update II: Well, some good news: My afternoon study group canceled.  This is good news because I've realized that my original idea to get together and quiz each other with flash cards wasn't a very good one and right now my time will be better spent organizing my notes into some sort of attempt at a big picture (and sleeping). 

My first four approaches to studying this material were completely unsuccessful but I have high hopes for my new tack!  I see a B in my future!

Update III: Long-time readers of my previous blog will recall that near the end of every school term I have a period of procrastination leading up to one of these "AIEE THIS SUCKS I'M GOING TO FAIL EVERYTHING I HATE LIFE ARGH" panic attacks followed a week later by, "Oh!  I did much better than I expected, how nice," when grades are posted.  So newer readers should not fret too much on my behalf despite all the dire-sounding whining above.

Update IV: OK, I think I am finally starting to get a grip on the material.  I'm still pretty worried about the exam, but at least I'm no longer in a panic of I STUDIED 20 HOURS AND I KNOW NOTHING MORE THAN I DID AT THE START OMG FREAKOUT.

Update V: The sad conclusion to our tale of woe.

Comments

[Capella]

How about commiseration? I suck at that kind of stuff too and have never figured out how to study for it. I like to understand things, not memorize them.

But I'm sure you will do fine. And even if you don't do as well as you would like, it gives you a perfect thing to talk about in job interviews when they ask what you've learned from your mistakes. Good luck!

[Scorpius]

We have a lot in common. At my CS midterm last week I struggled through every question. I almost gave up and went to start drinking again as I thought I failed the exam.

But, Yesterday I checked my grades and I got a 93%. Not perfect, and I would have done better if I had not spent most of my study time watching Stargate episodes, but good enough.

[JD]

It is remarkable how, even among people who know about the concept of sunk costs, how unintuitive the concept ends up being.

On the other hand, I often have seen it misused in the other direction. For example, if you constantly reprice products and ignore acquisition costs as "sunk", there does come a point where it makes sense to build this repricing into the original models for the value of an acquisition.

I wonder why it is such a tough area for human intuition?

[Philip Welch]

There's still an argument to be made: it's not so much that the time and effort would go to waste, but that finishing marketing halfway through would be less effort than dropping out and starting another elective from the beginning.

[Jacqueline]

Oh, absolutely not. For the same amount of time I invested in the second half of this class to get what will ultimately be a C (if I'm lucky), I could have completed a class in something I'm good at with an A. Even the wasted tuition dollars are nowhere near as much as I will probably lose in merit-based grants for blowing my GPA.

[Philip Welch]

Point.

[Scorpius]

My question is why you are pursuing both a Marketing and Accounting degree.

[Jacqueline]

I'm not. I was originally in the MBA program, and Marketing was a required class for that. Partway through this semester I decided to transfer to the MS Accounting program, but I was still enrolled in my MBA classes. They count as electives in the MS Accounting program so I'm finishing them.