{"id":484,"date":"2026-05-09T15:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T15:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/?p=484"},"modified":"2026-05-09T15:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T15:07:15","slug":"ul-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/?p=484","title":{"rendered":"UL Classes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Happy weekend!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am finished with classes at UL! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I accidentally took my physics exam with an illegal calculator….whoops. I just brought my TI-84 without thinking anything of it because it is the standard calculator for tests in the U.S. However, apparently, they are not allowed for exams in Ireland. The proctors didn’t catch that I had it until I was nearly done with the test, so they just let it slide. Although, they gave one of my friends from Philadelphia a different calculator to use because he also had one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyways, exam complete \ud83e\udd73<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have a very official exam system here — it felt more like an AP test or ACT than a final. You have to leave all of your stuff outside of the designated exam rooms. There are proctors in every room who read you instructions at the beginning and tell you when to start. They check your student id (which I guess you must have to do at such a big university) and you must leave it visible on your desk for the duration of the exam. You cannot leave for the first thirty minutes of the exam and someone must escort you, if you need to use the bathroom. And, you cannot use TI-84 calculators \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all the things I’ve loved about this semester, the school system is not one of them. From the start, picking and registering for classes was stressful because we didn’t officially register until almost three weeks into classes. The grading was terribly difficult to figure out and I still do not know what the grading scale is for a couple of my classes. They also give out very few As — my physics professor said, “[he’d] love to give us all As, but it wouldn’t be fair to give too many out.” Not that this would happen, but I feel like if we all answered all of the exam questions correctly, it would only be fair to give us all As…? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grades don’t seem to matter at all for students here. As long as they pass, and even sometimes if they don’t, they just shrug it off and say, “I’ll just take it again next semester.” Most people barely show up to class — my physics lab partner only went to two of the almost thirty lectures. I think the relaxed attitude towards grades would be nice if I lived here, but as a study abroad student going back to a place where GPA matters a lot, it was frustrating at times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing I did like though was having more emphasis on large projects and exams. Not constantly doing a bunch of small assignments meant I got to focus on producing a few really high quality papers and projects. This felt both more practical and meaningful to me because doing a real job, you’d likely be working on a few bigger projects that should be well done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– From UL Lecture Theaters<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Happy weekend! I am finished with classes at UL! I accidentally took my physics exam with an illegal calculator….whoops. I just brought my TI-84 without thinking anything of it because it is the standard calculator for tests in the U.S. However, apparently, they are not allowed for exams in Ireland. The proctors didn’t catch that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46,29,45],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ireland","tag-classes","tag-limerick","tag-ul"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/UL-lecture-hall.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions\/486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lindners.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}