Praying to the ‘Curve God’

Don’t want to put any pressure on you, but if you flunk this one, you’re gone!

Photo by Shubham Sharan on Unsplash

Backstory: While writing the book, ‘The Dayton Dilemma,’ I discovered, ‘I’ve got too much material! Got to cut some of it out!’ But, cutting out material from your ‘book-in-progress’ is like cutting out grandma’s apple pie from your diet — can’t do it!

Well, after much sorrowful deliberation, I began cutting out chunks — yes chapters — of excess material. Now, the question becomes, what do I do with all this ‘excess’ material? Answer: Parse them out as articles! Hence, this article. More to come.

This is a story that got axed from my book ‘The Dayton Dilemma: When doing the right thing, isn’t the right thing.’ Although fiction, it’s based on my personal experience. While attending Ohio State many, many years ago, I gained lots of personal experience in a disheartening activity — almost flunking out! The story your about to read is one such experience.

And now for the story …

Don’t Flunk!

He swung his legs to the side then lifted himself out of the connected desk and chair combination. I observed wondering, ‘Where’s he going?’ I didn’t have to wait long to find out as he walked straight towards me, stopped in front of my desk and chair combo, looked down and delivered one of the most frightening speeches I’ve ever heard, “I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but …,” then, pausing like a seasoned judge delivering the execution order, he looked me square in the eye and continued, “If you flunk this one, you’re gone. Good luck.” He followed up his speech with a side lip smile showing half his huge coffee stained upper teeth and didn’t break ‘eye-lock’ until he downed a satisfying gulp of my desperation. Then he calmly wandered back to his seat five or six rows ahead of me.

Len meant it to be a joke, that’s his style. I suppose I set myself up for it. After all, I took a seat apart from the other guys. We normally sit together for exams, but this time I made a decision to separate from the pack. I figured I could do without all the pre-test banter, the stuff that makes you nervous, ‘Did you go over the pitot tube problem, professor said there will be a question on that?’ I’d hear this and think, ‘What? I studied the other problems, Oh-no! I’m going to flunk.’ I soon discovered the pre-test banter doesn’t help so I need to stay away from it, sit by myself near the back of the room. Len probably figured his ‘motivational’ speech would break the tension, ‘I’ll go back there, crack a joke and get Sean to lighten up.’

Even though Len had good intentions, I still felt crushed. His ‘joke’ hit too close to the bone. You see, he summed up the situation perfectly, I flunked the first exam and if I flunked this one, I’d be too far behind to catch up. Even if I aced the final exam and all the homework, it still wouldn’t be enough to get me over the line. I’d flunk the class.

Flunking this class had horrifying consequences for my life. It meant I’d be kicked out of my air force scholarship program. Getting kicked out of the scholarship program meant I’d have to go back to my previous air force job as a medic. I dreaded that thought. I spent two ‘adventurous’ years as a medic, but that’s enough, let someone else have a shot. I never wanted to put the hospital ‘whites’ on again, that’s enough military hospital time for me, I’m good.

Under my air force scholarship, I had three years to complete a degree in aerospace engineering. Therefore, I had no ‘do-over’ options. The core aerospace engineering courses are only offered once a year so if I flunk one of them, that’s it; the air force isn’t going to let me wait around a year to take it again. Flunking this class meant going back to being a medic.

Don’t send me back to being a medic!

In a previous life — the life before my air force scholarship — I worked as an air force medic. And that life mainly involved taking vital signs and emptying bedpans.

My basic military training instructor had an unofficial and derogatory name for my career field. I remember he asked — in front of the troops — ‘What job did you get Mitchell?’ I looked at my orders and announced, ‘Medical Service Specialist’ which is the fancy air force job title for medic. Sitting on the cold tiled dayroom floor, eyes looking down, and awaiting the verbal demolition, I heard — for the first time — the unofficial job title for my new air force career field. Technical Sergeant (TSgt) Vogel announced with a smirk, “How bout that, we got ourselves a BEDPAN COMMANDO!” The room exploded with laughter. I sank deeper into the tiled floor. I looked for an escape hatch. I never found one. I entered a black hole that sucked me in, no getting out, no escape. My destiny had been set, ‘The needs of the air force come first and the air force needs you to become a medic.’ End of discussion.

A year or so later into my air force medic career, while emptying a bedpan, I thought about TSgt Vogel’s prophetic words, ‘He was right, I’ve become a bedpan commando!’

Note: You can read about my time as a medic in my book, ‘The Adventures of an Air Force Medic.’

Now, sitting in a full auditorium with my fellow aerospace engineering students I began panicking — the thought of going back to being a medic made me want to call out for a medic! ‘I gotta pass, I gotta pass, I just got to!’

The class, aero engineering 101, involved the basics. This is about as easy as it’s going to get. So, if I’m having so much trouble with the intro course, what’s it going to be like when we take the ‘hard stuff?’ I didn’t want to think about it. My main concern at this moment is to pass the exam in front of me, that’s it. No use worrying about anything else, get past this obstacle and worry about the other obstacles later.

Doubts

I waited impatiently for the Teacher’s Assistant (TA) to hand out the exam. I sat up leaning forward as if ready to be the first out of the building for a fire drill.

I scanned the room, one hundred and fifty or so students, all aerospace engineering majors, all smart, all good test takers, all serious about their college careers, all serious about graduating. They wouldn’t be in the room if they didn’t fit this description. Here’s why. In order to take the first aerospace engineering course you have to jump through some pretty crazy hoops. First you have to complete a year of calculus and a year of physics and a year of chemistry. Next, your grade point average has to be ‘decent.’ The ‘decent’ grade point average changes based on how the school needs to trim the numbers, but it’s set at a challenging level and prevents any ‘slackers’ from getting into the introductory aerospace engineering class. A student must demonstrate their capability for handling hard technical courses before getting admitted to the school of engineering.

Yes, I felt intimidated. I had doubts, serious doubts about my ability to ‘hang’ with this academically accelerated crowd. Especially after my first exam performance — I flunked it. Prior to the exam, I felt ready, ‘bring it on.’ But, I ended up like the cocky boxer who gets knocked out in the first round. I stared at the exam, it stared back at me. We didn’t see eye to eye, we didn’t speak the same language, we failed to communicate. The exam survived, I didn’t.

After flunking the first exam, the worst part involved listening to the discussion by my fellow air force scholarship buddies, especially Len. He left the auditorium, lit up a cigarette, took a big puff and blurted, ‘Now that’s more like it. A real test, not this theory crap, but practical stuff. I’m sick and tired of solving math equations for no reason, this is more my style. I nailed that wind tunnel question, calculating the pressure at different points. Did you get that one Sean? Easy huh?”

My sinking shoulders and grim face told the story, but I added words to confirm it, “No. I left them blank. I didn’t understand what he wanted. I got confused, and I didn’t know how to work the equations. Instead I worked on the other problems, but I wasn’t sure of them either.”

Len didn’t cut me any slack, “C’mon, that’s what it’s all about. You got to understand the concepts. Memorizing equations ain’t gonna do you no good, you got to know how to use them. This ain’t like calculus where you can memorize formulas and get A’s, this is real world stuff; you gotta understand the physics; you gotta understand the concepts.”

His insights hurt all the more because he diagnosed my problem exactly. I didn’t understand the concepts. I had a ‘memorization’ mentality built for math classes but useless in engineering. I had to make the leap from math to engineering. The leap from ‘memorize this formula and plug it in’ to ‘understand what’s going on in the real world and then apply some math to get useful and practical numbers.’ I struggled with ‘real world’ and therefore had some catching up to do.

There were five of us in the air force scholarship program taking aerospace engineering. The other guys came into the program from air force career fields such as avionics, radar, propulsion and flight line crew chiefs. These are aircraft, real world, technical career fields, making a good jumping off point for studying engineering. Contrast that to my previous air force job as a military hospital medic, probably not the ideal ‘launching pad’ for becoming an engineer. But, I’m not complaining, I just need to get my brain switched from ‘classroom’ to ‘real world.’

Take the Exam

The TA placed the exam on the desktop and I nervously pressed my left palm on top securing it. With mechanical pencil in right hand, I began writing. It felt good to write, gave the impression of progress, a dash of confidence. I wrote along the solid line at the top right hand of the sheet. This is one question I could answer, knew it cold. Although I wouldn’t get any points for knowing it, it still felt good to have at least one blank space on the exam filled in. But, the confident writing came to an abrupt halt when I finished writing the last ‘L’ in my last name.

My attitude reverted back to ‘mild panic’ when I read the first exam question and silently muttered to myself, ‘I don’t know this.’

A seasoned test taker, I quickly moved on to the second question and discovered, ‘I don’t know this either.’ The panic deepened.

I kept skipping questions until I got to number four when I silently exclaimed, ‘I know this one! I can do this!’ So I did. My confidence soared. I left the ‘panic’ world and moved over to the ‘I’m excitedly nervous’ world.

I answered the remaining three questions which launched me into a mini-celebration, ‘Even if I can’t get the first few questions, this should be enough to pass — at least I won’t flunk!’

A surge of inspiration came over me as I reread the first few exam questions, the ones I skipped earlier. Upon second inspection I thought, ‘Hey, wait a minute, I remember Professor Gregorek going over this in class, I remember now, it’s fairly straight forward!’

I completed the exam and had an extra five minutes of class time. In the test taking world five minutes is eternity — you’d be amazed how much you can do in five minutes when you have to. I watched other students get up and hand in their tests. I didn’t budge.

I wanted to go over the exam one more time, see if I could discover any major ‘gotchas.’ So, I went through my answers and it all looked good, I’d pushed it as far as I could. I didn’t see any way to make it better, maybe worse, but not better. Kind of like the lesson I learned with my dad and brothers putting in the garage concrete floor back in New Hampshire years ago. I remember the concrete hardening and dad finally throwing in the towel, ‘That’s it, leave it alone. You don’t play with drying cement, only makes it worse!’ I thought about Dad advice as I scanned the test, ‘Put your pencil down Sean, this test is your drying cement, leave it alone.’

Note: You can read about my ‘garage concrete floor’ experience in my book, ‘Working my BUT Off! Reflections of a Property Investor.’

I put down my mechanical pencil and looked up for the first time in almost fifty minutes. I waited until the bell rang signaling ten minutes to the hour and the end of class. I slowly got up from my seat and desk combo, walked over to the exam collecting TA and made the handoff.

Debrief

I left the auditorium and spotted my air force classmates gaggled up ahead. Len showcased his characteristic stance, left leg slightly forward and both arms down at his side as if a gunfighter at the O.K. Corral. He completed his pose by sporting a lit cigarette in his right ‘side-dangling’ hand. From time to time he’d lift up the right hand, take a gulping inhale, lower the hand back to his side and then blow out the smoky exhaust. That’s Len, street wise tough guy. He reminded me of Frank Sinatra. Same cool demeanor and same good looks as ‘old blue eyes.’ I headed for the gaggle and a few paces out, Len took a puff of his cigarette, blew the smoke out from the side of is mouth and called out, “How’d you do?”

“I think I passed. I put down something for all the questions,” I replied with a hint of confidence.

Len had a worried look on his face, unusual for him, “I didn’t do so well on this one, I studied the wrong stuff, but I think I passed. I figured a few of them out in the last few minutes.”

This dialog would be repeated and plague us throughout our Ohio State aerospace engineering career. After every exam, it became a ‘waiting game.’ Waiting to find out if you passed. After every term, waiting anxiously for the mailman to deliver your grade report, see if you pack your bags or get to stay for another round.

Did you survive?

The ‘waiting game’ ended the next day in class when we found out our grades.

“Wha’d you get?” Len asked.

“I got a 45, wha’d you get?” I replied as fast as a guilty man denies involvement in the crime.

“Yeah, I got a 40, but we may get saved by the curve.”

Our lives at Ohio State revolved around a special god called ‘The Curve.’ Without the ‘curve god’ I don’t think anyone would have graduated with an aerospace engineering degree from Ohio State.

We prayed to the curve god and therefore found salvation.

The TA held a piece of chalk and began scratching numbers on the board. We watched with the intensity of star college football players at the NFL draft. When he finished, the TA turned and said, “The class average is 30.” I burst out, “AAAHHH — YEAH!” I reacted as if the the kennel called and told me ‘We found your lost dog. Bonzo’s fine, come pick him up.’

My score of 45 put me in good standing, plenty above the class average. I felt a massive sense of ‘survival’, like the guy who survives an IRS audit and avoids jail time. In my case, I survived the exam and therefore avoided going back to being a medic. At least for now.