Calculators at the Empo

We have once arrived to that time of year again that everyone is preparing for finals. Almost all freshmen take a math class that has to take an exam at the math emporium. Since I am a Math major I do not have to take the basic math classes but still have math classes that test through the emporium. Last semester I was in linear algebra and which was technically through the emporium but we could take our quizzes anywhere and only had to take our exams at the actual math emporium. This semester I am in vector geometry and we have one exam left that is due this week and then our final exam. The exams are not bad but they are a pain because we cannot use hand held calculators we have to use the calculators on the computers at the math emporium. The calculators on the emporium computers are a pain to use because you can’t see what you are putting into the calculator compared to a graphing calculator where you can clearly see everything. You can have the paper tape on which helps but when you are trying to impute your numbers on the screen it is hard to tell if you have put the parentheses in the right spot or not along with other carious things that make it hard to use. My suggestion is that the emporium allows students to use hand held calculators that you receive when the test proctor gives you when they check your student id. The calculators could be cleared and just have the basic functions like we used in high school during out standardized tests. If we had handheld calculators I think it would make a big difference in some people’s scores. I know that if I could have used one on my last exam my grade could have been higher. Money might be a factor but I really think it would benefit the students to have a calculator in their hands and not on the computer especially since most students use a graphing calculator during their quizzes. The situation could always be worse but the emporium could find a better calculator policy if they truly wanted to help the students out.