Today, I took the oral exams for Grundlagen der Maschinen- und Strukturdynamik and Multibody Dynamics back to back. Since the two classes cover similar topics and are taught by the same teacher, it made perfect sense to arrange it so. However, that didn't make it any less daunting. I had never taken an oral exam before, so I just didn't know what to expect. I knew I'd be asked questions, but not what depth or how much writing was expected, not to mention how capable I'd be of explaining in German.
Fortunately, that last fear turned out to be baseless. Since MBD was taught in English, the professor decided to ask all the questions for both classes in English, and I ended up answering in mainly English with German peppered in whenever it was easier not to translate. As for the types of questions, he asked that I sketch systems and graphs or write out some equations to show I knew them, but there was no calculation involved. They mostly were of the form "describe so-and-so" or "how would you do so-and-so?" There was one question that tripped me up for a moment. It involved a topic we'd only briefly covered in class and which I'd completely forgotten about until reviewing the lecture slides yesterday. However, once I figured out what he was asking for, I got through it just fine. I sure am glad I remembered to review it!
Now that I have my philosophy classes with their written assignments and the two dynamics classes behind me, all I have left to worry about is the written exam next Wednesday, and another one in September.
Which reminds me...I should really ask my adviser who could proctor that for me in the States.
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