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So, tell us about how the professor can prevent the students from learning. You know, when the entire class gets a 29 or lower.
How about when the entire class either fails or withdraws, and not a single student successfully passes the class?
My obstacle was Abstract Algebra, a particularly difficult topic for me. I had the highest grade in the class with a 69 and was planning to drop, but no one else was going to, so I stuck it out and got a B. I was the only student in the class who ever asked a question. I understood the subject when I was in class and the professor was more than capable, but I couldn't study because I could never get past page 2 in the textbook when I tried to review at home. Now that I'm retired, I may go back and have a second go at it, right after I finish up this year in the coding academy. It's my third time around on programming, and I'm loving it.
It might depend on the instructor. I know some Liberal Arts faculty that definitely have the role of gatekeepers in their programs. Others have a more lax attitude. But there are often courses that have a gatekeeping role. The problem is that students might not run into these faculty for a while.
Also, "rate my professor" is making it easier for students to identify and avoid these faculty.
I was a civil engineering major at a PAC12 university in the late 1970s (it was actually the PAC10 then)..
It had juse become the Pac 10 when you there. The Pac 10 formed in 1978 when Arizona State and University of Arizona joined the Pacific 8 Conference from the Western Athletic Conference. The Pacific 10 existed from 1978-2011.
None of that will prevent a student from learning the material.
A good professor can make learning easier, and a bad professor may not provide much, if any, value added, but at the end of the day, learning the material is 100% the responsibility of the student.
Then maybe students should not have to pay tuition and professors should not be paid a salary. Maybe another idea is, instead of college degrees, to have a standardized test that employers can give to see if an applicant knows the material he / she should know. College can be one way to learn the material. Or you can teach yourself. Or you can just be lucky.
I’m sure somebody is going to bring up the gym / personal trainer analogy. But hiring a personal trainer and signing up for a gym is not the only way to get in shape. Some people can just learn a workout on their own. Some can workout at home and/or outside. Some will just have good genes and always stay in shape without needing to exercise or eat right.
One important distinction is that there are many different factors that professors use to weed students out. Perhaps some are reasonable but others are not:
One poster keeps saying that his school weeded out textbook engineers who don’t think outside the box. A valid question is, can those skills be taught, or are they skills that you either have or do not have. If the former, then why are those skills not taught?
Weeding out based on subjects such as calculus, chemistry, or physics. The problem is, those are definitely topics than can and should be taught. And, how relevant are they to somebody working a job?
Weeding out those who are unwilling to persevere and tough it out despite the possibility of bad grades. These are the classes where the class average is 29, and the exams do not cover what was taught, and grading is very arbitrary. Often more busywork rather than real learning. The problem is, this has the side effect of weeding out students with academic scholarships who need a certain GPA to keep their scholarship. These classes trend to favor the D = Diploma students.
Weeding out students who are not doormats. Usually involves professors blatantly breaking rules designed to protect students, while reminding us that they have tenure and that there is nothing that we can do about it. Examples are major exams given during times that the school doesn’t allow exams (such as when the dorms are closed), giving a 0 for any exams missed (such as a funeral or hospitalization), or grades that are based more on attendance rather than performance. Often such professors claim that this is to prepare students for the real world. But this is a major reason why the real world is so dysfunctional. This was the most common type of weeding out that I encountered in school.
One important distinction is that there are many different factors that professors use to weed students out. Perhaps some are reasonable but others are not:
One poster keeps saying that his school weeded out textbook engineers who don’t think outside the box. A valid question is, can those skills be taught, or are they skills that you either have or do not have. If the former, then why are those skills not taught?
Weeding out based on subjects such as calculus, chemistry, or physics. The problem is, those are definitely topics than can and should be taught. And, how relevant are they to somebody working a job?
Weeding out those who are unwilling to persevere and tough it out despite the possibility of bad grades. These are the classes where the class average is 29, and the exams do not cover what was taught, and grading is very arbitrary. Often more busywork rather than real learning. The problem is, this has the side effect of weeding out students with academic scholarships who need a certain GPA to keep their scholarship. These classes trend to favor the D = Diploma students.
Weeding out students who are not doormats. Usually involves professors blatantly breaking rules designed to protect students, while reminding us that they have tenure and that there is nothing that we can do about it. Examples are major exams given during times that the school doesn’t allow exams (such as when the dorms are closed), giving a 0 for any exams missed (such as a funeral or hospitalization), or grades that are based more on attendance rather than performance. Often such professors claim that this is to prepare students for the real world. But this is a major reason why the real world is so dysfunctional. This was the most common type of weeding out that I encountered in school.
I think people need to learn the skills INSIDE the box before they can be taught anything about thinking outside it. If a professor has a class with students who don’t grasp the basics, then it’s not going to benefit them to focus on thinking outside the box. Students at elite universities or flagship state schools are probably better able to think out of the box because they don’t have to spend as much time on the basics and remedial skills.
That is something to consider when you select a college. If getting a little debt now is going to help you make much more in the long run or have better/more fulfilling job options, it can often be worth it not to choose the least expensive option. There is always a trade off, and I think most people know that there is a different type of instruction between different types of universities. I think these days, a lot of the directional state universities have worked harder to become residential schools and attract better students, so there really a lot of quality options now that don’t require people to spend a lot or necessarily get into the flagship state schools.
The college in my hometown was essentially a commuter school when I went to college. It has a pretty decent national ranking now. It is not “elite” but still very good, with quite a few strong programs. My dad started out in his program when it was brand new, then his particular department decided to have a specialty center, and by the time he left it was all about the center having the highest USNews ranking possible. Needless to say, my dad had trouble adjusting to this since he started at the very beginning. It still shows how things can really change over time.
One important distinction is that there are many different factors that professors use to weed students out. Perhaps some are reasonable but others are not:
One poster keeps saying that his school weeded out textbook engineers who don’t think outside the box. A valid question is, can those skills be taught, or are they skills that you either have or do not have. If the former, then why are those skills not taught?
Weeding out based on subjects such as calculus, chemistry, or physics. The problem is, those are definitely topics than can and should be taught. And, how relevant are they to somebody working a job?
Weeding out those who are unwilling to persevere and tough it out despite the possibility of bad grades. These are the classes where the class average is 29, and the exams do not cover what was taught, and grading is very arbitrary. Often more busywork rather than real learning. The problem is, this has the side effect of weeding out students with academic scholarships who need a certain GPA to keep their scholarship. These classes trend to favor the D = Diploma students.
Weeding out students who are not doormats. Usually involves professors blatantly breaking rules designed to protect students, while reminding us that they have tenure and that there is nothing that we can do about it. Examples are major exams given during times that the school doesn’t allow exams (such as when the dorms are closed), giving a 0 for any exams missed (such as a funeral or hospitalization), or grades that are based more on attendance rather than performance. Often such professors claim that this is to prepare students for the real world. But this is a major reason why the real world is so dysfunctional. This was the most common type of weeding out that I encountered in school.
To clarify what I've said, weed-out didn't occur in those classes that required outside the box thinking. Weed-out occurred in the basic, fundamental courses. Knowing the basics are essential to growing outside the box thinking. You have to know those first. That's where the weeding out occurred. Not necessarily in freshman year, but in those courses that were fundamental to going beyond.
Yes, those skills can be taught. Once students were past the fundamentals, then the courses, but more importantly, the culture and interdisciplinary focus, were heavy on developing those kinds of skills. That's part of why there was so much emphasis on student research outside the classroom -- you didn't get credit for a lot of this; you did it because it was good experience.
While I definitely saw a lot of weeding out based on the determination/grit/pick a term, I didn't see any based on students who were not doormats.
To me one of the worst weed outs was tests based on the ability to memorize pages of trivia. The no book/no notes type thing. Yet in the real world it's open book, open notes, open neighbor, open any resource you can find. That's something we have to teach new engineers. You aren't in school anymore; you're not in competition with your co-workers -- you all rise and fall together; reusing existing work is a timesaver; and it's more important to get it right than to do it from memory. in fact on some jobs we require to procedure to be open and not trusted to memory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RamenAddict
I That is something to consider when you select a college. If getting a little debt now is going to help you make much more in the long run or have better/more fulfilling job options, it can often be worth it not to choose the least expensive option. There is always a trade off, and I think most people know that there is a different type of instruction between different types of universities. .
That's a critical statement but from many discussion on CD, it seems most people consider colleges interchangeable and don't see the long term benefit from going into some debt now to have better results in the future.
I think there is often the assumption here on CD that it is a choice between a school that is $50K+ a year or a school that is essentially free. Once the common application became widely used, students could apply to many schools easily. Before that time, I think people were instructed to apply to 2 of each type of school (target, reach, safety), while now people often do 3-4 of each, if not more.
Assuming a student does well in selecting, they should have a few schools that accept them and may have a choice between a school or two that is more rigorous, but may be expensive, a school that offers a combination of a good financial package and good academics, and a school that is very economical, but may not exactly meet the academic standards desired. There is no right choice for any student. Some students may benefit from the expensive school because the program there is excellent and opens up many doors. Others may intend to have a career where the degree location doesn’t matter as much and will do absolutely fine at the inexpensive option.
I have three degrees- one from a flagship state U, one from a directional state U, and one from an elite private university. I generally had good professors at all three, but the student quality at the directional state U was varied. There were some ultra smart students and others should have been there at all. Some of the core classes were very boring to me because the students didn’t get the basic concepts.
I think there is often the assumption here on CD that it is a choice between a school that is $50K+ a year or a school that is essentially free. Once the common application became widely used, students could apply to many schools easily. Before that time, I think people were instructed to apply to 2 of each type of school (target, reach, safety), while now people often do 3-4 of each, if not more.
Assuming a student does well in selecting, they should have a few schools that accept them and may have a choice between a school or two that is more rigorous, but may be expensive, a school that offers a combination of a good financial package and good academics, and a school that is very economical, but may not exactly meet the academic standards desired. There is no right choice for any student. Some students may benefit from the expensive school because the program there is excellent and opens up many doors. Others may intend to have a career where the degree location doesn’t matter as much and will do absolutely fine at the inexpensive option.
I have three degrees- one from a flagship state U, one from a directional state U, and one from an elite private university. I generally had good professors at all three, but the student quality at the directional state U was varied. There were some ultra smart students and others should have been there at all. Some of the core classes were very boring to me because the students didn’t get the basic concepts.
Problem is that the cheapest of these will run you about 25k per year, or at least 12-13k if you can commute.
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