aciel, posts by tag: classes - LiveJournal

I just got back my Cell test. 52.5. I think the class average was a 63.

This time I deserved the grade, possibly. Last time I didn't, and it took out the knees on my motivation.

The thing is that I love school. I love learning. I even like taking tests, sometimes. Unfortunately, they put a grade on our tests.

Why do they do this? Well, historically, grades serve to punish those who don't work hard enough, or to reward those who do work hard. We, however, have been working our asses off all semester. I've studied harder for classes this last year than I have for anything else--ever. To work that hard and get back a 63% is frustrating, to say the least. Goodbye intrinsic motivation. Goodbye extrinsic motivation. (Don't even get me started on going to school for four years and then being shot in the last three weeks. I hadn't thought about this before, but for some reason it's on my mind now.)

It's very, very hard to do well in school when all I can think about is guns and shootings and this stupid law to allow concealed carry on campuses. I had motivation to study before, but now I have none.

I'm actually considering applying for a medical drop for Cell.

Maybe today's just a bad day.

I've studied more consistently and more overall for this exam than for anything in my life. Ever.

Almost every night has found me either in the lab studying (after work) or in Epoch, doing the same. Three or four hours every night, most weekends. I read each chapter (at two a week, which is about a hundred pages or more--and except for the last two which were too long and too irrelevant).

Not only did I read, but I drew out concept maps for every one of the chapters. I probably have around six maps for each one.

As I studied with the other CMB grads tonight, I learned that no one else has bothered to do the reading. These are all people who did better than me on the last two tests (for which they also didn't read). For nearly every question they had, I had an answer.

Still, I fully expect them to do better than me. I didn't spend much time memorizing the sorts of things that are likely to be asked. Instead, I made sure I understood the material.

It's not that grades really matter to me. I'm just used to my best work being reflected by the best scores, and that just hasn't been the case here. Also, while grades don't matter, my fellowship does; and $5000 of that depends on my grades.

They told me grad school classes were about what you knew, not what you could memorize.

They lied.

Studying should never have to get in the way of learning. Ever.

Now, off to do some last minute review. Hello, sunrise.

...as in, I HATE STUFF.

My classes this semester mostly suck. It's pretty disappointing because I was looking forward to both Genetics and Organic Chemistry, and the professors don't really move very quickly. Same complaint about Russian--I'm in Intermediate because Milman refused to let me do an independent study, even though I'm way above intermediate-level--but I expected that. Also, Bob refuses to call me Джончик.

The biggest complaint, though, is that the organic instructor is requiring online homework submission through the book publisher's website. Naturally, this costs $30--beyond the price of the book. What a fucking rip-off.

My Biophysics course is interesting, however, and quantum research should continue to be fracking awesome (as always). Biomedical Ethics looks interesting, and if it proves not to be, it will get dropped.

This is going to be a hard semester as far as avoiding the senior slump, especially with nineteen credits and ten of those a load of crap.

We have two projects in my Computer Graphics course. We're allowed partners. I looked forward to this because I work much better on a team than alone, and because it would make it potentially possible for me to finish all the shit I have to do this semester.

My first project partner dropped before contributing at all to project #1. I got an indefinite extension. I've almost finished the project, but it's not very well-written (because I'm a shitty coder if I don't have someone looking over my shoulder).

I was supposed to meet with my project #2 partner today, and he didn't show up. Instead he called and told me he was dropping the class. Fancy that!

So now I've got two CS projects to do and no time in which to do them. Sure, I can get extensions on both, but then I'll probably be getting an incomplete in Graphics, and that won't look so good on transcripts. I can't drop the course.

What now? I budget my time so carefully (after sucking at it for a really long time), and now this is going to trample all over the grades for ALL of my classes.

It's been such a hectic week. I don't want to miss TKD this close to testing (I'm needed for teaching and I gotta practice myself, to boot), so I'm struggling to finish my work. Unfortunately I make a billion stupid mistakes on physics. Also, there may be a mistake in my value for how many mistakes I make...

ba-dum-CHA!

Tomorrow I am meeting with the heads of the department about the shitty AI class from last semester. Rajiv and Mark W. are coming with me, which makes me very happy. I think I may even have a chance, with them there. Then it's not just my word against the professor's.

Evidently this guy whose exam I missed caused other problems. Evidently, he tried to make the grad class fill out their teacher evaluations right in front of him. This is completely forbidden, of course. He also fell asleep during most of the grad project presentations. There was more, but I'd rather not talk about it just yet. I'll give the full story tomorrow.

It's just so frustrating that I even have to do this. The department doesn't want me to drop the class because that would make them look fallible, and they think fallibility is bad. But more important is showing that you care about your students and listen to them, and if I tell them that it's a sure thing they'll simply say no and tell me to leave.

Alana was supposed to come visit this weekend, and now she cannot. And that's what I was looking forward to, this week.

The battle is on. I'm getting people together from my AI class last semester (both the graduate and undergraduate levels) to talk to the department head about the shitty professor.

Evidently he required the graduate students to give presentations in his class, during many of which he actually *fell asleep*. So several of them are willing to help me out, which I think is really going to help my chances.

The first thing that struck me about my psychology professor, believe it or not, was how young he looked. Secondly, I noticed that he had no arms, and was only five feet tall. I'd seen him around campus so I wasn't completely stunned by his missing appendages. I was, however, deeply impressed with the (manual?) dexterity he possessed in his toes.

He's got a laptop case over one shoulder. His other shoulder blade doesn't appear to be present, but this one protrudes almost like a handle. He stoops to place the bag gently on the ground. One leg doesn't seem to bend much, and he hooks it around the leg of a chair, pulling it as he moves toward the computer. One of his TAs is standing nearby, so I expect her to help him by opening up his presentation or somesuch. She does not; she merely places the keyboard on the ground, they converse for a moment, and then she walks away.

He slips off one of his brown leather shoes and a foot unlike any I have ever seen appears. It is thickly muscled, not with the common larger muscles but rather with the smaller ones used for fine motor control. He unlatches his bag with his toes, then in one motion opens it and reaches in with the foot, extracting a "ZIP" disk in a plastic case.

A kid a few seats down from me whispers, "Are you watching this?" I nod, in awe. No one else seems to really notice, despite that it is a notorious McBryde 100 lecture (that is, several hundred people).

These plastic cases are the sort that I can never get open without breaking. I usually have to use both hands and my teeth. He manages it with just two toes, and using the one foot puts the disk into the drive. He then uses his same foot--resting it on the outside of the ankle like any other person would rest the hand on the wrist--to move the mouse and double-click on his file.

He slides the shoe back on and from this point forward uses the tip of it to hit the space bar, changing slides in PowerPoint. He misses only once the entire class.

I've noticed a tendency in Psychology and Sociology professors to tell the class about normally off-putting "disabilities" they possess to prevent distractions in large lectures later on. My first Sociology professor admitted to having a stutter and told us that if he started stuttering uncontrollably we were not to call 911.

This professor went through the preliminaries, and then said, "You in the back may not be able to see very well, but probably you've noticed that I haven't got any arms. I'm told by past students that it's something which people generally get used to within a few weeks. So, if you're having problems with it, I'm very sorry." Laughter.

This is a fellow whom I cannot pity. He has taken a disability and not let it slow him down a bit.

My only complaint is the speed at which class is running. We spent all of today on maybe a page of the textbook, which I actually read a full week ago. I may stop by his office and ask him if I can take the class for honors credit, maybe with some extra work.

In lieu of simply listing my classes, I will describe them in as interesting a manner as is possible for me.

Russian was unusual. It's a small class, meeting in a conference room, and it's upper level so I figured I would already have known everyone else. I felt like my auditory comprehension skills had actually gotten worse, but I think a great deal of this is because the professor, Njusja, keeps trying to talk slowly and carefully to me. This just makes things worse, though, because like an aphasia patient I use visual cues like gestures and facial expressions to understand language.

I'm taking Foundations of Nuclear and Particle Physics (henceforth referred to as Fizziks). This is primarily because I hope to be working on the particle accelerator in Novosibirsk next year. Also in this class with me, as well as Russian, is annanaka. She informed me yesterday that the fizziks majors sit on one side of the room, and the engineers on the other; so I sat with the fizziks majors. The professor--a short dark-skinned Indian man who manages to remind me of Albert Einstein--asked what the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics were, and I fit right in because I knew and none of the fizziks kiddies seemed to. Booya, computer science.

Immediately following Fizziks yesterday was Epistemology, the study of belief and knowledge. I signed up for two philosophy courses because I only needed one and figured on dropping the other, and both the professors came highly recommended. I did not realize, however, that Epistemology was writing-intensive. Furthermore, the room is claustrophobic and the professor--despite being clearly very intelligent and articulate--seemed to be on a cocktail of amphetamines and caffeine. He did, however, compare belief to an acid trip, which somewhat ingratiated him to me. I'll see how my Philosophy of Science class goes today before I drop it for sure, but that it is writing intensive makes it a tad impossible for me to take on this semester.

My first class this morning was my first and last 8AM course. Taught by a man who resembled an emaciated Canadian Santa Clause (I suppose the North Pole does drift into Canada occasionally), it seemed vaguely promising. No matter that the prof sounds a bit like a broken record and reminded me of Rev. Hearn from my secondary education*. Plus, he promised we could discuss particle accelerators. If only I can get over his extremely bizarre pronunciation of root (e.g., roots of a quadratic equation; he pronounces the word with the same oo sound as in book), I think we will get along well.

---

* Reverend Hearn is best characterized by the following script:
HEARN
[speaking very, very slowly, and in a monotone, with a minimum of three seconds of pause between every pair of words--allegedly so students have time to write down his exact words]
And...then...Moses...said...
[sips his Diet Coke]
And...then...Moses...said...
[sits in his chair, leans back]
...that...the Pharoah...
[closes his eyes]
...that...the Pharoah...
[at this point stops speaking for at least twenty seconds, before either continuing or simply falling asleep, Diet Coke in hand]

STUDENTS
What the fuck? Is he asleep again?

So I'm in Introduction to Artificial Intelligence this semester, and I signed up for it because it's sort of related to what I want to study (cognitive neuroscience). I also decided to take it because it's only offered once every sixty or so years here, and it was supposed to be an interesting course.

Readers may even recall that I met the author of the textbook we use for this class when I was visiting Google.

Interesting as the topic could be, the professor for the class has permanently turned me off to it. He has a dry, cynical sense of humor. That wouldn't do it, except that we (the students) are often the targets of this sense of humor, and he doesn't really treat us with a great deal of respect. He wrote on the syllabus nothing about pop quizzes, but then when he realized American students don't all come to class (he's Egyptian, from Cairo), he decided a pop quiz was in order. This infuriated Mr. Mark and kittycurt to no end, and the three of us trudged up to his office to protest. He was as cynical as ever but agreed to amend the syllabus.

The worst thing about the class is that we're not really looking at artificial intelligence. Yes, it's an intro class, but the topics we looked at were more like intro to intro. It's just algorithms and search space, which I get from my algorithms class anyway--and with a much better professor.

Bad classes are alright. I can deal with that. What I can't deal with are classes where grades are a lottery. We've had no tests (nothing really to test us on), three homework assignments, and about five pop quizzes which varied in point values. Naturally, all the lesser-valued quizzes, I've done well on, and those that have been worth more, I've not done so well. My first homework was a day late, and I instantly got half off for that. I think I'd be more comfortable flipping a coin for my grades, honestly.

Well, the professor announced a couple weeks back that we'd be having our final exam last Thursday. He said it would be on December 1st, and when asked, told us that we were also allowed to take it at the normal time, during exam week. Apparently he later changed his mind and said that we couldn't, but I was clearly not aware of that fact.

I went to his office on Tuesday to ask him about my grades, since Friday was the late-drop deadline. He was evasive as always and told me that the final exam would make up for any poorer grades from earlier in the semester. Not at all comforted, I left. I spent most of the next few days concentrating on my biology lab presentation, which proved an effective distraction.

So Friday morning (note, December 2nd), I woke up for my chiropractor appointment. In the shower, I thought to myself, Wait, this is December 2nd. Didn't I have a final December 1st*? Oh, well. I'll just take it during exam week instead. Nevertheless, I sent off an apologetic email to the professor. On the way back from my appointment, I stopped by his office. He opened the door, and said simply, "No." We exchanged words, I begged him to let me take it, explaining that I needed the class in order to graduate, and that I had simply forgotten.

He said he didn't have time to make another exam for me. I told him I hadn't discussed it with anyone else. Finally, looking as angry as I felt, he gave me a copy of the exam. He told me I had 40 minutes and would have 50% off my grade. Everyone else had had an hour, and their notes. I had no notes, and hadn't even reviewed them recently.

I sat down and took the exam. What else could I do? I spent about half of my time thinking of how best to tell him off, and managed to get maybe three quarters of it done. At one point the lead ran out in the pencil he had given me, and I asked him if he had another, and he said simply, "No," and then continued ignoring me (he was talking loudly on the phone the entire time). I found a pen on his floor and used that.

He told me my time was up, and I shakily handed him the exam. "Goodbye," he said, and I walked out the door. I was just turning around, had just gotten the words, "You know--" out, when he slammed it in my face.

I walked straight into the Department offices. I didn't think they'd help me, but I was at least going to give them an earful. I explained about how he was a shitty professor. I explained that he had changed his syllabus. I mentioned his extreme lack of respect for the students. Finally, I told what had happened on the final exam. I said that I was trying to study cogsci in grad school, and I think I even mentioned that I was a Hillcrester. Dr. Ribbens listened politely the entire time, occasionally interrupting to ask a question. Then he promised to go talk to the professor. "I have a faculty meeting until 4 or so, so just camp out at my office. You may want to get the late-drop form ready just in case, so you can run it over the dean's office before 5 if necessary."

I spent the rest of the day silently hyperventilating.

My next stop was my advisor's office. "What are the rules regarding professors changing exam times?" I asked while she signed my late-drop form.

"I'm not sure," she said. She looked them up for me. It said professors have to get the dean's authorization in order to change a final exam time.

Ah hah. My loophole. "Will that help me?" I asked. She said she didn't know. No one had ever asked about it before.

I went back to Dr. Ribbens at 4 armed with that fact. "I couldn't find Professor Imam," he said. "But I'm willing to go to bat for you on this."

Wow. That was more than I expected. So I told him I'd like a chance to retake the exam, or at least to drop the class normally (rather than late-drop which shows up as a withdraw on my transcript). He said he'd try to get me a retake.

I think this might have been partly Mark's doing. He's famous in the Department with his several majors and high GPA, and articulate to boot. He had said that he might speak to Dr. Ribbens that day about Dr. Imam, and I suspect that he did just that. I owe him.

Thanks for reading. Seriously. /vent.

* I frequently miss deadlines at the beginning of months. I just sort of forget that there's not a huge break between November 30th and December 1st.