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MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

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Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#581

Post by akhilcacharya »

mav3rick wrote: post #580
akhilcacharya wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After what you just said, color me skeptical. I went to a state school and got an average-ish CS degree with average-ish internships and research, how far behind am I?

You're already far behind due to your insecurities or Will an internet forum really guide your life ? An MIT grad will always have more gates open than an NCSU grad. You need to do other things in your career to lessen the gap. There is no moving past this point no matter who you ask. And no the amount of hard work you do doesn't matter. Everyone of the "elite" school students work hard.

> An MIT grad will always have more gates open than an NCSU grad.

In the immortal words of Amy Klobuchar “are you calling me dumb?”

> You need to do other things in your career to lessen the gap.

Such as what exactly?

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#582

Post by jedberg »

WalterBright wrote: post #578
jedberg wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stack rankings and curves aren’t anywhere close to the same. Grading on a curve allows everyone to get a perfect score. Stack ranking means that if everyone is perfect only one person can get a perfect score. They are in fact opposites. Also, if half the class fails, that is a teaching failure, not a student failure. The teacher failed to teach the material and/or failed to write a good test. At Berkeley, if 1/2 the…

> Stack rankings and curves aren’t anywhere close to the same. Sure they are. The best get a raise/A, the worst get fired/F. > that is a teaching failure, not a student failure Let's put it another way. Do you want the pilot flying you across the Atlantic 747 to be graded on a curve where he happened to be better than some of the other students, or graded against "met the standard / did not meet the standard"? Me, I…

> > Stack rankings and curves aren’t anywhere close to the same.

> Sure they are. The best get a raise/A, the worst get fired/F.

That's actually not at all how stack ranking works. The best might get an A, or a B or a C, and the worst might get a B or a C or a D or an F.

An example: You give a test that is out of 120 points. Here are the scores:

P1 = 100

P2 = 99

P3 = 98

P4 = 97

P5 = 96

Under a curve grading, they all get A's. Under objective grading, they all get B's. With stack ranking:

P1 = A

P2 = B

P3 = C

P4 = D

P5 = F

Should P5 be given an F or get fired? That's what happens in stack ranking.

> Let's put it another way. Do you want the pilot flying you across the Atlantic 747 to be graded on a curve where he happened to be better than some of the other students, or graded against "met the standard / did not meet the standard"?

A pilot is not the same as your undergrad physics class. The pilot was taught by instructor who has to teach in a specific way, often using specific words, developed over many years by a committee of pilots. They then take a test that 100s have taken over many years, written by a committee of pilots.

The pilot instructor has very little leeway on how they teach the class and has no leeway in the test.

Same with medical boards, or any other standardized test.

But your physics professor probably wrote the curriculum themselves, teach it a different way every semester, and use a slightly different test every time.

And as much as you wish it were true, none of your undergrad classes are life or death scenarios.

So yeah, it makes sense to grade on a curve for an undergrad class.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#583

Post by WalterBright »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #579
WalterBright wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care if someone has an elite education or not. It's about whether they can do the job or not.

After what you just said, color me skeptical. I went to a state school and got an average-ish CS degree with average-ish internships and research, how far behind am I?

I don't know you, so I have no idea. Your employer and colleagues could give you a better assessment. But I can say that an average grade taking the top classes at school is much better than average grades in the minimum-to-graduate classes.

Education doesn't stop with the degree. Good engineers never stop studying to expand their expertise.

I've been working for several decades with other engineers. It's not too hard to see who are the good ones and who aren't. The "aren't" are the ones who solve problems using trial and error, and when they get it to work they don't bother figuring out why it's working.

The "are" engineers will do whatever is required to find out what is actually wrong, work to understand it, and will do a targeted fix.

What kind of engineer you want to be is entirely up to you.

One thing you can do is take the youtube MIT CS courses. It's free. I've taken some of them to fill in gaps in my education.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#584

Post by WalterBright »

jedberg wrote: post #582
WalterBright wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stack rankings and curves aren’t anywhere close to the same. Sure they are. The best get a raise/A, the worst get fired/F. > that is a teaching failure, not a student failure Let's put it another way. Do you want the pilot flying you across the Atlantic 747 to be graded on a curve where he happened to be better than some of the other students, or graded against "met the standard / did not meet the standard"? Me, I…

> > Stack rankings and curves aren’t anywhere close to the same. > Sure they are. The best get a raise/A, the worst get fired/F. That's actually not at all how stack ranking works. The best might get an A, or a B or a C, and the worst might get a B or a C or a D or an F. An example: You give a test that is out of 120 points. Here are the scores: P1 = 100 P2 = 99 P3 = 98 P4 = 97 P5 = 96 Under a curve grading, they all…

> Under a curve grading, they all get A's.

I think you misunderstand what curve grading is.

> none of your undergrad classes are life or death scenarios.

Except that bridges fall down and kill people when designed by incompetents. You bet your life every day on the competence of engineers.

Employers are NOT interested in curve ranking. They're interested in a degree as a mark of meeting a standard. Caltech's policy is that their graduates meet a standard of quality. A curve is not a standard. Someone who gets sympathetic good grades because of a bad teacher is not of interest.

If you don't accept that, there are plenty of other schools to attend.

But I suspect that if you think about it, you expect a standard of quality in everything you buy - goods and services. You're not interested in a flexible curve.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#585

Post by easytiger »

eropple wrote: post #554
easytiger wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damp squib

And your rationale for that characterization is...?

The WHO predicted that 150 million people would be killed by avian flu [1]. Nothing happened. They predicted 750,000 people would die in the UK, it was more like 200. For swine flu it was minimum possible deaths of 11k but up to 70k. It was more like 400. They got upset when people wouldn't use their case fatality rates which turned out very wrong. Over half a million people died of flu related deaths last year. Don't recall reading a single news article about it

1, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/emergency....

2, https://jech.bmj.com/content/62/6/555.abstract

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#586

Post by mav3rick »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #581
mav3rick wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're already far behind due to your insecurities or Will an internet forum really guide your life ? An MIT grad will always have more gates open than an NCSU grad. You need to do other things in your career to lessen the gap. There is no moving past this point no matter who you ask. And no the amount of hard work you do doesn't matter. Everyone of the "elite" school students work hard.

> An MIT grad will always have more gates open than an NCSU grad. In the immortal words of Amy Klobuchar “are you calling me dumb?” > You need to do other things in your career to lessen the gap. Such as what exactly?

If you had admits from MIT and NCSU, both full rides, which one would you choose ? Let's see what cognitive dissonance you concoct now.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#587

Post by mav3rick »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #466
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cynically, I wonder how big a role the fear of lawsuits is playing. Private institutions might be more sensitive to that possibility than state-run schools.

They also have more resources than most state run schools. Which reinforces my original thesis

Yes we all want ivy leagues to be protected first.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#588

Post by mav3rick »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #565
marcinzm wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These questions are framed in the wrong way. The filter isn't cost, it's getting in, and people from middle class and poor families are at a disadvantage in terms of accomplishments. Yes and no. In that there is correlation but probably not direct causality. For example, Asian middle and poor families seem to do fairly well in getting their kids to have the right achievements.

High correlation, yes. Poor kids don't know how. I didn't grow up poor but nobody in my circle knew how.

Or maybe you tried and it just didn't work out ? What were your test scores ? Did you have something that set you apart academically or otherwise ? Did you castigate MITs prestige in your essay as you seem to do on HN ?

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#589

Post by jedberg »

WalterBright wrote: post #584
jedberg wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Stack rankings and curves aren’t anywhere close to the same. > Sure they are. The best get a raise/A, the worst get fired/F. That's actually not at all how stack ranking works. The best might get an A, or a B or a C, and the worst might get a B or a C or a D or an F. An example: You give a test that is out of 120 points. Here are the scores: P1 = 100 P2 = 99 P3 = 98 P4 = 97 P5 = 96 Under a curve grading, they all…

> Under a curve grading, they all get A's. I think you misunderstand what curve grading is. > none of your undergrad classes are life or death scenarios. Except that bridges fall down and kill people when designed by incompetents. You bet your life every day on the competence of engineers. Employers are NOT interested in curve ranking. They're interested in a degree as a mark of meeting a standard. Caltech's policy i…

> I think you misunderstand what curve grading is.

I think you do. Curve grading is where the top score in the class determines the max score, and everyone is graded accordingly. It's a way of making sure that the test isn't so bad that even the top student can't get a perfect score.

> Except that bridges fall down and kill people when designed by incompetents.

That's true. That's why people who design bridges have to take standardized tests with objecting grading standards designed by groups of experts.

But that has nothing to do with the grading policy of undergrad classes.

> Employers are NOT interested in curve ranking. They're interested in a degree as a mark of meeting a standard.

No, they're interested in a degree as a mark of someone who can finish something that takes four years to complete. I don't care if you went to Caltech or MIT or Cal State Northridge, as long as you can write code.

> But I suspect that if you think about it, you expect a standard of quality in everything you buy

Again true, but I'm not buying people. College graduates are not a product to be bought and sold.

Re: MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

#590

Post by akhilcacharya »

mav3rick wrote: post #586
akhilcacharya wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An MIT grad will always have more gates open than an NCSU grad. In the immortal words of Amy Klobuchar “are you calling me dumb?” > You need to do other things in your career to lessen the gap. Such as what exactly?

If you had admits from MIT and NCSU, both full rides, which one would you choose ? Let's see what cognitive dissonance you concoct now.

That wasn’t my question
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