My favorite history professor in college gave open book essay exams. He asked your opinion on topics, "what were the motivations of the leaders of the US revolution?" Even better were the questions that ended in "why or why not?" There were no right or wrong answers, if you could justify your answer in a reasonable manner, you got full points. Some students hated his tests, some students loved his tests. The students…
In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
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Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#12Going from secondary school or community college to lower division undergraduate classes, upper division undergraduate classes, and graduate classes, depending on circumstances and field, you can, in a few years, go from assignments where you have 60 questions you are expected to be able to answer, and getting 50 right will result in a poor grade or even failing, to assignments where answering 3 out of 5 is considered great. Without context, it can be terrifying to get a problem set where you assume that having trouble with a problem means you don't understand the material well, when in reality it's expected that you won't finish it perfectly even as an excellent student.
In my undergraduate experience, going from a community college, to upper division undergraduate physics courses, to graduate physics courses taken in my senior year, I went, from the finals one term to the midterms of the next, from classes where I walked into tests expecting that I should be able to answer every question perfectly, to classes where my 70% score on the midterm (of a handful of questions) was considered an excellent result, with no explicit indication beforehand that this would be the case. That switch was only a year before I was in a small graduate class where answering two out of four questions correctly on an assignment merited a congratulatory email from the professor. Even rationally having a sense that the expectations and styles were changing, it can be a massive, rapid shift.
Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#13via https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1614958291066535936
Paul Graham: > The reason his students find his problem sets "emotionally trying" is that they're getting a taste of what real work is like. Which Shengwu Li seems to disagree with, since the author retweeted this thread: https://twitter.com/bradchattergoon/status/16151056145600839... > Good on SL for setting expectations but I also want to comment a bit. If research is all about being comfortable with uncertainty, w…
Now, reliability is a very important skill, but it should not be the only thing measured .
Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#14Problem sets for a second year PhD? Is that common in the US?
Yes, the first two years in STEM Ph.D. programs are typically coursework-heavy and include qualification exams as part of your courses. You must pass X quals, of which Y must be from this subset. Because of this, if you leave the program after the first two years, they will often issue a terminal master's degree as a consolation.
Do most in the US start their PhD from a Bachelors degree?
I had a masters degree prior to starting my PhD. It is also possible to start a PhD with a Bachelors, however you wouldn't likely be awarded a masters degree if you failed to complete
Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#15Small class, seriously smart hard working ederly professor notorious for setting conjectures from whatever areas of interest he currently had as exam questions.
Failure was not even trying to answer, grading was scaled on how many you had a shot at and what kind of dent you made on them in the hour.
Fun times.
Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
First year is general classes (e.g. in economics that would be Micro, Macro, Econometrics, etc), 2nd year is classes more specific to your area of study.
What about the following years? In my PhD in the UK, I had three months of part-time classes and then onto my research. Just curious, as I didn't realise it was such a difference
The result is that for many PhD programs, the first year or two transitions from being fully class-based (though often very small classes) to more and more research, and then finally a switch to having no classes, and only research (and teaching).
Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#17If you set this expectation up front, and explain the premise, this rules. If you simply present problems to students without this caveat, you are being needlessly cruel. It seems like the author found a good approach.
Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about the following years? In my PhD in the UK, I had three months of part-time classes and then onto my research. Just curious, as I didn't realise it was such a difference
PhD programs in the US and elsewhere are different: most PhD programs in the US are significantly longer, and could be seen as combined Master's and PhD programs, admitting students directly after their undergraduate degrees. The first year or two could be seen as more of a Master's program, and many programs give Master's degrees at some point in the process (some by request, such that the difference between having…
Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the first two years in STEM Ph.D. programs are typically coursework-heavy and include qualification exams as part of your courses. You must pass X quals, of which Y must be from this subset. Because of this, if you leave the program after the first two years, they will often issue a terminal master's degree as a consolation.
Ah ok, I have no such examinations. Do most in the US start their PhD from a Bachelors degree? I had a masters degree prior to starting my PhD. It is also possible to start a PhD with a Bachelors, however you wouldn't likely be awarded a masters degree if you failed to complete
Some will continue after a master's. Still, they will usually need to change universities (or at least go through the full selection process again), so if you're interested in a Ph.D., you should apply for that rather than a master's.
For that reason, most master's programs in the US are professional degrees, not research ones.
Also, almost no university advertises or promises a terminal master's degree. It is a very subjective process as well.
Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”
#20I didn't even attempt it because I knew it would be beyond emotionally trying.