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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”

#161

Post by ianai »

winReInstall wrote: post #157
krageon wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my experience of an IT education in university perfectly. 90% of my class just didn't get it at all and the remaining 10% had a lot of experience in the field already (there were a small amount of extremely smart folks as well of course - they needed no background). Kind of defeats the purpose of teaching, but it does serve to weed out the folks that can't pick things up very fast. I think that is one of…

But we have machines for that? Data access and repetition in itself is worthless. Refinement, and gaining new data from old recipes is the actual value. Why construct a machine, that basically selects for the wrong value, creating a reproduction academia, instead of a innovation academia. Why weed out what was your original value proposition? It seems very strange.

Because they don’t believe in the value proposition they’re selling. Instead of forming students into high quality output they’re taking in students and pushing out anything but already high quality students.

The need to have seen something before a class to have a chance at passing it well is fundamentally wrong.

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#162

Post by krageon »

winReInstall wrote: post #157
krageon wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my experience of an IT education in university perfectly. 90% of my class just didn't get it at all and the remaining 10% had a lot of experience in the field already (there were a small amount of extremely smart folks as well of course - they needed no background). Kind of defeats the purpose of teaching, but it does serve to weed out the folks that can't pick things up very fast. I think that is one of…

But we have machines for that? Data access and repetition in itself is worthless. Refinement, and gaining new data from old recipes is the actual value. Why construct a machine, that basically selects for the wrong value, creating a reproduction academia, instead of a innovation academia. Why weed out what was your original value proposition? It seems very strange.

Absorbing and applying knowledge fast is a requirement for surviving in academia. Having classes that weed people out is not a bad thing. That's what I was saying - I don't see how this is pure reproduction, this is novel application of existing ideas. That's how innovation can start.

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#163

Post by yesenadam »

flappyeagle wrote: post #132
haswell wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and you observe other students putting similar amounts of effort, but obtaining much better results, understanding things more quickly and getting better ideas, you should probably just drop out I'm sorry, but even if this is true under some circumstances, this seems like terrible general advice, and only matters if your only goal is to reach the top echelons of your field. That doesn't mean there is no room for "a…

Sometimes this advice is spot on. Depends on how competitive the field is. Medicine? Plenty of average doctors. Jazz musician? Everyone who does it for a living ranges from amazing to genius and being just very good gets you nowhere professionally.

> Jazz musician? Everyone who does it for a living ranges from amazing to genius and being just very good gets you nowhere professionally.

Band leaders and/or singers can be, and quite commonly are, very average, and get regular work. They can be pretty bad and work a lot if they're also very good at marketing themselves. (source: am a jazz musician)

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#164

Post by simiones »

krageon wrote: post #154
jauco wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! When I took the first steps on my career path I wasn’t good at anything , had no idea what I really liked because I hadn’t had the opportunity to try most stuff and the top paying jobs of today didn’t even exist. I know you are a smart person, but this advice will hold young people back. Try stuff. Don’t sweat it. You’ll fail and you’ll succeed and you won’t know which is which until years later when you tell a…

Every child knows what things they like and are good at. It might not map exactly to a career path but it's not like career skills live in some sort of magical vacuum that you can never see until you try them.

How many children are aware that they would enjoy actuarial finance? How many are aware that they would be good at arguing patent law?

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#165

Post by peoplefromibiza »

smcl wrote: post #158
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where are you reading "emotionally devastated" here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34421487 On exam day you are just emotionally devastated > describing feeling "devastated" when they can't crack a few questions in an important exam they thought they'd studied appropriately maybe the expectations are too high? You are a student, it's in the name, you don't know stuff because you are learning. Maybe I can't u…

Ah why didn't you reply to that comment? This just looks like you're misquoting the tweet thread. > Maybe I can't understand what you're talking about because I am not American. Why are you assuming I'm American? As for the rest, I wouldn't bring this up otherwise but since you went there - I started university at seventeen , worked full time in a pub from when I turned 18 and then had to work two jobs in my final ye…

> Ah why didn't you reply to that comment? This just looks like you're misquoting the tweet thread.

I dind't?

I'm sorry I did not notice.

can the moderators move it in the right place, please?

> Why are you assuming I'm American?

Because it's an easy guess here and it's the system the article talks about.

> And yet I can still understand that other people could be in circumstances that really push them to describe being "emotionally devastated"

I honestly don't.

Like I hear people saying they are emotionally devasted when their soccer team loses a match, but that's not what being emotionally devasted is, that's how some people describe it. It's called hyperbole.

> "If a university bureacracy was killing you then what will happen life throws life/death problems at you?" - see how silly that sounds?

Textbook non sequitur.

I feel the same way about bureacracy now.

But, if I could, I'd still chose bureacracy over life/death problems every time and also I would keep failing very hard exams if I could, studying like crazy, instead.

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#166

Post by chisquared »

thoughtpalette wrote: post #4

I was going to make an initial offhand comment about the author explanaing critical thinking skills, then I viewed the problem sets[0]. I def agree with the other commenter about setting expectations up front on these types of problems. [0]: https://twitter.com/ShengwuLi/status/1615063879381569536/pho...

Interesting problems!

It’s not hard to intuit the truth values of the conjectures in the first two questions. I don’t have proofs, though.

No idea about the third one.

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#167

Post by setr »

krageon wrote: post #154
jauco wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! When I took the first steps on my career path I wasn’t good at anything , had no idea what I really liked because I hadn’t had the opportunity to try most stuff and the top paying jobs of today didn’t even exist. I know you are a smart person, but this advice will hold young people back. Try stuff. Don’t sweat it. You’ll fail and you’ll succeed and you won’t know which is which until years later when you tell a…

Every child knows what things they like and are good at. It might not map exactly to a career path but it's not like career skills live in some sort of magical vacuum that you can never see until you try them.

Liking dinosaurs and Jurassic park is not the same as liking archeology, especially as a job. Most children have no idea what they’d be getting into, and if they like something, it probably has little to nothing to do with the actual work/job/goals.

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#168

Post by Gatsky »

xyzzyz wrote: post #63
deskamess wrote: post #42

Pretty much most senior level/grad algorithm classes are like this. They introduce a framework for solution and then give you about 2-3 example lecture problems that they walk you through. 2-3 weeks after being introduced to 5/6 frameworks its Exam day. You are given unique word problems that, in the eyes of someone experienced like a prof or PhD student, is trivial. But you are struggling with 1 week of homework exp…

> But there are smart people who get all this stuff "easily" (previous practice, exposure). Or, simply by virtue of being more intelligent. Life is not fair, and some people do have it easier than others, without having to pay for it with extra study time. If you are pursuing a research career, and you observe other students putting similar amounts of effort, but obtaining much better results, understanding things mo…

You're getting some flack for this comment, but others have said similar things: https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/_/__CnDwAAQBAJ?hl=en...

"I took six undergraduate mathematics courses. Until my junior year I encountered no one who seemed to have a greater aptitude for mathematics than mine. It had always been my easiest subject in high school, and I had been chided there by a classmate for writing my final exam with a fountain pen. Before I discovered physics, trigonometry and differential and integral calculus were my greatest intellectual pleasures. But my final mathematics course as an undergraduate was differential equations and the instructor gave me only a B. I'm sure he recognized that I was competent — I had worked every problem in the book — but he had to give the A's to the obviously brilliant students, who were now closing in on me. If I had decided to become a professional mathematician, as I easily could have, I would have made the traumatic discovery that there were many people my age who were far more talented mathematically than I could ever be.

The world of mathematics and theoretical physics is hierarchical. That was my first exposure to it. There's a limit beyond which one cannot progress. The differences between the limiting abilities of those on successively higher steps of the pyramid are enormous. I have not seen described anywhere the shock a talented man experiences when he finds, late in his academic life, that there are others enormously more talented than he. I have personally seen more tears shed by grown men and women over this discovery than I would have believed possible. Most of those men and women shift to fields where they can compete on more equal terms. The few who choose not to face reality have a difficult time."

Adventures of a Physicist, Luis W Alvarez

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#169

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

marmetio wrote: post #46
deskamess wrote: post #42

Pretty much most senior level/grad algorithm classes are like this. They introduce a framework for solution and then give you about 2-3 example lecture problems that they walk you through. 2-3 weeks after being introduced to 5/6 frameworks its Exam day. You are given unique word problems that, in the eyes of someone experienced like a prof or PhD student, is trivial. But you are struggling with 1 week of homework exp…

This is a problem all across engineering. Professors and textbook authors are so concerned about reserving problems to grade you on that they forget to teach the material in the first place. Imagine trying to learn a spoken language with very little input or speaking practice.

Many professors don't care about teaching. I've had conversations with physics/math/engineering academics which go "Those who are smart and motivated will get it, and I don't care about the rest."

Re: In the past, I've had students call my problem sets “emotionally trying”

#170

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

mattejade wrote: post #121
WalterBright wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My career advice is usually: 1. draw a circle around the things you enjoy doing 2. draw a circle around the things that pay well 3. draw a circle around the things you're good at The intersection is your best career path. I tried to be a musician. Epic failure. I tried sports. Catastrophic failure. I tried sales. Monumental failure. Persisting in those endeavors as a career is akin to beating my head on a rock. Peopl…

I’d argue that this sort of career choice intersection is actually not helpful for most. Here’s why. For most people, there are plenty of things in this world that they’ve never tried that they’d enjoy the hell out of — especially if they get past an initial learning curve. There are plenty of things that they’ve never committed to long enough to know they have a serious aptitude for it (for example, it took me 5+ ye…

No one has time to try all the things. A broad education - which would give everyone experiences and not just academic theory - would offer that, but we don't give people broad educations.

The only people who can afford to explore and dabble are the very rich. Everyone else is on a treadmill from middle school onwards.

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