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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”

#191

Post by defrost »

imtringued wrote: post #188
xyzzyz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 know it is completely normal to not know things? According to you we should just let old people do everything because they got to spend more time on this planet and never let inexperienced young people do anything even if that means they never gain experience.

You may want to reread the comment you're replying to.

Paraphrasing what they said as "According to you we should just let old people do everything" is completely incorrect.

Their comment was more in line with "if your peers, whether younger or older, are learning faster than you, maybe this career is not for you".

That is certainly something to discuss further - but it is not the comment you made it out to be.

Attention to detail is a useful trait to develop.

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

#192

Post by deskamess »

greggman3 wrote: post #181
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…

I forgot where I heard this but "It's impossible to remember what it was like not to know something". This generally means all kinds of things are obvious to someone that knows a topic. They're so obvious they're invisible, forgotten about, and therefore you don't even think to teach them.

That's a great quote! When you know, you know; if you don't it can feel helpless.

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

#193

Post by cbeach »

krageon wrote: post #152
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 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…

I agree it’s horrible to discriminate on personality types.

As a counterpoint, though: in software jobs, the ability to pick up things fast is commercially valuable in some roles. As a hiring manager, if school grades helped me identify extremely smart folks who pick up things fast, then those grades are a useful tool.

Not all jobs are the same, however, and so other hiring managers might set a lower bar for grades. But it’s important that we have these tools, in addition to the various other ways we evaluate candidates.

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

#194

Post by LudwigNagasena »

UncleMeat wrote: post #115
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, if I was a black man and the teacher was white, my essays about slavery would be not about if I learned the material but my trying to work around determining how racist a teacher might be. That would be a valid concern regardless or your or professor’s race. And even if we take into account that people are more biased towards opinions that elevate them, we should also take into account what an average…

Believe it or not, professional historians are more than capable of effectively grading undergrad essays that don't contain anticapitalist screeds.

I believe it. Why would you assume I don’t?

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

#195

Post by imtringued »

xyzzyz wrote: post #87
jrm4 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question. Does this kind of "weeding out" actually have any value in the real world, or is it just gatekeeping slash carnival-prizes?

Yes, of course. Some people will produce valuable research, and others will produce worthless papers nobody will ever read. The society is funding the entire activity, so it has vested interest in ensuring that as much money goes towards the former as possible, and as little as possible towards the latter. This is to me so obvious, that framing this in terms of “carnival prize” is literally incomprehensible. Research…

This sounds like a very good way to get stuck at a local optimum because everyone is trying to get the next 2% improvement instead of heading for the global optimum which might require backtracking.

Economics for example, isn't lacking Keynes style geniuses, it is lacking pluralism. People are calcified in their stances and teachings and even Keynes said that there is not a lack of new ideas but the opposite, the problem is getting rid of the old ones.

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

#196

Post by imtringued »

xyzzyz wrote: post #112
eyelidlessness wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or, simply by virtue of being more intelligent. Life is not fair … > If you are pursuing a research career, 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. That seems drastic even without accounting for untold ways people enter any stage of life with disadvantages. I me…

In your professional life, you are encountering people who are already heavily preselected, most recently by the hiring process, earlier by hiring and promotion processes of their previous companies, yet earlier by graduation requirements of their school, earlier by admission requirements, etc. People who should drop out, have already dropped out long before they met you, so you don't meet those very often, and thus…

What if the genius drops out because he thinks there is an even smarter person that doesn't actually exist?

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

#197

Post by krageon »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #189
krageon wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nah, I don’t buy this at all. I’ve never been a fast knowledge absorber, but that just meant I required a bit more time on my own, struggling with the content. Still managed to get max grades at undergrad university (didn’t go further because, well money). Also never stopped me from excelling in all work positions so far in life. If anything, a bit of struggle helps you go deep, and deep is much more valuable than fa…

I did have classmates that operated like this, but they all failed out. Perhaps it depends on the university :)

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

#198

Post by njbooher »

blackbear_ wrote: post #180
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

I believe that a lot of this cynicism comes after years of teaching and seeing that most students do not really care about the topic and do not want to put in more than the minimum effort required to pass. You don't realize how easy it is to tell apart those who are interested from those who are not until are on the other side.

Plenty of new faculty are more interested in research than teaching too.

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

#199

Post by mintplant »

pshaw wrote: post #2

via https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1614958291066535936

> The reason his students find his problem sets "emotionally trying" is that they're getting a taste of what real work is like.

What? No, it's because they're already overworked with their actual research and don't have time/energy for this fake research on top of that.

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

#200

Post by haswell »

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.

This is highly dependent on upbringing.

I grew up with extremely religious and controlling parents. I spent most of my childhood believing I’d go to hell if I didn’t dedicate my life to the god the church worshipped.

This had a huge impact on what I believed about myself at that age, and I’m still actively working against the indoctrination in my 30s through therapy.

I still wonder how things might have gone if I pursued some form of research. I have evidence now to believe I might have been good at it, but haven’t convinced myself the cost to pivot makes sense at this stage of my life.

My story is not unique, and church/religion are just one implementation of a form of parenting that works hard against your claim.

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