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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”

#171

Post by robertlagrant »

progman32 wrote: post #92
chitowneats wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should ensure equal opportunity to ice-skating lessons, in perpetuity, for all humans? Just in case?

No, I find that position rather absurd. I'm not talking about entitlement. I was reacting to a train of thought started two posts up: > There just was not enough time dedicated to dissecting how to parse word problem, look for patterns, map it to a framework. It was basically left to the student to figure it out in 1 week based on 3-4 homework problems. My position is that, perhaps, it is counterproductive to tell pe…

> In environments more suited to them, they learn just as fast as folks with a more traditional background. In these instances, the occupation was fine. The teacher needed to be swapped out.

You're assuming it's the teacher's fault. That will be true in some cases, but it may impossible to tell at the time. What will be true in others is that the person (like me) was far more motivated by work than academia, and university at the age of 18 wasn't appropriate.

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

#172

Post by rednum »

yesenadam wrote: post #163
flappyeagle wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Genuine question: What in your opinion are the differences between a great and an average band leader? I've been making music as hobby for most of my life, and band leading is a topic I think about a lot - but it seems for many musicians I meet is not even on the radar.

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

#173

Post by TrackerFF »

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…

Sometimes, or maybe many times even, it boils down to lack of prerequisite knowledge. Most classes simply do not hammer down how important prerequisites are, and how easy it is for students to get stuck simply because they haven't read enough of the required topics.

Of course - if you are a very high-IQ individual, you sheer intellect can get you by. I know such people, that have been able to solve problems without previous knowledge, simply by going at it with logic and pattern recognition.

But if you're average, that's not going to be the case.

I've been a TA, and seen students jump from severely underperforming, to becoming A students - because they finally understood something / had the "Aha!" moment in something which kept them back.

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

#174

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

bglazer wrote: post #77
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…

Hard disagree on the idea that research should be the exclusive domain of some special tier of “top” research. Certainly there are varying degrees of aptitude for the skills of research. That said, there are infinitely more questions than there are geniuses. Many of these questions are of pressing importance for humanity. I’m very glad there are people working on them who didn't quit because they failed a problem set…

Working on them does not mean they will be able to solve them, or even to contribute to solving them.

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

#175

Post by crote »

defrost wrote: post #15

That takes me back to third year applied mathematics in the 1980s. Small 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.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare, to be honest. What does "trying to answer" even mean?

I generally try to think about a problem before actually, you know, writing stuff down. I can obviously think a lot faster than I can write, so writing down potential approaches when I can't quite see a way to advance from them - or for which I already know that they are wrong - is not really viable.

The only way I can see this working is in a "Give X potential approaches for this problem" kind of question. Giving exam questions for where there isn't a reasonably reachable answer derivable from the taught material is quite cruel. Keep that stuff contained to lectures so you can do a class-wide brainstorm session, that's a lot more productive and doesn't, you know, cause psychological harm.

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

#176

Post by chopin »

WalterBright wrote: post #91
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…

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…

Very often, 1. and 3. overlap well.

On the top of my head, the only thing for where there is almost no overlap for me is playing piano.

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

#177

Post by LatteLazy »

was_a_dev wrote: post #6

Problem sets for a second year PhD? Is that common in the US?

US undergrad is much more general than most of Europe (especially compared to the UK). So you get to grad education with a much wider but more shallow knowledge base.

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

#178

Post by crote »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #139

> On exam day you are just emotionally devastated looking at the problem not knowing where to start I honestly understand the frustration,but not the "emotionally devasted" part. Emotionally devasted to me means losing someone. When I studied CS I went to the exams knowing very well if I had studied or not and how much, and did not expect anything. The exam was the easiest part, you either know how to solve the probl…

Exams can have actual consequences.

A failed grade might mean you get kicked out of your program, leaving you with literally tens of thousands of debt with nothing to show with it. If your grade is too low you might lose a scholarship, meaning you have to either suddenly come up with a shitton of money or drop out. A failed grade might mean you can no longer pursue the graduate track you have been working towards for years.

The entire problem here is that some lecturers have a habit of creating tests for which you can't really study or practice. No matter how much time and effort you put into it, they end up being a coin toss of whether you "see" the answer or not.

I have had exams where I spent literally an hour staring at a single question without making any progress. I talked about it with my classmate afterwards, and after only a handful of words I understood exactly how to solve it. If your entire future depends on shit like that, I can totally understand it being "emotionally devastating".

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

#179

Post by ilyt »

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.

The problem starts when things you enjoy/do well don't fall into "pay well"

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

#180

Post by blackbear_ »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #169
marmetio wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

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.
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