I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. I can't prove anything.
I'm going to an underfunded state school that's in a lot of trouble. Not just because of the funding thing, but because of all the problems the school has. One being corruption, and another being the way things are run here which leads directly to monopolization (possibly related to corruption, but I have no evidence of that- they just happen to work for each other well).
But neither of those are my topics in this post, as the title clearly indicated. Now, I'm just posting a happy little bit, which is also somewhat sad. Yes- I will finally cut to the chase. But only because you asked so politely. I'm talking about the more immediate problem, which is that Rutgers has lost its focus.
My grades are starting to come in. So far a C in Numerical Analysis, which I may or may not have deserved. My midterm was in the high 70's if I remember correctly, but the final was sure to drop that a few notches. And I did very poorly on homework and programming assignments. So we'll say I *may* have earned that one.
The A in General Physics II Lab I definitely don't deserve. I couldn't perform a lab to save my life. To make matters worse, I could do no better in a lab today than a year ago, before taking two semesters of lab at Rutgers. The lab class I took at OCC was far better, but still didn't make an experimenting scientist out of me. My lab reports were usually in the 9-10 range, which is strange, because they usually weren't completely filled out, and often didn't even answer the question. My quiz scores fluctuated from the outstanding to the sub-par. The only thing that I should have had going for me is my WebAssign grades. But it should for everyone, so there's nothing there to merit an A.
The third grade is as puzzling as the previous two, and moreso. It came in last night- less than 24 hours after we took the final exam. Now I've been telling people for years that databases aren't a hobby, interest or even a field I'm very good in. I did extremely well on a ridiculously easy midterm, achieving a 92% (somehow people still failed miserably in that- ah... you'll let anyone in, won't you dear old Rutgers...). One homework was near-perfect, and the other sucked balls, but we'll ignore those. The project was decent- it answered most of the questions, so I can almost say it could be given an A (note that I stayed far away from the word "deserve" there). But the final. Wow, what a final. He asked us almost exclusively about stuff I had no idea about. Data-mining, transactions, consistency- it's all Chinese to me. I must have bullshitted half of that paper. Yet still, they gave me an A.
I expect a lot from myself, but I don't think it's too much. And I know I'm not working anywhere near as hard as the guys up at MIT and over at Berkeley. And I've never been a good student, but I've been getting unusually high grades. But that's ok. Now I know that it's not me. It's Rutgers.
posted by Michael at 7:25 AM
3 Comments:
That's hard, and it's not that I don't share your sentiment, but it's hard because I also benefit from this. But it's not too late. With USACS, and RUSLUG, and getting more involved in the department, we can change the CS department. Kinda related, I hear that the Chem department is some some sort of probation, where they are failing too many people or giving too many low grades. Whether this is what's being frowned upon, or whether the school is concluding that the department isnt' functioning educationally, I'm not sure...
Oh, I think things are already changing with Prof. Sesh Venugopal being the undergrad ed. director (or something like that). He's reformed 112 by maintaing basic standards and I hope that continues. Again, I did fine in the class right before it "became" insanely hard so it's easier for me in this case to say it was a good th ing.
It's important not to fail "too many" students, or pass "too many", but it is a logical fallacy to advocate adjusting scores (i.e. "curving").
Students must learn all the material the department determines is critical to acquiring a degree. And the department has to both make sure that students are given the tools they need to learn the material as well as not to unnecessarily fail students, who know the material.
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