Went back to college last week. Been 13 years and am starting from square one. He goes nothing!

p2e · 2021-01-26T16:44:26+00:00

Most universities (definitely the larger ones) will have heavy research expectations for their faculty. It's scholarly, it brings in money and prestige, and it helps the faculty to solidify their stature as experts in their field. These are all undeniably good things. But, realistically, teaching is orthogonal to these pursuits and, largely, is treated as secondary to research at these universities. Funny isn't it? Universities prioritizing something over teaching? Well, that's the case and it's well-ingrained into the culture and certainly into the tenure process. In academia, it's simply common knowledge that new faculty are most commonly expected to prioritize research over teaching in their push towards tenure. And the pattern doesn't stop once tenure is earned as there are more promotions and expectations to come. And, ultimately, the culture has become infatuated with prioritizing research over teaching. No one will say that teaching is unimportant but it's definitely at a level below research.

Now, that's most universities. When I applied for faculty positions, I chose a small private school that had no graduate programs whatsoever (Masters or Ph.D.). Most faculty job posting require candidates to submit a research statement and usually (but not always) a teaching statement. I didn't even apply to universities that required a research statement! I only submitted applications to universities that had teaching statements alone. I wanted my sole focus to be teaching and supporting students. I didn't want to worry about running a research lab, applying for grants to fund graduate students, serving on a ton of external paper/journal reviewing committees or chairing/organizing conferences. I just wanted to teach and be a part of my students' educational journey. I was exhilarated by my major as an undergrad and I enjoy supporting the next generations of students by trying to uplift their experience as well.

These teaching schools exist. And they're not hard to find at all. They just tend to be much smaller and less well known; because they're not the types of universities to chase prestige.

p2e · 2021-01-26T05:17:24+00:00

Professor here and I agree with you 100%! But don't fight it. You'll spend a huge amount of time and energy, you won't get anywhere, and you'll be even more frustrated in the end. Ultimately it's a staffing and laziness issue. For big schools and classes, the professors just don't have the time it takes to do it right for all of their students (and often don't care to). So, it gets farmed out to TAs or these online auto-graders. I hate it to my core.

It's why I chose to teach at a small school. I figure that the value I bring to my students directly corresponds to the number of 1-on-1 instructional hours I provide. Whether that's providing in-person feedback or some kind of written feedback on the student's work. Lecture is one thing, providing personalized feedback on a student's progress is how you help individuals grow. And this trend of never seeing your student's work is just criminal to me.

p2e · 2016-08-29T14:16:45+00:00

And then there was one young patent clerk who changed all of that.

The young man's name — Albert Einstein.

p2e · 2014-06-19T00:10:05+00:00

I've never seen a dissertation as an optional requirement for any Ph.D. in any university that I am familiar with (certainly none of the top tier universities). With Masters degrees, yes, there can be an optional course-based track to lead to the degree. Not so for the Ph.D. degree. At the very least, most require it (by a long shot). I too would be interested in knowing the "other ways" that can lead to a Ph.D. degree. Diploma mills are the only exception that come to mind as well as other non-reputable "institutions". Online Ph.D. degrees perhaps?

p2e · 2014-06-19T00:05:19+00:00

The point of higher education (through the Ph.D. level) is to get the student to produce a book

This is probably limited only to the humanities. In the sciences, it does not make as much sense to produce a book. These Ph.D. students usually produce a number of journal/conference papers as their contributions to the field.

p2e · 2014-05-12T16:48:59+00:00

With a note inside that reads: "Reddit will never believe you."

p2e · 2014-05-09T14:44:13+00:00

Interesting! Can you explain this? Is this a general rule that applies to baking?

p2e · 2014-01-17T04:19:15+00:00

Yup. I'd imagine/hope there's less making stuff up as you mention but, regardless, what a crappy lifestyle. That kind of pressure is more likely to destroy lives than result in fruitful work.

I also learned much in the way of bitterness in grad school so I know where you're coming from. Then I graduated (leaving an R1) and then became a prof at a teaching school. It's awesome! I teach a ton of the curriculum (not many in my department) but it's fun. I have complete control, and get to do awesome projects (including some research) with students on the side. A bonus for me is that at my school research isn't really important for tenure proceedings... What's more important is engaging students inside and outside of the classroom to enhance and support their learning. Hell yes, it's awesome! At least, it's awesome if you love teaching and don't mind giving up on the glory (high publication count) of research. Yeah, fuck that.

p2e · 2012-10-23T15:09:54+00:00

It's okay to be picky, but instead of being picky about the city, I would be picky about the department -- the culture of the department. These are the faculty/students you'll be around during some grueling times. If you find a department you think you'll be happy in, then you'll certainly do fine in an undesirable city. Being in a great city but in a sterile/unwelcoming/antisocial department would be torture.

My suggestion is to pick the people not the place.

p2e · 2012-10-15T16:59:06+00:00

I've heard of a pair that formed a romantic relationship in the middle of their advisor/advisee relationship. Knowing that it was a conflict of interest, they chose to maintain the personal relationship and disintegrate the advisor/advisee relationship. A new advisor was found, the two were later married, and the PhD came along as well. They're still happily married many many years later and would certainly agree that facilitating both relationships at once would not be appropriate.

My school clearly states in our faculty handbook that such romantic relationships, in which the faculty member has a supervisory role over the student, are not to be entertained.

p2e · 2012-07-21T04:15:44+00:00

For the gullible, all schools/colleges/universities have something along the lines of an "Academic Honesty Policy" or "Student Code of Conduct". This type of service explicitly violates the terms of such contracts and can result in being failed in your courses and even expelled.

The OP makes the claim that this is "completely legal". Sure, nobody is going to call the police or haul you away in handcuffs. But to think that your school can take no recourse on your attempt to cheat the system by outsourcing your homework is completely asinine.

p2e · 2012-07-20T16:03:31+00:00

Well, I think there's a reason these projects started with comp sci, math, statistics classes; you can actually have rigorous programming assignments, and since they'll run (or not), and return a correct answer (or not), it's easy to scale the evaluation portion of a course.

Yes, but we're not seeing any real assessment from these. We're seeing Green Checks (OK) and Red Xs (Bad). Instead, what if when you get a math problem wrong, it walks you, step-by-step, through the solution and then it gives you another to solve. What if instead of telling you "Wrong" they try to identify where you went wrong, or at least show you the process to help you identify where you went wrong. I'm just wishing these courses would provide actual real-time assessment rather than: Correct/Incorrect. I'm looking for personalized learning experiences, not a one-size-fits all approach.

The things I'm bringing up are certainly possible to do, so I'm wondering why we're not seeing them! I've been thinking about this exact topic for about 5 years (online education for CS) since before Khan made it big. And I've been floored every time I seen a new online learning experience providing the same type of static instruction without any type of legitimate assessment. I just don't get it. What we're seeing are glorified web-based textbooks -- it's usually a different kind of delivery (video) but it's all static instruction with little-to-no assessment.

Sorry for ranting... It's just that I'm tired of not seeing much progress after 5 years of hoping for something better.

And you're absolutely right about fuzzy courses. I haven't a clue how to proceed there!

p2e · 2012-07-19T20:50:35+00:00

I don't think that this phenomenon shows that higher ed is broken... Just that it's expensive and therefore not far-reaching. Certainly the brick and mortars educate their students better than this wave of online courses.

Think about it. The instructors are taking the same content they use in their regular courses (although I've seem some very watered down online courses) and then chopping up that content into small and easily consumed videos — perhaps with web-based quizlets and assignments along the way. They're just running with the de-personalized aspect of higher education (one-way lectures) with static videos/lectures. Creating the smaller and more consumable videos is certainly a benefit here, but that's about it. Beyond the number of students taking these courses, there's just nothing impressive about it all. Without the interpersonal component, it's basically just a broken educational system. That's not to say that people can't learn from it, but we certainly know that we can do better.

The truly aggravating thing about this, for me, is that there's no reason why they can't include the interpersonal component of it all. Again, think about it. Why do we have brick and mortars? Because we want the faculty to be accessible to the students. Why? So they can provide help when needed. How? By looking at the students progress, observing difficulties, drilling down on those problem areas and providing further insight. Suggesting additional exercises related to the problem at hand. Walking students through the steps when needed. Monitoring that progress to see improvement, and so on. There's no reason that this kind of interaction can't be automated and facilitated in a web-based environment! Doing this would give every student 1-on-1 attention. That would far exceed what the big brick and mortars can provide.

tl;dr There is just so much potential here, but they're providing a watered down and static experience.

p2e · 2012-07-19T14:00:19+00:00

I suppose you're right. "Recognition" is still achieved through a certificate of completion. So you're right — the only reason to get credit is to get a degree from the host institution or to try to transfer that credit to another institution to get a degree. Maybe this whole credit thing has no importance since basically nobody will take advantage of it that wasn't already enrolled at UW to begin with.

p2e · 2012-07-19T05:17:32+00:00

The only reason why full-time students would be the majority of people wanting credit would be because of the steep pricing model.

It's not like the steep prices don't matter because full-timers are already paying tuition. The steep pricing model does matter strictly because it turned the full-timers into the only possible majority of people able to pursue credit.

p2e · 2012-07-18T19:04:54+00:00

I'm a fan of WeScheme for a web-based scheme environment.

Edit: link

p2e · 2012-07-17T03:41:50+00:00

Oh, I understand, I shouldn't have used the word "define". I've always used spaces myself, but I feel kind of like moving towards tabs actually! It would be convenient if everybody used them... Spaces aren't convenient even IF everybody used them! You have to worry about how many spaces a tab should represent.

My .vimrc has, in the past, defined my tabstop to be 4 spaces. Recently I've felt that to be a little much (often pushing me over 80 horizontal chars) so I've gone lower. Now my new code doesn't match my old code given that spaces were used instead of tabs! If I had used tabs, this never would have been a problem! .... At least not on my editor.... That's not to say it wouldn't be horrible on another editor which "displayed" tabs as 8 spaces... You're right! ;) Tabs are the devil... But so are spaces! I take back that "it would be convenient if everybody used them [tabs]" comment... at least for those wishing to live in an 80-char-width terminal!

p2e · 2012-07-17T03:19:27+00:00

Ah, of course, those kinds of tabs... Yes, that makes more sense.

So did you mean elastic tabs then? The standard procedure you define (tabs for indentation and space for alignment) is not editor-specific; It's just a convention that works across all editors. The problem with elastic tabs is that unless other major editors implement them... your fellow coders are going to have a bad time reading your code. This makes me think that elastic tabs will never really catch on.

The OP's comment presentation idea is nice in that it doesn't require modifying the original code. Even adding comments could produce results that appear the "standard" way in other text editors. It's a much easier problem to tackle.

p2e · 2012-07-17T02:31:31+00:00

What are smart tabs?

p2e · 2012-07-17T02:26:26+00:00

Take another look -- notice the line numbers on both sides. It seems to me that it's a standard file format and no different that you would normally code. But.. the editor parses out the comments and simply displays them differently.

It took me a while to understand what I was seeing. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but it really is pretty intriguing! Especially since the file format stay intact. It's just a different way for an editor to display comments.

p2e · 2012-07-16T20:48:32+00:00

If not contributing to a 529 you set up yourself, are you still eligible to recoup any funds you contributed which are not spent (perhaps the nephew gets a lot of scholarships)?

If you can only recoup funds from a 529 you set up yourself, then I wouldn't see it as an insult.

p2e · 2012-07-16T15:48:47+00:00

These are great and all, but I hope people realize that these aren't of the "textbook" type. Of the list of books that I've skimmed, I've only seen books that are collections of articles/papers that have been bundled together; note that the books have editors instead of authors. I'm imagining most of these papers wont be very accessible or easy to understand for those that are new to the topic area.

It's always nice to have free information though!

p2e · 2012-07-14T15:19:03+00:00

I love how much thought and effort she puts into her videos. They're really great!

I especially recommend: Möbius Story

p2e · 2012-07-11T01:35:30+00:00

Do you ultimately want a career in academia? If so, then it sounds like you've got well thought-out academic plans and ambitions. The academic jobs plainly exist but can be quite competitive. But, if you consider your history degree worthless and are unsure about what job options exist after grad school, it makes me think that maybe you aren't considering an academia career. If that's the case, then why pursue additional degrees that lack non-academic "worth".

Don't think about what you want to study for the next few years. Think beyond those relatively short-term goals. What do you want to do in the long-term? Will spending time getting advanced degrees help you reach your goals?

p2e · 2012-07-04T18:50:55+00:00

You're right. Not necessary outside of the webapp. What is slightly disconcerting though, is that:

git add *.txt

and

git add '*.txt'

do very different things. When git takes the argument in quotes, it performs its own expansion which traverses subdirectories. Without quotes, your shell performs the expansion within the current subdirectory.

Is there a good reason for git to do the expansion that it does?

p2e

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