Also I can't help but chuckle at the notion that for any long term, multiple dev project, you really have that much say in most environments over what libraries get tossed into your pre-req checklist.
Unsurprisingly, putting research staff in charge of teaching Data Structures and Algorithms has disastrous outcomes, from teaching to assessments. Mid Semester Exam - Arrived late to venue. Guy booked a venue which barely fit everyone so literally anyone could copy each other. Didn't get people to remove their phones or even put them on silent. Didn't remove people from using calculators even though he prohibited their use in the last lecture. Printed his own non standard cover sheet which did not indicate that answers were meant to be written separately to the question sheet (yet some how assumed that we would know what to do).
Even though it was multiple choice 2/8 of the questions had ambiguous answers with multiple correct / incorrect ones. Interrupted the exam 2 times for question "corrections" which took about 3 minutes but gave us only 1 minute extra (in a 30 minute exam). Wrote a Quicksort question which he couldn't solve on exam review but assured us that his code would give the answer that was correct. If you can't answer your own damn question at all how do you expect students to answer it in 2 minutes?
Definitely the worst exam I've sat in 7 years of University, at this point I'd be surprised if he passed. I'm pissed off at myself because I would likely have gotten 9/10 if I ignored all the distractions and skipped the Quicksort question.
When I was a TA for Data Structures class me and the other TA would go through the test to make a "solution key" and there were always a couple questions where we were like... I'm not sure what this is asking. Then we'd have to go clarify with the teacher who was usually like eh, just don't count it. He was probably the worst teacher in the department though. He was one of those guys who had a successful company before and then decided they wanted to teach. Then became disillusioned by shitty students and just didn't care anymore. Right after I finished that semester he got a job back in the development realm.
I thought I would make a pretty good teacher which is why I TA'd, but I realized that I could never do it. It's way too easy to just ignore the kids who don't care and fail them and pay more attention to the kids who actually want to learn.
This "Associate Professor" is the opposite, so lenient on the dumb ass students to the point of giving them the actual code on how to solve assessed code rather than them fail the machine tests and get a mark reflecting how bad they are at using Google and Java docs or writing their own test cases (100% not shitting you when I say about 80% of the class can't write tests and almost 60 to 70% would struggle to write a working program without clear directions and 80% or more would not be able to pass the qualification round of Google Code Jam.
I didn't really look at the qualifying round beyond that pancake question. But that was a fairly tough question to tackle in a performant way. I wouldn't expect first year students to handle such a problem, and even strong first year students might have a tough time with it.
However it doesn't surprise me that they have difficulty within other aspects of programming. There were many people that, like you said, just didn't even know how to use Google to look up basic non syntax errors they were getting. That's like the first step you should always try. Pretty much every question like that has been answered in a generous capacity on Stack Overflow.
And even then I was more or less spoon feeding them the solution and there were still multiple issues that almost everyone ran into. I think part of the issue is that most of the curriculums at my college required that you take the intro CS class (and some requiring that you take the data structures class). So you'd end up with these people who probably weren't ever going to program in their life getting hung up on these simple assignments. I was pretty consistently giving out D grades.
It'll probably get better though. Most people couldn't handle the second year of CS and switched majors. And even the people who kept trying to stick with it who were no good would eventually hit a road block when they took the FS or OS classes. There was this old Chinese guy who had to be in his 80s or something and he apparently was just a pain in the ass for the university because he refused to teach any other class and had a reputation for being really intense and unforgiving. We had an assignment for the last 3 weeks of the FS class where you had to basically write a simple ext2 FS.
You had to go in and explain your system to him while he poured through your source. People were coming out crying and visibly shaken throughout the day. I started getting nervous as I walked in, and he just asked me to explain what was happening. So I started explaining in precise details about reading the superblock, finding the inode sectors, finding the root inodes, then traversing inward, etc. He cut me off after about five minutes as I barely got into it and was like yeah you know what you're talking about. Gave me an A and I left. It seemed baffling after all the people I witnessed leaving before.
I didn't really look at the qualifying round beyond that pancake question. But that was a fairly tough question to tackle in a performant way. I wouldn't expect first year students to handle such a problem, and even strong first year students might have a tough time with it.
However it doesn't surprise me that they have difficulty within other aspects of programming. There were many people that, like you said, just didn't even know how to use Google to look up basic non syntax errors they were getting. That's like the first step you should always try. Pretty much every question like that has been answered in a generous capacity on Stack Overflow.
And even then I was more or less spoon feeding them the solution and there were still multiple issues that almost everyone ran into. I think part of the issue is that most of the curriculums at my college required that you take the intro CS class (and some requiring that you take the data structures class). So you'd end up with these people who probably weren't ever going to program in their life getting hung up on these simple assignments. I was pretty consistently giving out D grades.
It'll probably get better though. Most people couldn't handle the second year of CS and switched majors. And even the people who kept trying to stick with it who were no good would eventually hit a road block when they took the FS or OS classes. There was this old Chinese guy who had to be in his 80s or something and he apparently was just a pain in the ass for the university because he refused to teach any other class and had a reputation for being really intense and unforgiving. We had an assignment for the last 3 weeks of the FS class where you had to basically write a simple ext2 FS.
You had to go in and explain your system to him while he poured through your source. People were coming out crying and visibly shaken throughout the day. I started getting nervous as I walked in, and he just asked me to explain what was happening. So I started explaining in precise details about reading the superblock, finding the inode sectors, finding the root inodes, then traversing inward, etc. He cut me off after about five minutes as I barely got into it and was like yeah you know what you're talking about. Gave me an A and I left. It seemed baffling after all the people I witnessed leaving before.
I've had that experience with CS educators too, there are some who can gauge immediately that you know. Oral tests are the best in my opinion because you can tell when someone is talking about what they know or reciting something they've rote learned. It's also a quick fire way of knowing if they copied their code or not. Oral exams, presentations and assignments are how I was tested in final year of Vet, it separated the people who were just getting by on rote learning versus those who understood their cases very quickly.
Regarding the Code Jam questions C and D were trivial to implement, the pancake was the only one which required any real thought. The only first year I met who tried the qualification round (he had only been doing an intro Java course for 5 weeks, super baby steps) made it through with over 70 points (out of 100 with a minimum score of 20 required). I'm currently in 2nd year which is why these practices seem inappropriate to me, I am observing everything through a heavy bias of having been through University before.
This "Associate Professor" is the opposite, so lenient on the dumb ass students to the point of giving them the actual code on how to solve assessed code rather than them fail the machine tests and get a mark reflecting how bad they are at using Google and Java docs or writing their own test cases (100% not shitting you when I say about 80% of the class can't write tests and almost 60 to 70% would struggle to write a working program without clear directions and 80% or more would not be able to pass the qualification round of Google Code Jam.
I TAed a CS class that required submitting code. It was not an introductory programming class. Early in the semester, I repeatedly received assignments that didn't even compile, let alone have a hope in working. I graded according.
(Sees an 18 on their homework.) “Is this assignment out of 20?” “No.”
Lost our HR director over the weekend to a blood clot weeks after her car accident she had that messed her legs up. That's the second person I've known this year killed by blood clots a week or two after an accident. So crappy.
We lost an HR person last year to a car wreck. Not from clots, but I've heard of that happening pretty frequently.
I'm pretty sure that in our hospital it's fairly standard to give blood thinners after certain types of injuries for this reason, but I could be making that up. :-/
Teacher Loan Forgiveness is a lie. I can not comprehend how anyone actually qualifies for any of it. I just found out I was denied $17,500 that I thought I was qualified for because of the most ludicrous bullshit. The requirements are below, but here's what infuriates me: 1. I've taught for 5 years at a Title 1 school. 2. I qualify as a highly specialized teacher since the school is also exclusively special education. 3. I fit in to every category for achieving the Master's degree within 5 years of taking the loan out. 4. The loans for my Master's were taken out after 1997-98. 5. I've had multiple conversations with the FSA people, and with MOHELA. They have assured me several times that I qualify for the money. After all of this, I'm told today that I don't qualify for two reasons: 1. I had a student loan in 1998 when I went to college, and that loan was not paid off in it's entirety when I needed to take out more loans to pay for my Master's degree. 2. I took the small amount that was unpaid, and rolled it into the new amounts after a year or so in order to have a single payment, which was a solution recommended by MOHELA in the first place. There is literally no fucking way anyone is going to to through an undergraduate program and come out with LITERALLY ZERO student loans before immediately going into a Master's for Education. Basically, unless you are wealthy enough to pay cash for college, or wait long enough to where you can pay off all your loans before attempting a master's program, you're screwed from the get-go. How are you supposed to earn a living as a teacher if you can't teach unless you have (or can prove you are enrolled in a program for) a master's? The teacher loan forgiveness is utter bullshit made to help only the wealthy. If you were unfortunate enough not to have fifty thousand dollars laying around, then screw you. Teach for 5 years at a special ed school and get nothing because you were poor to start. That's ON TOP of all the other requirements. I was also told that an alternative is to make 120 on time payments and there is a chance the rest of the loan can be forgiven. Gee, only 10 years. Thanks, FSA.
If I hear/read one more person in my social circle saying some variation of "the blacks keep trying to make this all about race" I will start punching faces IRL. What the fuck is WRONG with everybody that this is still a "debate"?
If I hear/read one more person in my social circle saying some variation of "the blacks keep trying to make this all about race" I will start punching faces IRL. What the fuck is WRONG with everybody that this is still a "debate"?
Really long periods of moderate background racism much worse than obvious racism in my opinion as the former is accepted by people as ok when it shouldn't be.
I'm annoyed that several years ago the UK government informed the public that diesel cars were less polluting because they produce less CO2. Because tax is based on CO2 emissions I've been paying very little tax.
Now it has become apparent that diesel cars are doing more polluting with respect to other pollutants. New rules look likely to come in to phase out diesel cars and the investment that honest people have made in line with the government's incentives, would be wrecked.
Of course the public reaction will be to hold onto the taught belief and blame europe for putting us into this situation. The darkness came before!
I'm annoyed that several years ago the UK government informed the public that diesel cars were less polluting because they produce less CO2. Because tax is based on CO2 emissions I've been paying very little tax.
Now it has become apparent that diesel cars are doing more polluting with respect to other pollutants. New rules look likely to come in to phase out diesel cars and the investment that honest people have made in line with the government's incentives, would be wrecked.
Of course the public reaction will be to hold onto the taught belief and blame europe for putting us into this situation. The darkness came before!
I always found it weird that diesel was preferred in the UK when I was over there as if it was the better fuel. Anyone who went through highschool chemistry would have been taught that diesel is much worse (which is why it is more expensive over here even though less refinement is required).
I always found it weird that diesel was preferred in the UK when I was over there as if it was the better fuel. Anyone who went through highschool chemistry would have been taught that diesel is much worse (which is why it is more expensive over here even though less refinement is required).
I really dislike conspiratorial thinking but in this case it is so tempting to blame my ignorance on a conspiracy of marketing and authority than on my own failure to learn something.
I like to think I know the limits of my knowledge (the fool who knows they're a fool). But in this case I thought I was smart thinking that diesel was a superior fuel from rote memorisation of tax and tagline. Completely blindsided me.
Had a drill malfunction on me and slam into by jaw, buckling a drill tip and sending it into my face. Yesterday slipped on a wood pile and how have two whopper nail holes in my foot. So thats been a good couple of days.
My wrist still hurts from when I twisted it using an 18v DeWalt drill like, 3 weeks ago (with a socket bit, putting a lag screw into a wall.)
I turned off the torque governer because the screw was binding with just a few threads left to go. I R Smrt.
Yeah this one was a malfunction in the drill locking system so it threw the bit out of sync, cause the whole thing to spin off into my face. Its easy to forget how much grunt these things have.
Comments
Mid Semester Exam -
Arrived late to venue.
Guy booked a venue which barely fit everyone so literally anyone could copy each other.
Didn't get people to remove their phones or even put them on silent.
Didn't remove people from using calculators even though he prohibited their use in the last lecture.
Printed his own non standard cover sheet which did not indicate that answers were meant to be written separately to the question sheet (yet some how assumed that we would know what to do).
Even though it was multiple choice 2/8 of the questions had ambiguous answers with multiple correct / incorrect ones.
Interrupted the exam 2 times for question "corrections" which took about 3 minutes but gave us only 1 minute extra (in a 30 minute exam).
Wrote a Quicksort question which he couldn't solve on exam review but assured us that his code would give the answer that was correct. If you can't answer your own damn question at all how do you expect students to answer it in 2 minutes?
Definitely the worst exam I've sat in 7 years of University, at this point I'd be surprised if he passed. I'm pissed off at myself because I would likely have gotten 9/10 if I ignored all the distractions and skipped the Quicksort question.
I thought I would make a pretty good teacher which is why I TA'd, but I realized that I could never do it. It's way too easy to just ignore the kids who don't care and fail them and pay more attention to the kids who actually want to learn.
However it doesn't surprise me that they have difficulty within other aspects of programming. There were many people that, like you said, just didn't even know how to use Google to look up basic non syntax errors they were getting. That's like the first step you should always try. Pretty much every question like that has been answered in a generous capacity on Stack Overflow.
And even then I was more or less spoon feeding them the solution and there were still multiple issues that almost everyone ran into. I think part of the issue is that most of the curriculums at my college required that you take the intro CS class (and some requiring that you take the data structures class). So you'd end up with these people who probably weren't ever going to program in their life getting hung up on these simple assignments. I was pretty consistently giving out D grades.
It'll probably get better though. Most people couldn't handle the second year of CS and switched majors. And even the people who kept trying to stick with it who were no good would eventually hit a road block when they took the FS or OS classes. There was this old Chinese guy who had to be in his 80s or something and he apparently was just a pain in the ass for the university because he refused to teach any other class and had a reputation for being really intense and unforgiving. We had an assignment for the last 3 weeks of the FS class where you had to basically write a simple ext2 FS.
You had to go in and explain your system to him while he poured through your source. People were coming out crying and visibly shaken throughout the day. I started getting nervous as I walked in, and he just asked me to explain what was happening. So I started explaining in precise details about reading the superblock, finding the inode sectors, finding the root inodes, then traversing inward, etc. He cut me off after about five minutes as I barely got into it and was like yeah you know what you're talking about. Gave me an A and I left. It seemed baffling after all the people I witnessed leaving before.
Regarding the Code Jam questions C and D were trivial to implement, the pancake was the only one which required any real thought. The only first year I met who tried the qualification round (he had only been doing an intro Java course for 5 weeks, super baby steps) made it through with over 70 points (out of 100 with a minimum score of 20 required).
I'm currently in 2nd year which is why these practices seem inappropriate to me, I am observing everything through a heavy bias of having been through University before.
(Sees an 18 on their homework.) “Is this assignment out of 20?”
“No.”
I'm pretty sure that in our hospital it's fairly standard to give blood thinners after certain types of injuries for this reason, but I could be making that up. :-/
On the plus side, the class is graded on a curve, so I'll probably get a B anyways.
I can not comprehend how anyone actually qualifies for any of it. I just found out I was denied $17,500 that I thought I was qualified for because of the most ludicrous bullshit.
The requirements are below, but here's what infuriates me:
1. I've taught for 5 years at a Title 1 school.
2. I qualify as a highly specialized teacher since the school is also exclusively special education.
3. I fit in to every category for achieving the Master's degree within 5 years of taking the loan out.
4. The loans for my Master's were taken out after 1997-98.
5. I've had multiple conversations with the FSA people, and with MOHELA. They have assured me several times that I qualify for the money.
After all of this, I'm told today that I don't qualify for two reasons:
1. I had a student loan in 1998 when I went to college, and that loan was not paid off in it's entirety when I needed to take out more loans to pay for my Master's degree.
2. I took the small amount that was unpaid, and rolled it into the new amounts after a year or so in order to have a single payment, which was a solution recommended by MOHELA in the first place.
There is literally no fucking way anyone is going to to through an undergraduate program and come out with LITERALLY ZERO student loans before immediately going into a Master's for Education. Basically, unless you are wealthy enough to pay cash for college, or wait long enough to where you can pay off all your loans before attempting a master's program, you're screwed from the get-go. How are you supposed to earn a living as a teacher if you can't teach unless you have (or can prove you are enrolled in a program for) a master's?
The teacher loan forgiveness is utter bullshit made to help only the wealthy. If you were unfortunate enough not to have fifty thousand dollars laying around, then screw you. Teach for 5 years at a special ed school and get nothing because you were poor to start. That's ON TOP of all the other requirements.
I was also told that an alternative is to make 120 on time payments and there is a chance the rest of the loan can be forgiven. Gee, only 10 years. Thanks, FSA.
Sit on it and rotate, you assholes.
Teacher Loan Forgivene-SIKE
Now it has become apparent that diesel cars are doing more polluting with respect to other pollutants. New rules look likely to come in to phase out diesel cars and the investment that honest people have made in line with the government's incentives, would be wrecked.
Of course the public reaction will be to hold onto the taught belief and blame europe for putting us into this situation. The darkness came before!
I like to think I know the limits of my knowledge (the fool who knows they're a fool). But in this case I thought I was smart thinking that diesel was a superior fuel from rote memorisation of tax and tagline. Completely blindsided me.
The shit on the crap ice cream is I now have a cold. Im going to curl up and die.
Edit; on closer inspection I can poke at the pockets of blood that have grown around them. Its gross and painful.
I turned off the torque governer because the screw was binding with just a few threads left to go. I R Smrt.
Silver lining, I got a few accomplishments on Smash bros. while I waited for the towe truck.
http://imgur.com/eaNqdR2