I am saddened

[Kuciwalker]

The worst bit is that this is special relativity. It's not rocket science. You don't even have to really understand it, just know "apply lorentz transformation. get answer."

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


I'm a nice guy, I don't mind helping people. It just makes me sad that I know their major better than they do.

I'm sure they know you are nice, and they will keep asking you for answers. Learn the hard way if you have to.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I'm sure they know you are nice, and they will keep asking you for answers. Learn the hard way if you have to.

As I said, I don't mind answering the questions. It just makes me sad that they have the questions in the first place, and that I'm able to answer them.

[Jon Miller]

If they are having serious trouble with SR, they don't deserve to gaduate with a physics degree anyways.

I did SR in a nonphysics class, in the first semester of college (was Science and Science Fiction taught by a Physics professor, so it was physicsy, but half the students weren't science/math inclined).

JM

[Kuciwalker]

Oh, and the kid who prompted this thread is also a double major in philosophy. Coincidence? I think not.

[Pekka]

weeding? With those rates, I have to question the policy of admission. That's a problem with the selection process and nothing else. Get it working and if you have those rates, then the education part is failing.

It's like when I compare two math professors I had. I've never had problem with math, but this one professor had kind of difficult lectures. Usually the subject itself was easier. But the guy wanted to sound like a very smart math genius, lots of people failed that class.

Then, the advanced course to that was held by another professor, who made everything reallllly simple. OK, he was interested in LECTURING, not "giving a difficult speech". He stopped several times, in the more difficult parts he usually explained them more than once, slowly, going over and over again but not getting boring for the audience.

Almost everyone passed.

My point is, high failure rates doesn't necessarily mean bad students. It can also mean bad staff.

I can make my subject very difficult for the people listening, or I can make it fairly simple. If I go for the very difficult route, does it make the crowd more stupid, or am I just being incompetent?

Outside that, it's a problem of the admission process.

But sure, universities do tend to have somewhat high dropout rates.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Oh, and the kid who prompted this thread is also a double major in philosophy. Coincidence? I think not.

Is he too dumb to learn the material? You are asking for it. Just drop him. Have you ever had to drop someone?

[Colonâ„¢]

KrazyKanadian

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Pekka
Outside that, it's a problem of the admission process.

But sure, universities do tend to have somewhat high dropout rates.

Well, the universities with the toughest admission processes have the lowest droput rates. Something like 98% of people who enroll at Harvard manage to graduate. But Harvard takes only the very best.

[Pekka]

Yeah. Well that's supposed to be the point, take in people who are on the level of those studies.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Pekka
weeding? With those rates, I have to question the policy of admission. That's a problem with the selection process and nothing else. Get it working and if you have those rates, then the education part is failing.

Oh, they had great grades in other courses. I think some of them ended with a higher average then me.

JM

[Pekka]

ended? Oh,,, I thought that was about dropping out of the school. Not just one class....

[Ramo]

This is the first semester that I've TAed. I can't begin to say how saddened I am...

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


If this were CS that would work, a good proportion of the people with problems are female, but I don't know of any female physics majors

What a shocker.

[Pekka]

Here's a tip. If you don't want to be a teacher in the future, do NOT do TA jobs (unless you really need the money), do NOT do any kind of assisting jobs where you have teaching responsibilities or any kind of stuff that involves other students. Be part of a research, that's the only job I would say go for it if you want to work for the University. Even that can suck, but the others allllll suck, guaranteed, unless you want to be a teacher.