Reflection Rant #1
I realize now that the primary issue with my current level of schooling is that the professors really don't care at all. Despite sending the school a rather sizable chunk of money every semester for being instructed, what I receive is quiet apathy. Certainly, issues that are brought up have a decent change of being dealt with (examples include problems with grading and the like), but the onus is on the student to recognize a mistake in recognizing a mistake, as it were; this is not an easy thing to do. This extends outwards from simple professors to staff and other faculty... the advisers for the CECS department here are completely worthless. Yet, the administration foists the responsibility once again on the student: Despite an adviser's entire job being to -advise- students, we receive substandard, conflicting, and sometimes even outright incorrect information. When we act on this information, we're informed that it was our responsibility to figure it out, and because we believed our adviser (who inevitably falls behind a shield of "I would have never said such a thing."), we must now be punished by restructuring our classes, sometimes adding multiple semesters of studies to our course curricula.
I went off on a little bit of a tangent there, but my point still stands. I was always wondering where my anxiety came from regarding classes and classwork; I realize now that it is the unbalanced nature of expectation. We as students cannot even expect our teachers to come into class and be able to effectively present their material. This manifests in low speaking volumes, dependence on Internet resources to subsidize a lack of quality in prepared material, and sometimes even downright confusion regarding an inquiry or even more egregiously, their own prepared material. The homework assignments are often cryptic or downright contradictory, let alone when an instructor decides to 'try something new'. I understand that new assignments have pitfalls and perils that cannot be predicted, but creating new curricula and acid-testing it against an active student base requires a degree of coordination and organization that I've only seen a handful of professors produce. Given that these professors do not teach the advanced-level classes that I am now enrolled in for my Masters work... I cannot help but be significantly bothered. Furthermore, I find it difficult to express these issues to the administration, due to the fact that one of the professors is also my only adviser, and also instructs several of the classes I will be taking over the coming year and a half.
Over the past year of schooling (since Spring of 2009, basically) I have discovered that I have been able to sustain passable marks in all of my classes despite a penchant for occupying said 'instructional time' with minutia of the Internet. Throughout this period of time I have been concerned over this fact, as it did not feel 'right' to me; I've usually be quite studious, but I found that certain professors have failed so completely in engaging my interest that I can tune them out without even consciously noticing. I realize now that this is just another facet to the issue at hand, and one that I believe I'm going to start applying to classwork as well as class itself. My subconscious caught on to this much faster than 'I' did... if the professors aren't taking this seriously, then why the hell am I worrying pits into my stomach over it?
This plays further into the administration's reluctance to assist the ACM. Initially we were told that we had our room for a year, and then movement would commence, allowing us plenty of opportunity to shift resources. Furthermore, the room that we were promised was approximately the same size, so we would be able to minimize our loss. Now we have 3 weeks (in the middle of the semester, no less), and are being moved into an area less than half the size of our current location. It's not so much the location... after all, we can adapt to almost anything... it's the cold shoulder we're being given (mostly from the administration, but the butthurt the SSSC keeps expressing to us regarding our 'lack of a liaison' [despite my efforts to 'liaise' when they schedule a meeting an hour before it occurs] certainly doesn't assist in matters). Again, it feels like to them, we don't matter, despite the ACM offering a haven to escape the drudgery of class and also a decent place to get work done in the quieter hours.
By no means am I stating in any of this that a professor's job is easy. I'm certain that there are significant trials that they must deal with every day that I cannot begin to comprehend. Furthermore, I can understand fully how years of grading papers would deaden even the most intellectually stimulated professor, reducing them to an automaton that teaches for the paycheck. At the same time, these 'deadened' professors receive the greatest amount of money as salary, while the 'good' professors are at a much lower tier. I don't profess to understand tenure, but isn't this just perpetuating the system failure?
I went off on a little bit of a tangent there, but my point still stands. I was always wondering where my anxiety came from regarding classes and classwork; I realize now that it is the unbalanced nature of expectation. We as students cannot even expect our teachers to come into class and be able to effectively present their material. This manifests in low speaking volumes, dependence on Internet resources to subsidize a lack of quality in prepared material, and sometimes even downright confusion regarding an inquiry or even more egregiously, their own prepared material. The homework assignments are often cryptic or downright contradictory, let alone when an instructor decides to 'try something new'. I understand that new assignments have pitfalls and perils that cannot be predicted, but creating new curricula and acid-testing it against an active student base requires a degree of coordination and organization that I've only seen a handful of professors produce. Given that these professors do not teach the advanced-level classes that I am now enrolled in for my Masters work... I cannot help but be significantly bothered. Furthermore, I find it difficult to express these issues to the administration, due to the fact that one of the professors is also my only adviser, and also instructs several of the classes I will be taking over the coming year and a half.
Over the past year of schooling (since Spring of 2009, basically) I have discovered that I have been able to sustain passable marks in all of my classes despite a penchant for occupying said 'instructional time' with minutia of the Internet. Throughout this period of time I have been concerned over this fact, as it did not feel 'right' to me; I've usually be quite studious, but I found that certain professors have failed so completely in engaging my interest that I can tune them out without even consciously noticing. I realize now that this is just another facet to the issue at hand, and one that I believe I'm going to start applying to classwork as well as class itself. My subconscious caught on to this much faster than 'I' did... if the professors aren't taking this seriously, then why the hell am I worrying pits into my stomach over it?
This plays further into the administration's reluctance to assist the ACM. Initially we were told that we had our room for a year, and then movement would commence, allowing us plenty of opportunity to shift resources. Furthermore, the room that we were promised was approximately the same size, so we would be able to minimize our loss. Now we have 3 weeks (in the middle of the semester, no less), and are being moved into an area less than half the size of our current location. It's not so much the location... after all, we can adapt to almost anything... it's the cold shoulder we're being given (mostly from the administration, but the butthurt the SSSC keeps expressing to us regarding our 'lack of a liaison' [despite my efforts to 'liaise' when they schedule a meeting an hour before it occurs] certainly doesn't assist in matters). Again, it feels like to them, we don't matter, despite the ACM offering a haven to escape the drudgery of class and also a decent place to get work done in the quieter hours.
By no means am I stating in any of this that a professor's job is easy. I'm certain that there are significant trials that they must deal with every day that I cannot begin to comprehend. Furthermore, I can understand fully how years of grading papers would deaden even the most intellectually stimulated professor, reducing them to an automaton that teaches for the paycheck. At the same time, these 'deadened' professors receive the greatest amount of money as salary, while the 'good' professors are at a much lower tier. I don't profess to understand tenure, but isn't this just perpetuating the system failure?