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Sat May 10 11:43:40 EDT 2008
the end of the semester has arrived
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The end of Spring 2008 has finally arrived for me. I learned a
lot - both good and bad.
First the good. I learned a lot about graph theory, and I can
say that I enjoyed the class thoroughly. I learned more about
how to write proofs and that I am very interested in certain dis-
crete mathematical topics. In Fall I am taking a combinatorics
class, and I hope to eventually take an abstract algebra class
or two.
This summer, I am taking a selected reading class with a profes-
sion whom I wish to have as my advisor. More on this in a future
post.
Now the bad (beware, rant).
While I learned a lot in "programming languages," it was not
enough to offset the horrible experience a terrible teacher can
give someone who is there to learn. I started off the semester
looking forward to learning all about advanced programming lan-
guage design. This includes stuff like axiomatic, operational,
and denotational semantics. I did learn what they all were, but
at a hefty emotional price.
I suppose one could blame the department for pulling in an PhD
with ZERO teaching experience or personality, but at some point
the teacher themself is to blame for providing the student with
an ineffective learning environment. The person that tradition-
ally teaches this class was unavailable for some reason, but he
is consistently rated as one of the best teachers in the depart-
ment. Unfortunately, the best got replaced with the worst.
I don't know if I would have dropped the class knowing then what
I know now, but it chaps my ass royally that I had to be part of
the class where a crappy newbie teacher used us to test
crazy/stupid teaching methods. Oh, and did I mention that the
teacher knew absolute shit about the subject? When one asks in-
formed questions on the material being presented, they should ex-
pect the teacher should know enough to provide even a basic an-
swer. No. You'd also expect them to at least know the material
on the slides (that they jacked) well enough to effectively ex-
plain it and answer basic clarifying questions about it. No.
In summary, I believe that I, amongst others, got totally fucked.
We were failed by both the department and by the teacher. You
can bet your ass that I am going to avoid this topic from now on,
and this is a real shame because in the beginning I was interest-
ed in giving it a chance.
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