Freshmen
Yesterday signaled the return of Schoolboy, my erstwhile alter ego. Normally, I'm quite excited about returning to school - it's one more step in the right direction! I even left my house with a positive attitude. I mean, the chances of me having to interact* with some freshman punk in any of my classes were pretty close to zero, what with me being in the 21st grade and all.
I could not have been more wrong. The first class I showed up to was calculus based physics; had I not been there, the average age in the classroom would have been 18 (excluding the teacher). Their age alone doesn't bother me. It's everything else that comes with it, namely the barrage of unnecessary, incessant questions.
Now, I do understand the whole "no such thing as a dumb question" deal, and I myself have asked some not so brilliant ones in my lifetime. However, generally before I bother the rest of the class with my query, I think "Will this benefit others, or just me?" If others will receive enlightenment, I ask; if not, I hold it until after class. Here's just a sample of the questions I heard:
*I must add this. Do not mistake my disdain for freshmen as hatred. When confronted with any of them, I smile, joke, and am genuinely polite. I just wait til they're out of eyesight before shaking/banging my head. After all, I was one of them once, though I refuse to believe that I ever acted anything like they do now.
I could not have been more wrong. The first class I showed up to was calculus based physics; had I not been there, the average age in the classroom would have been 18 (excluding the teacher). Their age alone doesn't bother me. It's everything else that comes with it, namely the barrage of unnecessary, incessant questions.
Now, I do understand the whole "no such thing as a dumb question" deal, and I myself have asked some not so brilliant ones in my lifetime. However, generally before I bother the rest of the class with my query, I think "Will this benefit others, or just me?" If others will receive enlightenment, I ask; if not, I hold it until after class. Here's just a sample of the questions I heard:
Is this a course on aerospace?The funniest things happened when somebody, a fellow smart aleck, said in response to the last aerospace question, "You need to know that, now?"
Is there a course on aerospace?
If we were to try and apply this to aerospace, what would it mean to...?
So, like, I've already had the harder calculus, like, in high school, so, like, should I be in here or should I bail and, like, take the other class?
So when you're grading our tests, how do you show the score - as a percentage or number of points correct vs. total number of points?
Can we do labs, like, whenever we want? Cause Thursday at 8am isn't good for me, and I have to go home on Friday afternoons.
Why doesn't this course have any aerospace stuff in it?
*I must add this. Do not mistake my disdain for freshmen as hatred. When confronted with any of them, I smile, joke, and am genuinely polite. I just wait til they're out of eyesight before shaking/banging my head. After all, I was one of them once, though I refuse to believe that I ever acted anything like they do now.
posted by misawa at 7:52 AM
1 Comments:
The thing that makes it that much more frustrating is when the hippie instructor decides that he will actually answer it in front of the class instead of telling the student to see him later. The kid is ignorant and just doesn't know any better; the professor is just plain stupid.
And "you can't fix stupid." -- Ron White
Post a Comment
<< Home