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> Look at Moniz (in the article), he bailed on engineering and went to an English/Psych where the classes are "a lot more discussion based." The impression tha

> Look at Moniz (in the article), he bailed on engineering and went to an English/Psych where the classes are "a lot more discussion based." The impression that I got wasn't that he bailed for discussion courses because he was afraid of being wrong, but rather that the discussions in English classes at least gave him some outlet to feel like he was applying what he was learning. There's a very weird death march of lectures for 2-3 years in some engineering programs during which you're expected to cram in a ton of knowledge but given zero opportunity to see how it will be applied in the real world. Compared with my own CS background it looks horrific; if I had been expected to spend my sophomore and junior years doing nothing but sit in lecture halls doing theory courses and "practical" courses in which I memorized syntax for programming languages, or facts about OpenGL, or the ISA of a MIPS CPU, etc without being allowed near a computer to actually build some kind of project using that knowledge, I'd have fucked off into Philosophy or English, too. At least it would have made time for me to make stabs at using what I was learning to do philosophy instead of simply regurgitate facts. But luckily for my future employability, CS isn't so lost to bad pedagogy that it's thrown out most of its practical learning opportunities. My primary take away from this piece, and talking to people who have burned out of physics and engineering programs, has been that a lot of said programs are simply structured in a way almost guaranteed to try the patience of a lot of otherwise bright people who just wanted to feel like they were making progress towards being able to accomplish something more than regurgitate facts on midterms.

msutherl 15y ago
I had the misfortune of spending some time in a program like this and switched to fine art promptly. I think it's a copout to say that math is just "too hard". The problem is that engineering and math programs are poorly constructed and taught abysmally. These days I study math and engineering on the side because I can learn more effectively by reading books than sitting through 4 years of slog.
potatolicious 15y ago
I can't help but agree. I went through a pretty grueling 4-year engineering program and felt very much the same. The only times I've actually enjoyed the experience was in project-based courses where I can actually go out and build. The rest of engineering is just an endless series of lectures, tutorials, and labs, with little relation to reality. Even when the applicability is obvious, the crushing courseload of your typical engineering program means you can put little of it to real use. In the end I decided my "education" was more important than "school", so I actively sought to minimize the impact of some courses (read: I skipped a lot of classes) so I can give myself time to, well, build things. And thank heavens for that - I could've ended up being just another clueless engineering grad. Head full of theories and zero experience applying any of it. Funnily enough, generally speaking, the people who aced their way through an engineering program were also the ones that spent the least time building things, and at the end of the day are the last people I want working on my team. There are exceptions of course - insanely smart, superhuman people who were able to ace the courses and find time to apply it, but they are exceedingly rare. Whenever a company throws up some high "minimum GPA to be considered" on a job posting I have to chuckle. They are probably filtering out the best candidates.
caseysoftware 15y ago
My undergrad in EE is from Rose-Hulman where we spend most of our time focused on applying things to the real world. Every year except freshman, we worked on real projects from local companies, alumni, etc, etc. As a junior, I was assigned to a senior ME project because they needed some understanding from our area. I wasn't the only one drafted either. That term we spec'd out a new workflow for CDs returned to Columbia House (their main facility was in town). I had a prof (that looked like Santa Claus) and told us point blank that the half life of our studies was about 3 years and that his goal wasn't to focus on the facts but to make sure that we learned how to learn.
dman 15y ago
Science / Math courses force you to very objectively face how good you are at the subject being taught. Fields which are more subjective leave your expertise as a much less defined concept and hence do not force the student to confront the limit of their abilities.
- msbarnett 15y ago
  Sure, but that doesn't mean that everyone switching out of STEM courses "failed to measure up" or was "afraid of facts". If I attempted to teach Computing Science to people by having them sit in 400 person lecture halls while I read K&R and CLRS at them for 4 years, any number of bright people who could succeed in comp sci would rightly get fed up with the uselessness of my shitty curriculum and drop out or switch majors. And yet a surprising number of Engineering curriculums are structured this way, because it's cheap and easy for the professors.
  - silverlake 15y ago
    So are econ courses at big universities, yet it's become a very popular major.
  - dman 15y ago
    I recently started teaching technical subjects and here are some points from the other side of the classroom a) Every class has outliers on either side of the performance spectrum and teaching is a resource allocation problem on part of the teachers time on how to deliver maximal benefit to the students at large. b) The number of people who are simultaneously entertaining, inspiring and educational is very few. Look around you and shortlist the number of people whom you consider extremely knowledgeable about some subject, now remove from that list the number of people who have great people skills. Of course people skills can be improved over time but it takes real effort and time. c) As a teacher the best one can do while teaching challenging material is spend time in the first part of a lecture developing the motivation for getting students interested. Usually that leaves little time for interactivity in the latter part of the lesson. d) Classes where students ask no questions are very hard to make interesting. When this is happening your teacher is probably feeling like a comic doing an act where no one is laughing. Next time youre stuck in a class which seems overly dull try to help out your teacher by asking intelligent questions. e) In some challenging material there is simply not enough time to do it justice. In those cases the best a teacher can do is do a non interactive session where they do a brain dump hoping that students will be motivated enough to follow up with the material in their own time. f) There is also the philosophical question about who gets to teach - 1) someone who is at the pinnacle of their field and hence can earn a livelihood by teaching people so that they can contribute with original research. 2) someone who is a great educator. g) I think truly great teachers occur with the same frequency as truly great comics because both fields have something in common.

msutherl 15y ago

I had the misfortune of spending some time in a program like this and switched to fine art promptly. I think it's a copout to say that math is just "too hard". The problem is that engineering and math programs are poorly constructed and taught abysmally. These days I study math and engineering on the side because I can learn more effectively by reading books than sitting through 4 years of slog.

potatolicious 15y ago

I can't help but agree. I went through a pretty grueling 4-year engineering program and felt very much the same. The only times I've actually enjoyed the experience was in project-based courses where I can actually go out and build. The rest of engineering is just an endless series of lectures, tutorials, and labs, with little relation to reality. Even when the applicability is obvious, the crushing courseload of your typical engineering program means you can put little of it to real use. In the end I decided my "education" was more important than "school", so I actively sought to minimize the impact of some courses (read: I skipped a lot of classes) so I can give myself time to, well, build things. And thank heavens for that - I could've ended up being just another clueless engineering grad. Head full of theories and zero experience applying any of it. Funnily enough, generally speaking, the people who aced their way through an engineering program were also the ones that spent the least time building things, and at the end of the day are the last people I want working on my team. There are exceptions of course - insanely smart, superhuman people who were able to ace the courses and find time to apply it, but they are exceedingly rare. Whenever a company throws up some high "minimum GPA to be considered" on a job posting I have to chuckle. They are probably filtering out the best candidates.

caseysoftware 15y ago

My undergrad in EE is from Rose-Hulman where we spend most of our time focused on applying things to the real world. Every year except freshman, we worked on real projects from local companies, alumni, etc, etc. As a junior, I was assigned to a senior ME project because they needed some understanding from our area. I wasn't the only one drafted either. That term we spec'd out a new workflow for CDs returned to Columbia House (their main facility was in town). I had a prof (that looked like Santa Claus) and told us point blank that the half life of our studies was about 3 years and that his goal wasn't to focus on the facts but to make sure that we learned how to learn.

dman 15y ago

Science / Math courses force you to very objectively face how good you are at the subject being taught. Fields which are more subjective leave your expertise as a much less defined concept and hence do not force the student to confront the limit of their abilities.

msbarnett 15y ago
Sure, but that doesn't mean that everyone switching out of STEM courses "failed to measure up" or was "afraid of facts". If I attempted to teach Computing Science to people by having them sit in 400 person lecture halls while I read K&R and CLRS at them for 4 years, any number of bright people who could succeed in comp sci would rightly get fed up with the uselessness of my shitty curriculum and drop out or switch majors. And yet a surprising number of Engineering curriculums are structured this way, because it's cheap and easy for the professors.
- silverlake 15y ago
  So are econ courses at big universities, yet it's become a very popular major.
- dman 15y ago
  I recently started teaching technical subjects and here are some points from the other side of the classroom a) Every class has outliers on either side of the performance spectrum and teaching is a resource allocation problem on part of the teachers time on how to deliver maximal benefit to the students at large. b) The number of people who are simultaneously entertaining, inspiring and educational is very few. Look around you and shortlist the number of people whom you consider extremely knowledgeable about some subject, now remove from that list the number of people who have great people skills. Of course people skills can be improved over time but it takes real effort and time. c) As a teacher the best one can do while teaching challenging material is spend time in the first part of a lecture developing the motivation for getting students interested. Usually that leaves little time for interactivity in the latter part of the lesson. d) Classes where students ask no questions are very hard to make interesting. When this is happening your teacher is probably feeling like a comic doing an act where no one is laughing. Next time youre stuck in a class which seems overly dull try to help out your teacher by asking intelligent questions. e) In some challenging material there is simply not enough time to do it justice. In those cases the best a teacher can do is do a non interactive session where they do a brain dump hoping that students will be motivated enough to follow up with the material in their own time. f) There is also the philosophical question about who gets to teach - 1) someone who is at the pinnacle of their field and hence can earn a livelihood by teaching people so that they can contribute with original research. 2) someone who is a great educator. g) I think truly great teachers occur with the same frequency as truly great comics because both fields have something in common.