5 ms·

In re to LSAT at least a decade ago your LSAT score meant shit. I’m S Asian, scored 99th percentile 17x, but my GPA was around 3.3 because I think college is a

In re to LSAT at least a decade ago your LSAT score meant shit. I’m S Asian, scored 99th percentile 17x, but my GPA was around 3.3 because I think college is a joke when it involves homework. I had never gotten less than a A on midterms and finals, but what I’m trying to say is that GPA and race matters much more. There was a law school acceptance calculator. With my scores and my Asian background, the T14 were either out of reach or I had somewhat of a chance at a lower rank of those schools. Law school is probably the most atrocious when it comes to race based acceptance. Changed my race on the calculator and my chances became green across the board basically. Being Asian is hard enough. We have to succeed because our parents and in some cases like me know what life is like without running water or electricity, genocide every few years, etc. It sucks that no school ever looks at that. I grew up without running water nor a toilet, and multiple people living in a home that was barely 400sq ft. Yet nobody cares about that because I’m Asian, the wrong minority. Yes I don’t give a shit about homework, I understand the material which is why I’m slaying each test. I hated that about college. We are adults. I’m paying to get an education, why the fuck is homework 20% of the grade? It’s practice, for people who don’t get the material. Education is a joke. when I see a fellow asian person from a top uni I know they had to be actually extraordinary to get in and come out.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
counters 4y ago
> Yes I don’t give a shit about homework, I understand the material which is why I’m slaying each test. I hated that about college. We are adults. I’m paying to get an education, why the fuck is homework 20% of the grade? It’s practice, for people who don’t get the material. What discipline did you study in undergrad? In many majors - or even just in well-taught classes - work outside of lecture or recitation is designed to complement what you are learning. It _is_ the education you're paying for. It isn't high school where it's a bunch of repetition of the same concept (although I'd vigorously defend that, too) intended as practice. Problem sets ought to be the application of the material you're introduced to in lecture, done so in a way that forces you to grapple with and connect core concepts to other material in your major. For example, in grad school I TA'ed an upper-level undergraduate course that would typically have 15-20 students. The problem sets I created with the professor I worked for had problems split across two themes. The first was discover; we'd take something that seemed ho-hum or rote from class, and apply it to an oddball setting which yielded surprising results. Sure, that straightforward equation works - but why does it go so weird in this curated example we're providing? There's extraordinary opportunity for learning there. The second theme was connection across disciplines. Introduce a mathematics, computer science, or other concept and use it to extend something from lecture in an interesting way. These problems were intended t be challenging. We referred students to other textbooks and invited them to work together or come to office hours to fill in gaps in their background, because (a) this is a _vital_ skill to learn, and (b) it led to really cool and interesting problems and solutions. There simply is not time in lecture or recitation to cover the stuff we introduced in these homework assignments. That's why the course credit hours tallied up to 3x the amount of time spent in lecture. I'll also note that while challenging, we did not allow poor marks on or incomplete problem sets derail a student's grade. If in lecture/recitation participation and on exams they clearly knew the core content, we'd work with the students to ensure they got a high grade. But if someone shirked off the homework entirely but aced the exams? Well, the exams aren't testing everything we're teaching you in this course, so you better believe they'd get poor grades at the end of the term. So your perspective seems warped. If you weren't doing the homework, then you didn't get the education you paid for, and that's on you - not the university.
- moomoo11 4y ago
  To me education is about what you learn. And I’m happy that I aced every single exam and project. Like I mentioned to the other poster, there are people who do all the homework and still fail the class. I aced every single project, midterm, and final. I can understand most topics the first or second time I learn them, and when I don’t I will do some homework. But for the most part I personally didn’t need it and I got penalized. I also worked during college so I could afford to not commute, so i was glad I didn’t need to do the homework to do well in everything else. So explain that to me. I recall students who did homework would still fail and then the professor would do some last saving grace move where you do some BS work to get an extra five percent. Someone who understands the material would ace the exams. In my experience most people did not ace the exams and in fact would hate on me and some others who would “kill the curve”. Finally fwiw I went to a lower ranked state college not some MIT tier place. They were the only college who offered the most financial aid so I was able to graduate with under 7k owed while affording to live on campus. Paid off my debt in the first months paycheck lol.
  - counters 4y ago
    > So explain that to me. You're special. Congratulations! You have a unique capability to absorb knowledge. In my experience, this means one of two things: either (1) you truly are brilliant and will exceed at anything you apply to, or (2) at some point you will run into something that you _don't_ understand after the first or second try, and you'll be entirely unequipped and unprepared to deal with that. Also in my experience, (2) is far more common than (1). Bashing your head against difficult things in a low-stakes environment where folks are literally paid to help you navigate failure is a great way to extend the runway until (2) hits. Again - you're _paying_ for this opportunity in college. > ... then the professor would do some last saving grace move where you do some BS work to get an extra five percent. Maybe it's not BS work? Maybe there's something to creating relationships with the people you work with, and creating alternative avenues for them to help you, since it's literally their job? I had an undergrad once who did reasonable on their homework problem sets, but just could not get it together in the written exams. Turns out their was an anxiety issue involved. But they came to my office hours for help, and put in the effort, so I was more than happy to see what I could do to ensure that not only would they learn the material to the best of their ability, but that we could soften the blow of a less-than-perfect final mark in the course. I wouldn't go to such lengths for a name on a paper who I saw in lecture but otherwise had no interaction with... how do I know they actually put in the effort and knew the material? > Someone who understands the material would ace the exams. In my experience most people did not ace the exams and in fact would hate on me and some others who would “kill the curve”. Depends entirely on the exam. I've taken exams for coursework that I truly thought I had mastery over and utterly bombed them. I've also taken exams for courses that I was convinced I was going to fail, and done well, too. In my experience, it's actually very difficult to write an in-person exam that rewards mastery over course material. I've encountered very few such exams in my life that didn't resort to gimmicks or "gotchas" in the material. It's much easier in a timed, in-person setting to write busy work that has tricks built in so things simplify away and get rid of a lot of the manual work.
jcranmer 4y ago
> Yes I don’t give a shit about homework, I understand the material which is why I’m slaying each test. I hated that about college. We are adults. I’m paying to get an education, why the fuck is homework 20% of the grade? It’s practice, for people who don’t get the material. So what you're admitting is that you are willing to not to do required parts of your job because you don't feel they're important. If you go out into the workforce and become a lawyer, what parts of your job are equally willing to blow off because you don't like them? Billing clients properly? Procedural stuff like filing answers properly? You're basically arguing that your unwillingness to do the assigned tasks not be held against you.
- charlieyu1 4y ago
  LSAT can be taken at 18. Discounting 2-3 years for a course and we have 15 year olds. Are we holding 15 year olds as liable as adults? That they must grind 3 years of course with full intensity while already dealing with teenage problems? Sounds like hell.
- moomoo11 4y ago
  Homework being worth 20% is dumb for school. Besides I worked the entire time in college to pay for college. Being penalized because I don’t have time to do homework without which I can’t pay for school helps nobody. I don’t think I ever got anything lower than a B on an exam, and nothing lower than A on a final/midterm/project. And yeah, homework is for people who need it. Work and school are totally different one you’re learning the other you’re utilizing what you learned. Having homework be worth anything more than maybe 5% is stupid. I’m not getting paid to do homework, in fact I am paying to even learn. People do homework and still fail. So what’s the point of homework?
  - 2snakes 4y ago
    Learning theory of repetition and stretch goals have been found to help many trying to learn. Some sort of neuron network establishment neuroscientifically.
  - neerajsi 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

counters 4y ago

> Yes I don’t give a shit about homework, I understand the material which is why I’m slaying each test. I hated that about college. We are adults. I’m paying to get an education, why the fuck is homework 20% of the grade? It’s practice, for people who don’t get the material. What discipline did you study in undergrad? In many majors - or even just in well-taught classes - work outside of lecture or recitation is designed to complement what you are learning. It _is_ the education you're paying for. It isn't high school where it's a bunch of repetition of the same concept (although I'd vigorously defend that, too) intended as practice. Problem sets ought to be the application of the material you're introduced to in lecture, done so in a way that forces you to grapple with and connect core concepts to other material in your major. For example, in grad school I TA'ed an upper-level undergraduate course that would typically have 15-20 students. The problem sets I created with the professor I worked for had problems split across two themes. The first was discover; we'd take something that seemed ho-hum or rote from class, and apply it to an oddball setting which yielded surprising results. Sure, that straightforward equation works - but why does it go so weird in this curated example we're providing? There's extraordinary opportunity for learning there. The second theme was connection across disciplines. Introduce a mathematics, computer science, or other concept and use it to extend something from lecture in an interesting way. These problems were intended t be challenging. We referred students to other textbooks and invited them to work together or come to office hours to fill in gaps in their background, because (a) this is a _vital_ skill to learn, and (b) it led to really cool and interesting problems and solutions. There simply is not time in lecture or recitation to cover the stuff we introduced in these homework assignments. That's why the course credit hours tallied up to 3x the amount of time spent in lecture. I'll also note that while challenging, we did not allow poor marks on or incomplete problem sets derail a student's grade. If in lecture/recitation participation and on exams they clearly knew the core content, we'd work with the students to ensure they got a high grade. But if someone shirked off the homework entirely but aced the exams? Well, the exams aren't testing everything we're teaching you in this course, so you better believe they'd get poor grades at the end of the term. So your perspective seems warped. If you weren't doing the homework, then you didn't get the education you paid for, and that's on you - not the university.

moomoo11 4y ago
To me education is about what you learn. And I’m happy that I aced every single exam and project. Like I mentioned to the other poster, there are people who do all the homework and still fail the class. I aced every single project, midterm, and final. I can understand most topics the first or second time I learn them, and when I don’t I will do some homework. But for the most part I personally didn’t need it and I got penalized. I also worked during college so I could afford to not commute, so i was glad I didn’t need to do the homework to do well in everything else. So explain that to me. I recall students who did homework would still fail and then the professor would do some last saving grace move where you do some BS work to get an extra five percent. Someone who understands the material would ace the exams. In my experience most people did not ace the exams and in fact would hate on me and some others who would “kill the curve”. Finally fwiw I went to a lower ranked state college not some MIT tier place. They were the only college who offered the most financial aid so I was able to graduate with under 7k owed while affording to live on campus. Paid off my debt in the first months paycheck lol.
- counters 4y ago
  > So explain that to me. You're special. Congratulations! You have a unique capability to absorb knowledge. In my experience, this means one of two things: either (1) you truly are brilliant and will exceed at anything you apply to, or (2) at some point you will run into something that you _don't_ understand after the first or second try, and you'll be entirely unequipped and unprepared to deal with that. Also in my experience, (2) is far more common than (1). Bashing your head against difficult things in a low-stakes environment where folks are literally paid to help you navigate failure is a great way to extend the runway until (2) hits. Again - you're _paying_ for this opportunity in college. > ... then the professor would do some last saving grace move where you do some BS work to get an extra five percent. Maybe it's not BS work? Maybe there's something to creating relationships with the people you work with, and creating alternative avenues for them to help you, since it's literally their job? I had an undergrad once who did reasonable on their homework problem sets, but just could not get it together in the written exams. Turns out their was an anxiety issue involved. But they came to my office hours for help, and put in the effort, so I was more than happy to see what I could do to ensure that not only would they learn the material to the best of their ability, but that we could soften the blow of a less-than-perfect final mark in the course. I wouldn't go to such lengths for a name on a paper who I saw in lecture but otherwise had no interaction with... how do I know they actually put in the effort and knew the material? > Someone who understands the material would ace the exams. In my experience most people did not ace the exams and in fact would hate on me and some others who would “kill the curve”. Depends entirely on the exam. I've taken exams for coursework that I truly thought I had mastery over and utterly bombed them. I've also taken exams for courses that I was convinced I was going to fail, and done well, too. In my experience, it's actually very difficult to write an in-person exam that rewards mastery over course material. I've encountered very few such exams in my life that didn't resort to gimmicks or "gotchas" in the material. It's much easier in a timed, in-person setting to write busy work that has tricks built in so things simplify away and get rid of a lot of the manual work.

jcranmer 4y ago

charlieyu1 4y ago
LSAT can be taken at 18. Discounting 2-3 years for a course and we have 15 year olds. Are we holding 15 year olds as liable as adults? That they must grind 3 years of course with full intensity while already dealing with teenage problems? Sounds like hell.
moomoo11 4y ago
Homework being worth 20% is dumb for school. Besides I worked the entire time in college to pay for college. Being penalized because I don’t have time to do homework without which I can’t pay for school helps nobody. I don’t think I ever got anything lower than a B on an exam, and nothing lower than A on a final/midterm/project. And yeah, homework is for people who need it. Work and school are totally different one you’re learning the other you’re utilizing what you learned. Having homework be worth anything more than maybe 5% is stupid. I’m not getting paid to do homework, in fact I am paying to even learn. People do homework and still fail. So what’s the point of homework?
- 2snakes 4y ago
  Learning theory of repetition and stretch goals have been found to help many trying to learn. Some sort of neuron network establishment neuroscientifically.
- neerajsi 4y ago