8 ms·

Why do we celebrate this theme of Professor as omnipotent, benevolent dictator of the classroom? My last year in school the combined cost of tuition, books, an

by nugget 13y ago

Why do we celebrate this theme of Professor as omnipotent, benevolent dictator of the classroom? My last year in school the combined cost of tuition, books, and room and board hit $40,000. At what point do you become not just a student, but also a fee for service consumer, with an appropriate set of expectations for some level of responsiveness and customer service?

GuiA 13y ago
See, that's one of the problems I have with outrageous tuition: it creates dumb expectations from students. In most European countries, your education is quasi free, and as a result students don't complain about professors not providing "customer service". You go to the university to learn from some of the most eminent figures of your field, people who have devoted their life to it, and you do as they say. If you're not happy, well you can just leave. And sure, some of them are quirky or do dumb stuff, but you're 19- you'll live. And TBH, even the professors I had in college who exposed me to the most BS are nothing compared to some of the BS I've experienced in the real world, with clients/bosses/etc. If you're going to University of Phoenix, sure, feel entitled to some degree of "customer service". But if you're studying under Dijkstra, just suck it up and soak in as much as you can, even if the "customer service" leaves to be desired. Again, you're 19- you'll live. Sorry, this is a bit abrasive, but I've been on multiple sides of the equation (student in EU university, student in US university, TA in EU university, TA in US university), and the students who say things like "I pay tuition, I'm a paying customer, professors have to do X/Y/Z for me" are rarely the ones at the top of the class (and rarely aspire to do so).
- Sven7 13y ago
  When it comes to profs of the stature of Dijkstra it doesn't matter what you pay the school.
  - tomjen3 13y ago
    What, other than the (rather trivial) algorithm named after him, has he really done that is worth noting? To me he is like Crockford - all talk, no code.
    - Derander 13y ago
      http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ Feel free to read one of the thirteen hundred things he published. Most relevant to you (probably) is that he championed the use of "structured programming" -- aka, if, for, while, and other narrowly focused constructs -- as opposed to GOTO: he's the author of "Go To Statement Considered Harmful ". Also, remember also that many algorithms seem trivial once you've learned them.
    - michaelhoffman 13y ago
      Here is the citation for his 1972 Turing Award, the highest distinction in computer science: "Edsger Dijkstra was a principal contributor in the late 1950s to the development of the ALGOL, a high level programming language which has become a model of clarity and mathematical rigor. He is one of the principal proponents of the science and art of programming languages in general, and has greatly contributed to our understanding of their structure, representation, and implementation. His fifteen years of publications extend from theoretical articles on graph theory to basic manuals, expository texts, and philosophical contemplations in the field of programming languages."
      - marvin 13y ago
        ...and for those on HN who are self-taught and aren't aware of the history of computer science, ALGOL is the foundation of imperative programming and inspires just about every imperative language today. Crucially, this means C and C++, which means that Dijkstra's work is part of the foundation for most operating systems and low-level code in the world - indeed most software systems period, since the vast majority of these are somehow based on C.
      - greenyoda 13y ago
        And let's not forget his work on concurrent processes: he invented the concept of the semaphore, which is still widely used almost fifty years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_%28programming%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_%28programming%29
        13y ago
  - prostoalex 13y ago
    US higher education system mixes two types of professors: 1) Those who do an excellent job researching 2) Those who do an excellent job teaching I don't know anything about Dijkstra's teaching abilities, but (1) and (2) are frequently an OR for each professor, not an AND.
    - null_ptr 13y ago
      So a XOR :-)
      - sukuriant 13y ago
        The AND professors I've had are some of the finest. I think I had 1, maybe 2.
    - eitally 13y ago
      The fact is that unless it's in the student's own field of research interest, it's far much profitable to the kids to be under the tutelage of a teacher rather than a researcher. Perhaps universities should offer independent research/study options to undergraduates in the same way they do for graduate students: describe your interests, create a plan of work, recruit a review committee (or for undergrads, perhaps just a single professor), and have at it. As a history major I had a couple of folks treat their own courses this way and by acting as a facilitator to self-discovery I learned far more than in traditional lectures. Standing out for me was Terry Belanger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Belanger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Belanger), but he's something of a "Dijkstra" celebrity in the field of bibliophilia so ymmv. One of the options he gave students was to curate their own exhibit in the University of Virginia's most prominent display museum (the Dome Room of the http://www.virginia.edu/rotunda/ http://www.virginia.edu/rotunda/), and this experience was one of themost impactful experiences in my college career. ... It also steered me away from public history and toward technology, and I'm glad that happened BEFORE I graduated than afterward.
- mkohlmyr 13y ago
  Conversely, in Sweden where it is indeed mostly free that has created a culture where university is just "something you do" and where the education provided is not valued in the same way by students and has become commoditized in a way which I would argue is detrimental. There's a balance to be struck somewhere. I'm from Sweden but studying in the UK and I think the university culture here is far superior. That being said the recent hike in fees here is probably a move in the wrong direction.
  - Heliosmaster 13y ago
    maybe the key is not an increase in fees, but in a stricter admission. Even in Italy everybody does university, even the ones that do not want to study: they find some subject like "political sciences" and lower down the level of the degree.
    - ndr 13y ago
      I'd like to see some numbers about `in Italy everybody does university`, maybe also showing how most people do "political science" sort of thing and how THAT is supposed to lower down the level of the degree, because it looks made up. OTH It's true that a lot of people drop out or take way longer than they are supposed to graduate. In that I agree using a stricter admission we could let fewer people to get university education but there would be more funds to treat them better.
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      >maybe the key is not an increase in fees, but in a stricter admission. Or, better alternatives. How do you make skilled trades more attractive?
      - rdouble 13y ago
        High paying jobs available in those trades.
        fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
- tomjen3 13y ago
  So just because you are only 19 your money isn't as good as somebody who is older? And here I thought one of the best things about capitalism is that it doesn't discreminate. Anyway fuck that, customer service matters if the professor can't deal with that he can go back to typying out papers.
  - acurtis 13y ago
    You are there to learn, not to pay money and get an A. If you desire teachers to stoop to your level and explain things best left to self-reading in textbooks, you are probably in over your head and have no one but the overly lenient admissions department at your university to thank. University is a big business, that makes admissions easier to let in more students and make more money. Do not fool yourself into thinking otherwise.
    - chc 13y ago
      I don't think anybody is talking about automatic A grades. This is indeed about learning — they're talking about whether teachers need to do more to help people learn.
- eruditely 13y ago
  Implying that being at the top of the class is some aspiration that should be sought after for everybody, debasing life into some competition.
  - jimmaswell 13y ago
    do you have a problem with competition?
    - acuozzo 13y ago
      I do. I loathe competition; always have, always will. I hate watching others compete amongst themselves (e.g., sports) and I hate participating in all forms of competition, academics or otherwise. It just doesn't turn me on. Rather, it makes me feel uncomfortable. With that being said, I graduated near the top of my CS class and now make over six figures per year, so I guess one can "succeed" (whatever the fuck that means) even when one finds all forms of competition reprehensible. I did what I did to start and support a family. I didn't do what I did for the high one gets when one feels superior to everyone else on something that, in the end, is totally unimportant (pale-blue-dot, remember?). It's all bullshit.
      - MaysonL 13y ago
        An interesting quote from Dijkstra on that: "I have never competed with Peter Naur. (I was raised somewhat puritanically: we had to try our hardest and give the most, but we were not allowed to compete. I am still grateful to my parents for this education.)"
      - moogleii 13y ago
        I loathe competition as you describe it, yet I can be very competitive. I hate being acknowledged for my accomplishments; it makes me very uncomfortable. But I relish the accomplishments and achievements themselves.
    - superuser2 13y ago
      I have a problem with setting the expectation that in order to be a valuable person or good student, one must be better than everyone else. The bottom quartile of Stanford is still pretty damn smart. We can't expect to be in the top 1% of achievers, because by definition everyone can't. So you end up with 99% of the population that has failed to live up to expectations and deal with the economic and psychological consequences of that. Always, with no exceptions ever, as a matter of statistical fact. That's just stupid and unhealthy. People should be encouraged to go above and beyond, but making it an expectation of all students is just stupid. If all students could do it, it wouldn't be above and beyond. We should be looking at absolute measures of competency instead. This eliminates the problem of the A student who didn't actually learn the material, as well as the C student who is perfectly qualified. I would love to see schools raise the standards for "Pass" to a useful level of competency, then grade everything pass-fail. The very best students could still shine on the basis of the quality of their research.
- 6d0debc071 13y ago
  No, god no. This idea that researchers should be teaching is just horrible, they're not significantly overlapping skill sets. Unless I have a specific research interest, I'm going to learn a lot more from someone who knows the material I'm trying to learn and has been trained in how to teach effectively than I am from someone who knows the material I'm trying to learn and a lot of other material that's not relevant. It should be that you do your basic degrees with people who are primarily teachers and then you go and do your more research based work with people who are good at that sort of research, if you want to get into that. The other way around is just people wasting their talents and their student's time by being really inefficient. # The rest of this just seems to be, 'oh they're 19, they'll live... oh we all have to put up with bullshit.' Maybe they will, maybe we do. It's a fully general argument for anything that's not going to kill you. Life is shit - therefore don't go along with and keep quiet about the shit bits or it'll keep being shit.
  - GuiA 13y ago
    Your argument does not take into account the fact that a significant number of researchers, including world class ones, enjoy/love to teach, and even the basic classes. For many (myself included), it comes hand in hand. I agree that researchers who don't want to teach shouldn't be forced to, but that's the extent of it. I've been to 3 universities in 3 different countries, and the number of bad teachers I've had is much lower than good or excellent ones. (of course this post and my previous one refer to computer science/math academia, since that's what I'm familiar with)
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      There is also the rare individual like Feynman, who managed to be a master at everything.
      - mkramlich 13y ago
        indeed: bongos, ladies, safecracking, QED, troubleshooting exploding space shuttles, and explaining things
- ronaldx 13y ago
  >the students who say things like "I pay tuition, I'm a paying customer, professors have to do X/Y/Z for me" are rarely the ones at the top of the class (and rarely aspire to do so). I would suggest this is biased, since the top-rated students who understand their needs and are proactive about it won't be around to complain. The only reason you can get away with providing a worse service to 19-year olds (as you mention twice) than you would to adults is because you have a naive, captive audience who have limited freedom of choice.
tommi 13y ago
I sort of agree. For that amount of money, you should have your progress checked every once in a while and given advice. On the other hand, I'm not sure if it's the professors job but that of other supporting structures. Also Dijkstra did suggest that he will answer to questions.
pasbesoin 13y ago
Some years ago, I took a course in the nature of continuing education. At my own -- not inconsiderable -- expense, at a well-regarded university (not a for-profit venture or the like). The professor was, IIRC, a member of the tenured, full-time faculty. A considerable portion of each class was devoted to his lamenting the difficulties of an ongoing move in residence he was undergoing. He seemed quite preoccupied with this. The course text was in C. He admitted to cribbing lecture notes from another faculty member -- I no longer recall whether these used C or C++. As a result, he often didn't seem to understand the lecture notes he was using. He "decided" that the two languages were "close enough" that we should do our work in C++. Needless to say, for many of the students, this was more than a bit confusing. I left that class partway through, as a thorough waste of time. And, as it turned out, of money. Never again... I am quite sympathetic to grievances with the position in which universities are putting younger, untenured -- nor even full-time nor insured -- faculty and instructors. It's downright abusive. The other side, for all that there are many good faculty and administrators, is a level of arrogance and ignorance that... at a minimum, does not deserve the financial remuneration it is receiving. The system is rotten, from both sides -- entitlement, and exploitation. ---- P.S. I'll add that, previously, I'd taken a maths course from that same university and campus that was taught by a part-time instructor / lecturer / I-forget-the-title-they-used. Despite the instructor's... "lesser rating", he was first rate and was really engaged in and with the class. It was excellent.
- bgilroy26 13y ago
  It could have been an adjunct professor, folks who can be 4 to an office or have no office at all. Some of my best teachers in college were adjunct professors.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    Adjuncts are often making a living for themselves, or even doing interesting work in a field related to the course subject.
ColinWright 13y ago
The service you seek is to gain knowledge and abilities. There is a body of evidence to suggest that you cannot gain that knowledge and experience without making considerable effort, and that the role of the instructors, be they professor or lowly TA, is to give you the opportunity. As such, getting easy-to-understand explanations, perfectly produced and complete notes, and attending entertaining lectures, is not the best way of achieving the stated goal. Many lecturers are indeed less than ideal, and many instructors similarly fall short, but just because the students give them poor ratings, and complain about work loads, that does not mean that they are not being given exactly what is needed to achieve their stated goals. You don't get physically fit by listening to work-out videos and watching people jog in the park. You have to go out and do it yourself. People hire personal trainers to devise a plan, and then to shout at them to make them stick to it and to put in the work. Maybe that's a good analogy. Maybe to get good at math (and programming) you actually need to put in the work, and true learning is born from the effort and confusion you go through before enlightenment.
zeteo 13y ago
Ah, if we could buy knowledge the way we buy a haircut! Your comment is a perfect example of how the consumer viewpoint has taken over our society. As incredible as it may seem, there can exist professional relationships that are fulfilling, meaningful - even useful - and do not take the form of an exchange of money for something else. They are not what your $40,000 pays for - most of that is administrative bloat these days.
Groxx 13y ago
Oy, people, this is obviously referring to the cases where such costs are reflected by disinterested / unhelpful teachers, which I at least would argue is the vast majority when compared against those who use their benevolent dictatorship to good effect. Such cases are a waste of time and money, and you have essentially no recourse, and no way to prevent it from happening to others. Schools are not exclusively populated by wonderful teachers. Not even close. As nice as it is to give power to those that are, it also gives power to those that aren't, probably disproportionately so due to sheer numbers. Should we be celebrating and continuing a practice that is a net harm? Is it a net harm?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rwl 13y ago
You may be looking in the wrong place. Faculty and other teaching staff are not usually paid directly by students paying tuition. At larger research universities, tuition might not even make up a significant portion of their salaries (which are also paid by things like government grants, interest on endowments, etc.). They are paid to do research, and their incentives are aligned not toward better teaching but toward publishing and bringing in grant money. Teaching is time-consuming and takes away from those activities, so not all professors like doing it or do it well. The people who in my experience are most responsive to undergraduates (and their parents) qua paying customers are administrators and "development" people. These people are paid to bring in money in the form of tuition and donations from parents and alumni. With them, you can expect to get some pretty special treatment if you're willing to pay for it, though of course that special treatment isn't supposed to extend to how you're treated in the classroom. And there are good reasons for that: not everyone can pay full tuition, and students shouldn't get more attention/higher grades/etc. just because they're paying more. I'm not saying this is the way things are everywhere, and I'm certainly not saying it's the way things ought to be. I do think that many faculty need to take teaching more seriously, and their incentives should be better aligned in that direction. Still, I'm not convinced that education would improve if faculty started seeing students as fee for service customers. In the extreme, I think that would tend to increase faculty's tendency to pander to students, instead of creating and sharing new knowledge with them.
- mahyarm 13y ago
  Then these overqualified research professors should not waste their time teaching and have this conflict of interest. They should be just mentoring the next generation of research professors and doing their research, since that is where most of their money comes from anyway. I've gotten far superior instruction in math for example from dedicated instructors at community colleges than I ever got at my university. 30 people sized classes vs 300 sized and it was almost half price. These community colleges are only devoted to teaching and generally they do just fine. A dedicated 24/7 tutor lab and khan academy to be honest would of even been better in some aspects, since you can just tunnel through material, have a tutor help you in a spot you get stuck in and keep on tunneling.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
>Why do we celebrate this theme of Professor as omnipotent, "We" don't > benevolent dictator of the classroom? What do you suggest? Democracy? > My last year in school the combined cost of tuition, books, and room and board hit $40,000. I think that it has never been communicated well what it really costs to deliver instruction, labs, etc. At least at state funded schools, tuition is only a small part of the cost of running the place. Of course, that money isn't always spent optimally, but that's another story. > At what point do you become not just a student, but also a fee for service consumer, with an appropriate set of expectations for some level of responsiveness and customer service? Expect to pay a lot more for concierge level service. Also, I'm skeptical of the efficacy of that approach.
greenyoda 13y ago
Would a professor who thought of himself as an "omnipotent, benevolent dictator" encourage his students to interrupt him whenever they didn't understand something? He seems to be asking his students to treat him more like a colleague than a superior, which is much the same relationship you'd have with a good PhD advisor or the leader of a graduate seminar. And he seems to really care about the future success of his students: "But what I can probably achieve is showing most of you how to become mathematically much more effective, because the other courses in mathematics may teach you mathematics, but rarely teach you how not to waste your time." Also, from the point of view of someone paying for an expensive product, why would I want the provider of the service to be able to dictate the details of how I use it? E.g., if I don't feel I'm getting any value from a particular homework assignment that I paid for, why should I be penalized for not doing it? When I was a student in college, I thought of myself as an adult and didn't want to be treated like a child either by my professors or by my parents. I would have appreciated a professor like Dijkstra.
coldtea 13y ago
>Why do we celebrate this theme of Professor as omnipotent, benevolent dictator of the classroom? My last year in school the combined cost of tuition, books, and room and board hit $40,000. At what point do you become not just a student, but also a fee for service consumer, with an appropriate set of expectations for some level of responsiveness and customer service? We don't celebrate it since a long time. Alas, we have lost it to the cry-baby, demaning consumer student attitude, you very well describe. That's why university studies are going downhill. He is not there to learn. As a customer, he is, after all, always right. And if the customer demands an A, he shall get an A. Or maybe a B, is the professor resists giving an A to a C minus student.
chunky1994 13y ago
Here's my two pence as a student, I highly admire the approach of prof. Dijkstra here, since the purpose of going to University is to learn the most we can, from people who know the stuff they're teaching very well, or have the ability to understand said things at a deeper level than the student currently has. Thus, I cannot see how paying tuition entitles us to demand a professor to do X/Y/Z for us, we're paying not for them to be at our feet, but for access to their understanding of subject matter, which often (depending on the prof./University) is world class. I also do not see how the professor comes across as omnipotent here at all, he gives students complete control, as can be seen in If I use a word you don't recognize or a sentence you cannot attach a meaning to, it is your duty to ask for clarification. If I go too fast, it is your duty to slow me down. We pay for our professor's time, and very often the professors who treat the students as adults are the most effective, and are contributing not just to the knowledge of the student, but to their growth as independent thinkers as well.
krmboya 13y ago
I'm a recent university graduate in a so-called 'third world country'. You have no idea how much I'd give just to 'hang out' in the classes of someone the caliber of Dijkstra.
kragen 13y ago
Well, the professor is the person in a position to judge which things are important for you to learn and whether you have learned them. This is a crucial difference from hiring someone to wash your car. If you are looking for a fee-for-service consumer relationship, I believe there are any number of diploma mills and for-profit schools with scandalous dropout rates who will be happy to oblige you. But I'd appreciate it if you didn't attempt to interfere with people who are looking to be educated, which is to say, guided to develop into proper humans, rather than serviced. It has been two thousand years, and there is still no royal road to geometry, Your Majesty.
rtpg 13y ago
It's called "office hours".

by nugget 13y ago

GuiA 13y ago

See, that's one of the problems I have with outrageous tuition: it creates dumb expectations from students. In most European countries, your education is quasi free, and as a result students don't complain about professors not providing "customer service". You go to the university to learn from some of the most eminent figures of your field, people who have devoted their life to it, and you do as they say. If you're not happy, well you can just leave. And sure, some of them are quirky or do dumb stuff, but you're 19- you'll live. And TBH, even the professors I had in college who exposed me to the most BS are nothing compared to some of the BS I've experienced in the real world, with clients/bosses/etc. If you're going to University of Phoenix, sure, feel entitled to some degree of "customer service". But if you're studying under Dijkstra, just suck it up and soak in as much as you can, even if the "customer service" leaves to be desired. Again, you're 19- you'll live. Sorry, this is a bit abrasive, but I've been on multiple sides of the equation (student in EU university, student in US university, TA in EU university, TA in US university), and the students who say things like "I pay tuition, I'm a paying customer, professors have to do X/Y/Z for me" are rarely the ones at the top of the class (and rarely aspire to do so).

Sven7 13y ago
When it comes to profs of the stature of Dijkstra it doesn't matter what you pay the school.
- tomjen3 13y ago
  What, other than the (rather trivial) algorithm named after him, has he really done that is worth noting? To me he is like Crockford - all talk, no code.
  - Derander 13y ago
    http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ Feel free to read one of the thirteen hundred things he published. Most relevant to you (probably) is that he championed the use of "structured programming" -- aka, if, for, while, and other narrowly focused constructs -- as opposed to GOTO: he's the author of "Go To Statement Considered Harmful ". Also, remember also that many algorithms seem trivial once you've learned them.
  - michaelhoffman 13y ago
    Here is the citation for his 1972 Turing Award, the highest distinction in computer science: "Edsger Dijkstra was a principal contributor in the late 1950s to the development of the ALGOL, a high level programming language which has become a model of clarity and mathematical rigor. He is one of the principal proponents of the science and art of programming languages in general, and has greatly contributed to our understanding of their structure, representation, and implementation. His fifteen years of publications extend from theoretical articles on graph theory to basic manuals, expository texts, and philosophical contemplations in the field of programming languages."
    - marvin 13y ago
      ...and for those on HN who are self-taught and aren't aware of the history of computer science, ALGOL is the foundation of imperative programming and inspires just about every imperative language today. Crucially, this means C and C++, which means that Dijkstra's work is part of the foundation for most operating systems and low-level code in the world - indeed most software systems period, since the vast majority of these are somehow based on C.
    - greenyoda 13y ago
      And let's not forget his work on concurrent processes: he invented the concept of the semaphore, which is still widely used almost fifty years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_%28programming%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_%28programming%29
      - 13y ago
- prostoalex 13y ago
  US higher education system mixes two types of professors: 1) Those who do an excellent job researching 2) Those who do an excellent job teaching I don't know anything about Dijkstra's teaching abilities, but (1) and (2) are frequently an OR for each professor, not an AND.
  - null_ptr 13y ago
    So a XOR :-)
    - sukuriant 13y ago
      The AND professors I've had are some of the finest. I think I had 1, maybe 2.
  - eitally 13y ago
    The fact is that unless it's in the student's own field of research interest, it's far much profitable to the kids to be under the tutelage of a teacher rather than a researcher. Perhaps universities should offer independent research/study options to undergraduates in the same way they do for graduate students: describe your interests, create a plan of work, recruit a review committee (or for undergrads, perhaps just a single professor), and have at it. As a history major I had a couple of folks treat their own courses this way and by acting as a facilitator to self-discovery I learned far more than in traditional lectures. Standing out for me was Terry Belanger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Belanger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Belanger), but he's something of a "Dijkstra" celebrity in the field of bibliophilia so ymmv. One of the options he gave students was to curate their own exhibit in the University of Virginia's most prominent display museum (the Dome Room of the http://www.virginia.edu/rotunda/ http://www.virginia.edu/rotunda/), and this experience was one of themost impactful experiences in my college career. ... It also steered me away from public history and toward technology, and I'm glad that happened BEFORE I graduated than afterward.
mkohlmyr 13y ago
Conversely, in Sweden where it is indeed mostly free that has created a culture where university is just "something you do" and where the education provided is not valued in the same way by students and has become commoditized in a way which I would argue is detrimental. There's a balance to be struck somewhere. I'm from Sweden but studying in the UK and I think the university culture here is far superior. That being said the recent hike in fees here is probably a move in the wrong direction.
- Heliosmaster 13y ago
  maybe the key is not an increase in fees, but in a stricter admission. Even in Italy everybody does university, even the ones that do not want to study: they find some subject like "political sciences" and lower down the level of the degree.
  - ndr 13y ago
    I'd like to see some numbers about `in Italy everybody does university`, maybe also showing how most people do "political science" sort of thing and how THAT is supposed to lower down the level of the degree, because it looks made up. OTH It's true that a lot of people drop out or take way longer than they are supposed to graduate. In that I agree using a stricter admission we could let fewer people to get university education but there would be more funds to treat them better.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    >maybe the key is not an increase in fees, but in a stricter admission. Or, better alternatives. How do you make skilled trades more attractive?
    - rdouble 13y ago
      High paying jobs available in those trades.
      - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
tomjen3 13y ago
So just because you are only 19 your money isn't as good as somebody who is older? And here I thought one of the best things about capitalism is that it doesn't discreminate. Anyway fuck that, customer service matters if the professor can't deal with that he can go back to typying out papers.
- acurtis 13y ago
  You are there to learn, not to pay money and get an A. If you desire teachers to stoop to your level and explain things best left to self-reading in textbooks, you are probably in over your head and have no one but the overly lenient admissions department at your university to thank. University is a big business, that makes admissions easier to let in more students and make more money. Do not fool yourself into thinking otherwise.
  - chc 13y ago
    I don't think anybody is talking about automatic A grades. This is indeed about learning — they're talking about whether teachers need to do more to help people learn.
eruditely 13y ago
Implying that being at the top of the class is some aspiration that should be sought after for everybody, debasing life into some competition.
- jimmaswell 13y ago
  do you have a problem with competition?
  - acuozzo 13y ago
    I do. I loathe competition; always have, always will. I hate watching others compete amongst themselves (e.g., sports) and I hate participating in all forms of competition, academics or otherwise. It just doesn't turn me on. Rather, it makes me feel uncomfortable. With that being said, I graduated near the top of my CS class and now make over six figures per year, so I guess one can "succeed" (whatever the fuck that means) even when one finds all forms of competition reprehensible. I did what I did to start and support a family. I didn't do what I did for the high one gets when one feels superior to everyone else on something that, in the end, is totally unimportant (pale-blue-dot, remember?). It's all bullshit.
    - MaysonL 13y ago
      An interesting quote from Dijkstra on that: "I have never competed with Peter Naur. (I was raised somewhat puritanically: we had to try our hardest and give the most, but we were not allowed to compete. I am still grateful to my parents for this education.)"
    - moogleii 13y ago
      I loathe competition as you describe it, yet I can be very competitive. I hate being acknowledged for my accomplishments; it makes me very uncomfortable. But I relish the accomplishments and achievements themselves.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    I have a problem with setting the expectation that in order to be a valuable person or good student, one must be better than everyone else. The bottom quartile of Stanford is still pretty damn smart. We can't expect to be in the top 1% of achievers, because by definition everyone can't. So you end up with 99% of the population that has failed to live up to expectations and deal with the economic and psychological consequences of that. Always, with no exceptions ever, as a matter of statistical fact. That's just stupid and unhealthy. People should be encouraged to go above and beyond, but making it an expectation of all students is just stupid. If all students could do it, it wouldn't be above and beyond. We should be looking at absolute measures of competency instead. This eliminates the problem of the A student who didn't actually learn the material, as well as the C student who is perfectly qualified. I would love to see schools raise the standards for "Pass" to a useful level of competency, then grade everything pass-fail. The very best students could still shine on the basis of the quality of their research.
6d0debc071 13y ago
No, god no. This idea that researchers should be teaching is just horrible, they're not significantly overlapping skill sets. Unless I have a specific research interest, I'm going to learn a lot more from someone who knows the material I'm trying to learn and has been trained in how to teach effectively than I am from someone who knows the material I'm trying to learn and a lot of other material that's not relevant. It should be that you do your basic degrees with people who are primarily teachers and then you go and do your more research based work with people who are good at that sort of research, if you want to get into that. The other way around is just people wasting their talents and their student's time by being really inefficient. # The rest of this just seems to be, 'oh they're 19, they'll live... oh we all have to put up with bullshit.' Maybe they will, maybe we do. It's a fully general argument for anything that's not going to kill you. Life is shit - therefore don't go along with and keep quiet about the shit bits or it'll keep being shit.
- GuiA 13y ago
  Your argument does not take into account the fact that a significant number of researchers, including world class ones, enjoy/love to teach, and even the basic classes. For many (myself included), it comes hand in hand. I agree that researchers who don't want to teach shouldn't be forced to, but that's the extent of it. I've been to 3 universities in 3 different countries, and the number of bad teachers I've had is much lower than good or excellent ones. (of course this post and my previous one refer to computer science/math academia, since that's what I'm familiar with)
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    There is also the rare individual like Feynman, who managed to be a master at everything.
    - mkramlich 13y ago
      indeed: bongos, ladies, safecracking, QED, troubleshooting exploding space shuttles, and explaining things
ronaldx 13y ago
>the students who say things like "I pay tuition, I'm a paying customer, professors have to do X/Y/Z for me" are rarely the ones at the top of the class (and rarely aspire to do so). I would suggest this is biased, since the top-rated students who understand their needs and are proactive about it won't be around to complain. The only reason you can get away with providing a worse service to 19-year olds (as you mention twice) than you would to adults is because you have a naive, captive audience who have limited freedom of choice.

tommi 13y ago

I sort of agree. For that amount of money, you should have your progress checked every once in a while and given advice. On the other hand, I'm not sure if it's the professors job but that of other supporting structures. Also Dijkstra did suggest that he will answer to questions.

pasbesoin 13y ago

Some years ago, I took a course in the nature of continuing education. At my own -- not inconsiderable -- expense, at a well-regarded university (not a for-profit venture or the like). The professor was, IIRC, a member of the tenured, full-time faculty. A considerable portion of each class was devoted to his lamenting the difficulties of an ongoing move in residence he was undergoing. He seemed quite preoccupied with this. The course text was in C. He admitted to cribbing lecture notes from another faculty member -- I no longer recall whether these used C or C++. As a result, he often didn't seem to understand the lecture notes he was using. He "decided" that the two languages were "close enough" that we should do our work in C++. Needless to say, for many of the students, this was more than a bit confusing. I left that class partway through, as a thorough waste of time. And, as it turned out, of money. Never again... I am quite sympathetic to grievances with the position in which universities are putting younger, untenured -- nor even full-time nor insured -- faculty and instructors. It's downright abusive. The other side, for all that there are many good faculty and administrators, is a level of arrogance and ignorance that... at a minimum, does not deserve the financial remuneration it is receiving. The system is rotten, from both sides -- entitlement, and exploitation. ---- P.S. I'll add that, previously, I'd taken a maths course from that same university and campus that was taught by a part-time instructor / lecturer / I-forget-the-title-they-used. Despite the instructor's... "lesser rating", he was first rate and was really engaged in and with the class. It was excellent.

bgilroy26 13y ago
It could have been an adjunct professor, folks who can be 4 to an office or have no office at all. Some of my best teachers in college were adjunct professors.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Adjuncts are often making a living for themselves, or even doing interesting work in a field related to the course subject.

ColinWright 13y ago

The service you seek is to gain knowledge and abilities. There is a body of evidence to suggest that you cannot gain that knowledge and experience without making considerable effort, and that the role of the instructors, be they professor or lowly TA, is to give you the opportunity. As such, getting easy-to-understand explanations, perfectly produced and complete notes, and attending entertaining lectures, is not the best way of achieving the stated goal. Many lecturers are indeed less than ideal, and many instructors similarly fall short, but just because the students give them poor ratings, and complain about work loads, that does not mean that they are not being given exactly what is needed to achieve their stated goals. You don't get physically fit by listening to work-out videos and watching people jog in the park. You have to go out and do it yourself. People hire personal trainers to devise a plan, and then to shout at them to make them stick to it and to put in the work. Maybe that's a good analogy. Maybe to get good at math (and programming) you actually need to put in the work, and true learning is born from the effort and confusion you go through before enlightenment.

zeteo 13y ago

Ah, if we could buy knowledge the way we buy a haircut! Your comment is a perfect example of how the consumer viewpoint has taken over our society. As incredible as it may seem, there can exist professional relationships that are fulfilling, meaningful - even useful - and do not take the form of an exchange of money for something else. They are not what your $40,000 pays for - most of that is administrative bloat these days.

Groxx 13y ago

Oy, people, this is obviously referring to the cases where such costs are reflected by disinterested / unhelpful teachers, which I at least would argue is the vast majority when compared against those who use their benevolent dictatorship to good effect. Such cases are a waste of time and money, and you have essentially no recourse, and no way to prevent it from happening to others. Schools are not exclusively populated by wonderful teachers. Not even close. As nice as it is to give power to those that are, it also gives power to those that aren't, probably disproportionately so due to sheer numbers. Should we be celebrating and continuing a practice that is a net harm? Is it a net harm?

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rwl 13y ago

You may be looking in the wrong place. Faculty and other teaching staff are not usually paid directly by students paying tuition. At larger research universities, tuition might not even make up a significant portion of their salaries (which are also paid by things like government grants, interest on endowments, etc.). They are paid to do research, and their incentives are aligned not toward better teaching but toward publishing and bringing in grant money. Teaching is time-consuming and takes away from those activities, so not all professors like doing it or do it well. The people who in my experience are most responsive to undergraduates (and their parents) qua paying customers are administrators and "development" people. These people are paid to bring in money in the form of tuition and donations from parents and alumni. With them, you can expect to get some pretty special treatment if you're willing to pay for it, though of course that special treatment isn't supposed to extend to how you're treated in the classroom. And there are good reasons for that: not everyone can pay full tuition, and students shouldn't get more attention/higher grades/etc. just because they're paying more. I'm not saying this is the way things are everywhere, and I'm certainly not saying it's the way things ought to be. I do think that many faculty need to take teaching more seriously, and their incentives should be better aligned in that direction. Still, I'm not convinced that education would improve if faculty started seeing students as fee for service customers. In the extreme, I think that would tend to increase faculty's tendency to pander to students, instead of creating and sharing new knowledge with them.

mahyarm 13y ago
Then these overqualified research professors should not waste their time teaching and have this conflict of interest. They should be just mentoring the next generation of research professors and doing their research, since that is where most of their money comes from anyway. I've gotten far superior instruction in math for example from dedicated instructors at community colleges than I ever got at my university. 30 people sized classes vs 300 sized and it was almost half price. These community colleges are only devoted to teaching and generally they do just fine. A dedicated 24/7 tutor lab and khan academy to be honest would of even been better in some aspects, since you can just tunnel through material, have a tutor help you in a spot you get stuck in and keep on tunneling.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

>Why do we celebrate this theme of Professor as omnipotent, "We" don't > benevolent dictator of the classroom? What do you suggest? Democracy? > My last year in school the combined cost of tuition, books, and room and board hit $40,000. I think that it has never been communicated well what it really costs to deliver instruction, labs, etc. At least at state funded schools, tuition is only a small part of the cost of running the place. Of course, that money isn't always spent optimally, but that's another story. > At what point do you become not just a student, but also a fee for service consumer, with an appropriate set of expectations for some level of responsiveness and customer service? Expect to pay a lot more for concierge level service. Also, I'm skeptical of the efficacy of that approach.

greenyoda 13y ago

Would a professor who thought of himself as an "omnipotent, benevolent dictator" encourage his students to interrupt him whenever they didn't understand something? He seems to be asking his students to treat him more like a colleague than a superior, which is much the same relationship you'd have with a good PhD advisor or the leader of a graduate seminar. And he seems to really care about the future success of his students: "But what I can probably achieve is showing most of you how to become mathematically much more effective, because the other courses in mathematics may teach you mathematics, but rarely teach you how not to waste your time." Also, from the point of view of someone paying for an expensive product, why would I want the provider of the service to be able to dictate the details of how I use it? E.g., if I don't feel I'm getting any value from a particular homework assignment that I paid for, why should I be penalized for not doing it? When I was a student in college, I thought of myself as an adult and didn't want to be treated like a child either by my professors or by my parents. I would have appreciated a professor like Dijkstra.

coldtea 13y ago

>Why do we celebrate this theme of Professor as omnipotent, benevolent dictator of the classroom? My last year in school the combined cost of tuition, books, and room and board hit $40,000. At what point do you become not just a student, but also a fee for service consumer, with an appropriate set of expectations for some level of responsiveness and customer service? We don't celebrate it since a long time. Alas, we have lost it to the cry-baby, demaning consumer student attitude, you very well describe. That's why university studies are going downhill. He is not there to learn. As a customer, he is, after all, always right. And if the customer demands an A, he shall get an A. Or maybe a B, is the professor resists giving an A to a C minus student.

chunky1994 13y ago

Here's my two pence as a student, I highly admire the approach of prof. Dijkstra here, since the purpose of going to University is to learn the most we can, from people who know the stuff they're teaching very well, or have the ability to understand said things at a deeper level than the student currently has. Thus, I cannot see how paying tuition entitles us to demand a professor to do X/Y/Z for us, we're paying not for them to be at our feet, but for access to their understanding of subject matter, which often (depending on the prof./University) is world class. I also do not see how the professor comes across as omnipotent here at all, he gives students complete control, as can be seen in If I use a word you don't recognize or a sentence you cannot attach a meaning to, it is your duty to ask for clarification. If I go too fast, it is your duty to slow me down. We pay for our professor's time, and very often the professors who treat the students as adults are the most effective, and are contributing not just to the knowledge of the student, but to their growth as independent thinkers as well.

krmboya 13y ago

I'm a recent university graduate in a so-called 'third world country'. You have no idea how much I'd give just to 'hang out' in the classes of someone the caliber of Dijkstra.

kragen 13y ago

Well, the professor is the person in a position to judge which things are important for you to learn and whether you have learned them. This is a crucial difference from hiring someone to wash your car. If you are looking for a fee-for-service consumer relationship, I believe there are any number of diploma mills and for-profit schools with scandalous dropout rates who will be happy to oblige you. But I'd appreciate it if you didn't attempt to interfere with people who are looking to be educated, which is to say, guided to develop into proper humans, rather than serviced. It has been two thousand years, and there is still no royal road to geometry, Your Majesty.

rtpg 13y ago

It's called "office hours".