3 ms·

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.
  - yuliyp 13y ago
    We can't all be in the top 1% of achievers, but that doesn't mean we all shouldn't try. Far more than 1% of people are capable of being above the threshold for "top 1% of achievers" as judged by today. Similarly, striving to be the best doesn't mean you're trying to put others down, it means you're trying to improve yourself. That unless others do likewise you'll improve on a relative basis is not the important thing, rather that you'll improve compared to your old self. tl;dr Compete with yourself.
- eruditely 13y ago
  Not at all. Just life is greater than competition.
GuiA 13y ago
The key to this sentence lies in the second statement: "and rarely aspire to do so". I have no qualms with students working enough to understand the material and not wanting to get 100% on every test; that's perfectly fine. But in my experience teaching, the students who hold the "customer service" arguments are mostly the ones who are asking me if they can leave the lab early because it's half price Margarita night at the local bar (direct quote here, and not the only one of its kind). That's what I meant, sorry if it wasn't clear.
- LockeWatts 13y ago
  I'd really just like professors to grade things with some amount of expediency. You have TAs to help you with the work, and we had a deadline for getting it to you. Since my cost-benefit analysis on how much work I'm going to devote to your class versus another class is directly proportional to my grade on previous assignments, too long of a delay can wildly impact grades.
drmr 13y ago
Even at the top of the class standards can be pretty low. Regularly I get the impression that a lot of grading in the US is rank or curve-based, which seems like total bullshit to me. The best performing student could still very well provide poor quality work. A good teacher evaluates students individually and tries to take each of their levels and learning-speeds in to account. Luckily I have mostly had university classes with 15-30 students, which gives the teachers a lot of space to approach students individually.
- LockeWatts 13y ago
  "Regularly I get the impression that a lot of grading in the US is rank or curve-based, which seems like total bullshit to me. This is also a sweeping assumption that you shouldn't have made.

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.
- yuliyp 13y ago
  We can't all be in the top 1% of achievers, but that doesn't mean we all shouldn't try. Far more than 1% of people are capable of being above the threshold for "top 1% of achievers" as judged by today. Similarly, striving to be the best doesn't mean you're trying to put others down, it means you're trying to improve yourself. That unless others do likewise you'll improve on a relative basis is not the important thing, rather that you'll improve compared to your old self. tl;dr Compete with yourself.
eruditely 13y ago
Not at all. Just life is greater than competition.

GuiA 13y ago

The key to this sentence lies in the second statement: "and rarely aspire to do so". I have no qualms with students working enough to understand the material and not wanting to get 100% on every test; that's perfectly fine. But in my experience teaching, the students who hold the "customer service" arguments are mostly the ones who are asking me if they can leave the lab early because it's half price Margarita night at the local bar (direct quote here, and not the only one of its kind). That's what I meant, sorry if it wasn't clear.

LockeWatts 13y ago
I'd really just like professors to grade things with some amount of expediency. You have TAs to help you with the work, and we had a deadline for getting it to you. Since my cost-benefit analysis on how much work I'm going to devote to your class versus another class is directly proportional to my grade on previous assignments, too long of a delay can wildly impact grades.

drmr 13y ago

Even at the top of the class standards can be pretty low. Regularly I get the impression that a lot of grading in the US is rank or curve-based, which seems like total bullshit to me. The best performing student could still very well provide poor quality work. A good teacher evaluates students individually and tries to take each of their levels and learning-speeds in to account. Luckily I have mostly had university classes with 15-30 students, which gives the teachers a lot of space to approach students individually.

LockeWatts 13y ago
"Regularly I get the impression that a lot of grading in the US is rank or curve-based, which seems like total bullshit to me. This is also a sweeping assumption that you shouldn't have made.