<p>I was one of the students in his 3A class. Got an F. I was amazed at his grading and started taking count of friends/acquaintances’ grades in there. Of more than a dozen people, HALF got F’s, three got C’s, and the rest got D’s. It’s remarkable. These aren’t just dumb people either; some of these people were the brightest I’ve met here.</p>
<p>That statistic about 40% of engineering students is skewed as well. It doesn’t include non-engineering students. The original statistic I heard from someone in the comp. science department was “around 50-60%” failed the course.</p>
<p>I believe what caused it was:
- Lax atmosphere made students not take it seriously. Large class in Campbell Hall. Kids didn’t often pay attention (could be Akemann’s fault, many complained about his lecture style). Homework was never due so very many students didn’t do it. Most of my hall didn’t.</p>
<ol>
<li>For the kids that DID do the homework, it was very extensive and pretty difficult. I myself could almost never fully complete an assignment with decent understanding of the material. There was an on-line solutions manual available, but it was difficult to follow and virtually useless. Thus, homework seemed to be something that you did on your own and if you didn’t understand it, it was hard to get answers. </li>
</ol>
<p>3.The exams were still ridiculously hard. The way grading was done, the final was worth pretty much everything - the final overruled the midterms if it was higher than them, but for most kids it wasn’t. On his defense, the exam questions were taken straight out of the homework, with perhaps a number changed here and there. But like I said earlier, the homework was difficult and extensive, creating a sense that the most obscure, difficult questions were being picked out of there (not to mention, many people simply did not do the homework).</p>
<p>For me, the only redeeming thing in this course was the section with my T.A. He was very helpful and went over general concepts and homework questions. The problem was that these only happened once a week for an hour. I noticed that several questions off the homework even stumped him.</p>
<p>Anyways, after some momentary outrage and several emails being sent, I started getting responses from the department. The general consensus from them was that he didn’t do anything wrong; he told us from the beginning how he was going to grade and he stayed consistent with it. The difficulty of his class alone is not enough reason to take any action, since he has the freedom to make it as difficult as he wants. They went on to conclude that the bad grades were, well, our fault. I was a little insulted by this, seeing as how I studied every night, in a group, for a week before the final.</p>
<p>And just to be clear, this professor isn’t some evil, bad person. He was a fine guy in real life. He often told stories and jokes in class. Apparently, he could have retired with a higher pay than he receives staying and teaching, and he was the only person to volunteer teaching these classes. Of course, in my opinion, this doesn’t excuse his enormously unfair grading. This man has been teaching here for about 40 years - how can he, of all people, do this?</p>
<p>So that’s my story. I was dropped from 3 out of 4 of my classes due to 3A being a prerequisite and am now a quarter behind. I had to crash 5 classes this quarter because of this as well. Now, 3A classes are packed to the brim and it’s miserable. Kids are lining the walls and in the back. It’s difficult to see the chalk board from the back and, if you weren’t able to snag a seat, you can barely take notes either. I noticed many people giving up and resorting to read the paper. Ironic, too, with this very news story on the front page.</p>