<p>Ok, Gatech is a large research oriented public university, so it makes me wary of its commitment to undergraduate teaching. I’ve heard of weed-out classes and negligent profs/TAs. I accept this fact. However, are professors here open for undergrad for research? OR are they preoccupied with their own high level research and their post doc/grad students? Is it easy to build a good relationship with professors at tech? Or in other words, are they open/accessible to undergraduate students? Any insightful feedbacks are highly appreciated.
thanx</p>
<p>^
all teachers are supposed to have office hours where they are required to be available to students for help and such…</p>
<p>I know that there are many opportunities for undergrad research but you will have to seek out your professors about said opportunities. Don’t expect them to come to you but if you are aggressive (in a friendly but interested kind of way) then you can build relationships.</p>
<p>To sum up what Ilyssa and I said, the professors are very accessible.</p>
<p>Manifesto, as far as I remember from one/some of your many contributions in this forum, you are NOT a student at Georgia Tech yet … </p>
<p>So, what do you think entitles you to comment on a question like this one ??</p>
<p>Neither is ilyssa if you want to put it that way. She’s going there starting next month. They are accessible from what I’ve researched from this forum, other web pages, and I know about the opportunities for research from going on the ECE-specific webpages and literally looking at the “Available Research” page which listed all research that was open for students. If I remember correctly, it hadn’t been updated in a few years, but I’m sure they just have another way of notifying students about research.</p>
<p>Everything else I said in that post is either common sense or I heard it at the info session/tour.</p>
<p>Found it for you: <a href=“http://www.ece.gatech.edu/orgs/urop/projectdes.html[/url]”>http://www.ece.gatech.edu/orgs/urop/projectdes.html</a></p>
<p>With all due respect - none of the sources you mention I would consider ‘credible’ or trustworthy … it’s either hearsay (copied from other threads, not necessarily honest, impossible to check) or biased (Marketing type documents or tour guide).</p>
<p>What the OP would have liked is some feedback from current students (which I’m not, I’m a parent of a rising freshman); I’m sure he/she did the very same ‘research’ that you did (and so did my son & I) and found the same sources, so I’m quite sure your post didn’t add anything new … </p>
<p>Nothing personal, just an observation …</p>
<p>hm… idk whether slightmanifesto and ilyssa sources are credible or not, but they seem to have it right (with respect to my personal experiences- 2nd year student at tech). </p>
<p>The weed-out classes don’t determine a prof.'s temperament. These are difficult classes to get good grades in because of the way they are curved due to the large number of bright students taking them. People unjustly assume that the teachers are unapproachable because their classes are difficult. If you need help, go see them after class (prof. often linger around for a while), during office hours, or see your TA.
As for the TA’s some are helpful and some are not depending on their level of commitment. But as far as I can see, most teachers at tech are very committed to teaching.</p>
<p>In terms of research, teachers never come to you, unless you are in a small class and are a stand-out student. From my experiences, when I contact a prof. for research opportunities, they have all responded positively, even if I don’t get the position.</p>
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<p>As a graduate student working in one of the schools that has a lot of weed out courses, I get to hear the faculty/staff side of the story. The common gripes I hear are this:</p>
<ol>
<li> Students don’t come to class</li>
<li> Students don’t utilize office hours. I was officemates with a few TA’s from the weedout courses and there were perhaps 2 or 3 people out of their sections of 20 that would ever come to office hours. Those students got either A’s or B’s, by the way.</li>
<li> Students are poorly prepared. I have heard complaints that they simply cannot ask some types of difficult questions anymore. This is verified by looking over the past 20 years of exams for that class and seeing how easy the tests are today by comparison (many are even totally multiple choice).</li>
</ol>
<p>ANY Tech student can address items 1 and 2; 3 is a bit tougher and sadly is just a product of how crappy high school education has gotten.</p>
<p>I don’t know about 3. gthopeful. While multiple choice may require less extrapolation and creative thinking, there is greater risk associated with it. I’ve seen gen. chem. exams from GT admittedly, and they are somewhat easier than ours (MC/short answer hybrids), but I imagine grades are lower due to a lack of partial credit. The bio MC exams (only one prof. offers MC/short answer hybrids and he’s really tough) here are pretty tough (only 30-35 questions), and the average for bio 141/142 is 2.5-2.6. I don’t think the intention is to make the tests easier. I think it’s to make grading the tests easier in Tech’s case. Probably too many students taking them. Same with bio. here, except some profs. are willing to grade papers. Bio 141/142 profs. have only undergrad. TAs I believe (the closest things we have to recitation is SI), so they must grade themselves. For some reason, the gen. chem. teachers don’t care as much about having to grade lots of papers because many of them are lecture track faculty whereas the bio profs do research.
I’ll agree about 1 and 2 though (though truancy seems to only be rampant in physics and calculus, and perhaps biochemistry b/c it’s so large). It seems that a lot of my peers won’t go if they are not doing that well in a class. They believe that the profs. don’t want to see students who are not doing well or that the teacher is tough because they do not like the students . I don’t know if that’s the attitude over there, but it’s a pretty stupid one, especially here where you pay a lot more for good access to the profs.</p>
<p>@whoever said i wouldnt not cause im not at Tech yet
most college require teachers to have office hours. this is not just at Tech. nor is it something that a student would have to go to Tech to know…
my boyfriend goes there so thats how I know Tech has this requirement.</p>
<p>Okay so I guess my contributions were hearsay. But that doesn’t totally unvalue them. What is this? Court?</p>
<p>I’m sorry that I didn’t know the OP only wanted current students. He clearly said any insightful feedback appreciated so I was just trying to help him out. Didn’t know I was offending anybody by trying to contribute.</p>
<p>@Ilyssa, I kind of threw you under the bus saying that you also were not at Tech yet (like I myself admitted) but I didn’t mean it to be insulting or anything. And if your boyfriend told you they require office hours, it is technically hearsay, but again, this isn’t court. Hearsay is not totally inadmissible. We were both right anyway, according to atreen who is a current student.</p>
<p>@eml, you can’t assume that the OP has done the same research. If he has, awesome and my contribution doesn’t really help him. If he hasn’t, then my contribution helps him. Additionally, apparently a objective link straight from the GATECH.EDU site is not good evidence that research is available???</p>
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<p>That’s the point: they require less creativity and merely test the basic concepts, so it’s like taking the SAT over and over. They certainly do not care about using up excessive amounts of TAs’ time grading either because many of them work less than the 20 hours they get paid for. I’m not getting my information from second-hand sources; I’m getting it from faculty members.</p>
<p>So it’s basically a way to make the tests easier on the conceptual level while technically keeping it a weedout in terms of grades I guess?</p>