<p>Sorry, I don’t really know how to quote properly. But here are some really quick responses.</p>
<p>“Maybe so, but my point was that if you’re one of those people who actually wants/tries to learn all the material, core is going to be a miserable experience. Also, I don’t think your interpretation of core is the intended one. Caltech likes to talk about the breadth of knowledge all its students get from core–I think they are crazy enough to think we’re actually learning all that they’re throwing at us. Besides, if you want to teach critical thinking and problem solving, there’s no reason to cram so much material into those five terms. I think we’d be better served having less material and more time to think about the problems if that were core’s intended purpose.”</p>
<p>I never said that my interpretation of core is the intended one, but it’s a mindset that has helped me a lot, personally, and so I used this opportunity to share it, so that the incoming freshman/applicants aren’t super saturated with the bitter, demonized view of core that many techers on cc seem to have. Again, I’ll be frank in saying that I haven’t spent any time really thinking about better ways of improving core, I spent most of my time either in lab, reading papers or thinking about chemistry. But I’m just offering a counterexample, that while I think core can certainly be improved, I don’t think it’s this hellhole that everyone describes it to be, and I went through core back when it was “harder.” without the option of prac physics without labs. And it might also be my looking back as a senior, whereas I’m farther removed from just staying up late to finish the problem sets, and have more opportunities to really see how many different modes of thinking have assisted me in thinking about problems in my research.</p>
<p>Again, I commented that in my view, one of the main points of core was to expose you to many different ways that people have solved problems in the past- by asking you interesting, tough, but ultimately, solved problems. I don’t think it’s such a big deal to ask freshmen and sophmores to think through thought processes that previous great scientists have thought through. And again, if they come up with a novel solution, great! If they don’t, that’s fine too. And so the more problems you see/solutions you see, the better. </p>
<p>“No offense, but I think this attitude is what keeps Caltech from improving its teaching quality. As long as you can point your finger at the students and say “well, you should have gone to a TA or the person down the hall if your prof was bad,” then the profs never have to get any better. I’m not saying you shouldn’t learn from people other than profs. But I think this should be a supplement to what you learn in class, not a replacement. It’s perfectly valid for people to be irritated if the teaching quality is bad so that they have to seek out information they should have learned in class from another source. It’s not other students’ job to teach you what the prof should have, even if they’re willing to do it (which they usually are).”</p>
<p>No offense, but you should read more carefully what I said. I never said that poor teaching was excusable. In fact I said it was inexcusable. But again, I will reiterate that poor learning is also inexcusable. Students who really want to learn the material should go find a way of learning it, that’s our responsibility as students and as future scientists. By all means, we should comment and get angry when there is poor teaching- but we shouldn’t let it stop us from learning. And I also disagree about it not being a replacement. Different people learn things differently, some people don’t learn well at all by lecturing, and instead use the lectures as a supplement. Especially at a place like tech where there are so many bright people, who all have very different ways of thinking. </p>
<p>I’m not saying that you can’t be irritated. I didn’t complain about students whining about poor teaching, but rather about their own learning. Students have a right to say “Professor X sucked at teaching class A.” But in the real world, in grad school, in a real lab, people aren’t going to care whether or not Professor X sucked at teaching class A- but rather whether or not you learned the material in class A. And the only one who has ANY control over whether or not you learned the material in class A is you. If you care about learning the material, no matter how good the teaching, you’ll learn it. If you don’t care about learning the material, no matter how good the teaching is, you won’t. I firmly believe that this is all in your hands. </p>
<p>I’d like to stress, I’m not giving teachers a free pass, they certainly need to be help accountable, but there are avenues for this, we have TQFR’s, we have a SFC conference every two years, and I’ve sat on the committee for chemistry, and we do talk to the professors and go over the TQFR’s and the biggest complaints. We have ombudsmen, we have the ARC. There are so many avenues by which you can complain about poor teaching. And so the professors are NOT getting a free pass for poor teaching, but students should NOT get a free pass for not learning the material. </p>
<p>Anyways, feel free to disagree. But I feel like you’re arguing against points that I never made. I hope this response clarifies things.</p>