Research university

boneh3ad
Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:02:06 +0000

That was an incredibly cynical response. Both schools I have attended (UIUC and TAMU) are large research institutions, and the number of great teachers far outweighs the number of bad teachers at both places for classes I have taken. I have admittedly limited experience here at TAMU, but I did the full 4 years at UIUC.

If your cynicism was 100% true, then why would demonstrated teaching ability and experience be a strict requirement for tenure-track positions at most if not all research institutions? The fact is that those institutions attract top minds not only through their reputation earned through research, but also through reputations earned through graduating quality engineers. You can’t train quality engineers without good teachers. Now, at research universities, you are definitely more likely to get a bad professor for a class, and there is definitely a lean in emphasis towards graduate programs rather than undergraduate programs, but your cynical overgeneralizing just takes it a bit too far.