Brown CS 190 Summer Placement Test/Course - What are others' experiences?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
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Anybody out there an incoming freshman at Brown who is taking this course? Anybody a parent of such a student?

In our family, the experience thus far has been quite negative, driven in large part by communications with course instructors/TAs. For my kid, asking a question in the online portal was out of the question because of the tone of the responses to other student questions. Many, if not most, responses are hyper critical and personally insulting, without much actual useful feedback. So she submitted an assignment and got personal feedback that included a gratuitous personal insult - telling her explicitly that she must not even be trying to learn anything in the course.

This is a university known worldwide for the quality of its undergraduate instruction.

This has caused her to feel, at least for the moment, VERY negatively about CS at Brown. I’m actually grateful that this is occurring over the summer so that I can, in my professor-like fashion, convert it to a parenting teachable moment (my kids HATE it when I use that expression!). But I’m being completely serious - I’m telling her to dig deeper into all of the feedback for the useful information, to consider whether she could be working harder on her own to avoid some of the mistakes that she has apparently made, and to reconsider her reluctance to ask questions up front. That sort of advice, along with the more generic advice to weather the storm and learn from it and remember this experience so that when SHE is in such a leadership position, she is more careful in how SHE communicates feedback.

Thoughts?

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First of all, congrats to your daughter! Given that she is taking the exam, I can assume that the actual programming concepts aren’t an issue. The feedback on the other hand…

The feedback might be in one of two different categories.

The placement exam is computer tested, so it requires specific results. The requirements for the former might not be 100% specified in the instructions (e.g., the width of a bar on a bar graph). To limit the amount of confusion, the staff set up a discussion board for students. Questions about minutiae like the previous example are resolved quickly and fairly. I don’t think this is the issue.

In addition, the assignment gets trickier in that it is also hand-graded for formatting etiquette, which can be different for different languages and professors. This professor’s standards are specified in the textbook that he linked on his personal website. There have been multiple questions about the “design recipe”, which is described in the textbook. The professor also gave a list of bad etiquette forms to avoid on the first placement assignment.

I am willing to bet that the issue comes from your daughter failing to follow the etiquette instructions that are mentioned multiple times on each assignment and fully explained with examples in the recommended reading. It is not okay to ignore the instructions, even if your functions work fine. This was written in the grading policies that were explained on the assignment page.

If the problem is that the design recipe wasn’t clearly explained, my personal experience taking the same exam strongly disagrees.

If it is with the way Prof. Krishnamurthi responds to students, I would also disagree. I respect that you talk to your class differently, but it comes down to a matter of taste in this case. When the questions are about legitimate gaps in the assigment, as in the bar graph example, he responds completely normally. He only gets snarky when students ask questions about the instructions they should have read. If your daughter skipped the instructions for two(!) placement exams, that gives the wrong impression for an otherwise capable student.

Fortunately, there are two more placement tests which your daughter could easily finish. If she starts following the design specifications and other future instructions, she’ll get into (and excel in!) the class.

Good luck to her!

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I made an account just to comment on this. First of all, as a current undergraduate student at Brown studying CS, I am so sorry that this has been your daughter’s experience. This is not at all typical of the Brown CS department and I’m horrified to hear that this is happening (as I’m sure most of my peers would be).

CS19 is commonly touted as the “accelerated” introduction to computer science, as it allows you to skip a second semester of introductory CS - this is the first year that they’ve had a summer pre-course and clearly things are not working.

*** If the feedback that you’re discussing is coming from UTAs, tell her to email the MTAs and CC the head of the department immediately with screenshots of the feedback attached. ****

This is unprofessional, the TAs should be trained to know better than this, and the professor should be held accountable for this behavior. At no point in my own experience have I ever had a TA make a personal attack on me and it’s beyond sickening that this is happening before your daughter has even stepped foot on campus as a freshman.

CS19 is not the only available programming course. CS15 (Introduction to Object Oriented Programming) and CS17 (CS: An Integrated Introduction) are the two largest introductory programming sequences. Both cover the same concepts (albeit in slightly different ways) and both fulfill the same pre-requisites for upper level computer science courses. I strongly, strongly encourage your daughter to give one or both of these a chance during shopping period. CS19 has a wildly different course culture than any other class in the department and I’m angry and frustrated that it’s affecting students before they’ve had an opportunity to see what the department is truly like.

I appreciate that you’re trying to turn this situation into a learning experience, but this should never have been a situation in the first place. Your daughter, regardless of how hard she is or could be trying, should be supported 110% by her TAs the same way that every other undergraduate in the department is. I’m honestly at a loss for words right now. This is not acceptable, this is not the department that I know, and I’m so unbelievably sorry that this has affected how your daughter feels about CS.

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@brownbearz Thanks so much for your thoughtful, passionate response. I just sent you a personal message.

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I can’t comment specifically on this situation. I know nothing about this placement course/test, which sounds new. As an alum who has been an active volunteer for decades, I know that Brown values teaching – it specifically hires professors who want to teach and not just do research, for example.

I have taught, and it can be very frustrating when students ask questions that are clearly answered in the syllabus, and I could see how anyone might become snarky after the 10th question like that. I don’t know if that’s the situation here. However, there are way to be snarky without being personally insulting. One class I took at Brown many moons ago involved the professor calling on students randomly to have them comment on legal opinions – we all lived in fear of him calling on us, and he certainly got snarky when people couldn’t respond, but I don’t ever recall personal insults.

But there is absolutely no excuse for a professor or TA to hurl a “gratuitous personal insult” at a student, especially an incoming freshman where the only interaction is online. Nor is there any reason for an instructor to be “hyper critical and personally insulting” especially in a public setting.

I hope she has evidence of these interactions. Your daughter should submit them to the head of the department and the dean of the college. Perhaps she should contact other students in the class and suggest they act as a group.

Thank you, @brownbearz for such a wonderful response. However, I can’t say the same for the first answer. I’ve read it 3 times, and have no idea what the person is saying. If that person is a Brown student, I’m cringing because his writing is so opaque.

@profdad2021, I’ve known a fair number of Brown CS majors who have loved the department and been very successful. I hope your daughter’s experience improves once she gets on campus. To be successful at Brown she needs to advocate for herself. I hope she uses this experience as a springboard to do that.

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@dfSDLfjasl Thanks for your detailed post and for your clearly well-intended words of encouragement.

No congratulations are due to my daughter simply for registering for this summer course as any incoming freshman can register - no experience or competence is required. The placement test structure and the manner of student communication is what it is - this experience, rather than luck, will guide her moving forward.

I believe that this summer CS experience for my kid has been a plus already because it has, in a good way, taken a little “shine” out of Brown and taught her very quickly and efficiently that she cannot expect that each and every experience will be positive. Ultimately, she alone is responsible for her success and her confidence.

And I said in my original post, I’m glad that it occurred over the summer, while she is still home, so that she can process how this feels. I mean this with all sincerity - she is a tough kid and she learns life lessons well. While she was surprised this time, she will be better prepared moving forward.

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@fireandrain Thanks for your comment. I DO think this experience will serve in a positive way to help my daughter handle daily life stresses at Brown.

My kids have heard me MANY MANY times over the years complain about ANNOYING repeat questions from students - If I could have a dollar for each time I replied to an email question by telling the student to please check the syllabus or online class announcements before emailing me! Yet, even when I received an email complaint from a student a few weeks ago who missed an assignment deadline and told me, among other things, that my deadlines are “meaningless and arbitrary,” even then, I focused on the wording of my email response to be direct and clear while trying to avoid personal insult.

Importantly, one person’s “personal insult” is another’s person casual snarkly response, motivated by frustration and not ill intent. If this were an absolutely egregious outrage…I would encourage my daughter to follow up in some substantive way. But fortunately, I don’t think it is that sort of situation. Just more of a “live and learn” life experience for her. Onward and upward.

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Hi @profdad2021, speaking as a recent brown cs alum (2017) and having been a TA and HTA in the department in the past, I just want to add that I definitely believe there’s a difference in being blunt and giving “personal insults” in your responses to students as an instructor - having put in the effort to write responses that don’t come off as the latter, even if a question can be answered by reading the handout or instructions, I think that also comes with practice. What your daughter saw could potentially be a response from a TA who’s been hired for the first time, and hasn’t undergone professionalism training yet (happens at the start of each semester). That, of course, is not an excuse for rudeness imo, as that should in no way be part of addressing your students. There are also, imo differences in the course and staff cultures of all three intro CS tracks (based on having been through one and had a lot of friends who took/TA-ed the other tracks), and each have their pros and cons, so it definitely is a good thing to try this placement exam, but to not over-sweat it and also know that the other options are also good for everyone depending on interests!
I’d be happy to speak more about brown cs and TA-ing and intro courses in general - if you want to pm me! It was a fantastic department overall

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@browncssm15 Thanks for your comment! I sent you a pm.