<p>I recently took summer classes for classes phys 2211 and calc 1502 and did pretty badly in them (two Ds)..so I retook them this Fall with easier teachers and I might actually be doing even worse this time around (at least in calc). Although I guess I should be expecting this since I don't study that much at all besides right before the test. It just seems like the professors aren't really giving material to learn, just material to be difficult. Is this normal? I'm just completely unmotivated at this point and not sure what to do,</p>
<p>Now I am not in college yet, but from what I’ve heard, many students drop their engineering major because it’s too hard, too much work, and generally not the fun stuff at the beginning they expected. However when Junior and Senior year come around, you get rewarded with the fun stuff :)</p>
<p>For CS, it is certainly the case. It is much easier to get A’s at Junior and Senior level than first two years.</p>
<p>Have you tried tutoring? Your dorm should have tutoring in those classes, or you can try 1-to-1 tutoring: [Georgia</a> Institute of Technology :: Success Programs :: Academic Support](<a href=“http://successprograms.gatech.edu/academic_support/plugins/content/index.php?id=2]Georgia”>http://successprograms.gatech.edu/academic_support/plugins/content/index.php?id=2)</p>
<p>I tried tutoring once and got a really bad impression of it and haven’t tried it since. </p>
<p>I believe the problem must be motivation since people talk about studying every night of the week and I never really study until the tests come around. I’m not doing too badly in my physics class (I’ve gotten a 98 and an 88 on tests, and my test average is the top 20%) but in calculus I mostly get 50s or 60s. The teacher is supposedly really easy (he has a high gpa average) but doesn’t teach well at all. So he gives homework and tests and a final, and I guess it is implied that you study for the tests by doing the homework, although he doesn’t really teach how to do the homework. So the only option is to either copy the solutions manual (my method) or go to the math lab for every homework. I just think that is really dumb, why are we paying for someone to teach us how to teach ourselves how to learn calculus. I guess my question then is are these the only classes that are like that (does it get a lot better?).</p>
<p>Phew, and I am a cs major :P</p>
<p>Calculus teaches new concepts and your brain needs time to absorb them. Of all subjects, it was the one where I could not be successful waiting to study until the test. You have to absorb the concept, then do the homework. If you don’t understand the homework when you copy it, then you have not absorbed the concept. Also, there are some formulas that work better if you memorize them (just like you did your addition and subtraction facts and your multiplication tables). So understand, memorize, work until you understand how you (or the book) got the answer.</p>
<p>Those two classes in particular just plain suck to take at Tech</p>
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<p>People like to exaggerated how much they study. With most classes, you don’t need to study until right before a test (though it doesn’t hurt to read along in the textbook). </p>
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<p>Many students have the misperception that it’s the professor’s job to teach you the material. That’s not true. </p>
<p>In college, it’s the instructor’s job to establish the concepts necessary to be mastered. It’s the instructor’s job to provide you with resources to master that material (usually a text book, a syllabus, lectures, and individual counseling in office hours). It’s the student’s job to learn the material given those resources. If a student is not mastering the material, it’s the student’s job to find additional resources (outside tutoring, etc).</p>
<p>Some students confuse teaching with being able to explain complex things in simple terms. Those are not the same thing. The reason? How well a professor explains something depends entirely on the person receiving the information. I can explain something using a complex proof, and a quarter the class will think the explanation was excellent, and the other three quarters will fall asleep. Similarly, I can use basic logic to explain something, and get to a quarter of the class. What’s even worse is the method also affects the student: some students learn from a graph, some students learn from auditory explanations, some learn from examples, and some learn from interaction. Some will learn from the Socratic method, some will learn from class discussions, some will learn from in-class exercises, while others will learn from a pure lecture. In short: there are 200 people in that room and to adequately explain something to all of them will probably require 50 different explanations. That time just doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>As a result, many professors in college get a bad rap. When students do not learn, they tend to blame the professor for being “a bad teacher”. That’s not true. It’s almost always actually the student’s fault for not learning the material. The professor probably has 200 students in his lecture hall - he can’t talk to every student individually, assess what the student knows or doesn’t know, then direct individual attention to that student. In a major class, sure, but not in an intro class. It’s your job to figure out how you learn, then to assess the resources provided by the professor to make sure you learn. It’s the instructor’s job to guide you (i.e. instructor you) on your process.</p>
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<p>In smaller classes, professors get more feedback on how students are learning and where the challenges lie. If a large number of students have a problem, you try to explain it a different way. In large classes, you can’t see that. So what you do is lecture to the median student in the room.</p>
<p>This is a problem in all engineering colleges: the entire university has to take a few classes (Calc sequence, CS, physics, and chemistry, usually) so those classes tend to be large. When students get to major courses, they get much smaller (at Tech, around 30 students or less). The private schools might tend to “hide” this issue for the purpose of USNWR rankings, but in my experience, it’s an issue everywhere (the exception are the very, very small schools, i.e. <1000 undergrads, that tend to not have engineering).</p>
<p>For me, the school has some responsibility to provide decent teachers. I remember an advanced microeconomics course where, I swear, the prof taught in his native language. I managed to make an A by reading the book and studying notes from another class, but my class time was wasted until I learned to use it to read the book. Teaching does make a difference. In B-school in one of the required courses they gave a departmental final. All As on the final (thirty-something people) except two were gleaned by the students of one of four profs.</p>
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<p>honestly I don’t feel like the professor lectures to teach us anything at all, he is just there to fail us. I would probably learn more by doing my own problems in the book and getting math help on a forum or something.</p>
<p>I’m keeping fingers crossed that other classes aren’t like that.</p>