How hard is brown?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
121

<p>
[quote]
Negru, honestly, the big chip on your shoulder will only get in your own way. I haven't read this thread in more than a passing way but, do take this upperclassman's advice: worry about yourself and don't walk around thinking you're smarter than everyone else.

[/quote]

Well thank you for the advice, I know what you mean, but no thanks :)
I don't think I'm smarter than everyone else. But I have no problem thinking nor saying that I am smarter than the people I meet which prove themselves dumber. In some specific context or subject at least. I do not have restraints of that type, don't plan on growing any either. </p>

<p>You people may think I'm just some elitist who recently fell down from a tree, but I'm really not making things up. You should check how school is done in other countries. Then you'll understand I'm not being an elitist out of boredom, but that what I'm pointing out are serious issues. Which you people should care about more than I do. Did you know that for a typical university in Europe the equivalent for highschool done in europe is highschool+2 years of college done here ? And it's not me saying that you see, but real schools which know what they're talking about. I could say that too by looking at courses and comparing. Doesn't that say anything to you?
And now obviously the "well you should've stayed there then!" remarks will start, instead of "hm, something could indeed be wrong here"</p>

122

<p>retarded |riˈt</p>

123

<p>And your comment on the differences between universities in Europe and the US comes as no surprise to me whatsoever. Different cultures, different lifestyles, different educational systems altogether. What is your point? Obviously it didn't bother you too much to be so "held back" at an American school.</p>

124

<p>Well the thing is I'm very sure you all know what I meant when I used "retard" so all this talk is pointless. If I use some word, it's because I have stereotypes within me? Maybe true. However, they are IN me, and unless I state them precisely, you have no right to call me racist. Having to make more than 2-3 connections and assumptions(or doing it automatically) to reach the conclusion that I actually mean something else , does mean that you are pushing it over the limit. Making connections that I never thought of and then throwing things at me isn't fair.</p>

<p>Having to think more overall about what terms to use, so that not even remotely you are insulting somebody, somewhere, than actually using them to say something is stupid. And it does propagate racism. Not actively, but it just keeps the notion alive in your head. The only way to get rid of racism, is to forget it. Not its past, but its present. If you continue with "oh no, you used the N-word, shame on you, when I was just maybe making a joke, or not paying attention to what I'm saying" you will never get rid of it. If any time you meet a black person you'll have to be like "must not say the n-word. must not make black jokes. must not appear disrespectful in any possible and impossible way. must not stare. must act natural" to yourself, this stigma will never go away.</p>

<p>But I'm actually surprised you didn't call me racist when I used congo as an example, in the sense of some country in the middle of who knows who. You know why? Because you don't have too many congolese around you, or you haven't heard too much about them, to care. So some things are ok to make fun of, but god forbid even remotely saying something that could be interpreted in a bad way about the usual stuff (blacks, gays, the poor, whatever), the taboo. That's why I don't give a crap on this whole PC thing, because it's useless, for one, and two, it's fake, and not even truly generalized. It's only about the things which have had a voice, or at least an echo, big enough here.</p>

<p>And the others have a problem too, if they identify more with their race, than their own person. Like if I start talking about, I dunno, how most black people in some part of town are nasty, and a random black person standing around is offended, than he's the racist. He is the one making assumptions and connections about things that have none, and as far as I know, that's what racism is. I'm just pointing out some facts, and he's interpreting them in a complete different way. So who is unfair? Should I be not talking about delicate things, or should the other person understand I'm not inferring anything about him in particular, nor his WHOLE race in general.</p>

<p>If you begin talking how lazy and thieving Romanians are, I'm not gonna be offended. I'm going to agree and support you. I know it's true. Not completely, but good enough for me to accept. Because I know you never thought of accusing me of being like that, so I won't be personally offended. So there you go, you will never have any problems concerning racism or stereotypes with me, because I don't care. I am not the romanian people, nor their representative. I just happened to be born at the respective coordinates, that is all. If however you start with nationalistic pride and crap, of course you'll make problems for everyone. And this is how someone like me, who is not only not racist, but completely anti-nationalistic, be accused of being one. If this is allowed to happen, I can say that for sure your system of PC-ness fails miserably.</p>

125

<p>I didn't mention the Congo thing because I either wasn't involved in the discussion at that point or wasn't interested in what you were talking about. Until a few posts ago, I was only interested in the debate on socialism.</p>

<p>You aren't pointing out facts, but blind and preconceived generalizations. And the meaning behind the N-word, if you are talking about that specifically, doesn't change. You don't joke about something like that. Making light of it is like saying "it's okay your ancestors were enslaved for 150+ years" without the words coming out of your mouth. </p>

<p>What you fail to realize here is that words can be potent and volatile. You do not think about the implications of what you say and the consequences that may follow for saying it. It doesn't matter what YOU think about the meaning of the phrases you use; the groups targeted by them are the ones that feel the pain. It's great that you won't be ****ed off if someone starts yelling about Romanians. Not everyone is you. Not everyone will shrug something like that off. It's not necessarily nationalism, it's just personal identity. You can't fault people for defining him or herself in one way or another.</p>

<p>And that has nothing to do with drawing extraneous interpretations. That's looking at your words and seeing the actual meaning behind them. But go on, keep on spouting up those phrases of hate and discrimination. Just don't whine about how people shouldn't "take your words so seriously" when you get punched out for it.</p>

126

<p>
[quote]
Making light of it is like saying "it's okay your ancestors were enslaved for 150+ years" without the words coming out of your mouth.

[/quote]

And you think that enforcing a PC police state will fix anything? Or having meetings called "that's so racist" will ?
It's like you just suddenly realized they aren't slaves but humans, after 150 years, and now you give them cookies to make them feel better. I would be ashamed, and disgusted with this. If you don't want to victimize me, don't treat me like a victim. Treat me like a normal person.
I sometimes wonder if real life racist acts make all these things appear, or if it is actually the other way around. But I think they live off of each other.</p>

127

<p>
[quote]
And your comment on the differences between universities in Europe and the US comes as no surprise to me whatsoever. Different cultures, different lifestyles, different educational systems altogether. What is your point? Obviously it didn't bother you too much to be so "held back" at an American school.

[/quote]

So it's perfectly ok with you that your educational system creates this difference? Different lifestyle? I don't see how donuts and waffles make up for it.</p>

128

<p>Forgetting about or ignoring the past just leads to repetition. I'm not saying you should have a "PC meeting" or any ludicrous thing like that. But you are ignoring that these words have history behind them, and that they are ugly histories that still cause pain and suffering.</p>

<p>I am not treating anyone "nicer" or anything like that because of something I was not involved in (nor was any part of my family for that matter - we were still Europeans until the 1900s). I am treating them like I treat everyone else. And don't use words or phrases that are racially charged and degrading, so that I CAN treat them as equals. You talk about getting past the history, and yet you keep it alive by continuing to use the words.</p>

129

<p>The world population is growing. Many top universities in the US and abroad are enlarging. Each year a new crop of students arrives. This means that each year there is a chance that one of those students is the smartest person who has ever set foot on a particular campus. </p>

<p>It is possible that we are in the presence of that person for one such college.</p>

<p>The convoluted logic and less than articulate language make this doubtful, but who am I to judge?</p>

130

<p>Exactly, so lets just observe the facts.</p>

<p>So far, the facts are that we are losing from 20 to 30 minutes per hour only for the professor to answer stupid questions. I am entitled to 1 hour of course, not half of it. That's why office hours exist. And I never claimed I'm smart, I'm just saying that some of my fellow students in class are way too low, and everybody is losing lots of time because of them. And it troubles me that losing time in favor of them is acceptable. Not just troubles me, but affects me. So, I am very entitled to complain about it.
The professor decided to not count the exam, but give everyone with under 30% a chance to redo it as homework. This also affects me, since I wasted time studying for it, in hope of getting a good grade. Now, because I didn't get a perfect score (did get the highest one tho if that makes any difference), I am obviously disadvantaged.
If this continues, in 10 years I predict they'll be studying counting to ten in junior year, because if the students can't handle the course, what is expected? Why, make the course easier for them, of course. We mustn't upset the poor babies, they need grades, degrees, of course. Who cares that they actually don't know anything in their major?</p>

131

<p>Now I understand, sort of. Angry that, having gotten the highest score on the exam, others are given a chance to catch up. But, if the course is so absurdly easy, and the other students so slow, then isn't the highest score in the class virtually assured? So why worry? </p>

<p>And if the material is so easy, then why worry about professors spending time in class explaining it? You obviously do not need the explanations, so what difference does it make? </p>

<p>In fact, why go to class at all? Clearly the pace is too slow. Log an hour or two a week, if even that is necessary, studying. Then spend the rest of your time on research, teaching, extracurriculars, get a job...</p>

<p>I do recall reading about a multi IMO gold medalist at MIT who would take 7-9 courses a semester, rarely attend class, since he did not need to, and ended up with several degrees by the time he finished his 4 years. Makes more sense than going to class and complaining about what goes on. Life is too short, do something useful.</p>

132

<p>Well you see I can't take more than 5 classes, and I can't TA a course without taking at least a similar one before, also as an international I have some limitations on what I can work atm off-campus.
Why go to class? Because I'm paying for the tuition, that's why. And for the money I'm paying it's only fair to expect something, right? Well if they decide to pay me back for physics 7 and 47 which I stopped attending, that would be great.
I'm not really angry that he's giving them a chance, I don't care about the grade, it's about the principle of doing something unfair to the ones who got a good grade. See, it's all about sacrificing the good in favor of the poor. Whether that sacrificing will lead to even a minute change for them, is completely beyond the point.
If you can't handle the course, fail it, and go major in something which suites you better.</p>

133

<p>I don't know if this has been asked or not, but why didn't you take a more advanced course if this is so easy for you?</p>

<p>Also, Brown isn't about taking only the courses that complement your major. You can't fault someone for being curious. It's rather odd that you are so hostile about this, as the impression I got from the Brown students I met when I visited was warm and welcoming. In fact, one mentioned the cooperation of the students stretches as far as peers going out of their way to aid someone who is struggling in a class they may not excel at.</p>

134

<p>But you can always work on a research idea of your own and then try getting a research assistanship or a UTRA next year? You don't become a great scientist by solving problems on the exam or practicing problems from a textbook - you become a great scientist by experimentation - thinking about great ideas. A few pages ago on this thread, you commented that resistance was basically only a definition. But that's not true. Resistance is a complete theory that was arrived at by careful experimentation. It's not hard to at all to solve problems on the basis of equations written on the textbook. A large amount of people can do that with some practice. I would bet that the majority of your class in Phy 153 could do that with practice even though they scored 30% on the exam. But to become a great scientist you need to have the ability to discover generalizations. And you can't get that through practice. </p>

<p>As for the level of difficulty of the courses, I would like to take my example. I do not find the courses hard. I did not expect to find them hard. I did not come to Brown to do super-hard problem sets and super-hard exams. I could have got plentiful of that in India. Nor is the coursework something I can't understand by reading the book myself. I came here because here I actually get the time to research subjects on my own. For example, right now I'm going through Newton's Principia. It's not that I don't know the laws of motions. I know them since 8th grade. At it's very easy to apply them to problems. But I don't know why the laws of motion are true. All I know is that they give the right answers to homework problems. I don't know how Newton actually came up with his theories. The Navier-Stokes equations require the knowledge of just Newton's second law, the Law of conservation of momentum and the law of conservation of energy - stuff that I know since 9th grade. And yet with the knowledge I have right now, I could never come up with the Navier-Stokes equations on my own (without any previous knowledge of the equations). But if I truly understood the three laws, why couldn't I come up with the Navier-Stokes equations - there must be a deficiency in my understanding. Just because I can solve a bunch of problems on exams and homeworks does not mean I understand the ideas behind what I'm doing. Likewise, I keep thinking off and on about how to make search engines better (I'll be concentrating in CS). Sure I may or may not come up with something new, but I'm gaining a lot of knowledge both in terms of methods of thinking and it terms of learning new algorithms. I would never have been able to do so much in India because I would never have got the time nor that much equipment to mess around with. </p>

<p>So you don't find the courses hard. Great - why don't you start messing around with stuff on your own? How does it matter what your classmates are doing?</p>

135

<p>sid_galt, what you just said is exactly the reason why I love Brown so much - to find students who are genuinely interested in their studies, and who seek to fully understand what they are hearing, and not just receive good grades by the course's end.</p>

136

<p>Well, yes that's why I came to brown too. If I stayed in romania, in one semester of physics I would've done all 4 years of brown. And I'm not exaggerating, I went to the lectures in my gap year, I know how it works. But what's happening here is beyond ridiculous.
If I wanted to do research on my own, I wouldn't come to brown. I would think of my own experiments like you're suggesting, and ask my parents to sponsor me, instead of paying my bill at brown. Because I came here to do EXACTLY what I couldn't do on my own. Expecting to find classes just for that. Otherwise, why not just stay at home and do my own things?
A university should be built upon what students want and need (at least a liberal one, like brown is supposed to be) not the other way around. So what are you telling me, "sorry our classes are too easy, just go somewhere and do something?" what kind of freaking answer is that? Especially when I'm paying money? "We're sorry you already reached this level, so just go get a job or something" ?</p>

<p>Of course, a great thing about Brown is taking courses not related to your field. But taking a course in some other field doesn't mean you have to let everybody know it's the first time you see the things - some people are actually serious about their stuff. What would people say if i went to a literature course, and be like "wooohaaaaa, BOOKS?! I haven't seen these in yeaaaars! Can you please explain to me, like for a 4 year old, how to read, because well, this is just my first course in reading, and I don't understand any of this?" This would be exactly the same.</p>

<p>Resistance is just a definition. It's the relation between the current and voltage difference. It's not a concept on its own, because it doesn't signify anything besides a relationship between two other physical quantities.</p>

<p>And don't worry, simply having skill in applying formulas means nothing. If in i dunno, my 10 th grade math class I would only know all the formulas, I wouldn't get ore than 30% on a typical exam. Education isn't based just on knowing the formulas like it is here. It certainly isn't like the math 20 exam was.
Today in phys 47 some other teacher came for some reason, so he didn't know exactly what we had studied. He asked if we knew (integral of) E dl, and the class was like..uhhhhhh...hmmmm....w don't think so...hmm, nope, never saw it. At this point I was already laughing loudly. Then some genius comes out from the masses, and says, "like wait..isn't like that like (integral of) E..... ds?" the teacher so erases the "l" and puts a instead an "s". "does this one look familiar then?" And the whole class goes like "aaaaahhhh...yes, we did that one". Do I need even comment? Is it still wrong of me to address negative adjectives to the intellectual ability of some of my fellow brown students, some probably actually majoring in physics?</p>

<p>I took these course because it was what I was advised. I, for some reason, did not have time to attend during the shopping period all 30 courses which may have interested me. When my advisor and teacher for 47 almost freaked out that I want to take it in my freshman year, I thought, hmm, ok, this seems to be an adequately hard course, considering their reaction. How was I supposed to know what it's REALLY about? I mean, I knew what it's about, how was I supposed to know the level at which we're gonna study it? How was I to know the level of my classmates? I thought, well, at least they'll be sophomores, in the worst case, they should be not so behind. How was I supposed to know that in this world some people actually don't know what vectors are, in their freshman year?</p>

<p>You see this is the difference in our mentalities. As long as a single minute thing that I can complain about exists, I'm not going to shut up about it. If it's going to get solved, by the time it does, I'm already gonna be complaining about the next. You can consider it an eastern european thing, it's very generalized in the region. It's not whining, and not being pretentious, it's about not being satisfied when something is working worse than it could and should. </p>

<p>Now, it's your option whether you see it as constant whining, or suggestion for improvement.
But it sickens me to see that asking for a course to be made easier is seen as a positive suggestion, but asking for a more difficult level is seen as whining.</p>

137

<p>Seriously now, if instead of blatantly postulating my awesomeness in this thread, I would've started whining about how hard physics 153 is, and how mean and nasty the teacher was about the test, where I got a zero, but because it was so very very difficult, completely impossible, even with all the books on my lap. Basically, if I was one of the super-zero-scorers, what would've your reactions been? Very positive and supporting I'm sure. For you being stupid is ok, being smart isn't. It's like because I'm a little smart, I"m supposed to be ashamed, and just stay in my corner, and say nothing. But if I'm not so smart, I have to show it off, to show you that I'm just like everyone else, no higher aspirations, expect maybe to be better than the rest by adding another completely pointless non-intellectual EC to my list. Maybe doing a varsity sport too. That's always cool. </p>

<p>And don't worry I'm not a constant very nasty person. Hell, whenever I go to the math resource center to get some help with some stuff I'm reading, I gladly help my classmates from math 20. I even explain to them real slowly why moving terms from the left side of an equation to the right involves adding a minus sign, unless you're exchanging the nominator with the denominator. I have lots of patience. BUT not during the course for which I'm paying, thank you, and where I go to learn stuff, not stare at the walls, laugh my ass off (as entertaining that may be), or simply wish I had stayed home and slept, or did something more intellectually challenging, like watching porn.</p>

<p>So it's basically "oh you're too good? well, sucks for you then..but don't worry, if you're so smart, you can think of something" and "oh, you're having trouble? Don't worry, we can help you, what do you need, how can we make you feel better? Would you like some cookies?"</p>

<p>Bad to be smart, good to be dumb. Got it. The whole society makes sense now.</p>

138

<p>If you really learn everything effortlessly on your own, then it is silly to go to class. There are more useful things to do with your time.</p>

<p>If the faculty shares your evaluation of your brilliance, they will be delighted to start you on research projects. Today. No need to wait until next semester or next year. No need to get a fellowship. Talk you your physics professors. Explain to them how you are ten times smarter than anyone else in the class. If they believe you they will put you to work immediately. </p>

<p>Advanced education is not about course work. This is something one does on the way to higher education. Most of the time in a doctoral program is spent after coursework has been completed. If you are ready for bigger challenges, they are there for the taking.</p>

139

<p>This is true I know of a underclassmen taking upper-level grad classes</p>

140

<p>Good good for him, but in case you haven't checked the calendar lately, it's a little late to change courses, so I'm stuck where I am atm.
And I never mentioned anything about the lack of advanced courses (or maybe i did) what I'm talking about is the level of the courses, not the background to them. So if I take the grad course on mechanics, which I will next fall, I still won't be doing anything on an advanced level (ie, hard problems, which require just knowledge of newton's law, and several days of thinking about what to do with them) I'll just be learning new formulas and how to apply them on different problems. No thinking involved</p>