<p>So my prof requires us to submit HW sets by midnight Sat. That'd be doable with good time management except: we are required to work in pairs, so what with schedules at odds, it works out that we always always always have to do the HW sets Fri. night - Sat. night. These are tough assignments that require many hours to complete, so basically our Saturdays are blown. Can't really even devote them to other subjects. We have had HW's due every Sat., including vacation and holiday weekends.</p>
<p>Does this seem ok? The prof. does kinda look down at us and say how ignorant we are...this has been a very tough situation for me. I try not to be totally affected by liking or disliking the prof., but this one has gotten to me. </p>
<p>I don’t recall ever having an assignment due on the weekend, but I know friends who’ve had assignments due at midnight on Sunday. It might cut down on time if you and your partner worked individually on the problem set before meeting up. The Saturday due date might actually be the professor’s way of making sure that partners who have radically different schedules can meet up before the problems are due. I mean, no matter what, the problems are going to take a long time. It just seems like you guys got unlucky, but if the professor were to move the due date, other people would be similarly affected (it might even be worse for the p-set to be due on a school night).</p>
<p>Your professor is an old coot, that probably grew up a loner and envied everyone else that went out and enjoyed life a little on saturday nights. He/she is obviously doing everything possible to make your weekends bland. I have never heard of having to turn in weekly problem sets on a SATURDAY, nor being forced to work in pairs. </p>
<p>The worse I ever experienced was my major’s department director (also an old coot), made us turn in assignments for a 0.5 unit class (only met a few times during the semester) at very odd dates that were not days we had to meet. But never on weekends - that’s just stupid. Good luck with that class.</p>
<p>I have had classes with Saturday deadlines and I have had classes with group assignments (especially for computer science and engineering projects; a few of my math classes allowed but did not require us to submit homework in pairs). I never had group assignments due on a Saturday, but that’s just plain coincidence.</p>
<p>I think your professor is considerate to give you until Saturday to do your work. Imagine the work was due at 4pm on Friday afternoons, which by many standards would be a more reasonable time. Would that make your life any easier?</p>
<p>I think your best strategy is to make the best of the situation. Could you split some of the work up between the two of you and do it separately before you meet on Fridays? Could you work with a different partner whose schedule works better with yours?</p>
<p>But I’m guessing you have all week to do the assignments - why not Sunday-Friday, why does it have to be on Saturday?</p>
<p>I know you said the assignment is long, but surely it cant take more than 6 hours? Let’s say you met up at 12pm on Saturday afternoon - wouldn’t you be done by 6pm at the latest? Unless the assignment is just really really ridiculously long…</p>
<p>I’ve had online assignments due 11PM Saturday, 11:59PM Sunday and Monday, and 11AM Tuesday. You just learn to deal with the due date for that particular class. The fact that it’s group work does complicate things, but nobody is saying you can’t work on another day that week.</p>
<p>Nope, not normal. Your professor must be a total *******.</p>
<p>Edit: your professor is DEFINITELY a <strong><em>head </em></strong>*. If I were you I’d pass/fail that class ASAP, drop it, or if neither is feasible, at least leave a few choice words on the course evaluation and in a letter to the department chair. What a jackass. You don’t know that material, that’s why the prof has a job. He should really know his place. I hate idiot profs like that. And those assclowns are always the ones that get tenure.</p>
<p>I try my absolute best to avoid tenured profs. They’re almost always arrogant and look at teaching as some kind of a chore. There are a select few that care about teaching and their students, but they’re the rare exceptions, not the rule. The tenured ones always expect you to drop everything and do the work they assign, as if their class is the only one you’re taking. </p>
<p>Adjuncts (have real jobs and teach because they want to), non-tenure-track (not seeking tenure so teaching because they want to), and grad students (realistic about expectations because undergrad is still fresh in their minds) FTW.</p>
Correctly: were denied from all 127 tenure-track jobs they applied to and eventually decided that a non-tenure-track position at XYZ university was closer to that prestigious research job they wanted than a job in industry.</p>
<p>I disagree with you nyustudent, and we’re at the same college (I know it varies a lot from dept to dept). Most of my TA’s don’t speak coherent English and have trouble explaining things. But the professors have been pretty good with teaching and relating concepts and information, and they’re all tenured. The one adjunct I had (Econ dept) sucked; some random guy with no experience trying to make money on the side - that’s what adjuncts are. Yeah, I get a lot of work but that’s expected if you want a science or engineering degree. </p>
<p>@ Clarity - definitely not normal and really obnoxious. I’ve also had to do online assignments, but not with a partner! Your professor sounds like an ass. Maybe you could do it Sunday night instead? (Meaning the Sunday before the assignment is due). Then you could still go out Thurs/Fri/Sat night but people are usually free Sunday nights. And you’d get it out of the way early in the week.</p>
<p>Or maybe you could put together a larger study group like 4 people and do it together? How would the professor even know how many people worked on it? ;)</p>
<p>Econ major here too. My best professors seem to be the ones that are instructors. I try to avoid the ones that show up on the department roster. One of the best professors I have ever had at NYU and perhaps my entire academic career was a part time prof at Gallatin who’s a hedge fund manager. And this man is the master of the Socratic Method :)</p>
<p>Different learning styles I guess. When I see the relevance of something to the real world, I learn the material better. Tenured prof=never had a real job=hypos suck=learning fail. Adjunct=has a real job=relevant, interesting hypos from industry=learning success. Perhaps this is the reason I gravitate more towards the more technical among the social sciences (accounting, law, etc) than the theoretical. I don’ take to theoretical instruction very well-the first question I usually ask is “why does this matter? How is this applicable?” My mom’s a teacher and she agrees with this-I’m not cut out for academia-she says the way I think makes me suitable to the applied and technical, not the theoretical-she thinks I’ll do better in law school. I hope so. It’s really weird too because my dad takes well to the theoretical and my mom doesn’t.</p>
<p>Probably the reason I’m failing the philosophy class I’m taking as a pass/fail elective.</p>
<p>And Alix-that prof doesn’t sound like an ass, that prof ** is an ass.**</p>
<p>Tschh. Don’t insult all professors just because of your experiences. Just the other day I had lunch with my school’s Turing prize winner (wiki it) and had a long discussion with him about education practices around the world and how to improve education for people in my major. He is an amazing lecturer that supposedly taught the very first true Computer Science course in the US. Plenty of my professors are equally dedicated toward education, and my school has almost no adjuncts.</p>
<p>Thanks ppl. Yeah so the sets are assigned mid week for the Sat. due date. The prof’s got better things to do than teach lowly undergrads, I guess. Lovely.</p>
<p>Ray I’m interested to hear what your prof thinks would improve education. What makes a professor great?</p>
<p>Ray you obviously don’t go to big corporate U. IMO among tenureds and tenure tracks profs that are any good at teaching are an exception, not the rule.</p>
<p>^ Dude, I’m telling you this varies sooo much dept by dept. The kids in smaller majors with small, focused classes will disagree with you, even in Sexton’s bloated bureaucracy. </p>
<p>For example, the Bio dept is large and has a ton of majors - I noticed the profs were significantly worse than in the Chem and Neuro dept’s. 2 of my profs actually got degrees in Science Education in addition to their PhDs - those were my two favorites, as well. Also have had some great profs in the Math and Physics depts. Hated one of the Econ classes I took and thought it sucked - I believe you’re an Econ major? I don’t know if it’s a Stern vs CAS thing? As for Law school, it sounds to me like you’d prefer the practice of law rather than law school which is often about “thinking like a lawyer” if you know what I mean.</p>
It’s really weird too because my dad takes well to the theoretical and my mom doesn’t.</p>