<p>I had planned not to go here, but alas…</p>
<p>mathboy98</p>
<p>You need to reread the thread. Especially post 14-21</p>
<p>1) “I think busdriver hardly disagreed that the original point was speculation”</p>
<p>Busdriver spent nearly his entire time here trying to explain and justify Harvard’s low ranking in undergraduate teaching in the survey that did not rank undergraduate teaching to posters on a thread who weren’t discussing the subject.</p>
<p>It does not appear that Busdriver read the original post nor the next 12 either before posting himself (post below) or has done so anytime since. He simply assumed (wrongly) what was being discussed, (later post -“…which could be why it was rated lower for undergraduate teaching. Which is what this entire thread is about.” )</p>
<p>The conversation through the first 13 posts was predominantly amongst parents talking about what “commitment to undergraduate education” meant or might mean or how it was or was not being measured in this survey, the nature of learning, etc. It showed promise of becoming a somewhat interesting philosophical discussion. </p>
<p>No one had said that Harvard should have been ranked higher – no one really seemed to care - and everyone was clear that it was not undergraduate teaching being ranked but rather “commitment to undergraduate education” of some sort.</p>
<p>In fact UCBChemEGrad dissected the misleading nature of the thread’s title rather completely in post #5.</p>
<p>As such, busdriver’s post # 14 came from out of left field</p>
<p>Posts 14-21</p>
<p>14 – Busdriver - Perhaps the undergraduate teaching isn’t as highly ranked as you might consider it should be due to undergraduate courses being less strenuous than at some of the comparable universities. For example, my son took an intensive computer science class at Harvard, worked a bit, and ended up with a B+. He then took a similar course at Carnegie Mellon, said it was far more difficult, worked nonstop…and was lucky to end up with a C.</p>
<p>15 – White Rabbit - Was his course during the semester or during the summer?</p>
<p>16 – OT - why would your son retake a course at CM that he had gotten a B+ in at Harvard? d/n make sense
seems unlikely the courses were all that similar.</p>
<p>((((note 1 – no response to the ranking/rigor comments in the first sentence, just questions about the specifics that didn’t sound right in the second. Nothing impolite here.))))</p>
<p>17 – BD - Both classes were in the summer semester, with college students from those specific schools. It was the same subject, but the one at CMU was at a higher level. It was not a retake, both were for credit.</p>
<p>My point is that even though Harvard is an amazing school with a top reputation, is it possible that the undergraduate teaching is rated lower than some other universities because the students don’t have to work as hard to maintain their grades? I’m not saying that killing yourself with schoolwork 16 hours a day with no time for any other activities is desireable. But if other undergraduate departments require a more intense and difficult workload, then that could be the reason for the lower ratings. I’d personally go for the easier workload myself…</p>
<p>((((NOTE 2 – despite having gotten no response to the ranking/rigor comment in his original post, he repeats it again in this post – TWICE!!!))))</p>
<p>18 – Marite - I’m not clear what the argument is. The student got a B+ in a comp sci class at Harvard summer school, then took a more advanced class in comp sci at CMU and got a C?</p>
<p>It happens all the time at Harvard, and indeed everywhere else. It’s called getting out of your comfort zone.</p>
<p>19 – WR - Besides, I wouldn’t take a summer course at Harvard as the benchmark for what courses are like, regardless of whether or not it had other Harvard students in it. Harvard summer school programs are a cash cow, and many courses appear to be taught by preceptors, lecturers, or visiting faculty. Now maybe that wasn’t the case with this course, but I can promise that a summer course isn’t going to be representative of a semester course.</p>
<p>20 – WR - Also note that of all the Computer science courses listed for summer school, only one would actually count towards a comp sci concentrators degree credit, Intensive Introduction to Computer Science Using Java. And that counts as CS-50, the first course in computer science.</p>
<p>((((NOTE 3 – Focus is on the specifics again – they are politely corrected, again no response to the general Ranking/Rigor comments)))) </p>
<p>21 – BD -I think you’re missing the point. I was giving one small comparison. I suppose it would have been more descriptive if I would have included that most people that he was in contact with at Harvard seemed to have plenty of time to do other things and appeared not to be constantly studying, whereas at Carnegie Mellon the kids were spending all of their time on coursework just to keep up with the teachers. Not only these particular classes.</p>
<p>The point is, that there are some schools where the undergraduate programs are just more demanding than Harvard (think MIT, Cal Tech) and that could be an obvious reason why the undergraduate teaching may not be rated as highly as you would expect.</p>
<p>((((Despite the general comments being based upon the specifics and having been advised that he had the specifics wrong, he expands the specifics in a way that is still wrong, repeats himself for the 4th and 5th time, ignores the content of all responses he had received and told the responders they were missing the point.))))</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but that struck me as someone being intentionally obtuse. </p>
<p>2) “…and posters’ huge responses were more out of anger than out of any noble intention to clarify anything about their school.” </p>
<p>BD complains that on other threads “if someone makes a comment that is out of turn, people generally ignore it, or politely explain why they are wrong.” Well, it WAS politely explained to BD why he was wrong. His “point” WAS ignored repeatedly. It was AFTER that and AFTER he posted the same thing for the FIFTH time prefaced by “I think you’re missing the point” that his “point” finally was responded to.</p>
<p>Anger no. frustration, irritation, annoyance – yes. BD destroyed a what was shaping up as an interesting discussion by posting his same incorrect off topic “point” SEVEN times whether it was responded to or not on a thread he obviously hadn’t read.</p>
<p>3) “I do have to say busdriver seemed to repeatedly follow up his remarks with “perhaps” and “could” which leads me to think nothing was really asserted as fact, though there could be some little bit in this huge jumble to say otherwise.”</p>
<p>The conditionals he uses read – at least to me - as more condescension than uncertainty. Regardless, even taken at face value, the conditionals used in all but one case question whether Harvard’s lack of rigor is the reason for its low ranking, NOT whether Harvard in fact lacks relative rigor.</p>
<p>There is no question based upon his postings that Busdriver STILL “believes” that relative lack of rigor to be fact. Most plainly stated was in post 21: </p>
<p>“The point is, that there are some schools where the undergraduate programs are just more demanding than Harvard …”</p>
<p>No conditionals there.</p>
<p>Moreover, “my son took an intensive computer science class at Harvard” is a statement of fact. In the context of this thread and BD’s comparisons of undergraduate programs, Harvard does not mean “Harvard’s Secondary School Program” – a program for high school students on their summer vacations which is part of Harvard’s Summer School which in turn is part of the Harvard Extension School, not Harvard College. It means Harvard College. And it certainly at least implies an upper level course, not an intro course.</p>