How old was he when the Princeton reviews were made? Vs now at 84 at NYU?
If concurrent to now I’d agree with you. If sequential and the others were over a decade old, it’s not conclusive at all.
I’d like to see the breakdown of NYU’s reviews by date/year given too.
Many of us, as we age, especially into our 80s, aren’t going to be the same people we were in our 50s, 60s, and 70s.
I’d tend to agree with this, but it sounds as if he really made an effort to respond to the challenges of Covid, with videotaped lectures. We’ve all had older profs who were still good, and older profs who should have been forced to retire long ago.
Is it the same exam? Many colleges use the same exams across profs. If so and one prof gets all As vs another where they don’t, I know who I’d choose and I’d assume the class was a breeze because the prof explained things very well.
That’s my point. We don’t know which way it goes and anyone on here who is certain they do is deluding themselves without being privy to all the evidence.
Why on earth would you assume all NYU students are “competent and qualified” to succeed at organic chemistry? Do you feel the same way about advanced thermodynamics? Expert ballet class? Just because a student enrolls in a course, particularly one that is required for grad school, is no indication that the student has either ability for the topic or sufficient motivation to do the work required to succeed in the course.
On the question of age, the professor has been teaching the subject for decades and even wrote a book on the subject. So teaching the course is probably second nature to him. AFAIK, no one has complained that he’s incoherent or incomprehensible due to his age. So why assume he is?
Absolutely not! Different exams entirely!
Out of curiosity, how do you know? Do you know students who have taken each class (or do your kids know…)?
Many times students are surprised that some places use the same exams for all professors.
In fact I will add the discussion my child and I had before registration:
Professor A teaches OChem I, doesn’t teach well but gives the As.
Professor B teaches OChem I, better teacher, tougher grader, my child will likely get a B.
However, all students take Professor B for OChem II.
It is known that the students who transition from Professor A to B have a harder time in OChem II than the people who started out with Professor B for OChem I, partly because Professor A doesn’t get through all the material so there are gaps for those students. My child and I were discussing whether it would be better to get the A in OChem I and then the B or maybe C in OChem II, or B, maybe A in OChem I/II.
We went back and forth, never had to make a decision because guess what? Professor A got filled immediately, days before my child’s registration time.
I understand the dilemma. That wasn’t my question. I don’t know much at all about TX schools and just wanted to know if each prof made their own exam or if the college had them all use the same one for consistency of grading. FWIW, the latter is better.
ETA I’ve had students tell me profs who get the good grades in classes fill up super quickly, but the same exam is used, so to me, it means that’s the better prof.
Know from word of mouth, child also in a premed social org, RMP, Reddit posts with students experiences and opinions, school posts grade distribution curves (there are two different sites), school posts their own ratings (like RMP but internal) and as a member of multiple FB groups such as school specific, class specific, parents of TX premeds, etc
It’s definitely a tough dilemma when pre-med is involved. If taking the easier prof, more self study is ideal to fill in gaps. If taking the more difficult prof, more class study is ideal to be super prepared for tests. Either way, the student will be doing more to get “the best.”
A student getting an A from the easier prof will need to build up for OChem II and the MCAT, so no real need to worry about it being easier for them to get into med school.
Ok gotcha. No for the most part in TX (have kids in different schools) the exams are different for each Professor
@1NJParent Ive addressed every one of your questions repeatedly above, and am not going to continue round in circles.
I’ve worked with professors and other professionals in the decline of their careers. Sadly, it is often the professors/professionals and their departments/supporters who are the last to acknowledge that such intellectual giants are no longer reaching a younger generation.
I have no idea why you and so many are resistant to that truth. We’ve all seen it. We all know it happens.
I haven’t assumed anything about “all” NYU students, and I’d appreciate it if refrained from taking my words out of context. As I explained above, I see no reason why the premed students at NYU would be significantly less competent and qualified than other similarly situated premed students at NYU and other similar schools. Yet for these particular students (and not the others) the educational process seems to have completely broken down. This suggests that there is something different about their situation, and unlike you, I don’t think it is because they are “lazy.”
Colleges are not like HS. Profs are generally expected to develop their own curricula instead of the departments handing them a syllabus and a standard exam to administer; as a result, profs teaching different sections of the same class may use different textbooks and different p-sets. Speaking from my own college experience and my kiddos’
experience as well as communications with friends and acquaintances who teach.
Apparently 20 of Prof. Jones’ colleagues in the NYU chemistry department disagree with your negative assessment of his teaching, and they are in a far better position than you or I to evaluate it.
Yes, and I’ll note it’s the same dilemma that potential pre-med students face when they decide between Elite School A with many fellow premeds vs. Non-Elite School B where they will be a big fish in a small pond. Students on CC are routinely counseled to choose the latter to maximize their premed chances, but somehow choosing the easier grading professor in a school is considered a dishonorable “snowflake” choice. I don’t get it.
Interesting that this is exactly what Xavier (XULA) deliberately eliminated. Giving the same syllabus, p-sets and a standard test across sections allowed them to determine who was teaching most effectively, and the school watched these teachers and learned from them. It also allowed students from 1 section to study with students from another section. Also if a prof was sick on a certain day, any other prof could fill in seamlessly, and the entire class did not get behind.
Prior to the standardization it was noted that some professors just loved to talk more about their own research and go off on tangents. Apparently it was hard at first to get all the profs on the same page; they felt it cut down on their intellectual freedom. But they were won over to the system when the results came back showing that so many more students were mastering the material–students who in the past had been labeled as “not having what it takes.”
It is certainly an interesting concept. I am glad that school’s faculty has tried it, but expect the faculty would not at more elite schools.
What are you implying or speculating? Any evidence that this professor couldn’t teach this course as well as he’d been before?