# My (rapidly becoming) annual rant about first year undergrads **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2003, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647 "2003-10-10T10:49:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/21 "2003-10-11T16:57:01Z")
Hehe, you think that’s bad? I’m in a fourth-year Biochemical Toxicology course in which people coming from the Bio-med and Tox departments ask such gems as: “You can sequence proteins?” “will this be on the test?” (about once per slide of information) “Do we have to memorize that structure?” (when given a generic Y-=–=--=–=-X sequence related to the carbon chains in membrane lipids). I just WISH the prof could have said, no, I want you to learn the ACTUAL structure! “What’s that hexagon with the circle in it?” (on a threonine molecule) When discussing P450 INHIBITORS (with that in big black letters on the white board) someone asked "So P450 metabolize that?"Um, no…they are INHIBITED by it!!! Arrrggghh. I don’t know how people in third and fourth year in programs that are supposedly related to this topic can’t grasp some of the basics, or don’t even have the background for it. When the prof asked who know what SDS-PAGE was, ONLY the people from the Biochem program raised their hands!!! And these people are so passive. In one case, we had spent an entire lecture talking about what free radicals did to membrane lipids, and what that meant for the cell. One genius then asks “So this is all because there are free radicals there?” ARRGGHH. Have you not been sitting in class for the past 50 minutes? Did you not even THINK about what you were writing down, or what the prof was telling you? Are all those words and structures just random to you? It didn’t occur to you that the prof might have a POINT in stringing all those reactions together with arrows, and that maybe, just maybe, the first one was therefore related to the last one??? I come out of that class feeling like I’ve just been insulted for 50 minutes. I hate that course. But it is easy, seeing as the prof is having to being it to the level of the morons in it. Grrrr. ---
**Author:** ![Tansu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/67e7ee/32.png) [@Tansu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tansu)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/22 "2003-10-12T12:55:11Z")
Bloody hell. Even now 1+tan²x makes me think “Ah, isn’t that sec²x”. I can’t rightly recall the first deriv of sec²x, but hey, I did maths A level 11 years ago. At least a trig identity rings some kind of bell. Actually I must confess that I let myself get a little behind in maths during my year off. So maybe I’m actually as bad as the people you’re ranting about. Possibly not quite as bad, because once something is recognised as vaguely familiar it comes back to me fairly soon. I wouldn’t be accusing you of mathematical sleight of hand just because I’d forgotten my trig identities and common derivs. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/23 "2003-10-12T14:46:31Z")
If I can add something aimed at my fellow undergrads: You’re taking Introduction to Mass Communications because you (allegedly) want to get into the field of (ta-da!) communications. This entails actually being interested and somewhat informed about developments in your chosen field. And, yes, there are a lot of them. Like the change in the FCC’s ownership regulations and Congress’s attempt to rescind those, for example. That wasn’t USA-PATRIOT, which is a completely different kettle of fish. Get a clue, people. What you learn in this class is _important_. Robin ---
**Author:** ![Zcrysis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zcrysis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zcrysis)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/24 "2003-10-12T15:15:31Z")
As someone who did A-Level math and physics with Edexcel this June and in line with **Angua** ’s rant i know a lot of people in my year who couldnt do the math he has disussed without a fair bit of thought involved. The fact is that the book in which it is introduced is taught right at the end of the course, crash taught in a maybe 6 weeks, and develops simultaneously some very complicated ideas as well not tending to follow the logical structure of what we have been taught before. Its considered the most difficult book on the course, even by people who do Further Maths A-Level [i.e. the really really smart mathematically inclined people] People dont have the time to get to grips with it, and to understand the consequences of it. That means they dont remember what was crammed into their minds in a desperate bid to take this exam, and as a result the exam is so traumatising that most are glad to forget about the math that exam involved. Sure the exam boards are to blame, but the students and teacher at A-Level do deserve a substantiative portion of the blame. They boards dumb it down because people cannot handle it at the level it was taught at before. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/25 "2003-10-12T18:28:30Z")
I’ve had students hand in homework papers with nothing but the final answers written down. To just the odd-numbered problems. So far, I haven’t written any comments on them like “Do you realize how friggin’ pointless this is?” but I’ve been tempted. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/26 "2003-10-13T07:40:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Thudlow Boink \* > \*\* > So far, I haven’t written any comments on them like “Do you realize how friggin’ pointless this is?” but I’ve been tempted. \*\* I’d do it. I have written comments along the lines of “And this tells me what?” “Where _exactly_ have you got this from?” and other various gems. ---
**Author:** ![owlofcreamcheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@owlofcreamcheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlofcreamcheese)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/27 "2003-10-13T16:17:16Z")
I want to reverse this pit. I hate hate HATE professors, but especially TAs that refuse to be helpful in any way at all. when they get hung up on some minor thing and refuse to answer the question when you come to get help… mostly it goes something like this: student: can you help me with this problem? I don’t quite get it. teacher: okay all you have to do is bleep bloop blop. student: okay, okay, so far so good teacher: now what do you do? student: add these and multiply? teacher: yep, and what does that make? student: ummm… 32345.001 times 23234.95 that is umm… teacher: yes? student: its umm… carry the 2… its… umm… teacher: you should know how to multiply! come back when you know how to multiply! and of COURSE they know how to multiply (or some other minor opperation thats a minor part of the overall problem). not everyone that is ‘worthy’ of takeing physics can do 7 digit multiplication in their head when put on the spot in less than 30 seconds. TAs seem to be the worst for that, simply refuseing to help anymore… and actting like its wacky and hilarious instead of being even remotely helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/28 "2003-10-13T17:33:41Z")
Angua: Had you been sitting next to me when the fool in front of us on the USS Carl Vinson asked the nuclear safety officer what we were supposed to do if one of the nuclear weapons exploded right next to us, you’d never be surprised by anything from the mouth of any human. I’m still stunned by that & it happened (the question, not the explosion) back in the late 1980s! ---
**Author:** ![Computer\_Guru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ed655f/32.png) [@Computer\_Guru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Computer_Guru)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/29 "2003-10-13T17:56:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Angua \* > \*\*Right, so I’m a postgrad student, and as a contributing member of society (as opposed to a slacker), I teach first year undergrads in the Physics department. What do I teach them? Maths. > > Now to get in to do a physics degree you have to have A-Levels in maths and physics, at B or above. This means that they are all reasonably intelligent, and they all have more than a modicum of mathematical ability. They sat these exams in June, and now they come to us having promptly forgotten _everything_, and I mean everything that they have ever learnt about maths ever. > > I get the most inane questions from them, things that they ought to know, and it appears that they’ve never even heard of them. > > But you know what, I don’t blame the students, I blame the fucking exam boards. Culling the syllabi here and there, filling it with useless junk, making sure that everything is handed to students on a plate, so that they never ever have to think about what they are doing. In my last class I was accused of mathematical trickery and some sort of mathematical sleight of hand, because the students haven’t been taught basic concepts at A-level. Some of them can’t even do simple mental arithmetic 😕 > > There is an outcry every year that standards are slipping, and you know what, I fully agree now. A-level students now, find the exam papers I did six years ago ridiculously hard, because they haven’t been taught it! Damn you incompetant exam boards. Damn you all! > > There. That feels better now. \*\* I hardly remember math stuff from High school. Of course, it came back when we went over it again in college. I always had that problem. Math and computer science are like a language. If you don’t use it, you forget it. However, it’s always there. You just have to refresh your memory again. Well, at least, that’s how it is with me. But I will admit that high school could have done better. High school, they did dish it out to you, while in college, you had to go out and do a lot of the learning on your own. You actually had to think and study for yourself. I’m still working on strengthening my critical thinking skills. They are very important. ---
**Author:** ![Computer\_Guru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ed655f/32.png) [@Computer\_Guru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Computer_Guru)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/30 "2003-10-13T17:58:45Z")
I meant to say I had trouble remembering math that I learned in High school. I used the wrong tense in that first sentence. ---
**Author:** ![cajela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cajela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cajela)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/31 "2003-10-14T02:26:23Z")
Aaaahhhhh, I feel good. I am an EX-academic. I never have to hear this crap again, except when it’s someone else’s problem. Especially, I never have to hear people whining that they weren’t warned that the statistics for dummies class I was teaching had an advanced maths prerequisite. Well, no, it didn’t. Normal year 12 maths was all that was needed, and that was overdoing it. But clearly in their tiny minds it needed advanced maths - because they were being asked to calculate tricky stuff like PERCENTAGES, ferfuxake. Ahhhhhhhhh, that’s better. Never again. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/32 "2003-10-14T07:47:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by owlofcreamcheese \* > \*\*I want to reverse this pit. I hate hate HATE professors, but especially TAs that refuse to be helpful in any way at all. when they get hung up on some minor thing and refuse to answer the question when you come to get help… > > \*\* Well, quite frankly, its like this. We **do not** know what’s going on inside your head. All we have is what you say to us and tell us. Now, if you can’t do the basic minor stuff, and you come to us making _trivial_ errors on basic stuff, we are going to have to assume that you do not know the basics. Basics you should have learnt in high school, and which is assumed prerequisite knowledge for the course. If you do not know the basics, then we are going to have to say to you “go and learn the basics” since we _do_ have other things, like research, which is what we are paid to do, as well as be at your beck and call. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/33 "2003-10-14T08:20:53Z")
I think there may be both - there exist both students who genuinely need to learn, say, long division, and those who just can’t do it when someone’s watching, but they should show this by saying “Umm… anyway, I can sort this out myself honest. Say I’ve got the answer, what should I do with it?” ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/34 "2003-10-14T08:27:54Z")
I vividly remember a series of lectures in first year of my degree (chemistry, as will become apparent!) The lecturer would come in and write the name of the element on the board and proceed to tell us all about its intrinsic physical properties, what it reacted with, blah blah blah blah for about an hour. On the day he was doing tungsten, he went through the whole thing, whilst standing in front of a massive W on the blackboard and loads of molecular formulae, reaction mechanisms and the like, all of which had, unsurprisingly, a W in them and at the end, one bright spark asked what the symbol was for tungsten. About 15 people turned to look at this nitwit and said “Doubleyou” This same woman now has a PhD and a DSc in chemistry and is high flying researcher in a top American scientific university, affiliated with one of the big pharmaceutical companies. So, some of your nitwits could well turn out to be the future captains of industry - scary, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/35 "2003-10-14T08:30:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shade \* > \*\*I think there may be both - there exist both students who genuinely need to learn, say, long division, and those who just can’t do it when someone’s watching, but they should show this by saying “Umm… anyway, I can sort this out myself honest. Say I’ve got the answer, what should I do with it?” \*\* Well, yes, there are students who can’t do things like long division when someone’s looking, but I don’t think my students are amongst them. I think mine are the genuine “we didn’t pay attention at school, and we’re not going to start now” type. **CurlyChick** , now I’m even more scared than by the threat of **Gyrate’s** quiz. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/36 "2003-10-14T08:46:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shade \* > \*\*I think there may be both - there exist both students who genuinely need to learn, say, long division, and those who just can’t do it when someone’s watching, but they should show this by saying “Umm… anyway, I can sort this out myself honest. Say I’ve got the answer, what should I do with it?” \*\* Well, yes, there are students who can’t do things like long division when someone’s looking, but I don’t think my students are amongst them. I think mine are the genuine “we didn’t pay attention at school, and we’re not going to start now” type. **CurlyChick** , now I’m even more scared than by the threat of **Gyrate’s** quiz. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/37 "2003-10-14T09:46:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by curly chick \* > **one bright spark asked what the symbol was for tungsten.** Well, it’s at least less annoying than the wally in one of my lectures that spotted a typo - the lecturer had printed “m/s[sup]-2[/sup]” in the notes. This tit stuck his hand up and smarmed “uh, excuse me - what are the units of acceleration please?” Funny, til then I never knew the sound of 100 people wincing simultaneously. The lecturer, to his credit, did not reply “you know full well what they are, you unbearably smug twat - it’s a typo,” although I think he considered moving the magnetic linear accelerator he was demonstrating around for a better shot. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/38 "2003-10-14T09:58:22Z")
Hmm… Smart arse students. I get them all the time. Hell, I could on occasion be one; I remember one instance in my General Relativity class, where I ended up correcting the lecturer 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/39 "2003-10-14T14:09:53Z")
Oh, and another thing: What on _earth_ are they teaching the students in high school to make them think it is appropriate to begin a college-level analytical essay, “William Shakespeare is the God of tragedy”? Sigh… ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2003, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647/40 "2003-10-14T14:12:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine \* > **Oh, and another thing: What on _earth_ are they teaching the students in high school to make them think it is appropriate to begin a college-level analytical essay, “William Shakespeare is the God of tragedy”?** What?? No! Please, tell me you’re joking?! Bwahaha!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-rapidly-becoming-annual-rant-about-first-year-undergrads/206647.md?page=3)