| Author | Message | ||
     Interex2050 |
Here is the thing about them (I am sure it applies to other educational institutions as well)... First of all they granted me a nice amount of financial aid, but because they incorrectly filled in their internal paper work they denied me the granted aid... I explicitly stated that I will living off campus, but they put in that I would be living on campus... And I am being punished for their mistake! Secondly, they charge $2,500/quarter which is pretty cheap... BUT the quality of instruction and the classes is sub-par to the that offered at my local community college! For example my material science instructor had no idea what she was doing, she is simply not qualified... This would be "acceptable" at a community college, but not at a University! Thirdly, they love their money! It seems that they intensionally make sure that it is impossible to take a heavy load... The majority of classes that one would want to take simultaneously have schedule conflicts! I have a feeling this is done intentionally, to make sure you are there for a long time... and since the tuition is fixed (rather then unit based), they get the same amount of money regardless if I take 2 classes or 6... This would be great if I could actually sign up for more classes! Fourth, the "text books" that they sell are nothing more then glorified phone books! If I am going to pay $100+ for a text book I expect it to be at least hard bound and NOT a poor xerox of the original! This is just absurd and unacceptable! I expect to get what I paid for, not just throwing money away... I do not think the tuition is worth more then $500, its that bad... And xeroxed textbooks should cost at the most $50, and they should at least offer the real books as an option... But it is just something I am just going to have to deal with, no way around it... Thanks, I really needed to vent. (Message edited by interex2050 on December 20, 2007) | ||
| 86129squids |
 Come try the "Big Orange Screw". UT seems to mobilize its resources quite readily to collect parking fines, not so much to get course availability up to speed. The year I bailed, the budget was so stupid they had to eliminate the ombudsman!! (I hated that bitch anyway as an instructor- tenured, wrote the text, knew it all, class debate seemed to annoy her as if the syllabus wasn't being followed) At least the cost of living is good here in TN.  | ||
| Court |
Shhhhhhhh . . . . tell ya a secret. It's not a **LOT** different at Ivy League schools. . . so paying twice the price of a car for a semester isn't the solution. Gotta be careful what I say on their network . . . hey, but I do have a nice place to study here today.    LAST day of finals ! . . . HOORAY | ||
| Interex2050 |
Figured as much... Good luck on the finals! | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Just think of all the misc. nuts and bolts you could put in all them there tiny drawers!! I wish i hads me a set up like that in my garage! | ||
| Davegess |
The absolute FIRST thing you need to learn while attempting to learn things at a BIG institution is how the system works. I have a BA from UW-Milwaukee and then worked there for 14 years. I also taught for a bit at the local tech college. You will find that they tend to do the same dumb thing over and over so you need to figure out how to get them to not do it for you. I always found that chatting up the help, being painfully nice, acting a bit confused and asking for help would always go a long way. Become friends with the secretaries, they know exactly how the system works and can get stuff done if they want to. Don't misunderstand I am not saying they only work when they want to but that there are things that they can get done that are NOT actually part of their job. Remember almost everyone in a department needs a favor from the secretary at one time or another so they tend to have people who owe them. Standing in line to yell at the financial aid clerk helps you out about as much as you might think. Having the department secretary ask the director about something may often help you out. Any large university is a huge system that can be gamed IF you know all the rules. And not the rules in the hand book but the actual rules. Don't spend all your free time hanging with your buddies in grill or studying in the library. Find the Profs and TA's in their offices and labs. Buy the secretary a coke. Profs and TA's have office hours. Most actually are in their office during this time but no students ever come by unless they are in such deep shit they can't avoid it. Stopping by to say hi and ask a question about this weeks lecture will put you in a very elite company; a student who is actually interested. Do this early in the year and do it regularly and when the time come that you are in deep shit you have a powerful ally. My experience has been that some Professors will prove to be very uncomfortable one on one but most will welcome your attention and you will get one on one instruction that would be the envy of grad students. I have also found some who were terrible in the classroom but really knew there stuff and one on one could explain it. now you might say that you shouldn't have to do this stuff since you are paying all this money for an education BUT doing this stuff is a huge part of your education. You will use these skills more in you job than you will use the classroom stuff. Good Luck | ||
| Interex2050 |
Dave, Thanks for the words of advice. I will go speak to the financial aid office today, and see if they can somehow recover some of the grant money... I do not think I have ever stopped by the office of a TA or instructor, with the intent to discuss material directly related to class... I think I will give it a try. Thanks you, Peter | ||
| Court |
Well now we're getting to the heart of the matter . . . this is the "real story" and Dave has it nailed. It doesn't matter if you are paying $500 a semester or $67,432 a semester you MUST know how to "game" the institution. Yesterday I was invited by some of my young classmates to attend a bitch session they were having with the administration. I learned long ago, particularly while sitting #1 in my class, not to call the folks who will be giving you your grades in the next 72 hours, dumb. I have always subscribed to a couple rules and encouraged my sons to as well . . . Always sit in the front row in class. If you could care less about the material (anyone here REALLY interested in Engineering Fluid Mechanics . . if you are get the Eighth Edition Wiley textbook and knock yourself out) at least ACT profoundly interested and ALWAYS ask at least one question per classroom session. Next ALWAYS visit your Professor during office hours at LEAST twice a semester. If you have to MAKE UP a question and go ask them. Better yet, ask a question about something you know inside and out . . let them explain it and have your faux epiphany right before their eyes to make certain they feel like Superman. My goal . . .halfway through the semester. . . is to make DAMN CERTAIN they know who I am and my name. I want them to see a face when it comes time to make that "do I round up or do I round down" decision. There are similar steps that apply to the administration . . . it's a personal deal with me but I want the Dean of the Graduate School to know who I am and my background. It's worked out kinda cool this semester as they've had me present to math classes. Kinda cool going to one of the top schools AND having them pay you to boot!. . . that's WORKING the system. The important thing is to remember you are paying for your education and it's up to you to maximize what you get out of it. In my case, I also make it a point to get to know fellow students. I mean in my class, which is only 14 people, I have the VP of Construction for Estee' Lauder )laugh if you will, they have 26,000 employees scattered in NYC and 3 guys who own large construction companies . . . I also attend EVERYTHING I can that the University sponsors (with the exception of Amminjahaddad who I could care less about) to meet folks at those events. Your classroom experience has little to do with your REAL education but there's no substitute for doing your best. Regardless of how you feel about higher education, and to those who think everyone with an education is a "book smart idiot" there is much to be said with showing up for a job interview with a 4.33 GPA. Bottom line . . do everything you can to do your best and get the most out of the experience. . . hey, that pretty well describes life, eh?  Interesting stuff has occurred in these buildings . . .
It's a wireless sort of world . . interesting to get used to having a wireless and EtherNet connection and 120V outlet at every desk and seeing "real time" lecture materials. . .  | ||
| Court |
Hey . . and this is mostly for Blake. . . if you are going to have a serious conversation you need to retain some levity . . . Recently . . . here at the world's most liberal school . . a couple dozen foreign students (those are the ones that take your place in classes and who are here on the tit of the American Govt) had a "Hunger Strike" to protest. Now. . . on the very same lawn that I'd be arrested if I walked on . . these spoiled brats pitched enough tents that it looked like an L. L. Bean photo shoot. While they trampled the grass and protested on bullhorns two things occurred to me . . . how did they skate out of going to their classes and that most of them would summarily be shot for such an action in their home countries. I was kinda ticked but not raised to action. Not so my pals in the Young Republicans Club (there are like 6 Republicans at Columbia) who hosted a catered dinner, laid out on about 100 LF of end to end tables about 8 feet away from the hunger strikers. Right there . . . as they subsisted on nothing but water . . . they sat up BBQ's, roasters, and all sorts of food warmers and invited half of Harlem for dinner. You could stand there, munching from your plate of food and watch them writhing in their tents, like animals in a zoo, a mere 6 feet away. It was fun . . . ever more fun that the "fruit toss" they sponsored the following week where you could purchase apples, pears, oranges and so forth and win a stuff animal for successfully tossing the fruit in the tent flap of the hunger strikers. As I said . . . as I tossed an orange. . . "A rind is a terrible thing to waste". (Message edited by court on December 20, 2007) | ||
| Jlnance |
anyone here REALLY interested in Engineering Fluid Mechanics Now you hush. Why do you think the 1125r is so quiet. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I *love* the idea of feeding the poor right in front of the hunger strikers! Brilliant! | ||
| Sarodude |
I've never gotten over my personal battle with the education system. Among the variety of issues I faced when I thought I was gonna be an ME was being put in front of a drafting table for a whole semester - in the early 90's. Seriously, was CAD such a hard thing to visualize as being superior and the wave of the effing present (let alone the future)? I had to go through some bogus computer class. Guy running the show didn't know what I'd been doing since I was 9 - and what I did for my day job. He kept talking about the "real world". His real world was more suitable for history classes than a computer class. Stay current, dude. Although not something that affected me, I was always dumbfounded by the ridiculously academic nature of computer science classes. I think the language of choice to teach in these systems was Pascal. Seriously? I spent three years beating myself up with full time work and full time community college so I could transfer to a Cal State school and get my pocket protector. I don't feel like taking the same stuff I did in Jr High and I know a freakin' foreign language, a-holes! Sorry you can't recognize it. I just am not cut out for something that so poorly masquerades as being an educational system. You are SO right when you say it's a lesson in how to work the system. I just wasn't ready for that particular reality. My system was done putting up with it. What I've also come to detest is how the BA / BS seems to have sunk to the level of a HS diploma / GED and how many janitorial jobs require a freakin' Master's degree. I LOVE learning. True education happens every day - and it happens to people who truly want to learn. My better half is working on a PhD. Me? I don't even have my HS Diploma. I envy anyone who can leverage such a system to their benefit. I'm not one of them. -Saro I think I need to take my meds now | ||
| Road_thing |
M personal battle with the education system? I've got four words for you: United States Naval Academy. Where you get a $100,000 education (in 1969 dollars) shoved up your *ss a nickel at a time...  rt | ||
| Soloyosh |
I went to a Cal State school (Cal Poly Pomona). I got accepted to UCLA and UCSD, but after taking a look a round I found that Cal Poly offered more for my field of study (engineering) than either of the others for half the price. I graduated from Cal Poly ready to work. The UCs seemed geared towards people who wanted to be professional students. Besides Cal Poly, at the time, had the consistently best performing FSAE team in the state. YMMV Cheers Brett | ||
| Interex2050 |
Do not get me wrong though, I love learning... And I do a fine job of learning on my own, so what the professor is incapable of teaching me I just read/research/think about on my own until I understand it completely... In fact things that I have to spend a lot of time figuring out are usually the things I end up knowing better in the end. Thanks for getting me to see this whole situation from a different perspective, I will try to get what I want in the end (financially that is)... I cannot wait till next quarter, in fact Engineering Fluid Dynamics is on that list... Can't wait In fact the reason why I did not go to a CAL state is because it seemed like more of a technical/career training school. I prefer to know as much as I can from the lowest level up, otherwise I do not truly understand the material... And sure enough I will not stop at just a BS... Thanks | ||
| Court |
>>>so what the professor is incapable of teaching me I just read/research/think about on my own until I understand it completely... You must. Of all the gifts you've been given while you stir dust on the Mothership non is greater than that of intellectual curiosity. Everything from Love to higher horsepower figures, at some point, flows from curiosity and a fascination with inflating humankinds BOK balloon a bit larger than you found it on arrival. The stuff they "teach" me I find to be "no Ivy leaguer left behind material" . . I do it quickly, get all my homework and projects done as fast as I can, and spend the rest of my hours in Fu, Avery or Butler reading anything I can get my hands on. I consider the couple years that I am here, being "assigned" to do my studying in places like Avery and Butler libraries . . a gift. Most the stuff I study has nothing to do with my coursework. I'm funny that way and it's a rather long story which I'll not bore you with. . . . but it has to do with why I asked for, and got, the entire law school curriculum when I was in Junior High . . . I was a •••••• baseball player but knew Prosser in and out. . . kinda what you would call a "pre-nerd". Curiosity . . . like that boil on my Uncle's nose . . . always seems to feed on itself, get bigger and never go away. Your time is the classroom is but a small part of your learning. P.S. . . . if your name was Z. Y. Fu what would be the point of using your initials? | ||
| Lost_in_ohio |
Great post as always Court. I inadvertently followed your program thru my college days. I agree learn the system. Don't bad mouth the admin or instructing staff while you need them. IMHO college is just a test. You just have to get thru it. The ability to deal with stress, bureaucracy, and self discipline. And NO ONE CARES IF YOU PASS OR FAIL. You are your only advocate. Education is the absolute best investment you can make. I also found the foreign students hard to tolerate. I, like most, worked my way thru college and the foreign students were from wealthy family's and didn't have to work. They had new cars, new cloths, new books and lots of free time. Oh well. Life never is fair. Hang in there, You only have a couple more years. | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
How the hell can anybody who's surrounded by California blondes all day rant about anything? Go to Wisconsin in the winter. A size 4 grows to a size 10. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
With regards to higher education... I think Thoreau said it best. I went there for four years and I was surprised at the end that I had a degree in astronomy. I would think that I would have known more had I spent the same time under the stars on my own. And to my own situation, I think I would know Russian better if I had spent 4 years immersed in the country, rather than studying it here in the classroom, and I would not have had the dreaded cost of an "official" education. |
