Subject: Attendance, etc. From: "William J. Rapaport" Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 09:54:07 -0400 (EDT) A student writes: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hi Dear Prof Rapaport, I've been following your mails about attendance of cse501. I'd like to say something you might not like to hear, so I'm doing this anonymously. First let's do an analysis about why there's only students' replies that support your opinion. From a student's point of view, I think those replies represent either students who really agree with you, or those who want to make a good impression about themselves to you because of your position. And the latter has a higher probability because all those words sound so flattering. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Perhaps, but 3 or 4 out of 144 is a very small sample. Also, given the fact that most students will get S in this course and that I won't be teaching most (if any) of you in the future, trying to make a good impression on me won't get anyone anywhere. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ And have you found it weird that no one disagrees with you in the mail posts? Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not really. I think those who might disagree simply don't care. But what would there be to disagree with? That it's curious that 142 signatures are on the attendance sheet when only about 100 students were present? That's a fact, not something to disagree with. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ But actually a huge part of students are acting like they disagree with you. Can you see what is going wrong? And again, I can tell you who these students are. They are either who don't care about this course at all, or who are afraid to write to you because of your position, and your power to give them an Unsatisfied grade in the course. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ If that last point is really the case, then it shows a serious misunderstanding of how grades are assigned. If you read the syllabus, you'll see that attendance is the *only* requirement for this course. You get an S if you show up to most of the classes, U if you don't. I have been emailing those students who are in danger of getting a U, so they know who they are. Whether I like them personally or not is completely irrelevant. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Why is this happening? I think you are treating the students in the wrong way. We are all graduate students, and we all came here for some purpose. And the school should serve for the benefit of students, right? Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well, I'm not so sure about that. Our purpose is to give you the best education we can in computer science & engineering. However, we do think that we have a slightly better idea about what that is than you do. If that were not the case, why would you come here? The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The school should be able to offer what we are perusing. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ That would be nice, but no school can offer everything. If you want to pursue (not "peruse" :-) the study of compilers, this is not the best place to be. But if you're interested in, say, document analysis or network security (or many other topics!), it *is* a good place. But presumably you knew that before you came here! The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You cannot simply use some regulations to force us to do what you or the department want us to do. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well, actually, we can. Or at least we can try. Of course, there are always ways to "cheat". But you're supposed to be adults with academic integrity! :-) The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ All people are utilitarians, they do whatever they found good for themselves, voluntarily, without the attendant sheet, without the threat of getting an U grade. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Actually, that's not being utilitarian. A utilitarian would do what's best for the group, not the individual. If there are more people who are annoyed by those students who cut class, leave early, talk during lecture, etc., than there are those who do those things, then utilitarianism says that the minority who annoys the majority are in the wrong. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Why is Google's job fair filling the whole class room (maybe it's the pizza,:).)? Why is Scott's recitation (CSE521:OS) so popular that students have not enough seat to sit? The answer is simple, because they are attractive. So the most efficient solution to deal with this ugly situation is to make the course itself more attracting. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I quite agree. The American saying is "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar". The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ And you have already seen the result of forcing students to do what they don't like: they disturb who really enjoy the course. A simple analogy: if you break up with your girlfriend(or bf), and you want her/him back, do you curse her/him, regulate her/him using whatever power you can use, etc. OR do you try to make yourself more attractive? Which is going to work? Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I certainly agree that instructors should make their courses as useful and as interesting as possible. And I certainly agree that there is no way to make everybody like everything. But I polled the faculty before creating the syllabus for this year's version of 501, and the topics that we are covering are those that the faculty, in its wisdom, believes that you should have some knowledge of if you want to become professional computer scientists. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ However, this is not to say that your lectures are not useful, or interesting. It's that some students are just not interested. You cannot satisfy everybody with one thing. And you cannot force one person to be interested in every lecture you offered. That's the truth. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yes, I agree with you here, too. (Are you one of those students you mentioned who you think are trying to impress me for a good grade?:-):-) More importantly, however, those students who are not interested in a given topic are behaving disrespectfully to their fellow students who *are* interested in those topics, not to mention that they are behaving disrespectfully to those of us who are giving lectures, no matter how boring or how interesting. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Frankly, I quite enjoyed some of the lectures, and for some of the rest, I do something irrelevant to the lecture during the class. And once I missed the class because I have to do something really valuable for me, but I don't think you will regard it as a legal excuse, so I did not even bother writing an excuse. BTW, I'm really looking forward to your lecture about the philosophy of computer science, I'm a fan of philosophy. Back to the topic, so my suggestion is that you should think like a merchant, imaging that you are selling this class to the students, who are your customers. You cannot blame customers if your product does not sell well, right? But I understand that the nature of this class limits the measures you can take to make it more attractive to most people, it is really a tough problem. If I were doing this, I would just let it be. Let who's interested take what he/she needs. And others, whatever. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'm beginning to agree with you about this. I'll have a bit more to say in a follow-up email. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ And also a little bit comment about CS scientists' attitude towards emacs, vim, latex, etc. I think there's something superstitious going on. People are using these tool not because they are effective, efficient or will deliver better results, rather, they use it because it seems more professional to use it, because they feel superior when they use something most people even never heard of. I think this is really bad. They are like zombies among conscious people, you cannot tell the difference on the surface. But I really feel sorry about them because they do not behave like they have intelligence. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What evidence do you have for this? I would say that it's quite the opposite: Most of us really do find LaTeX superior to Word, emacs superior to vi, etc. If we didn't, we wouldn't use them; it wouldn't make sense. Yes, of course we joke about those "others" who use the "bad" systems. But those are jokes! Prof. Ko took the approach in his presentation on LaTeX that there were certain things that you could do easily in LaTeX that you couldn't do (as easily) in Word. Several of you pointed out that you *could* do those things in Word (though no one seemed able to do it, either because you needed a plug-in or because Ko was using Word for Mac--but that's one of LateX's advantages: no plug-ins needed, and it's OS-independent). I think the real difference between systems like Word and systems like LaTeX is the control that you have with the latter. But if you don't need that kind of control, then you might not need LaTeX. That's why I tried to make the point that, if you're tell the difference on the surface. But I really feel sorry about them because they do not behave like they have intelligence. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What evidence do you have for this? I would say that it's quite the opposite: Most of us really do find LaTeX superior to Word, emacs superior to vi, etc. If we didn't, we wouldn't use them; it wouldn't make sense. Yes, of course we joke about those "others" who use the "bad" systems. But those are jokes! Prof. Ko took the approach in his presentation on LaTeX that there were certain things that you could do easily in LaTeX that you couldn't do (as easily) in Word. Several of you pointed out that you *could* do those things in Word (though no one seemed able to do it, either because you needed a plug-in or because Ko was using Word for Mac--but that's one of LateX's advantages: no plug-ins needed, and it's OS-independent). I think the real difference between systems like Word and systems like LaTeX is the control that you have with the latter. But if you don't need that kind of control, then you might not need LaTeX. That's why I tried to make the point that, if you're already an expert in one system, there really is no pressing reason to switch to another system. But, if you're going to learn a system for the first time, we are telling you which ones we think are the most useful and professional for computer scientists to use. And in the case of some topics, like Ken Smith's presentation on Unix/Linux, these are systems that you *do* have to know, whether or not you like them, because they are the systems that we use here. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OK, that's all. Thank you for your time and patience if you have reached the end here. I just want to offer you some different point of views, and I hope this helps dealing with the problems we are facing. Sincerely, Deep Throat. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I do thank you for your honesty. I welcome further discussion by anyone, either publicly via UBLearns email for this course or anonymously by email directly to me. ======================================================================== Subject: CSE 501: Attendance, etc.: 201009_027374 From: "William J. Rapaport" Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:51:26 -0400 (EDT) Another student responds to the above message: I didn't read the messages carefully. But the overall idea looks very childish... As Prof. Rapaport explained, the only requirement for getting 'S' is attendance, but not 'signing the attendance sheet'. If one feels that this course is useless and boring, I think that's fine. But if one does not attend at all or cheat, one has to get 'U' and cannot get a degree. Instead of cheating, go to the chair, or the gripe session, and say them to remove the requirement of taking this course because it's useless. In general, I think this course helps me a lot. But I also felt some presentations were boring and useless, at least for me. I had to stay because it's REQUIRED. Even in a case he or she pays the tuition by oneself, he or she has to follow the requirement if he or she wants to get a degree from SUNY Buffalo Dept. of CSE. Reply: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You raise an interesting point: Nearly all of you are paying tuition for CSE 501, which we have designed, not only to give you what we believe to be useful information, but also to enable you to have at least one easy course in your first semester. Not attending or attending but being disruptive is a waste of *your* money. The student continues: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ About Latex: I think MS Word is advanced so much. Honestly, I could not agree completely with Prof. Ko's and Prof. Rapaport's views on latex and Word. Installing, configuring, and learning Latex were quite annoying experience for me. BUT, if she is in a situation that she need to write a lot of math formula, need to collaborate on a paper, or need to submit a previously-rejected paper to another conference or journal which has a different format (but provides latex template!), latex would be her best friend. :) My comment on "because they feel superior when they use something most people even never heard of.": Serious tennis players (even though they are not professional) usually buy expensive tennis shoes, because the shoes prevent injury and help players while playing (they believe, at least!), not because it looks cool. Thank you. ======================================================================== Subject: Attendance, etc. From: "William J. Rapaport" Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 11:45:37 -0400 (EDT) A student writes: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ No matter how boring or how interesting something it is, being discourteous and disrespectful is being discourteous and disrespectful. No two ways about it. At the very least an effort can be made not to be disturbing elements for other students. It is definitely not a lot to ask for. Definitely not. Leave everything aside. How would it feel to the student who is being disrespectful if he had the envious job Dr Rapaport has to do? How would it feel if you were giving something your best to explain something and talking and sharing about rich experiences regarding something and the response you got was yawning, chatting and giggling from your audience, blankly staring at the ceiling in some cases and typing sms's in the cell meantime without even taking a look at the man in front trying hard to explain something or trying to make something certainly as interesting as he can. I mean do the disrespecting students know "everything" in this world to be behaving this way. There has to be a will to learn. And certainly why can't you appreciate the efforts someone is making? It was definitely known what 501 is all about even before we signed up for it. So I mean how does complaining about it now change anything? Should a rational person interpret it as the one complaining to be one who has simply forgotten the former made truth or as a form of epiphany? Anyways Dr. Rapaport certainly does not expect everyone to attend every class. So a rational way to handle this "pain" read (501) is look up at the complete schedule. Mark the courses you find interesting and look up when they are. Attend those. You anyways have Dr Rapaport to tell you if you are falling low on attendances. The points made do not make much sense now at least for our batch. Maybe something can be thought of for the next batch of students taking 501. One option is definitely making it free so that it does not cost the students. But that would not guarantee more attendance really. One thing that can be done is to have attendance requirements to be pretty low and more importantly make it known to the students i.e. you have to attend "x" classes and draw up the schedule beforehand which would allow students to plan and plot. But that way also students will think they can make up for attendances later and not attend 501 at all so that again it becomes an ugly situation towards the end of it when the student would not meet the base requirement and would get a mail from Dr Rapaport that he needs to attend classes since his attendance levels are low and again he "has" to attend 501 unwillingly. This has a chance to succeed though. I do not know how to put it. It is all about the students' mentality, the way they think, the general thought process. At the very best, more talk topics can be introduced which have more chances to be successful among the students. But notice the term "chance" here, even this is not guaranteed to succeed. When we are of interesting of talk topics here, we also have to consider what resources we have at hand really i.e. faculties from the same or different universities who can make the talks and all faculty are not available all the time :-) Best case scenario => Dr Rapaport to be expert in every aspect to make the talks himself :-) We have missed a huge point along the way which I think is central as to why Frankenstein 501 was created. Students will perceive it in their second semester. Well if they still don't, :-) To shield the students from the load of a course since they are just starting out. With not many courses offered for spring, when the dreaded 600 level courses come into the picture, you will tend to miss Franky. Would not like to comment on the "flatterer" comments. They were "simply put" .... childish. :-)