Going back to school.
From SusoSight
| Number: | 13 |
| Date created: | 2001-09-04 19:48:25 |
| Previous Thought: | Winning the lottery |
| Next Thought: | Stop paying gratuity!! |
| Voting results: | Yes: 8 |
So I started taking classes last week after being out of school for about 2 years. Dispite being much more focused and driven to do my homework and studies than ever before, I'm still very bothered by the attitude towards education in this country.
A good example of this is my Russian 101 class. I've heard that in years past this beginning class was taught by an actual professor (the kind with a PhD) who was a native english speaker. This fall is appearently different as my teacher is a Korean graduate student. Even though she has been speaking Russian for 10 years and speaks English pretty well, there is something to be said for having someone who knows what to expect from students who are learning such a complex and "foreign" language.
I've heard some stories where the undergraduates who where learning under these conditions where told "tough luck kid" when they went to complain to a department head about the situation. Well if a department head ever says that to me I will say to them that they better get themselves into those beginning classes and teach their students well. When I take classes it is not so that they may culminate in my earning a piece of paper that helps me get a job. I take classes because the skills that I will develop in them will be used nearly every day of my life. Once I've mastered Russian, I will use it all the time to talk to my fiancee and her family. Every day of my adult career I will use the mathmatical skills that I will develop in the few years ahead.
So the fact that professors find teaching rudementary classes boring or a waste of their professional talents is unexcusible. For they are educators first and foremost, if they are here to do research then they can do it on someone elses bill and not waste my time with it.