Your "Best" Student Answers

[runonsentence]

Apparently I have been quite hapless on this forum. I don't quite know how to deal with it, as good fortune usually likes me.

Speaking as a rhetorician: listen to your audience (fuzzylogician et al.). They're telling you exactly how your writing/communication is being received by others.

Either the rhetorics of your messages are intentional and need to be toned down, or they're unintentional and you've been presented with a fantastic opportunity to better tailor your message to your audience.

Edited November 22, 2011 by runonsentence

[fuzzylogician]

Get over your self-important/self-pitying attitude. How many times can you possibly mention being "attacked" or "ragged on" for maintaining your "pure, truth-seeking" mentality in the face of all us heathens insisting that the earth is flat? It's simply impossible to convince you that something is wrong--for some reason the many smart people who have taken the time to thoughtfully respond to your posts and offer advice turn into a bloodthirsty mob which must be ignored whenever they suggest something that is not to your liking. Your refusal to accept subtle criticism (or the appearance of this state of affairs) is what has prompted some of the more blatant posts in this thread.

As for me, if you find some of my posts rude, well, tough. There is a whole other thread devoted to giving you advice on how to improve your research skills. This one has turned into more of a discussion of your communication skills, and contains many helpful suggestions that I hope you will take to heart. My only goal here is to point out failures in communication that can make your life unnecessarily difficult. This is so not only in the political world of academia, it holds wherever people communicate -- for example, in the corporate world. You very simply need to stop with the victim mentality, you can't believe how petty and childish it makes you sound. So yes, this has turned into more than just a discussion of whether or not it's legitimate not to pick up assignments or to have a learning-technique that's different from the norm (whatever that is). Of course it is! Others have expressed these opinions before, leading to interesting discussions about learning styles, the role of TAs etc. It's not the opinion per se and it's not the mere sighting of your name on a post that provoked the responses that you got on this thread. Hint: it's something about the delivery.

</15th attempt at making the same point>

Edited November 23, 2011 by fuzzylogician

[Sigaba]

I do hope to find someone here to help me.

I don't believe you. Fuzzylogician has given you very helpful feedback. Rather than saying "thank you," you persist in your attempts to argue.

I don't see why it is relevant to decide amongst yourselves whether I am a troll or hapless.

Because some of us have some of the things you lack -- the knowledge of how to navigate the ups and downs of the first year of graduate study, research skills, and, most of all, situational awareness. By your conduct, you are letting us decide if you're worth the time and effort to help or if ignoring you entirely or taking steps to help you self-select yourself out of graduate school are better alternatives.

For the record, I like helpful criticism as much as I dislike unhelpful/rude criticism - and I have gotten a lot of both here. Thank you/no thanks respectively!

Bluntly, I don't believe you. Just so there is no doubt, I'll repeat this point: I do not believe you when you say you "like helpful criticism."

You've gotten a lot of helpful criticism. You've utterly and completely failed to show that you've taken any of it to heart. Instead, you continue to hijack threads with posts that center around your favorite topic--yourself. You are using the controversy you're generating as an excuse to not improve yourself as a student or as a person.

Again, I think your own interests would be best served by reading more and posting less on this BB, by trying to find people in your department who are willing to help you, and by spending more time in the library. You might also call (650) 725-2387 if not also (650) 723-3785 so you can get the support that you need.

Edited November 23, 2011 by Sigaba

[OH YEAH]

OHYEAH hasn't been too bad, except for calling me a troll (classic internet ad hominem attack, not too concerned).

I can say whatever I wan't but I relly can't stand rude people. Which is why I get so annoyed here. I obviously speak whatever I think is the truth or I wouldn't speak it. And I can obviously be wrong, but I try to be careful to be correct before saying things.

Hey man, I'm just speaking what I think is the truth--you come off to me as a super duper mega troll. But in my defense, I PMed you about the troll stuff and didn't blast you on the forum for it. But since you decided to bring it out of PM, fair game, right? Here is why I think you are a troll:

- You cycle from "thanks, that helps!" to "man everyone here is so cliquey" to "here are MY philosophical insights" and back again.

- You act like you understand academia ("So far I've done alright, and so far I've noticed academia in "real life" values these things - integrity, truth-seeking, standing up for oneself, standing up for facts, standing up for doing things the best way possible. It's only a bunch of online grad students that think they know better.") but in another thread you admit that you seem incapable of handling academia/research.

- You brag about your grades, you rag on TAs, blame the forum for... god knows what ("It seems a lot of people on here dislike whenever anyone mentions something above some generic average. Above average on the GRE? Best not mention it. Good grade? Keep it to yourself. Good school? Be careful what you say. Good house? A lot of money? Little debt? Happy family? Don't have to study for the GRE? Spend less than average time on something (like, say, an SOP)? All these things are off limits.") yet again, you appear to be inept/helpless when it comes to research (which is what really matters).

It is infuriating, and, as a result, you've managed to rile up a good number of the forum members. Good job.

I simply don't buy that a graduate student at Stanford could honestly be as consistently rude, floundering, or self-contradictory as you have been. Maybe this is just how you are and I am a terrible person, but either way, I refuse to engage you any further after this message. I think you should stop posting and reflect on how silly you have been.

Edited November 23, 2011 by OH YEAH

[ktel]

Kudos to you guys for trying to drill the point home. I must say I've reached my limit for how many times I or others can say the same thing with no change in the response. This conversation has spilled onto just about every thread Aaron has touched recently on this forum.

[kp12746]

"I simply don't buy that a graduate student at Stanford could honestly be as consistently rude, floundering, or self-contradictory."

lolz. I do.

Sorry, I don't mean to say that all Stanford students display this kind of behavior, but to assume the opposite is pretty funny to me. High intelligence by no means correlates with politeness.

P.S. I propose we stop dissecting what were only slightly obnoxious comments now, and get back to some funny stories. JUST SAYING...

[OH YEAH]

Of course there isn't necessarily a correlation between high intelligence and politeness. I think a lot of smart people act this way to get a rise out of people. In other words, they like to troll. Which is what Aaron is doing.

Edited November 23, 2011 by OH YEAH

[rising_star]

I'm going to bring this conversation back to a point made pages ago. Sorry if this bothers anyone.

Maybe the professor or TA could be considered lazy for not bringing the assignment with them to the class they are going there anyway, rather than make 40 students all take seperate trips to their office. Just making the point that people don't always do things for the reason you personally would, or assume other people would.

There are numerous reasons why professors or TAs do not return papers in class and it is almost never due to laziness. To give examples from my own experience: because there are so many students in the course that it would take 10-15 minutes of class time away from instruction to do so; (in small courses) to give students the opportunity to review and discuss their grade; because there are problems with exams being stolen and given to future students so the instructor chooses to keep the exam itself in their office where it cannot be stolen; etc. These are just a few examples from my (admittedly few) years of teaching undergraduates. Rarely did students find these policies problematic.

Also, picking up graded work does not necessarily have to do with learning where you made past mistakes and doing better unless you didn't know what you were doing on the assignment.

How will you know that you didn't know what you were doing on the assignment unless you get back an assignment telling you this? Also, there are many ways to learn from mistakes through graded work. For example, you may find that the professor comments telling you which parts of your paper were not as strongly argued as others. Knowing this can help you structure your arguments better and argue more cogently in the future. That is but one example out of many.

And now for a funny student line in a paper (the paper was on how climate change and sea level rise would affect particular countries):

"Bangladesh is a South American landlocked country whose agricultural fields will be inundated with seawater and rendered unusable."

I love that line.

[ktel]

I'm going to go with Aaron on the uselessness of getting graded problem sets back in engineering. All you get back is a grade and a check mark or an x beside what you did right or wrong. Sometimes it's useful because I get something wrong that I thought I did right, and then I look at the solution or talk to the prof or ask a friend. But typically the graded assignments don't have very much useful information.

[fuzzylogician]

Unless you tell me that Engineering is very different from Math, from my experience with Math assignments you could get one of two kinds of comments (well, three): you could be completely right and not make a mistake; you could have made a small error in the calculation (e.g. the ones Aaron mentioned) but otherwise have had the right idea in mind; or you could have been completely off track and not at all on your way to a correct solution. Two out of three of those comment-types may--arguably--not contain too much useful information, but the third kind does. How do you know you didn't get any of those unless you actually look at the comments you got on your assignment?

[ktel]

Unless you tell me that Engineering is very different from Math, from my experience with Math assignments you could get one of two kinds of comments (well, three): you could be completely right and not make a mistake; you could have made a small error in the calculation (e.g. the ones Aaron mentioned) but otherwise have had the right idea in mind; or you could have been completely off track and not at all on your way to a correct solution. Two out of three of those comment-types may--arguably--not contain too much useful information, but the third kind does. How do you know you didn't get any of those unless you actually look at the comments you got on your assignment?

Because none of my assignments ever had comments on them. The TA gets paid enough to spend approximately 2 minutes per assignment, and they did.

[mandarin.orange]

And now for a funny student line in a paper (the paper was on how climate change and sea level rise would affect particular countries):

"Bangladesh is a South American landlocked country whose agricultural fields will be inundated with seawater and rendered unusable."

That is awesome. Reminds me of a past student who told me that the Himalayas were 33 feet below sea level.

I have been grading, and came across this last night: "10,000 years ago, human became sedimentary because they needed to live near water sources."

An otherwise intelligent essay...just poor word choice!

[sarahashley44]

Q--What is the name for the following compound: HI

A--Student draws an incredibly accurate periodic table with an H in front of it... get it, periodic acid!!

[reachystik]

I'm currently in the middle... (okay, that's not true... 13 exams in, 105 more to go...) of marking final exams for a 2nd year Society & Sport class. It is SOO frustrating trying to mark this stuff.... I'm sitting here, shaking my head and worrying about humanity..

some answers i have seen are: (these are exact copies of what I have reading so far... and this is only from 13 exams...)

q. what is the charter of rights and freedoms and how can you apply it to sports?

"the charter of rights and freedoms was created to allow for reverse racism so that people who are not white can join in on sports"

q. describe women's bodies in the 15th century and what they represented.

"women's bodies in the 15th century were very very fat, and today they are not and they were fat in the olden days because they did not exercise or have eating disorders"

q. in class we discussed "gendered sport", what does this mean?

"sport is a man's activity and women should not be allowed to play in organized sports with men because it dumbs it down"

q. what is the theory of catharsis with regards to playing sports?

"the theory of catharsis is about how catholics should be allowed to play in sports and on sports teams"

q. define and provide an example of doping as discussed in class.

"doping in sports is when you take some blood out at night and get it put back into your body in the morning so that it has more oxygen, thus giving your body more oxygenized blood"

q. compare and contrast "under" and "over" conformity in sports today.

"overcomformity happens when there are people in sports who follows all the rules without questioning them, much like hitler, osama, and the rugby team that shaves their heads like mohawks"

q. what is difference between race theory and ethnicity theory regarding sports?

"race is when you are black or white and ethnicity is when you are asian or non-black or non-white"

q. (short essay on the history of sport in canada)

"canadians invented hockey and natives in canada do not understand hockey, so they invented lacrosse so they could have their own sport"

q. define masculine homogeneity as it regards to sport.

"masculine homogeneity is the appreciation for a men's body parts" (this was written by a chick, i can only imagine what she has on her mind..)

q. define marginalization theory and describe how it views participation on sports

"marginalization is when the coach yells at people to get off the sidelines and into the game so that they can participate"

q. (short essay on comparing differences between female and male athletes)

"female athletes are targeted by the media, an example of this is how they always like to take pictures of serena williams when she is scratching her bum"

I worry because most of this class is working toward an education degree in hopes of being teachers some day...

[qbtacoma]

Wow, reachystik, clearly you had some students who resented studying any gender theory at all.

[coffeeplease]

I don't teach at the college level but I'm jumping into this thread anyway. This is not from an exam but from reviewing a remedial English exercise with some 8th graders (we're in Germany). They got the basic elements of the sentence ("my sister and I -- have -- cat," that kind of thing). I asked one particularly loud student to read her answer for a sentence that was supposed to start out, "My sister and I." She told me she didn't do it, and when I asked why, she said, "I don't have a sister."

I would have been less annoyed if she had at least tried to say *that* in English, but no....

I was wrapping up with another class (6th graders). We had been talking about the simple past tense. I asked if there were any questions before I dismissed them. One boy's hand shot up in the air.

"Yes?"

Kid (in German): "When people do cocaine, why do the go like this?" --and the kid proceeds to rub his nose vigorously while inhaling very dramatically through his nose.

I was speechless for a few seconds before saying, "Uh, I meant questions about English."

Kid (still in German): "OH! Then no."

Edited January 8, 2012 by coffeeplease

[Andsowego]

This thread has been highly amusing for so many reasons. I seriously haven't laughed this hard in weeks! I just read the entire thing in one go, and wow. What a fantastic read it is! (literally, in case there was any misinterpretation of potential sarcasm). Anywhooo... here's my addition to the actual purpose of this thread:

Try explaining to an undergraduate music student - whose first language is not English - that although they are phonetically similar, the terms "french whore" and "french horn" are actually quite different (this is also a great example of why spell check and autocorrect are sometimes evil!).

[PrescribedBurn]

On a lab practical quiz on the week after they learned about symbiosis and lichens, there was a photo of a lichen on a tree or rock, not really clear, and the question asked what two organisms were involved in the pictured symbiosis. The correct answer was fungus and green algae, or fungus and cyanobacteria. A bunch of the answers I got were 'lichen and tree', which, while technically not wrong, was pretty obviously not what we were going for. The best one, though? Lichen and rock.

Somebody clearly was not aware of the definition of organism...

[mandarin.orange]

This thread has been highly amusing for so many reasons. I seriously haven't laughed this hard in weeks! I just read the entire thing in one go, and wow. What a fantastic read it is!

For further amusement, I suggest Female Science Professor's blog, which has been huge entertainment to me the last couple of weeks. She had a "Worst Cover Letters" contest. Entries were not real, but written in a mock style that contained some of the worst elements that the submitters had come across while on search committees, etc.

I was also surprised (or perhaps not really) to discover, over break, that the Chronicle of Higher Education's forums contain a thread similar to this one. It has swelled to a whopping 1200+ pages.

[Pitangus]

I was also surprised (or perhaps not really) to discover, over break, that the Chronicle of Higher Education's forums contain a thread similar to this one. It has swelled to a whopping 1200+ pages.

Several even! They have seperate threads for emails, conversations, sentences (similar to this thread), misspelled words...

The email one is indeed massive.

I had fun sifting through them throughout undergrad though: some of the stories are outrageous, and I liked the firsthand information regarding what professors find annoying in emails etc.

[coffeeplease]

Correcting exams brought me another answer. In an essay on technology/dystopian futures, one student brought up the iPhone. This was actually appropriate, but what wasn't appropriate was waxing poetic about the iPhone for four pages (she was supposed to be critiquing a short newspaper article).

The best part of the answer though, was this:

"The cool thing about the iPhone was that you could listen to music or call a friend, or even somebody else."

Revolutionary technology, that.

[kotov]

I once had a student tell me that Jesus invented the Graham cracker.

[annieca]

As an undergrad I only occasionally pick up my final exams. However, I ALWAYS pick up final papers. I plan on publishing so knowing what they said on a final paper is extremely useful.

Final exams are... I think they're a good indicator of how you did in the class but, at least for my degree (History) it is not knowledge you will be building on for the next class. The writing skills, maybe. But the professors at my uni very rarely comment on writing skills.

*shrugs* I suppose it just depends on the professor and student. Also, I believe it depends on what semester it is. Picking up papers from a final exam in Spring Semester is a very large hassle as opposed to those in Fall Semester.

...And a note about finding out where professor's offices are. It depends on the school. My university is small and there are absolutely no adjunct offices. Therefore you literally have to flag the professor down and get your exam from their house.

[abc123xtc]

We were doing a unit on sexual health, and one of my students told me the number of sexual partners she had had in her response paper. I personally don't care about these things, but I wasn't sure if I should be flattered or concerned that she was so open to me about it.