NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on May 23, 2011 8:41:25 GMT -5
I can understand if it's a "special" program which is what I suspect it is but not for a regular generic 4 year degree. If that's true then it will either sink that schools engineering program or it will set a very very bad precedence.
I'd have to dig into it, I work for the professional/graduate part of the university and haven't really looked into their ungraduate program for years.
I know tuition is still rising in general and I know they are going to jack up the tuition on MBA program, but that's a graduate program.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on May 23, 2011 8:43:38 GMT -5
Why shouldn't they go out of their way? Isn't that their job? They are getting paid well to teach and help students
My professors were more than willing to help if I sought them out for it.
I am 19/20 years old when I enter college, why should they track me down if I need help?
Then my school had plenty of tutor programs and other aids if you needed help with your courses. All available free of charge.
I utilized it for calculus and physics.
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Post by magichat on May 23, 2011 8:44:36 GMT -5
I understand you not wanting to "out" yourself I am curious because I just can't believe any school would do this. I can understand if it's a "special" program which is what I suspect it is but not for a regular generic 4 year degree. If that's true then it will either sink that schools engineering program or it will set a very very bad precedence. In the article I read about this particular institution raising tuition rates, it was quoted saying that multiple other Universities observe this practice. It wasn't for a special program. What wasn't clarified was if this applied to courses within that major or if a student majoring in engineering would pay more for all courses taken.
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Post by pig on May 23, 2011 8:44:46 GMT -5
I know they are going to jack up the tuition on MBA program
Right, but afaik most MBA programs are considered "professional" schools.
Why shouldn't they go out of their way? Isn't that their job? They are getting paid well to teach and help students.
Not necessarily. Do you expect a teacher who has 200 students in Physics 101 to weed through and perform one on one instruction with each and every troubled student? Sorry, not going to happen.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 8:49:46 GMT -5
The university chain I work for has decided to jack up the tution for engineering majors What college is this? I've NEVER heard of a school charging more for any major. This isn't that uncommon. If it is a separate school within the university, they have some coverage that way. The same way that undergrauate tuition is different than graduate tution, and within graduate tuition, the med school and law school can charge more than the regular grad school. If you have a school of engineering, they have some cover. If they have to take regular undergraduate tution because they are all part of the same big school, then they will typically have higher lab and technology fees. Some of which is understandable - the engineering department is buying new computers every couple of years with some uber expensive software. The chemistry department needs fancy hoods and ventillation systems. An equally prestigious English department needs desks and access to basic word processing software. Even if you factor in smartboards and a lot of teaching technology, the equipment is just less costly.
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Post by pig on May 23, 2011 8:56:08 GMT -5
This isn't that uncommon
I've never heard of it, not trying to be a smart ass but do you have a link somewhere about this issue? I'd be very surprised that I've never heard of it and it's a common occurrence. Obviously, med and law are professional schools and will have a different tuition. And of course "fees" may vary across departments.
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Post by mtntigger on May 23, 2011 8:57:47 GMT -5
Why shouldn't they go out of their way? Isn't that their job? They are getting paid well to teach and help students. I was a TA for a couple years for a couple different math and engineering classes. I set aside 3 different two-hour time slots during the week and told the students if they needed slots for other times to come talk to me as I was willing to work around their schedule. During the 5 semesters I did this, I saw TWO students... again and again and again. I heard through the grapevine later that they dropped out of school. ![:(](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sad.png) I am assuming professors go through the same thing, trying to bend over backwards to help the students and finding that they spend 80% of their time on the 20% of the students that shouldn't be there in the first place.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 9:07:12 GMT -5
Dr. Pig, This link is to the University of Michigan's tuition schedule - I'm not an engineer, so I just googled a school I knew to have a decent engineering program. A "lower division" undergrad would pay less than a "lower division" engineering major.
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Post by pig on May 23, 2011 9:14:20 GMT -5
Thanks Crafty but I don't see any difference. Am I reading it correctly? The "general" tuition is 17,906 and the engineering tuition is 18,011 that's a 105 dollar difference. To me that's a fee someonwhere and not a real tuition difference.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 9:14:25 GMT -5
Currently, the standards ARE lacking and some of the things that I graduated from college with my BS knowing how to do, I have to teachI hate students, especially undergraduate students. They pop into your lab thinking research is neat, mess it all up and you're left to clean up the mess once summer ends. ![>:(](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/angry.png) I think this gets to a major problem. I don't begrudge you this attitude. But I don't like a system that forces people to teach who have no interest in teaching. Grad students who are underpaid, over worked, and desperately trying to complete their own research are forced to TA courses in order to pay their tuition/pathetically small salary. Professors are forced to teach courses they have no interest in until they can successfully buy back their time through research grants. Even if you enjoy teaching and care about your students, teaching doesn't get you tenure (assuming you are fortunate enough to land a tenure track gig in the first place). The educational system rewards research and publications and the things a faculty member does outside of class. If we want to cultivate better college teachers, we should find a way to reward them professionally.
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Post by pig on May 23, 2011 9:18:21 GMT -5
Even if you enjoy teaching and care about your students, teaching doesn't get you tenure (assuming you are fortunate enough to land a tenure track gig in the first place). The educational system rewards research and publications and the things a faculty member does outside of class.
I think that all depends upon the type of school as well. Of course in an R1 school you can teach like shit and get away with it assuming your research is good enough. But at smaller R2 schools you won't get away with teaching like crap even if your research is stellar.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 9:18:51 GMT -5
I was looking at the in-state column. $5800 undergrad/$6200 engineering. Lab fees not included.
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Post by pig on May 23, 2011 9:23:56 GMT -5
Still not much of a difference but a difference none the less, thanks!
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 9:35:13 GMT -5
Still not much of a difference but a difference none the less, thanks! Hey, $400 a semester buys an undergrad an awful lot of Busch Light ![](http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff155/JiminiChristmas/smileys/2.gif)
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on May 23, 2011 9:37:43 GMT -5
I think this gets to a major problem. I don't begrudge you this attitude. But I don't like a system that forces people to teach who have no interest in teachingI don't teach, I train when students come in wanting to do lab work in the summer. Not all students are bad. I worked with a fantastic medical student who I was more than happy to sing his praises to my boss for. But then he was serious about wanting to do research and was even considering doing the MD/PhD program. I've also had/worked with serious undergradute students. MY issue comes from the ones who think it would be "neat" to work in a lab and then piss away the opportunity because they are either bored or didn't realize they'd actually have to do work. I had one that left 26 mouse tails out to rot on the counter, requring me to take another day to genotype the mice AGAIN and the kicker is she lied to me telling me she lost them! Then she lied to me and told me it was another student who left the tails out. Guess she didn't count on me knowing that student and actually asking. I don't mind students who actually are interested and want to do work. I HATE students who show up in the lab, fuck up your work and then leave at the end of the summer. Took me three months to clean up that girl's mess. ![>:(](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/angry.png) Unfortuantely her type is usually the standard, the medical student I worked with is the exception. And she wants to be a biochemist! ![:o](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/shocked.png)
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on May 23, 2011 9:38:19 GMT -5
Even if you enjoy teaching and care about your students, teaching doesn't get you tenure (assuming you are fortunate enough to land a tenure track gig in the first place). The educational system rewards research and publications and the things a faculty member does outside of class.
To get tenure in any major university, it is not dependent upon any single aspect. Teaching, research, publications, community service and offices held within the university are all taken under consideration.
If you are an excellent researcher that brings in a lot of $$ and have a dozen publications, if you don't teach or have enough community service, it does not make a damned bit of difference (and I have observed this IRL), you'll be denied tenure.
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Post by pig on May 23, 2011 9:43:32 GMT -5
If you are an excellent researcher that brings in a lot of $$ and have a dozen publications, if you don't teach or have enough community service, it does not make a damned bit of difference
Wanna bet? If you bring in multi millions they most certainly will waiver other requirements. University service is pretty much a gimmie with all the committees you have to serve on anyway. And I've seen people who could barely speak English and get the worst teaching evaluations in the world get tenure because of the money they brought in.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on May 23, 2011 9:57:01 GMT -5
I don't mind students who actually are interested and want to do work. I HATE students who show up in the lab, fuck up your work and then leave at the end of the summer.
Took me three months to clean up that girl's mess.
Unfortuantely her type is usually the standard, the medical student I worked with is the exception.
I'm of the same mind. I've gotten several students in over the years who are not the norm. They come into the lab prepared, they ask intelligent questions, which makes you aware that they're thinking about what they're doing, they show up when expected and are ready to do the job. I had one a couple summers ago and she was an utter joy to work with.
But unfortunately (as Drama can attest) >85% of the students are in the lab for one reason. They're trying to get their foot in the door to a professsional program and it looks good on their CV to have research (and usually an abstract or two with their name on it) on their accomplishments. They have absolutely NO interest in it, and it shows in their attitude.
So when I get one of these students, my work goes onto the backburner and I spend time trying to teach the students what they need to do. Since most don't care, they do a shitty job that takes 6x as long and uses up more resources than necessary. At the end of the summer, they'll leave and I'll wind up repeating the work since the data's so bad, so we can make use of the information.
Students seem to have a glamorous idea about research. However, it's long and it's tedious and it's simply not what you see on TV or read in books.
If you want to know how many feel, there is a knock off of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance on uTube that shows a lot of the frustrations. I roared in laughter after I saw it, because I remember some of those feelings so well.
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Post by illinicheme on May 23, 2011 10:01:38 GMT -5
That Bad Romance parody is hysterical. Instant classic for those of us in the lab sciences.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on May 23, 2011 10:06:28 GMT -5
But unfortunately (as Drama can attest) >85% of the students are in the lab for one reason. They're trying to get their foot in the door to a professsional program and it looks good on their CV to have research (and usually an abstract or two with their name on it) on their accomplishments. They have absolutely NO interest in it, and it shows in their attitudeDing ding ding, we have a winner! She tried to get into a collaborator's lab the following summer. My fellow lab tech told her boss that if he wanted a reference, go ask me, but be prepared for blood to shoot out my eyeballs and my head to spin around. ![:P](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/tongue.png) She told him if he hired her that HE would be the one to train her, she had too much work to do to mess around with her. I found out shortly before the student left that she had never had her paperwork filed with IACUC, she was running around the mouse room without authorization! ![:o](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/shocked.png) Fortunately that was not my lab's problem, that would have been the lab she worked for. But OMFG she had already made a huge mess out of the mouseroom that I had to clean up and then to find out she had not even been certified? ![](http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff155/JiminiChristmas/smileys/1.gif)
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rovo
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Post by rovo on May 23, 2011 10:22:38 GMT -5
I can only comment on my own experiences and my son's experiences in engineering school.
In my case we had 120 EE majors starting our Freshman year. By the time I graduated there were 11 of us getting our degree. Now that is a pretty high failure rate. What I saw was a bunch of kids wanting to be electrical engineers but not being bright enough to do the tasks or not being dedicated enough to put in the time.
Sure, we had TAs that were difficult to understand and even some Asst. Professors without good communications ability. That's life and we had to get over it.
By the time we got to our Junior year the ratio of students to teachers was about 2 or 3 to 1. They always made time for us if we had questions and frequently sought us out if they thought we were not doing good enough in a class.
In my son's case, there was a drop out rate of a little over 50% and his teachers always made themselves available to help the students.
I did notice one big difference in the years from my degree to my son's degree. In my case the teaching was almost exclusively theoretical and in my son's case the teaching was more hands on and practical with a lot more projects.
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Post by mtntigger on May 23, 2011 10:46:03 GMT -5
That's what I liked about the university your DS went to and why I chose Cal Poly for my undergrad degree. The university's motto is "Learn by doing" and there was more of an emphasis on showing the students what can happen. At that time, Cal Poly wasn't as research-orientated as the UCs or other universities.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on May 23, 2011 11:05:06 GMT -5
DH is a civil engineer but teaches math at the local college. He went to a small private univ for his BS. He never had a class taught by a TA and I don't think any engineering class ever had more than 20 students in it in all 4 years. He had a few professors from other countries and some fellow students. If a prof was too difficult to understand the students simply wouldn't take them for a class. One prof was let go because of it. Some wrote up a power point instead so the students could follow along on the paper. The free market system really did work. ;D If he had his choice he took an adjunct over a regular tenure or research prof any day!!! He always said that being great at the theory was great if you were going to build a building or road in theory but he wanted to build them in New Jersey so he wanted the prof who was good in real life. ![:o](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/shocked.png) He said that most of the dropouts in engineering don't happen in the first year. Most happened in the junior year when I guess the upper level classes, even for smart people, can be really hard. That is where they start dropping like flies and switching majors.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on May 23, 2011 11:08:33 GMT -5
The bottom classes at my school were packed because they were required for more than one major. I counted at least three different majors in Organic Chemistry.
Once you got into your higher up core classes the classes got smaller because they were more specialized.
Junior year is around where people dropped like flies at my school too because you started getting into the 300+ courses.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on May 23, 2011 11:14:39 GMT -5
DH teaches math at the local college. He has had hundreds of students and never had a mom or dad call him about a grade. He gets about 2 a semester who complain about a grade to the dept head. Most of the complaints are totally stupid. Who complains about a grade when you flunked because you didn't bother to show up to take the final??? He gets two of that a year. ![](http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff155/JiminiChristmas/smileys/75_75.gif) On the other hand that is probably the same number of lazy, stupid people that we would encounter in any profession. In engineering the hardest classes he took were the classes he had to take for another dicipline in engineering. He was a civil. He could care less about electrical or chemical yet he had to take a few upper level classes in them. The hardest part for most students to keep their perspective about it. Ever teacher thinks what they teach is the most important thing in the world. The student needs to understand what classes are not important to them and then just do their best to pass the class and move on. No one is great at everything so stop worring about it. Colleges would do a great service to their students if they got more/better counselors for them. A good adviser is worth their weight in gold on most campuses today and they are pretty few and far between. ![:(](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sad.png)
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on May 23, 2011 11:18:55 GMT -5
The student needs to understand what classes are not important to them and then just do their best to pass the class and move on. No one is great at everything so stop worring about it.
Physics is not my strong suit and probably never will be. I got thru it, passed and moved on. I understand the basics well enough that when it pertains to my job, but I'll never be a theoretical phyiscist.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on May 23, 2011 11:26:03 GMT -5
The student needs to understand what classes are not important to them and then just do their best to pass the class and move on. No one is great at everything so stop worrying about it.Physics is not my strong suit and probably never will be. I got thru it, passed and moved on. I understand the basics well enough that when it pertains to my job, but I'll never be a theoretical physicist. DH said the same thing. He liked Newtonian Physics but all theoretical physics two gives him is a headache.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on May 23, 2011 11:29:05 GMT -5
My first physics professor was a theoretical physicist. That was a match made in hell. I got thru that class by the skin of my teeth. ![:(](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sad.png)
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on May 23, 2011 11:58:29 GMT -5
I went to a medium (what I call medium anyway) sized state school of around 20k. I don't ever recall any class being exclusively taught by a TA except for speech which was taught my a masters student. All my teachers except one math teacher (and the TA mentioned) had PhD.
General physics for me was about 40 students, but I was a physics major so I took the most demanding general physics (we had several levels, mine was calculus based). General chemistry had about 150 students. Most of my upper level physics classes had 5-15 students. A few exceptions existed, like in both of my mathematical physics courses, it was just me and one other guy as students.
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cael
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Post by cael on May 23, 2011 12:20:48 GMT -5
My $.02 on this: I have a geology degree, which yes is hard science despite it kind of being the red-headed stepchild, lol! I went to two different colleges so I had two different departments I was part of. All the professors (except maybe 1 guy) in both depts were American. I did have foreign profs in one or two math classes, one physics class (it was a summer class though... so not as hard as a full semester I feel) and an astronomy class. The guy who taught my astronomy class was Chinese, and he was nice, but hard to understand & not a great teacher. Had a guy for a math class who looked middle-eastern, but had a German accent - difficult to understand, but also just not a good teacher. The physics guy I don't remember much about.
I started as a biology major like a few of my friends, and I switched to geology halfway through my freshman year. My geology depts liked to party and have a good time, lol, and both depts were really nice environments. I loved it. I am in public health right now with the hopes of getting into environmental science at some point and doing more "real" science-y stuff like testing/monitoring/mitigation/conservation (I'm hoping to start grad school within the year). I had almost zero science education until high school, when I realized I loved it & took a lot of really good classes. They prepared me decently for college.
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