Classes

[logomancer]

After spending two weeks in classes, I have determined the following:

• McQuain seems OK to teach OS at this point in time. Same old routine, same old grind.
• Our Stats prof (I forgot his name) is a lazy bastard. At this point, classes are optional, and he's going over stuff we had in high school. Whee.
• Fuller, my Sociology teacher, is typical for a freshman teacher. Somewhat boring, but competent enough. He just has test grades, so no HW from him.
• Arthur, my Comparative Languages teacher, is a bully. Gods help you if three people can't answer a question of his, because he'll make it into a pop quiz and screw you. Gods help you if you don't read the book or come to class on time, either. "Always show up to an Arthur class," narquelion says. "After two absences you become a target." I despise bullies.
• Sallie Henry is my prof in CS4704, which zerblinitzky roped me into taking. Seems OK, despite vond's comment that she's a psychotic bitch. But I've only had two classes with her. We shall see.

All in all, an OK lineup. I just need to do the readings. Unfortunately, that's something I fail at sometimes. But I will make an attempt.

Comments

[anterus.livejournal.com]

Didn't Jay rope you into that CS class, not Ross? 'Cause I know Jay was pimping it rather earnestly at the Games Day.

[nius.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call Arthur a bully, I kinda think he's more of a badass.. and a royal pain in the ass, but when it comes to teaching, he's badass... I like teachers who are big, loud, and in-your-face, but ONLY if they know their stuff - as far as OS, he really knew his stuff.

I learned Operating Systems from him - I say learned, because I wound up dropping the class for medical reasons and taking it a second time (from Farooq Ali), where I didn't really bother showing up since I'd learned it already.

That semester I'd found myself with a pretty bad case of clinical depression, and finally had the balls to get some help. I failed the programming projects miserably because I couldn't understand my own code & comments the next day, I was flipping realities so quickly.

Arthur knew I participated in class, but wasn't sure why I was doing badly on the projects. Then I aced the midterm, which shocked him - nobody gets a 100 in that class, so he pulled me aside and chatted for a bit. I told him what was going on, so he offered to let me have an incomplete and do the projects after I finished counseling. Since I only had 9 credits left for my degree that wasn't necessary, but I thanked him for the offer. I attended all the rest of the classes and continued to take notes, because he had so much energy it made it really easy to learn.

He really does care about his students - at least, in my impression, he's *not* one of those "I got Tenure, I don't have to do any work now" professors (I had some of those in CpE) - he just doesn't take any shit.

[narquelion.livejournal.com]

That's more like my opinion, really, and the quote is more like wyrdone's interruption of my opinion.... Both of my Arthur classes were 8am, though, and I think being unique and a bit loud are required qualities to teach well at that hour. I guess it says something that I was willing to do the second one - most classes at 8am, especially when followed by a four-hour gap, I wouldn't even have shown up never mind learned anything.

He's definitely egotistical, but he's also the most honest professor I ever had when it came to the things he didn't know - there were actually a couple projects where he specifically asked us not to do some things because "it's not the point of the project, and I really don't understand it well enough to grade it anyway." And he does like to teach, which is a feature in a college full of research faculty.

Now I did tell Andrew you absolutely can't miss class with the man. And that he's more into football than most anyone else I know. And that he's not very forgiving of problems even partially caused by failure to show up or pay attention. But obviously he does sorta grow on people, right nius?