I'm guessing "Consider how to make premeditated murder look like manslaughter" is a bad answer?

I better used my time considering how to make premeditated murder look like unexpected retirement.

A better rant would be on universities' attempt to rape America into near economic disaster by charging outrageous tuition rates which are spent on frivolous things.

The bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy...

Even worse than government imo.

A better rant would be on universities' attempt to rape America into near economic disaster by charging outrageous tuition rates which are spent on frivolous things.

The bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy...

Even worse than government imo.

Oh, don't remind me how much it's costing me (and my parents who help me out) to get a teacher and team of three TAs who can't provide any feedback or advice without me bothering them to do so.

You can choose to attend a school where lectures are held in auditoriums with 500+ people and multiple TAs are responsible for the work. Or you can choose to attend a smaller school, such as a small state school or community college, where 15 people is considered a huge class and the professors are available all the time.

For perspective: consider that quite a few teachers at small schools are teachers at small schools because they can't find sufficient work in their field.

[an observation, not a hypothesis]

A better rant would be on universities' attempt to rape America into near economic disaster by charging outrageous tuition rates which are spent on frivolous things.

The bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy...

Even worse than government imo.

This upsets me mostly for state schools. There are public universities because they were supposed to be cheap alternatives to these huge private schools, and they end up often being nearly as expensive in many cases; especially if you go out of state.

After the State of the Union, I'm really hoping we can see some significant education reform. I don't really care so much for me, as I'm totally capable of clearing my debt, but it's really heart breaking how many people just cannot afford further education for some reason or another.

The one good thing about public universities today is that a lot of them rival private universities in terms of education quality. Not every one, but usually there are a handful of colleges in every state that will cover pretty much every major well across their whole.

Oh, don't remind me how much it's costing me (and my parents who help me out) to get a teacher and team of three TAs who can't provide any feedback or advice without me bothering them to do so.

You said both the problem and the solution at the same time.

You say they cannot provide the feedback without you asking, but you said they are spread thin. It takes time for them to provide it, and many college students don't care for the feedback even if they did get it.


So in your case they're doing the right thing to not provide feedback to students by default.


If you want the feedback, go get it.

If you want the feedback, go get it.

This. General rant follows: university isn't about spoon-feeding you. If you want something, you need to go and get it yourself. Professors and TAs are not there to coddle you - they are not "teachers" in the sense that most of us all knew in high school. Professors generally don't really care about individual undergrads, and the ones that do are rare. That was one of the first things that I learned in my first semester, if not even before that. Most of my first year courses tried to make the transition from high school to our new setting easier, but after first year, I and my fellow undergrads are expected to be able to fend for ourselves. University is what you make of it. You get what you put in, and not just in terms of studying and the academics itself.

Also 38/50 (76%ish?) would have been an acceptable grade for me - it means that what I'm doing isn't stupidly easy, and I'm probably working at about the appropriate level of difficulty, since not only do I tend to learn by doing stuff wrong this first time, then going back and figuring out how to do it right, but I also have an acceptable level of stress and workload to maintain. Even so, I think that if I were getting straight As consistently I'd probably switch majors to something more challenging...

Suffice it to say we are in great disagreement about what a teacher is and should be, and I can say at least in the case of Oberon_Command and me that we've had quite different college experiences. I'm honestly friends with a number of my teachers, who care deeply about undergraduates. I've traveled the world with one of them!

Most of my classes are graduate-level, and they're either half undergraduates/half graduate students or I'm the only undergraduate. I've also spent some time at a small university outside the US meant for future research mathematicians--and it definitely did not operate like the typical US university. Suffice it to say the atmosphere is a lot different in these classes--it's a lot better, in essentially every way--and I've gotten used to it. While taking general education requirements (like this linguistics course) I am reminded of what most undergraduates deal with.
It's disturbing for me to see Oberon_Command refer to feedback as "coddling" you. I don't think I could have asked for better verification of my whole point.

As for the grade itself--I don't much care about it. My rant wasn't about the grade.

It isn't so much that profs giving you feedback that was "coddling," it was that them giving the feedback to you unsolicited was "coddling." At least, I get the impression that that's what it is here. My university's motto means "it's yours" or "it's up to you," and I think that reflects in the teaching. Professors and TAs provide help, but here, the undergraduate must be responsible enough to go out and get it. I honestly think that it's for the better - it tends to weed out those people who aren't capable of learning things on their own (for those who generally don't need the extra help) or don't actually care enough to learn anything(for those who DO need the help).

[color=#CCCCCC][size=2]Suffice it to say we are in great disagreement about what a teacher is and should be,[/quote]
[color="#CCCCCC"]

[color="#CCCCCC"]Ah, but remember what I said before - professors are not teachers. They are (in my experience) generally researchers who double as teachers. Lots of them would much rather be doing research than teaching undergrads. Some of them enjoy the teaching aspect and approach the job as a teacher might, but still - I have never seen professors as teachers. The professor is there to provide you with material and help you learn it, if you need that help. The learning, however, is up to you.
[color="#CCCCCC"]

[color="#CCCCCC"]Most of my classes are graduate-level, and they're either half undergraduates/half graduate students or I'm the only undergraduate. [/quote]
[color="#CCCCCC"]
[color="#CCCCCC"]This is why. According to what I've heard, the graduate experience tends to be quite different from the undergraduate experience, particularly in first-year courses like I assume your linguistics course is. I took a similar linguistics course, and my class was around ~150 students. This is about par for the course for a first-year undergrad course. My upper-level courses are much smaller and closer-knit, resulting in a better learning experience. I think the smaller size is largely because the people who either weren't smart enough or not hardworking enough got weeded out in the first-year stage... I would assume that graduate-level courses are even smaller.
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[color="#CCCCCC"]How'd you get into graduate-level courses in the first place, anyway? Don't you have undergrad prerequisites to fulfill?

It isn't so much that profs giving you feedback that was "coddling," it was that them giving the feedback to you unsolicited was "coddling." At least, I get the impression that that's what it is here. My university's motto means "it's yours" or "it's up to you," and I think that reflects in the teaching. Professors and TAs provide help, but here, the undergraduate must be responsible enough to go out and get it. I honestly think that it's for the better - it tends to weed out those people who aren't capable of learning things on their own (for those who generally don't need the extra help) or don't actually care enough to learn anything(for those who DO need the help).

I don't know, but I'm paying a fair bit of money for my education. If I get an assignment back that only has a grade, and zero indication of where the marks were lost, then that is just a slap in the face and something that serves only to piss me off.

Now, I don't expect a long winded explanation about what was wrong, but does it really take all that long to circle a problem and scribble "See theory X" or whatever is suitable to it?

The fact that I went to University rather than a public Library is, to me at least, a pretty damn clear sign that I WANT feed back, and to be told where I'm going wrong. Not having that feed back just wastes everyone's time. it means I have to go track down the professor and hope they aren't busy, possibly working my schedule around a meeting time, then the prof has to go and read the assignment again, think about it before giving me the initial reply of what was wrong. Then usually I would thank them and leave to first go try to solve the problem myself. If I can't work it out on my own, then I have to go back.

That is a lot of steps cut out if they just gave that initial feedback in the first place, and saves both of us a meeting.

If someone doesn't want to help students learn and become useful members of their fields, then they should stay the hell out of academics. They're not helping the students, and they're wasting our time and our money.