Oh hell.

[jaina]

I've just now remembered we have a quiz in physiology tomorrow morning. We're supposed to read this background chapter on the kidney, because God forbid the professor should actually *teach* us about the kidney himself in the FOUR DAYS he's been assigned to teach it to us. He'd cover twice the material if he didn't ask the class a question after every sentence:

"Okay, and the basal membrane is connected to the extracellular matrix via....?"

*dead silence for about 15 seconds, because even though we all know the answer, we're really sick of him continually asking stupid questions rather than just TEACHING*

*finally someone gets sick of it and mutters "Integrins."*

"Integrins, right, and inside the cell those connect to...?"

*another dead silence, which someone finally breaks with a barely audible "actin cytoskeleton"*

"Did someone say actin? Good, okay, and the integrins connect to what in the extracellular matrix?"

***

You get the picture. Question after question after question, all pointless, all stuff we've *just* learned (or had refreshed) in cell biology, and all preventing us from doing any actual learning. Drives me up a freakin' wall.

And now that I've ranted, I should read this chapter, so I don't fail this stupid quiz tomorrow.

Comments

reminds me of Ferris Bueller...

[mainframe76.livejournal.com]

anyone?
anyone?
the Smoot-Hawley tariff...


- merc

Re: reminds me of Ferris Bueller...

[mainframe76.livejournal.com]

Which, anyone?
Raised or lowered?
...raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government.
Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects?
It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.
Today we have a similar debate over this.
Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before?
The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says?
It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial.
Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone?
Something-d-o-o economics.
"Voodoo" economics.

heck, next time your prof asks a question, just answer: "Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act?"
heh-heh...
;-)

- merc

[eliz.livejournal.com]

*pulls the shawl over the shoulders*

Back in ye olde days... while I was an undergrad I was taking one of those split senior/graduate student classes on physiological psychology. For a bunch of reason (none of them really good) they brought in someone from the community to teach the course. Okay, fine, we're used to them bringing in people like that because they genearlly bring in true experts who for whatever reason didn't want to teach but don't mind teaching a class.

So we're all in there first day and the guy just stumbles around muttering and about the only thing we get out of him is that he has like 8 kids. Someone asked how many were adopted and he said none. How many were multiples? None.

And he noted his wife was already pregnant with number 9.

I think the girls in the class were ready to throttle him as it was apparent that he was more the "keep the woman pregnant and in the house" rather than "we love kids and since we have the means to support them we want more" type. *gag*

But wait-- it gets better...

One of the grad students in the class was a transfer student and really knew her stuff anyway. She didn't know crap about psych theory but she knew her biology/anatomy damn it. After the second full class we're standing in the hall way as she's ready to beat her head against the wall.

Turns out-- our worst fear is true-- this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. What is worse-- is that his version of teaching is READING DIRECTLY FROM THE BOOK. Now-- if he had in fact written the book, I'd be a little more leanient (I've had those before too) But literally everything after Hi, using anyone's name, and Bye- it was ALL FROM THE BOOK.

And get this-- the book was not the usual book they used and it was a crap book with tons of errors. TONS. ARGH. Most of us went to our advisors who didn't quite believe us until they'd pop by to see how things were going. When you've got 30 folks sitting at desks with the books open and a highlighter in one hand... hrmmmmmm. Oh and get this-- he didn't believe in using the tests that came with the book. He wrote his own. Enjoying watching the train wreck?

Our first exam (and this was a group of people who's GPA were over 3.5, this wasn't the dummy class by anymeans) and the highest grade as a 54. Out of 100. And that's because she got lucky on the mulitple choice. Semester went on like that the whole way through as supposedly there was nothing they could do about it then. I never got above a 50 on any exam in that class and I ended up with an 'A'. Apparently he decided to grade on a curve.

We would have dropped- but it was one of those classes only offered every other spring when the chickens hatch an albino chick-- that sort of schedule- and it was necessary to graduate. We'd been promised that if we stuck it out they'd do something at the end if things didn't improve. They obviously didn't and apparently had him give the largest curve ever seen on campus. And- he was never invited back to teach again.

Oh the joys of academia!

[samlhh.livejournal.com]

That is such a good idea, to invite your advisor to observe class (assuming, of course, the advisor and prof are not good friends). Now, this also assumes you have an advisor who 1) gives a damn and 2) has time for his/her students... good luck!