Today I received email confirmation that my laptop has been shipped from Shanghai CN! Only… not really. FedEx has it, but hasn’t started moving it because it missed the day’s shipping cut off. -_-;;; My classes are becoming very difficult without a laptop. Next week SE146 is going to start having implementation assigments… I hope to hell this thing isn’t delayed any more. I’ve been hurting without it thus far.
Dr. Evelyn Obaid is the worst college professor I have ever encountered.
Before I explain what happened, let me first say that I hold anyone with a PhD in high regard; PhDs are experts in their respective fields of study and are a valuable knowledge resource.
I’m currently enrolled in Dr. Obaid’s Object Oriented Design (CS151-01) class this semester at SJSU. I’ll admit that I have already studied much (if not all) of the course content in greater detail on my own and in other classes. You may wonder why I’m taking this class at all. Well, for one, it is required by my major and the CmpE department isn’t offering it this semester, and for two, even if I wanted to challenge the class I still have to enroll in it. Now, whatever prejudices or ideas about my motives and intentions for taking the class Dr. Obaid has, she is responsible for cultivating learning. My learning. I’m spending my hard earned money (yes, past, present, and future tense of “earned”) to be there. I’m not there for anyone else but myself. I am there because I want to learn.
UML I have studied in CmpE131 Software Engineering I; UML is the topic of the week. Throughout most of the class I do not take notes because I already have notes, slides, homework, and semester-long projects from other classes. I’d really like to save a tree (and my sanity) here. Now, back to what I said earlier: PhDs are experts. I am not a PhD and even if my understanding and experience on the topic being discussed is substantial, I dare not say I’m an expert by any means. Along the course of the discussion (well not really a “discussion” but I’ll get back to that) I do occasionally have questions. I have questions, so I ask them. They may not be relevant to 80% of the class, but they matter to me. I am in class to learn. On the whiteboard is an example UML sequence diagram. I am patient. I wait until she asks for questions.
My question: “How do you diagram callbacks or calls to distributed objects?”
Dr. Obaid’s response: “Well, we’re not going to cover distributed systems in this class. You’re designing programs that will run on a single system. Callbacks are just a call.” She doesn’t even bother to try to defer the answer. She just hands me this non-response. She’s starting to sound irritated.
At this point I’m thinking to myself. But we’re covering multi-threading later in the semester. What, are we going to come back to UML and specify all the notation in the middle of that topic?? Isn’t multi-threading hard enough without not knowing how to diagram the damn interactions? My intent for this particular course (like some) is to reconcile what I know with what is presented. Being in class is ideal because usually, the professor is interested in presenting knowledge and refuting mistakes and errors. Somehow, this is not the case with Dr. Obaid.
Dr. Obaid’s teaching style is to copy material from the book (with some minor additions to detail) directly to the whiteboard by hand as she speaks on the topic. The great majority of the class time is spent waiting for her to transcribe the notes she brings to the board in verbose detail (yes, down to every last letter and punctuation mark). While she’s writing she does not look back for questions; she does not look back for anything apparently. The next example on the board was a phone-service answering system. She brings up the point that you could have another (object) class “telephone” represent instances of different incoming calls all happening at the same time. At this point I ask her (after waiting about 15min for her to turn around) “isn’t this an example of a distributed system?” This is when she starts yelling at me.
Yelling at me. Angry-face and everything. Never in my academic career have I ever seen a professor yell at a student during lecture. “<angry face>We’re not talking about a distributed system. I know what you are trying to do! You’re wasting my time!” I tell her, “Look, I’m just asking a ques-” but she interrupts “<even angrier-face>I already answered your question!!! You’re done asking questions.” The class sits aghast, in silence. I’m shocked wondering just what the hell it is she asserts I was “trying to do.”
What I was saying was “I’m just asking a question, because I want to know.” Seriously. I wanted to know. These are reasonable things I need to learn that apply directly to work I will have to do. And my question? This is how the events transpired; is there an answer in there that I’m not seeing? For those who know me, I make it a point to be tactful and reserved in class (experts remember?). I leave being a smart ass for outside, before, or after class for when it is actually fun and not counter-productive. Several other students from the class (whom I don’t really know) commented after class about the whole situation. “What the hell was that?” “Oh my god.” Myself, I went straight to the CS department office to talk to the Chair; he was unavailable, so I’m scheduled for an appointment. I hope something comes of it.
Every PhD I have met has encouraged me to ask questions of them, to test them. It seems like they all have figured out that they have discovered something truely great and revel in sharing and applying their knowledge. When you are wrong (and I’m wrong much more than I let on), they don’t just correct you, they enlighten you. I envy the satisfaction they derive from watching others develop understanding under their guidance. Which is why I am baffled as to the behavior of Dr. Obaid.
My observations of Dr. Evelyn Obaid have lead me to believe that her primary intent is not to encourage us to think, but to demand that we listen. To every question in class she responds with varying degrees of rancor and defiance (not just my questions mind you). Absent from her classroom are the familiar short silences and excitment as students come to grips with difficult concepts. Software Engineering is one of the few subjects I find truely interesting. It pains me how Dr. Obaid can take one of my favorite topics and make it literally sound like a broken washing machine. I’ve had boring professors in the past, but I’ve always taken the opportunity to learn something while I had them as a captive audience. This seems unacceptable to Dr. Obaid and I’m appalled that she treated me with such verbal hostility.
I like to categorize myself in the College of Engineering. My major is a joint project between the department of Computer Science (CoS) and the department of Computer Engineering (CoE). I feel at home in my CmpE classes. While often, in my CS classes, I’m treated like a welcome guest. Today in CS151 I felt like an intruder.
Welcome everybody, to 2006!
This year Kelvin’s resolutions are:
The spring semester doesn’t start until the 23rd, so I’ll be working full time for a few weeks. Before school starts though, I still need to get a laptop. Help! The new car is doing well. Which reminds me, I need to sell the old one. Spending the remainder of my time with Judy. ^_^d
Happy New Year people!
I had my SJSU Transfer Orientation today. Pretty uneventful. Though, I did get to talk to my department chair again and I’m a little more reassured that I, in fact, did everything right. So, save one or two minor things, I’m all set for the fall semester.
The campus is bigger/nicer than I thought it’d be, this actually being the first time I really walked around the campus at length. I know, it’s ridiculous that I’ve never actually toured the campus. \*shrug\* The weather could’ve been nicer though. And, well damn; I never got around to taking any pictures. (reminder to self: take more pictures.)
It was pretty hot today. Not boiling, but compared to weeks passed, pretty hot. I think it was in the 80s. Not ideal for me to be walking around in the sun wearing a black shirt. Towards the end of the day, I went and got Jamba Juice. I guess I was pretty spent, because I killed the 20floz size and a 16floz glass of ice water pretty quickly. Now that I’m no longer impoverished, I’m working out and eating more. I think the walk around campus was good for my goal of regaining some of my former strength and endurance. I hope Judy will like what she has to come back to. \*spank\* \*flex\*