Advisors at Isu aren’t the best. One big problem was that advisors only stayed a year until they moved on. I had 5 advisors in 5 years.
Professors Who Suck
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I had a funny experience with one of Iowa State's Organic Chemistry Professors. It was in Chem 331, so keep in mind this class is pretty much just Pre-Med, Pre-Vet, Chemistry Majors, and Chemical Engineers, so this isn't exactly a class of people just trying to slide bye with a C.
We get our first test back, and across the board the results appear to be much lower than the professor expected. This professor has a bit of a reputation within the department as being an incredibly poor as an instructor. The professor then proceeds to spend around an hour of class time lecturing about how strong his instruction was, and complaining about how results could only be poor due to a lack of effort on the part of the students. Made a bunch of remarks about how everyone needed to stop drinking all the time and devote any free time they had to the study of chemistry. The whole situation was completely ridiculous.
This trend continued after each of the three exams.
We get our first test back, and across the board the results appear to be much lower than the professor expected. This professor has a bit of a reputation within the department as being an incredibly poor as an instructor. The professor then proceeds to spend around an hour of class time lecturing about how strong his instruction was, and complaining about how results could only be poor due to a lack of effort on the part of the students. Made a bunch of remarks about how everyone needed to stop drinking all the time and devote any free time they had to the study of chemistry. The whole situation was completely ridiculous.
This trend continued after each of the three exams.
I once had a class where I was awarded a 7 out of 100 on the first test, I argued my way up to a 30 after the test. Which was 2 points above the class average... Professor Li, something and he was fluent in Mandarin, which I'm pretty sure is what he was speaking during the entire chemistry class...
Northway was awesome. I actually looked forward to going to that class.
Oh, and how could I forget this one?
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_6cd01527-cf69-5252-bf1c-5c3f77d119e8.html
Had her for a manufacturing methods course. She didn't really know much about them (but it wasn't really her focus), and we learned way more from the guy who ran the machine shop in the basement.
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_6cd01527-cf69-5252-bf1c-5c3f77d119e8.html
Had her for a manufacturing methods course. She didn't really know much about them (but it wasn't really her focus), and we learned way more from the guy who ran the machine shop in the basement.
Remembered another situation. Had a class where you could drop your lowest test score (or skip it altogether). I looked at all my class schedules and found I had a cluster of tests around the same time, so decide to skip that one.
Well, maybe 2/3 of way through semester he left for Europe and turned the class over to his Iranian TA, who barely spoke English. She didn't understand the "drop your lowest test" policy and flunked virtually the entire class (it was a LARGE class). I think I got a D or maybe even a D-. Took the whole summer and halfway through the next fall to get it corrected to a B+.
Meanwhile, it caused a minor bit of havoc. I'd meet with my adviser and he'd say,"Well, I'd hesitate for you to take this class since you got a D- in that one," and I'd have to keep reminding him it was an error and was going to be changed. I'd always get the look like I'd just told him the check's in the mail.
Well, maybe 2/3 of way through semester he left for Europe and turned the class over to his Iranian TA, who barely spoke English. She didn't understand the "drop your lowest test" policy and flunked virtually the entire class (it was a LARGE class). I think I got a D or maybe even a D-. Took the whole summer and halfway through the next fall to get it corrected to a B+.
Meanwhile, it caused a minor bit of havoc. I'd meet with my adviser and he'd say,"Well, I'd hesitate for you to take this class since you got a D- in that one," and I'd have to keep reminding him it was an error and was going to be changed. I'd always get the look like I'd just told him the check's in the mail.
Reading these I remembered a story:
My advisor was a lecturer in the department and he accidentally emailed out a spreadsheet to the entire department that contained all of the students social security numbers. We had to send an email back to him and the Dean to say that we had deleted the file. Needless to say he was not the advisor the next year.
My advisor was a lecturer in the department and he accidentally emailed out a spreadsheet to the entire department that contained all of the students social security numbers. We had to send an email back to him and the Dean to say that we had deleted the file. Needless to say he was not the advisor the next year.
I took Fundamentals of Surveying this past semester and it was still using transits, levels, field books, etc. Finally the last lab of the semester we got to use GPS but it was pretty pointless at that point. I had done land surveying the summer before and I didn't get as good of a grade as I would have liked because all of the methods and equipment we were using were so out of date. It would have been nice to learn about that stuff for maybe one class period but not the whole semester. I spent most of the class periods telling my lab partners that they wouldn't have to know 98% of this in the real world.Cannot remember the name of the ******* engineering professor I ahd for land surveying. The class was pretty much all landscape architects and on the first day of class he let us all know how unhappy he was to "as top professor" to have have to teach such a lowly class. He also made it clear in no uncertain terms how much he didn't like non-engineers taking engineering classes. He was a little short prick on a Napoleon power trip.
Keep in mind this was like 1972 and we were doing George Washington type surveying with old transits and levels so we were turning in old school survey books after each survey project. Remember mine being marked with **** like D--- without any notes as to what was actually deficient. I was on a three man "crew", one member was kinda useless but the other had surveyed for the county. I was working summers as the instrument man for a DOT crew. We were not idiots on surveying. I ended up with a D and was thinking of complaining about this ass through the department but then found he had flunked or incompleted a large portion of the class and figured **** it, I'm done with this crap and took the grade and moved on.
And thanks for reminding me.Still mad
about this, mostly because I didn't tell him to **** himself.
PS: Was worried in my next CE class when I walked in and saw this really old dude looking over our class of long hairs. Was a retired dude they brought back to teach the course in layouts (highway stuff). Turned out to be a great guy who even joked with us about how hungover we might look on a given morning.
It looks like he passed away about a month ago.
http://www.petersonfuneralservice.com/obituaries/Eric-Northway/
I had an assignment freshman year that required use to email in our code file for grading. It was really hard for me and I was exceptionally frustrated. I named one of my files "thisclassblows.txt" Unfortunately for me, the code worked that time and I sent it in without changing the file name. Thankfully, the prof was cool about it, but he did give me a lecture about professionalism.
You could (almost) say that about your entire civil/construction engineering degree, honestly.
Wow, so young, that's sad. I guess he knows who was right now!
I had a technical writing course, smaller sized about 20 people. He took attendance everyday and I missed a few times. I received an email from him about two weeks before the end of the semester stating that I would not pass the course due to excessive absences, I think 9 was the magic number. I knew I had not missed that many so I decided I would continue to go to class and work with him to figure out he was mistaken. The day of the email and the next class he called my name in role call and I raised my hand. TWICE he marked me absent on the projector before I corrected him vocally and let’s just say he accepted that he just didn’t pay great attention or that he just didn’t like me. However, he did not flunk me.
Reminds me of another story in the English class I posted about earlier. One of our assignments was to come up with an alternative VEISHEA plan and have three different letters to different people within ISU. I worked hard on it and was surprised when I got my grade back and got a 0. I immediately emailed the professor and asked what happened and she said something along the lines of "I'm glad you emailed me. Check out the file you sent in for the assignment and let me know what you see." Go open it up and literally the only words on the file are "BRING BACK VEISHEA". Professor was super cool and let me send in my actual submission but I was so embarrassed. Still don't know if I just started the assignment and forgot about it and made a new one or if my roommates pulled a prank on me. Both seem equally possible
Took a history course online about WWII and it was literally all feminism stuff during that time period. I get it, its a topic you care about but holy cow was that issue not at the forefront of issues for the world. I learned nothing of value.
Two sons had Dahiya for differential equations and both thought he was great.
One had some doofus for Calc III who didn’t cover material for 3 out of 8 problems on departmental final.
