Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Vector]

Well, what it basically amounts to is that my mental learning-machinery is strong enough to beat out almost anything else on the block, but I don't yet have the necessary scope in a lot of areas.  Basically, I don't know which of my ideas are new and which are old.  There's all kinds of strange analyses of texts I've held onto over the years and I do have some mathematical diagrams that might really change the field of literary analysis, but I don't know quite yet if they'd be useful in a general sense.

So, I'm working on getting that scope, but it takes time to get back to running hot once you've taken a long vacation like I did.

Fortunately, I am close to running hot again, at which point I will probably become a very, very scary person for everyone who is stuck in courses with me =/

[Akigagak]

Tests, no. Arbitrary homework assignments which are mere busywork graded purely by the format, yes. It's why I failed Life Skills in middle school.

Excepting "Life Skills", this was me as well.

Also, Aquizzar. I had a very similar in my college course last year. Sadly... I didn't go up and over.

[Aqizzar]

I am in the super-duper honors program...

Yeah, I kinda figured as such.  Since I never made it into "honors" programs, or even really tried to, I always liked to imagine that they were some higher platonic realm of genuine academics, unburdened by the need to grade more on formatting than content in a vain attempt to make people at least grasp the formatting.

As for asking questions in class and such, I suppose that's one experience that we pansy Liberal Arts majors had over other fields, that the professor served a purpose besides just riding herd on our studying.  I know I don't know anything about higher math, but ultimately, unless you're actually building a new system, everything sort of "exists" to be studied independently.  When you're dealing with fields like history and philosophy, not only is there more information than you could ever hope to read, but even if you did, interpreting what you know into something rational valuable.  It's a area that requires interacting with people of genuine experience, and comparing their perspective against yours.  The problem is, they're also full of pre-law students who clearly made their decision with dollar signs or family pressure in their eyes, with no fucking clue of what they're doing or what they're in for.

The other thing that never ceased to amaze me how many people I could find in a Political Science course who admit with pride that they never watch any national news.  What are you even doing here...

[ToonyMan]

The other thing that never ceased to amaze me how many people I could find in a Political Science course who admit with pride that they never watch any national news.  What are you even doing here...

Hahaha.  I'm a mechanic whose never used a wrench!   

[Darvi]

Vector, perhaps you should begin writing your dissertation now then.

<stuff>

That's pretty much how I would describe my experiences at school. Except with less words and a lot less sophisticated.
Also I'm pretty  much useless when it comes to learning stuff by heart, but otherwise, my sympathies.

If you're intelligent enough that your classes are a waste of time, you have nothing to fear from tests, no?

Unfortunately no. During our lessons we get fairly easy exercises, stuff that even a student a year or two beneath us could do if he new the theory. You know, stuff like the integral of 2x/(1+x^2) dx. (it's arctan(x)+c, by the way)

During the exams, the difficulty goes up to eleven, and we get equations like integral of (sin(4x)+sin(2x))/1+cos^2(2x) dx -_- (hint, it's neither an arctan or a logarithm. It's both). Or the integral of arcsin^2(x) dx. Those were actualy questions from our last test, and nobody from our class could solve those (and we're basically the elite when it yomes to math). Even our TI V200's couldn't figure out that last one.

As one of my classmates said, we just don't have enough lessons to actually get used to that stuff, and to train with exercises on that level. Instead, we get told to do them as homework, and then  we get rated on how good we do then without even correcting them in class, and thus we don't have any idea how to do it if we didn't actually got it right in the first place. At most we get a correction with hardly any explanation to how it even works. Honestly, the entire school system works on the basis of memorizing the subjects, and not be actually doing them. While this is acceptable for some subjects (how exactly would you apply economics to a school lesson anyway?), but Then you get subjects like Physics or Maths that just can't be learned without actually applying them.

Oh, and did I already mention that we waste 6 hours per week on languages? And that's just the students who don't focus on them. One would assume that 12 years of learning at least 3 4, if not more languages would be more than enough. And I'm such an idiot that I did latin too. Cur nescio.

And, as I said, I suck at stuff that you have to learn by heart, but that's a different matter entirely.

[Leafsnail]

What exactly does an honours programme involve?  I'm pretty sure there's no real equivalent here...

[Vector]

Frankly, the problem I have with the liberal arts courses is that I can usually ask pesky little questions fairly quickly that make the professors teaching really, really flustered.  Either that, or prone to saying "well, you don't need to know that."


I think I may have misinterpreted you, though, because I'm not being graded on formatting or anything like that anymore.  That's expected.  It's just that the "intellectualism" in which we engage is kind of... lackluster.  In my opinion, anyway... we spend so much time making sure everyone "gets it" that we don't actually discuss anything, when anyone can see that "getting it" is really only dependent on a. how much time one spends paying attention to the logical relationships within the text and b. how well-read one is.

Frankly, for the amount of homework given for a 4-unit course, they have more than enough time to read an extra relevant text or two every week, with notes and diagrams and everything.


6 hours per week on languages is not a waste, by the way.  I'm almost certain that all of my math ability comes from the hours I spent crunching through languages when I was younger.  I usually spent at least 30 hours per week on language, and another 10-15 on literature.

It's necessary to teach the whole person, not just those cute little areas in which he or she feels safe or happy.  Everything is art, and everything is science.  Understanding that concept is absolutely crucial--and once you understand that, you'll understand why I'm obsessed with attaining a well-rounded background.


Vis-a-vis honors program: in mathematics, it basically involves getting a master's before leaving the university.  Grad courses, GPA, a thesis, and so on.  My GPA currently sucks due to some idiocy with a linear algebra course in my first semester of serious mathematics, but this semester should really pick it up (and I'm also going to retake the lalgebra, because I am not allowing that grade to remain on my report card).



I'm considering starting a school.  If I wind up doing it, I'll let you guys know about tuition fees around when you're getting married and popping out babies.

[Darvi]

I'm considering starting a school.  If I wind up doing it, I'll let you guys know about tuition fees around when you're getting married and popping out babies.

I would totally consider that were it not for the fact that I'm not hte kind of person to indulge in relationships.

[Vector]

I'm considering starting a school.  If I wind up doing it, I'll let you guys know about tuition fees around when you're getting married and popping out babies.

I would totally consider that were it not for the fact that I'm not hte kind of person to indulge in relationships.

Eh, you're 20 and I'm sure that your compatriots will be baby-popping at some point.  You can advertise for me.

[/is completely shameless]

[Darvi]

Hehe. Will do.

[Bauglir]

-snip-

[Vector]

What, at my proposed institution?  I don't know if I'd be doing degree programs.  It's going to be a while, and I might only work on revolutionizing primary education.  But the dream is beginning :I

[Bauglir]

-snip-

[Vector]

All right, thanks for your support.

I also have a potential website project in the works... I'll let you guys know as things change.

[Leafsnail]

So the honours thing kindof saves a year?