Subject: RE: Autodidects vs. degreed students (was: Re: [hackers-il] Re: G rades and The Real World...)

From: Chen Shapira <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 13:50:13 +0200

> Can you tell us what difference do you (or do experienced 
> teachers) see
> between the those three kinds of students (student-for-a-grade,
> student-for-a-pleasure and autodidect)?

I can testify about my personal experience.

I study for a grade. While I do enjoy some of my studies, grades are
extremely important to me and when faced with a dilemma, I'll sacrifice
extra knowledge for a better grade.
This considered, I don't think my understanding of any subject is less than
that of a student who enjoyed it.

I work hard during the entire semester, even if the subject bores me, I'll
listen attentively, take notes, review the notes, and solve all exercises. A
student who studies for pleasure often skip exercises he considers boring or
unimportant. 

I believe that solving exercises is very important for  good understanding,
only when trying to use your knowledge, you know if you truly understand the
subject.

Although I study hard through the semester, I feel that the 3 days of
cramming before the exam are very important for my understanding. During the
semester, I learn many methods and techniques about a specific subject.
Usually we practice the methods as we learn them, so the only time I have to
look at a problem, and quickly decide which method will be the best to
apply, is before the exam.

This skill (knowing which theory and method to apply when) is the most
important thing you can gain from a course.

So, studying  for a grade will usually get you a very good understanding for
a subject.
If you don't erase your tapes after the exam - you actually learned
something in the course.

Thanks,
Chen.

---

From: "Gilad Ben-Yossef" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 15:57:34 +0200

> that of a student who enjoyed it.

Interesting, Do all of you agree that student-for-a-grade is necessarily, student-for-a-HIGH-grade?

My personal strategy during the senior years of B.A. was to do the minimum effort required to pass a course. 
I was sure pointing to a specific grade, but it wasn't a 100, it was 60.

As a matter of fact I consider all cases where I got above 60 a judgment mistake - I obviously invested too much time and effort in the course. Time and effort I could have invested more wisely elsewhere.

Now, if you think I was not interested in knowledge itself you are very wrong - for most courses I was very interested in what they taught, but I found that the correlation between grade and true knowledge to be very weak. Of course, it's hard to get good grades if you don't know anything on the courses subject, but I don't ever seem to see a correlation between true understanding and the final grade, in any direction.

I've had very interesting courses where I've done all the exercises and listened in class and came to all lessons and got quite low grades and I had courses where I didn't show up to class even once and got the best grade in class. Funny enough, in most courses I was interested in and even those I had specific prior knowledge and experience in (advanced Networking, OS design for example) I've got lower grades on average then the courses I knew (or cared) very little about.

My personal view is that I really gotten more from the courses then the student-for-a-high-grade: I've passed the courses (which was my target), I've learned a lot (being unrelated to grades IMHO) and I've got time left to do other things (in my case: gain work experience) which left me much better off then some classmate with higher grades, but no work.

> student who studies for pleasure often skip exercises he considers boring or

It's my personal experience that the attitude you're describing here is very typical to females I've taken comp sci courses with.
Note that I didn't say anything about the female gender in general, but it does seem to be some sort of prevailing female attitude in the social circles I'm frequenting much more then male attitude. I wonder why really. (Maybe it's because us males are such slobs... ;-)

> cramming before the exam are very important for my understanding.

On many courses, the last 3 days of cramming constituted most of my learned from the course, even in courses I believe I learned a lot from.

Gilad.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 22:44:34 +0200

> only when trying to use your knowledge, you know if you truly understand the

I think the division between student-for-grade and student-for-pleasure
isn't fine enough. I propose the following 4 classifications:
As you can see, I wouldn't consider you a student-for-grade, but rather
a "serious student-for-pleasure". Student-for-grade, in my classifications,
is a much lowlier classification ;)

1. Serious Student-for-pleasure
   A *serious* student that enjoys what he or she is learning (or at least
   enjoys that field). Because this student wants to learn more about the
   subjects, he puts an effort into the exercises (knowing that this is a
   very good way to learn) and into the tests (again, knowing that being
   forced to go over the material again is a good way to learn). This student
   will usually take pride in his grades, and attempt to maximize them
   (nobody wants to be told they suck at the subject they love!)

2. Non-serious Student-for-pleasure
   Someone who enjoys a subject, and loves to learn about it, but doesn't
   want to do hard work like exercises or studying for tests, because these
   only "take the fun" out the subject. Unless this student is a genious
   (some are :)), not sweating in some of the courses can cause the
   student to miss out on some of the most important insights of the course,
   and to remember less of it when it ends.
   I know what I'm talking about - I've taken several courses as an
   unregistered "free listener", and I can attest that I remember less of
   them than I do other courses that I took "seriously" (and for a grade).

3. Students-for-grade
   A student who studies just to get a suma-cum-laude diploma like society,
   his parents, or whomever, expects of him. Such a student will usually
   choose a subject that is held in high regard in society, or that pays
   well, instead of a subject that he's really interested in. He probably
   never in his life even thought about the subject before deciding to
   study it in the university.
   Such a student will care a lot about his grade, and work hard to improve
   his average. However, he usually will not "love" his studies. You won't
   catch him after-hours writing on a mailing list devoted to his field of
   study. After he finishes his degree, he probably won't know a single thing
   beyond what has been spoon-fed to him during his studies.

4. Students-for-paper
   Sometimes similar to students-for-grade, except they only want a diploma
   and don't care about the grade. Other times, this type of student only
   wants a diploma for practical reasons (higher salary, better chances in
   job interviews), and considers it totally useless otherwise.
   
Shlomi, as evil as grades look, please remember that they serve an important
educational purpose, which is why you can find grades as early as 3rd grade
(elementary school). These 3rd-grade grades aren't meant to differentiate
between people with 3rd grade diplomas (there are none ;)), but rather
to *motivate* the students. True, grades are not the only way to motivate
people (one of my favorite classes ever was a non-graded Latin class in 5th
grade, in New Jersey), but it seems they are universally accepted as a good
motivator. I think you'd need to have some teaching experience to be able to
seriously challenge the claim that they are.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Sunday, Dec  9 2001, 25 Kislev 5762
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Those are my principles. If you don't
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |like them, I have others.

---

From: Adi Stav <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 12:54:43 +0200

On Sun, Dec 09, 2001 at 03:57:34PM +0200, Gilad Ben-Yossef wrote:
.
.
> It's my personal experience that the attitude you're describing here is 
> very typical to females I've taken comp sci courses with.
> Note that I didn't say anything about the female gender in general, but 
> it does seem to be some sort of prevailing female attitude in the social 
> circles I'm frequenting much more then male attitude. I wonder why 
> really. (Maybe it's because us males are such slobs... ;-)
.
.

I think that's a statistical illusion in this case. Say the "the 
hacker type" is very rare among females, so almost all of the female 
comp sci students are the "intelligent and ambitious person 
who thought computers is a good and interesting career option" 
types, while males are of both types. Even if such a female 
discovers that she really likes the field later on, she would still
be there for a particular reason to start with. So most females
would be more for-grade than males. But we already know Chen belongs
on the second group (the first types did not install Linux in the 
mid-nineties or frequent Linux groups now), so her goal-orientation
must be due to some other reason. 

Chen, is that a new development, or were you like this in your first
stab at comp sci too?

---

From: "Gilad Ben-Yossef" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 13:20:58 +0200

> types, while males are of both types. Even if such a female 

I disagree.  A lot of my male friends fit neither the Hacker or the prescribed behavior. As a matter of fact Hackers are quite rare.

I guess it's indeed  a socializing thing. Just think of the typical "cool geek" image on the mass media, someone like Albert Einstein, all the whiz kids in TV series or even Dade from "Hackers"[*] -  they are geeks, they work science/computers, they know a lot, but they don't do well with authority or schooling. On the other hand look at the "geekette" stereotype image - Hermione (sp?) from Harry Potter, or Scully from the X- files (or even Kate from "Hackers" yet again in a more subtle way) - these girls would seem to fit the attitude described by Chen quite well.

All in all, It's can be quite scary (not to mention enlightening) to realize just how much these images control us. 

[*] Yes, I know "Hackers", the movie is about crackers, not hackers... yada yada yada. But this is how the mass media reflects us. 

Gilad.

-- 
Gilad Ben-Yossef <[email-masked]>
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