Dude...I gotz mad skillz, ya'll. Why you be hatin'?
I'm an OTA student (still "young" at 28, but I'm 7 years younger than many of my peers. College for students outside of the engineering discipline may be beer pong and pu$$y but for engineering students it's eat, sh*t, study and occasionally sleep. I study FAR less than most of my peers yet study far MORE than the "average" college student.despite how annoying the class is, you're still in college! So after your annoying classes, you still get to do down the street and play beer pong, then go to the bars, and have no real responsibility!! Enjoy that ****! Think that having an annoying professor you disagree with for a quarter is bad, wait till you get the prick boss for several years! I got lucky with a very cool boss, but they are out there!
I'm an arrogant *******. No getting around that.:rockin:.Nearly all the engineers I ever met were arrogant ********. What are we talking about?![]()
No offense but those classes are there because if they weren't engineers would be even farther spaced from normal society than we already are. A little liberal education is extremely good for you if you can be open enough to accept it. Also, most of those dumb profs really do know there shat if you show the slightest interest. Remember, it sucks for them to be teaching kids who think their life's passion is BS.
I am a M.E. by the way you civil scum![]()
I had no trouble finding classes that interested me that also met the liberal arts requirements for my engineering degree.
Some people write entire books about themselves and you have trouble squeezing out 500 words? Are you really that boring?
I know I'm a wussI went to engineering school and still managed to have plenty of fun. I also worked 30-40 hours every week while I was in school. Maybe you're just a wuss?
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As a Liberal Arts lifer, I had to take science labs and calculus, and I really didn't mind- actually did well in them. Being well-rounded isn't so bad. Your world gets boring without people like us, and our world doesn't work as well without people like you.
My advice to you is to start drinking heavily, while writing papers. It got me through Art History, especially with such gems as Greek Ouzo + Greek Vases = One Hell of a Paper. That one got me a BC.My biggest issue is that there are minimum word requirements for the essays - ones which in reality should be little more than a paragraph. It's hard to write 700 words about a 2500 word document - especially when you get hammered for using too many quotes.
Hell, in this joke of a class we were required to write a 500 word introduction of ourselves. You have any idea how hard that is?
I know how to write essays for these a-holes, and I consistently get A's on essays for L.A. classes, but the point is - I shouldn't HAVE to write these essays - and if I DO have to take the classes, I should LEARN something.
F*kin busywork in a busywork class. Whatever.
My advice to you is to start drinking heavily, while writing papers. It got me through Art History, especially with such gems as Greek Ouzo + Greek Vases = One Hell of a Paper. That one got me a BC.
Having to deal with the writing skills of engineers everyday at work (I practice patent law) I can tell you that 90% of engineers can't write worth a damn. Trust me, you need all the practice you can get.
When you graduate, writing skills will likely be more important to your career success than your TI89.
Seriously, I'll sink your concrete canoe with projectiles from my trebuchet.
lol Do a paper on how the Nation of Islam is the black equivalent of the white supremacist movement. He'll love it.Now that ya mention it... That's the only way I got through American literature. I'd get a little buzzed, then read what I was supposed to "understand the hidden meaning" behind. Then I'd get a little more drunk and write a paper. The next morning, I'd get up early and fix the grammatical mistakes that are inevitable when you're drunk typing. To be honest though, I loved that class because the teacher gave a crap. She loved the bullcrap I wrote even though it was garbage ("best she'd ever seen apparently").
So there's an extra credit assignment... I'll do it because I plan on majorly slacking on the final paper (another joke).... What follows is the text of the extra credit assignment link.
This is your only opportunity for extra credit in this class, and it is worth 10 points. In order to earn the 10 points, you must compose a 500 word essay that reviews and examines an historical website. Please make that the website is not an online encyclopedia. If you use an online encyclopedia then you will not get any credit. Similar to all essays in this class it must be word-processed and formatted according to the guidelines under the writing as an historian link.
Here are the steps to complete this assignment. First, find a historical websitenot Wikipediathat deals with a person, issue, or theme covered in this course. You are limited to the time period covered in the course. It can be anything that interests you about U.S. history during the relevant time period. Make sure you pick something that is specific to the United States; remember this is a U.S. history course.
Second, find a website that you like which contains a significant amount of information about your subject. You must record the Uniform Resource Locator (URL aka. Web address) since it will appear in your review of the website. While at the website click around on the links and read the information. You do not want to absorb everything, but you want to be familiar with the web source.
Third, you must compose your 500 word essay reviewing the website. In this review you must write-out the websiteÕs name and URL. In addition, you must give a brief summary of the website and it content. You need to tell me how easy the website was to navigate, noting any improvements or cool innovations. The last part in this step is to critique the reliability of the website. Is the information credible? Why? Why not? What are some key indicators of credibility for a website?
Fourth, submit the essay to Taylor by the due date. There is no extended submission deadline for this assignment. Therefore, it is important that you submit the assignment to me at the correct time. Furthermore, you must submit it in the correct format (Rich Text) and in the correct area (Written Assignments) link in order to receive credit. I will not accept any extra credit that is submitted via e-mail or that is submitted incorrectly.
Really? Someone defend this - PLEASE! Tell me how this is a valuable learning tool...
Note again that I'm not whining about taking a history class - I'm whining about lazy instructors that do nothing but push their own agendas. This instructor happens to be an afro american who's done a lot of research and such on black suffrage... guess what the focus of the course has been?
No offense but those classes are there because if they weren't engineers would be even farther spaced from normal society than we already are. A little liberal education is extremely good for you if you can be open enough to accept it. Also, most of those dumb profs really do know there shat if you show the slightest interest. Remember, it sucks for them to be teaching kids who think their life's passion is BS.
I am a M.E. by the way you civil scum![]()
lol Do a paper on how the Nation of Islam is the black equivalent of the white supremacist movement. He'll love it.
lol Do a paper on how the Nation of Islam is the black equivalent of the white supremacist movement. He'll love it.
DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!
I had to do the same thing when I went to OSU. You just have to find classes that interest you that fill the requirements. Oh and like others have said stop b!tching at least your in college, try having a job that you hated for the last 4 years only to end up unemployed with no direction ( I speak from experiance).
Learned an important lesson that day. So suck up and write about what ever makes them tick, even if you do not agree. Classes became a little easier after that.
Allright, been watching this thread for a bit, biting my tongue, but it's about time to jump in, methinks.
Ok, so here's the thing. Did you (not necessarily you in particular, CodeRage, just you as representative of this position) ever think that perhaps the reason professors didn't give you such great grades when you "disagrees with them" was maybe less a function of your disagreeing with them than of your not being such a good writer? That maybe your "divergent views" just weren't expressed so thoughtfully, carefully or clearly? That you didn't back up your points with evidence or argumentation, but just assumed that the prof didn't like your paper because it disagreed with him or her?
I'm happy to out myself here: I'm currently finishing up my PhD in a very liberal arts field, and have taught liberal arts classes in a major research university for years. And while I can't speak for any other prof, I can say with certainty that I am THRILLED to have students disagree with me, both in class and in their papers. Nothing makes me more excited than to read a paper that takes issue with my views in a smart and articulate way, that points out flaws in my thinking and suggest other ways of framing or solving a problem. The way I see it, my goal as a teacher isn't to produce a room full of people who agree with me, but to produce a room full of people who can learn to think through their own ideas in a careful and intelligent way. A plurality of opinions is the bedrock of a healthy democracy, IMO, and I'm happy to contribute to this state.
The thing is, however, that almost every semester, I get one or two kids in class who come in on the first day assuming that they know everything about me - my politics, my outlook on life, my views on teaching - and make it their mission to demonstrate how "closed minded" and "not open to different opinions" I am. It's kids like these whose papers are often filled with wild, outlandish rants. And I generally give these papers bad grades. Why? NOT BECAUSE THEY DISAGREE WITH ME, but because they make no sense: there's generally little to no evidence actually offered in support of the position they hold, they're poorly organized, they don't make a compelling argument, they're often filled with grammar mistakes, etc.
****, I couldn't care less whether you want to argue that the Nation of Islam is "the black equivalent of the white supremacist movement," or that climate change isn't true, or that the moon landing was a hoax. Go for it! I'd loved to be convinced that any of these things is the case (or at least to read a good argument in that direction). BUT, the mere fact that you're claiming that it is doesn't mean that you've written a good paper that makes a good argument. After all, it's stupidly easy to come up with a wild claim that ruffles people's feathers. Every f'ing homeless person on the corner can do that. But backing up a claim with evidence, organizing that evidence in a logical way, using that evidence to lead to a clear conclusion, making sure the writing is good, etc. is a much different proposition. And when I give students bad grades on their papers, it's because they haven't done any of these things, not because the claim itself disagrees with my views of the world.
Of course, students never want to believe this, and always assume that I give their incoherent rants D's because I'm some liberal weenie who can't handle a student who expresses views that may run contrary to mine (even though most students probably have absolutely NO idea what my political views are).
So go ahead and write that paper! ****, PM me and I'll even proofread it for you. But before you go blaming a prof or even the discipline as a whole, at least make sure it's well-written (since, as many on this thread have pointed out, being able to write well and communicate effectively will help you out in the future, no matter what job you end up having).
Sorry for the minor rant; just felt the need to defend my discipline a bit.
Palefire,
........... I can appreciate where you are coming from as an instructor.
If what you say is true though, I would be delighted to have a LA instructors like yourself.