mobile homeless

[Mallette]

After reading the last, excellent post, I realized I hadn't offered the best college advice I ever recieved.

1. NEVER miss a class.

2. Do EXACTLY as the professor asks. No more, no less.

Recipe for a 4.00 that cannot fail an intact mind. And you have that.

(Well, there is a bit of doubt given your 13,000 whatever posts to this forum...do you realize you have a book here?)

Dave

[mobile homeless]

Interesting thread which moved to college, one of my favorite places of all to be sure, at least at the time. It's over all too quickly, I might add. I found that going above and beyond the call of the professor gave you infinite more leeway. Learn to think on your own with Chris' advice of keeping an open mind leading the way. Although you are jumping into Computer Engineering with a set mind, I would load up on Liberal Arts classes as they seem to actually bring the greatest reward in the long run, sometimes not just measured by the paycheck or tangible. English, Art, History, and Philosophy should be on your short list. Who knows, you might be lucky and change your major three or four times! On the other hand, if you learn how to write and think clearly, you'll be up on 95% of your fellow students and well on your way to success in post graduate work.

As for Keith's original points, the sailboat remains on dry land, ready to be launched at the height of hurricane season. Time is of the utmost importance. Considering solid state, the only solid state amplifier I have left is the little 6w digital amp that is currently playing at this very moment. It sure wont cure me of tubes but does nicely with a tube preamp in the chain. Of course, two blown Mullard rectifiers in my 2A3 amp hasnt helped my tube cause. The EICO still sees daily duty in the office. IF only my mind was as reliable...

kh

[Audio Flynn]

Nice to see you stop back in the old neiborhood.

The 6 watter would be...?

I have the Dynaco PAS into the P6D from LOEK until Craig finnishes some mods to My Scott LK-48.

Only SS for HT unless i have another small system somewhere, in the future.

Misss sailing with my recently deceasewd uncle 20 years ago on the Great Lakes.

i am sure you will enjoy the huricanes. HEHE

Rick

[mobile homeless]

http://www.progressive-engineering.com/klipsch/p6d_cut.jpg

[Mallette]

Given the response, let me explain a bit on the "do exactly what the professor says, no more, no less" thing.

I taught at the University of North Texas for 8 years. I taught three classes that were consecutive. For TV/Film students, 1 out of 9 graduates stayed in the business. For those who took all three of my classes, the rate was 50%. I had very precise instructions for my students. I locked the door when class began, and accepted no assignments after the published due time. Life is hard. College is the best place to learn that. The failure/kickout rate in my classes was 50%. I still hear from those who stuck it out. I am married to one who had a 4.00 coming into my class and left with a B because she tried to impress me by doing more than was assigned.

I didn't care about that. I was only interested in what was assigned.

Yes, one should grab for all the knowledge one can while in college. But LISTEN TO YOUR PROFESSOR and do exactly what he or she says, no more, no less. Following instructions is one of the things one should learn in undergraduate school. In graduate school, you can stay as long as you like by going your own way and ignoring the faculty. They like having cheap and competent help.

Personally, I ignored the above until I had over 200 undergraduate hours and no degree. OTOH, it was fun.

Dave

[mobile homeless]

I can only say I am glad we didnt cross paths while I was in college... at least in a student/professor relationship. I doubt I would have lasted too long. The only interested in what you assign thing is a bit constraining, as the input coming back in fails to push much past the expected, something that I see all too common and never really felt encompassed the best of higher learning. Although I see your point, I guess I see college as more than preparing you for the "real world." There are surely many that see it that way, however. I dont think I could have waited till graduate school.

Interesting comments, nonetheless.

kh

[Mallette]

My preference for my children in undergraduate school would be a liberal arts education. Greek, Latin, rhetoric, literature, art, music, etc. Of course, the choice will be up to them.

Undergraduate school should be where you learn how to learn, not how to run a grocery store.

JMHO (as well as what I wish I had experienced).

Dave

[arfz28]

Welcome back mobile.

[kjohnsonhp]

Take an office in the fraternity and inter-fraternity council. Debate and lead. There's a lot of education outside of class and engineering can often keep students buried in front of a screen or cranking out integrals.

You may also want to consider 2 years of professional employment in corporate America after your four years as an undergrad and before law school. I would also recommend a summer internship after your Junior year. I did one at the Department of Labor in DC.

I would also suggest that Outlook will really come into play as you schedule the time around the fixed scedule of classes. I tried to block specific study time by subject & project as well as fitness time (group activity) and social time. I think I managed a 7am - midnight schedule with weekends mostly free to unwind (party, date, ski, etc.) and then regroup on Sunday night.

Let us know when you've kissed your first Mizzou Golden Girl.

PS. Good to read Kelly's scribe again.

As for SS, I recently enjoyed the brand new SS mbl integrated amp with mbl 300e speakers which I found pretty impressive....just started me thinking if I could do the same with a bit less DM, although used at 50% off the mbl stuff has some footing in my fiscal reality.

[T2K]

Welcome back Kelly. Hang around awhile, Craig and Ryan need a break. And remember, sissies wear life preservers. Tuff guys drown.

Audio Flynn. Your campy remarks about 'the HT crowd' reminds me of what my Grandpa once told me. If you look down your nose long enough, you'll trip and bust your a$$.

Hope everyone has a safe weekend.

Keith

[anarchist]

Wow!

Interesting thoughts some have here regarding the professor/student relationship. Frankly, I never did what any of them demanded regarding my attendance or methods of completing assignments. Seems to me, far too many attend college with no thought other than being another lemming trying to pad a resume and conform. Far too sad and structured for me.

I refused to attend class, often neglected to even purchase the text books (beer money - food was acquired from the Hare Krishnas), and thought the monotony and simpleness of weekly quizzes not worth the effort necessary to take them. I was more the read on my own, show up to take the mid-term and final, and pursue the other, more entertaining and life-changing pursuits on campus.

I had a professor once (several times actually but this guy was really a stiff) who took exception to my absence. Upon picking up a graded assignment from him in the first month of class, I was stunned to find it marked from an A to an F. When I approached him, he informed me it was unfair the other students attended his class each day while I pursued other interests and my assignments would be marked down accordingly if I continued to skip class. I responded it was unfair that I should have to attend a class because the other students were less capable and needed to have hime recite the text from a book when we should all be able to read and I found no benefit in being present. He disagreed. So I slept in the front row of his class for the next two days and somehow my presence was no longer required.

Good luck Justin. Enjoy the experience. Be open-minded and experiment. Test the boundaries. Conform only as much is required. Seek your own path. Dismiss the advise of those who have lost their passion for life. Take road trips. Indulge in guilty pleasures. Do all this without failing out of college; you will be well prepared for life afterwards.

I, myself, have grown bored and am going to head back to school for my law degree. Don't figure I will practice law but I look forward to the thinking and creativity getting the degree will require.

[Chris Robinson]

----------------

On 8/10/2003 12:18:22 AM kjohnsonhp wrote:

You may also want to consider 2 years of professional employment in corporate America after your four years as an undergrad and before law school.

----------------

I think this is a good suggestion. For a number of reasons (chronic relocation, for one), I took a ten year break between under- and post-grad programs. Two or three would have been better, but it sure gives you a context on which to hang all the inbound "stuff" coming at you from your profs.

I also echo the liberal arts touch. Analyzing and writing well are skills that I see far too little of out here in the business world. Most of the managers I've had over the years would have flunked my high school English courses, let alone college. I don't understand how why the were passed on by our school systems when they rarely realize that sentences usually include subjects, verbs and objects (unless employing the intransitive, of course). Sad but true (and rhetorical).

I've urged my kids to take Latin when it is offered. Although it is a "dead" language, it holds the key to really understanding the construct of the romantic languages.

[Erik Mandaville]

This has been interesting reading! Like Dave, I alsew tot kollij for eight years. As is usually the case in the fine arts (well, perhaps more in the case of visual arts), it is among the first of programs to get the squeeze with respect to budgeting and funding of programs. It was a constant battle for me to get literally the most basic things I needed to do my job. I desparately needed a new kiln for a certain kind of firing process (some of you might be familiar with raku -- related to the beginnings of the Japanese tea ceremony), but had no money to speak of. It became a project I did with my students, and we built a great little kiln out of a refrigerator. It was lined with a refractory blanket (I believe the brand name was 'Kaowool'. One of the students actually asked me if there were truly sheep with fireproof wool! Too cute! I also taught my ceramics and sculpture studio classes in an old greenhouse that was donated to the Art Dept. by the good Science people. It just didn't have air conditioning. Summers in Houston are really hot and humid, too. The maintenance guys (my buddies)put a compressor in for me during the last year I was there -- awesome, totally undervalued people!

This is all totally away from the point I wanted to make.

I would say absolutely take some fine or liberal arts classes if you have the opportunity. I was one of the members of a team-taught western civ. course, which was cut from the core curriculum because most students had a really tough time with it. And it was a hard class; I remember it well when I attended the same University some years before -- I was constantly amazed by the fact that I was even teaching the class, along with some of the same professors I had had. Strange! But it was a very good course. One of the major assignments included what we called attending some sort of 'cultural event' This could be a play, watching a ballet, the symphony, goin to one of the really good art museums we have here, etc. And the students would write about the experience. I remember one paper I graded that made me laugh! This is how it began:

"In my opinion, this was the first time I ever went to an art museum." And then it ended with "...it was fun, and next time I might bring a friend with me, too."

The whole idea was to get students to 'think' and be able to write about thinking, impressions, ideas. So many kids (I know they're not kids)would describe works of art -- painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, architecture, etc. as being gross, ugly, stupid, bad, good, and so forth. All of which was fine, providing there was an effort made to explain what was meant. Moreover, our intention was more geared toward encouraging an appreciation and an increased understanding of a work -- not just a statement about its worth or validity.

I remember one student who made a visit to the Rothko Chapel in the museum district. Are you all familiar with Rothko's painting? Very large canvases, completely non-objective feilds of color -- really beautiful subtle color! The walls of the Rothko Chapel are actually enormous paintings -- dark, very stubtle, and to me very powerful. But if one was not familiar with his work, it would be difficult to comprehend -- even more so if one had only little or any experience with modern abstract or non-objective art. This is what the student wrote -- it will stay with me forever!

"Well, I went to the Rothko Chapel, not knowing what to expect. But when I went inside I was frustrated because I had driven all the way there, only to find that all of the paintings that were supposed to be on the walls were taken down and moved out somewhere. I guess I just missed the exhibition. All that was there were some big dark panels that I guess will one day have paintings on them again."

I shared this with the other art teachers at school, and how could we not help but laugh a little!? It was so totally innocent! The student of course was looking at Rothko's paintings -- the large dark panels he mentioned WERE the works of art he was supposed to 'experience' and about which he was to write. Of course I gave him credit for making the trip, and his writing, though an exercise in bevity, for sure, was in fact completely honest and totally valid.

On the issue of doing 'more' or 'less' in terms of completing an assignment? That can be a tough one. I have found that there were times when I was the one at fault, and my instructions or expectations were perhaps not clear. I think grading and evaluation of student work can also be rather subject-specific. Math and science courses are much more objective, I think, than art or grading papers on individual interpretations of art. And in studio classes, where a grade is given to a final art 'product' can be even less obvious and become very subjective. I have seen drawings, paintings, sculptures, etc. that were made very quickly and were technically far better than some pieces where a student labored for weeks. What should receive the grade in such a case? The work itself, or the effort that went into it?

I got my graduate degree in art from a professional art school, where the ONLY thing that was evaluated was the work -- the finished product. That I sometimes didn't sleep for a couple of days in order to get something finished was meaningless. I remember one guy in the program, who, during a group critique, was told that the 3 months worth of work he was showing was completely useless. Our profs. told him what he made was an enormous waste of material, and that the best place for his work would be the dumpster outside. Know what this poor fellow did (we called him St. Peter -- what wonderful and kind person he was...)? He quit the MFA program and became a janitor at the school. He wouldn't talk to anyone; always looked down at the ground; pushing his broom, a big ring of keys hanging from on old brown belt. This was one sad sight. Man, did that make me angry, and I identify it as the single most important part of my decision to become an art teacher. I have taught every level, from pre-school all the way to college, and consider only the work, the effort, the attitude, the pride, the joy, the frustration -- all the human aspects of making and creating art. For me, the piece itself is the physical manifestation of all those much more important elements. To remove the painting or drawing or sculpture from the context of the young individual who made is not possible for me. Some teachers can do this very easily, like those who hurt Peter so badly. I just can't.

...and I'm going to stop this now. It's gone on too long, already.

[fini]

Chris,

I think it's great that your firm employs the intransitive. If more businesses did, this darn economy would really get going. I guess that's the object.

mobile homeless??? Hey, old man, how ya doing? Is this the return of the Prodigal Sun, returned to enlighten us? Good to see you posting again.

fini

[Mallette]

Well, let me throw in one more thing to clear up my teaching methodology. My subject was a methodology. The "101" level class was a method that had to be learned cold, not debated. The "301" class involved significantly more freedom, though there were certain milestones and such that were immovable. The senior level course had no lectures, and the students ran the show with complete freedom to excel or fail within what they had been taught. Each class meeting was a business meeting and I simply moderated and facilitated. Freedom, academic or otherwise, must be earned.

As was pointed out, there are a LOT of people who disputed my methods and elected to drop or were ejected. Those who remained got either A's or B's. Media is a cutthroat business where you do not survive if you are ill prepared. I think the 50% employment rate (as opposed to the department wide 12%) of my students speaks for itself, as well as the fact that I still hear from many of them in gratitude 15 years after the fact.

Dave

[Erik Mandaville]

You make some very important points, Dave. Sometimes students just have to sink or swim, and making lots of allowances absolutely does not always do anyone a favor. What you are doing is encouraging the understanding of highly competitive and difficult nature of the corporate environment; and giving too much flexibility in class would not be beneficial. I totally understand and respect that. It's something I could actually be a bit better about.

I want to make the point that art, by it's very nature, is a subjective process. It's not so cut-and-dry, and so evaluation of student performance can't (for me it can't)just rely on the end result -- whatever is turned into the teacher. This does not mean that there are not deadlines that must be met! Far from it. Kids will learn to take advantage of that sort of thing, and so getting stuff done and in on time is important.

One unfortunate case I remember where I thought the teacher gravely at fault, was when a young lady brought in documented proof, a letter from her physician, that she has suffered a mis-carriage while driving to school, and had to go to an emergency room. A paper was due that day (for that Western Civ. class I mentioned)but she wasn't able to turn it in because of her condition. The instructor (GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR) refused to budge, and gave her a low grade. He said, "I have no proof that your paper was completed when this miscarriage happened." She pleaded that the paper was in the car,and was going to turn it in on time. he said. "I don't care. It was due on that day, and I have no intention of changing the grade. That you brought a note from your Dr. is unacceptable in this case."

What a Bastard (sorry!).

This was put before the administration, and her grade was changed to an 'A.'

[dubai2000]

Erik,

it's a pity that such persons are allowed to teach. Until fairly recently we had a math teacher at our school who had (amongst others) the habit of not letting students enter class for fifteen minutes if they were even two seconds late. For good students this became a joke, but less gifted individuals might miss so much important new material that they kept suffering for a long time (and needed either money or other students to help them catching up). From time to time he even refused to accept a written statement by a bus/train conductor stating officially that the bus/train was late. I don't know how often one had to console his 'victims' but when this gentleman decided to leave, a lot of people (students, parents and staff) were sighing with relief. That young people have to learn to follow rules goes without saying, but once the rule becomes a means in itself, there is 'something rotten in the state of Denmark.'

Wolfram

[lynnm]

Hey Kelly !!

Welcome Back !

Makes the place feel like home again !

[Mallette]

Of the hundreds of students I taught over 8 years, not one ever took a grade protest above my head. While extremely strict, my policies were crystal clear, grades were on easily understandble and objective grounds, and nobody ever said I was not fair.

Every university subject area varies in how it may be approached. My field is one in which lives are on the line when my students enter the workforce. I never wanted to read that a mistake by one of my students due to ignorance of the field had caused loss of life or property.

Teaching is a serious business and should be approached accordingly.

Just wait till you get to law school, Justin!

Dave