By this point in my math degree, I’ve been exposed to many different philosophies of teaching that the math professors at the University have. Also, being an ‘honorary CS student’, I get to hear about from my friends, read about on Ataraxis and sometimes personally witness the styles of the CS professors. I’ve been pondering the major differences I’ve observed and realized that this comic from xkcd really helps sum it up:
It seems to me that a lot of the CS profs don’t want their students to succeed. They don’t give them any breaks, and some even punish the students when the prof themselves made a mistake. For example, with one of the CS profs, if he makes a mistake marking your test and owes you extra marks, if you go and see him about it, he’ll give you the marks, but just find somewhere else to take them off so he doesn’t have to change your mark. Also, some CS profs, not only give you zero for a wrong true/false answer, but will give negative marks for guessing (0 if left blank, -3 for getting it wrong). I know that this happens in other subjects sometimes too, but it does not happen in math.
The math professors (minus a few of the crappy sessionals from first year) really want their students to do well. It’s not like they just give away marks, but they really want you to learn the material, and will give you marks if you can demonstrate you have learned it. For example, my one prof (the now-famous Tim Traynor from Pi Day), will give you 3/10 on a proof, even if you do not know how to do it at all, but write down the definitions of terms used in the theorem! Some of the math profs also set up extra study sessions (like group office hours) to help the class do well on the assignments or midterms.
I don’t know the exact reason for this major difference in teaching styles, but I think it may have to do with the type of people that are computer science (sometimes more introverted) and in math (sometimes more pleasant). I definitely think that the math profs are trying to make the students learn more, and aren’t just trying to make them cry.
1 comment:
My feeling is that there are too many people in CS and not enough in Math. They need to weed people out in CS and take anyone they can in Math :)
I'm only half joking.
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