Disappointing me’s getting me down
I am feeling disenchanted with this program. Learning to change bases and write a program that can add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions (simplified, but still) is not something I need to be doing. I do feel that this will help me in the long run — at least, I hope it will; at least, it should — but right now I’m wondering what I am doing. (No, I know what I’m doing: skipping class and avoiding my job, though I get to set my own hours on that, at least. Still, it is not good.)
I have a bit longer and I can still drop it without cost. I just don’t know if I should or not. If we get to a point where I can program competently, and where I’ve learned some useful stuff about NLP and possibly machine learning . . . if. It’s not impossible; other NLP dudes are teaching NLPish courses in the winter. I’m just a bit disappointed and a lot unmotivated.
Possibly I expected something else. Better organised, faster moving classes, more cohesive a group, I don’t know. Something more practical, perhaps? Something where I felt I was gaining skills that will eventually be useful. (SRH: I *can* convert without going through other bases, but it requires me to do base-7 or whatever arithmetic. There are a few pages up about how to do it, but they all tend to say the same thing.)
I know things aren’t particularly hard for me right now, but at the same time, they’re not easy, and I would like, just once, for things to be easy.
September 20th, 2004 at 8:53 pm
OK, this is a phenomenon that I can explain.
There is this weird and pervasive assumption in mathy-type circles that we can never, never, never let a student get away with not taking a course. And if the student has not mastered everything in the course, then it needs to be taken in its entirety. (Of course we are the same people who if faced with a problem about a cow would assume that the cow is a sphere.)
Well, maybe I haven’t explained it, come to think of it. But I’ve described it. And it’s everywhere and people can not get their minds around doing it any other way.
September 21st, 2004 at 11:06 am
I probably could have argued my way out of some of these courses. I didn’t, because I really don’t know *enough* of it to say “okay, I can figure out the rest on my own”. Or I’m not dedicated enough, or maybe I’m lazy in theory but easily bored in practice.
September 21st, 2004 at 5:49 pm
I see kitties! Aaahhh. I’m glad they’re back.
… Oh, and there’s nothing worse than a course that’s just too easy. (Especially, I suspect, if you’re paying for it.) It’s horribly demotivating. Is there hope that it will get more challenging before too long? Is it possible to talk to the teachers about it to find out?
September 21st, 2004 at 6:42 pm
And I’ve now got this urge to comment all the time just so I can see them. Of course I can see them all the time, since I live with them, but they’re much bigger now and no longer cuddle with each other.
It does feel, among other things, like a waste of money. And time. And energy.