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From: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student and Course Integrity  (was Rising cost of textbooks)
Message-ID: <4847@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 13 Dec 88 05:50:54 GMT
References: <4526@homxc.UUCP> <6388@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <4550@homxc.UUCP>
Reply-To: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 33

In article <4550@homxc.UUCP> bgt@homxc.UUCP (B.TONGUE) writes:
>I'm sorry, but I just can't buy that.  However, let us first look
>at the basic premises - each math class (on the average) meets for
>3 hours per week.  Assuming that each semester is 12 weeks long,
>that's 36 hours of classtime not counting recitation.  It's always
>amazed me that students can muddle through classes, attend office
>hours *ONCE* and expect to absorb a semester's worth of material.
>But that's another issue entirely; let me now address the
>non-possibility of office hour attendence at all.

Why is 36 hours a week plus time spent doing homework not enough to learn a
semester's worth of math?  I've never taken a course where I thought the time
allotted wasn't plenty, given that sufficient time was spent on assignments.
Of course, some professors try to cover too much of a broad topic, but that's
a different problem.  The only reason I've ever been to a professor's office
hours has been for something administrative like working out a paper topic -
not for additional instruction.

>Professors are obligated to have office hours, students
>should be obligated to use them.

I disagree with this completely.  I think office hours are useful for students
who are having difficulty with course material or for students who want to
discuss some point with the professor, or work out a paper topic, or things
like that.  But I don't see any good reason why a student who is doing well
in a course, who is having no trouble picking up the material, and who has no
other real reason to see the professor, should be obligated to go waste
someone's time.  As far as I'm concerned, office hours exist because situations
come up during the course of a semester when some students need to see the
professor, not because individual conferences are invariably a necessary part
of the curriculum.

                                                     -Dan