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From: billd@celerity.UUCP (Bill Davidson)
Newsgroups: soc.college,comp.edu
Subject: Re: Research vs Teaching (was Re: PhD in CS (Was: Re: Women in Math))
Message-ID: <264@celerity.UUCP>
Date: 11 Mar 89 06:07:34 GMT
References: <17525@joyce.istc.sri.com> <929@stech.UUCP> <1989Mar5.161617.29831@cs.rochester.edu> <1096@oswego.Oswego.EDU> <21351@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: billd@celerity.UUCP (Bill Davidson)
Organization: FPS Computing, San Diego CA
Lines: 51

In article <21351@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes:
>But come on  --  this business of blaming bad teaching on research is a
>gross oversimplification.  Look at the two large California public 
>university systems, the University of California (UC) and the California 
>State Universities and Colleges (CSUC).  UC is research oriented and 
>CSUC is not.  Sit in on some sample lectures in both systems.  You'll
>be amazed at the difference  --  UC professors are on the average 
>SUPERIOR TEACHERS, compared to the CSUC faculty, in my observation.

Since you mentioned UC vs CSUC and having experienced classes from a
number of teachers from both systems (CSUF 1 year, UCSD 2.5 years),
I feel that I have an unusual perspective on this (I was also in the
Califorina Community College system for a while at Orange Coast; that's
junior colleges in case you didn't figure it out :-).  At CSUF, the
computer science faculty was inadequate and the program stank horribly
in nearly every way in 1985.  The classes were not well designed, the
equipment was garbage, the set of classes that you had to take was a
joke (I've heard that they've improved since then but I don't know).  I
came into it with a fair amount of hacking background and a few CS
classes from OCC and I felt that I knew more than some of the teachers.
This was my reason for changing to UCSD, in spite of the fact that it
would push back my graduation date by over a year.  My calculus teachers
at CSUF were very good, probably better than UC.  It was the CS that was
bad.  At UCSD, I always felt that my CS profs KNEW WHAT THEY WERE
TALKING ABOUT!  When I asked questions (when one could ask questions)
they were answered promptly and CORRECTLY!  This was not the case CSUF.
The problem with UC is that I always felt like a number.  Much more so
than elsewhere; especially in classes such as calculus.  Having to teach
calculus seems to be some form of punishment for professors there.  Some
of my profs seemed to actually avoid students, even at upper levels.
OCC seemed to have better instructors than CSUF :-).  At OCC it usually
seemed like the teachers took a personal interest in helping students.
I rarely saw that at UCSD.  At UCSD it was: present the proofs, give the
assignments, give the test and disappear.  The only people you could
regularly get help from were the TA's who were grad students themselves
with little if any training in teaching (not that the profs had any
either).  While, I'm on this tyrade, presenting proofs is no way to
show people how to do calculus.  It may be O.K. for advanced math
students (I still didn't like it up to my last math class (and it was
my major) but at I got to where I could handle it sort of O.K.) but
it makes it unnecessarily difficult for people who are just starting to
get into higher math.

(Oh no!  I actually got up on the soapbox and flamed entire
organizations!  I'm going to get it now.  Where'd I put my
asbestos suit?)

	--Bill (gee, I'm glad I'm out!) Davidson
-- 
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