I apologize in advance for this extremely detailed, lengthy rant. I didn’t realize how much it pissed me off…
The physiology textbook module was incredibly useful for explaining concepts related to plant physiology.
The physiology lecture was incredibly useless for explaining concepts related to plant physiology.
So.
My horticulture program is structured to have a guest speaker every week; this individual more or less spends 6½ hours reiterating the material found in our textbook. I understand that every guest speaker has his or her own method of explaining the current topic to the class – this is completely fine. I don’t expect every presentation to reflect the topic verbatim. What I do expect is the lecture to at least be on the same tangent as the textbook.
This lecture was not on the same tangent. It wasn’t on any logical tangent. Hell, it may as well have been off the bloody graph.
You know it’s bad when 5+ classmates leave the class a couple of hours in. I myself was tempted to leave; I regret not doing so. It reminded of – and I’m not kidding when I say this – a university level biochemistry class mixed with physics and ecology. The entire class was spent enduring the torturous pain of learning concepts we didn’t need to learn:
The properties of water;
Organic chemical reactions on a molecular level (e.g. anaerobic (glycolysis) and aerobic processes) – and of course, all the accompanying chemical equations and structure diagrams; and
Wavelength absorption spectrum for chlorophyll production (sure, why the fuck not?)
For the purposes of this program, this was a waste of time. Why? It’s similar to teaching advanced calculus to grade seven math students learning elementary algebra – they don’t require the knowledge at this level in their education; it just complicates it for them. Don’t get me wrong: I essentially understood the chemistry (even the physics) components of the lecture (I did take chemistry after all) but even then, it’s useless to include that magnitude of information when it won’t be on any assignment or exam – it confuses individuals who have never studied chemistry/physics or makes it extremely boring for those who did.
Why the fuck would a lecture have material not explained (or required) in the textbook module? I am very frustrated. It happens often in this program, yet today was particularly torturous. One guy decided to return to lectures once they “began to make sense”. I think only one person actually enjoyed the class and felt it was relevant to our studies. Opinions are subjective, but this lecture was definitely something quite a few people struggled with. Did I mention it went past 3:30PM, the end of our class? I left immediately at 3:30PM, though – even though I was stupid enough to subject myself to this torture during class, I wasn’t stupid enough to prolong it off the clock.
I dislike the lectures thus far; we’ve only had four, but that’s enough. I enjoy the assignments, because it helps clarify and extend your knowledge beyond simple memorization. However, I am disgruntled by the marking system. I am finding a lot of criteria on the return scoring sheet not explicitly stated in the original assignment criteria AND criteria written as ‘other information to include/consider’ suddenly classified as a requirement. If you don’t state what you’re looking for in a submission, how do you expect us to know how to do so? I can’t complain: I’ve received 19/20 on both my assignments thus far (I hope my third is similar if not better). It’s just irritating to deal with. Although, all the assignments together only count for 25% of your total mark anyway, unlike the exams which are worth 60% (collectively).
My future career better be worth this agonizing torture.
/vent
