Thanks to the forty or so students who participated in one of the Student Life focus groups. We appreciate it, and we heard you loud and clear. We'll get to work this summer and do some housecleaning. For the rest of you, help us prioritize which initiatives you think are most important.
Posted by Benny Oyama | May 11, 2009 12:57 AMThe students gotta eat! Lack of cheap, high-quality, nutritious, non-corporate catering company provided food is a must for the creative process! Good food gets mah brain going. Bad food gets my brain going in the wrong direction - that is, seeking other options in the loop - where there are none.
Posted by Ryan McAllister-Grum | April 26, 2009 10:08 PMAlthough it is not on the list, I have been suffering pretty badly from projects. Here's the dilemma:
Students, even ones with only fourteen credit hours such as me, get enough regular homework to fill up an entire week with nothing but doing homework. I do not have a job, but I would be pretty scared of school if I did.
Immediately after waking up.
Before class.
After classes.
Any free time between classes.
Until 12 to 1 AM every night (sometimes 2-3 if I have to).
Seven days a week.
I do homework in hopes that I can find time to do even more time-consuming projects and that, sometimes, do not reinforce a large enough lesson to make the extensive work worthwhile, or teach what a regular homework assignment can do just as well.
I think some teachers need to seriously rethink a few of their assignments (even a particular class needs some consideration as to if it is necessary to a college student's career, although I have heard mixed messages throughout the student population), and whether an assignment reinforces its intended lesson enough so that it is worthwhile. If not, then take more time and consider what needs altering, or if there is a way to make it more efficient. On a positive note, I have had a great many assignments in and out of my major that, in hindsight, are effective in reinforcing their intended lesson (or lessons).
Perhaps teachers should encourage that their students, if they have any constructive opinions on the assignment of the previous week (not just 'this was stupid or pointless'), should be free to share them so that Columbia's education becomes extremely worthwhile of the tuition (it is somewhat worthwhile, but one of the main problems is that it is more along the lines of paying to lose an entire week for a handful of hours of learning). In the end, make it so that there are no "weak" assignments in any class.
(There is already a system in place for rating teachers and classes, but not for individual assignments. Seeing as how rating every single assignment would take a large amount of time, make it so that it is optional and that students could simply type up their ideas and opinions and hand it to the teacher with the assignment. The response can be any length as long as it provides reason; even positive comments would work. At least that way a teacher knows what works and what does not before the semester is over.)
As a sort of dream for the end result, 16 hours of class that does not require a student without a job to do a late-night work session, seven days a week. Did I mention I loathe stress headaches? Even now, every inch of brain matter inside my head, and the inside of my eyes, hurts. Make it so that anyone can get a somewhat decent night of sleep come Sunday night, and that every weekend, for 15 weeks, is not pre-destroyed with homework, or, even worse, overly-large projects (make sure to manage the size vs size and significance of lesson, and allow some degree of creativity) and homework.
