Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

As far as I can recall, Adrian does very well in all of his classes, and so that's not a problem.

I agree though; it makes it very difficult to follow along when profs don't have a clear set lecture slides, or at least a clear ordering of how things will be taught. In my discrete mathematics class last semester, for example, the prof was all over the place (none of his own slides and no ordering of anything), and I had to learn myself from the book, which sucked.

I have a feeling it's going to be even worse this semester :(. The only prof I have so far that I'm feeling good about so far is Martin von Mohrenschildt :p.

Hey, was your discrete prof Dr. Deza?
And Dr. von Mohrenschild is indeed great, I wish he taught more, but he's a busy guy.

And it's true, I can't complain about my marks, but that doesn't mean the course/semester was in any way taught the way it should have been.

Thanks for the suggestions. I may complain at some point if I get time.

Originally Posted by casey.park

We can't even merely tell Facility Services to get better toilet paper in various buildings across campus.

TP aside, let's focus on academic issues.

I think what could be gleaned from many of these posts is that there's some disgruntlement amongst Engineers regarding their quality of education as well as certain teaching practices.

The MES, from what I heard has one of the best faculty-specific advocacy teams around (as Jackie has said) and that should be a first stop.

Going even further from that, you could give Chris Martin, the MSU's VP Education a visit. I'm not going to put words in his mouth, however, internal lobbying at McMaster is going to be a focus for him in 2nd semester.

Finally, if all else fails, go to your Department Chair/Associate Dean's office yourself and voice your opinion. They cannot fault you for setting up a meeting and bringing principled points for them.

Here's a quick thought; let's focus on student issues that face all of engineering. No more bickering about what professors is better than another, but rather issues that are solvable. Although I would love to debate the merits of certain professors, the purpose of this thread is to drum up tangible results for term two -- not to discuss individual classes.

I mean no disrespect, but I'm trying to make this an open form of communication for more overarching issues or concerns, not personal dislike of a specific teaching style. I will take these ideas and formulate a motion that will ask the VP Education to lobby the faculty of Engineering to focus on ELM and produce quality class slides that are accessible for all students.

I personally would rather not have ELM as the platform of choice. I like the individual websites that profs make - I don't need to log in and dig my way through x pages to find what I want. I just load up the course website and click.

Originally Posted by Matt Wright

Here's a quick thought; let's focus on student issues that face all of engineering. No more bickering about what professors is better than another, but rather issues that are solvable. Although I would love to debate the merits of certain professors, the purpose of this thread is to drum up tangible results for term two -- not to discuss individual classes.

I mean no disrespect, but I'm trying to make this an open form of communication for more overarching issues or concerns, not personal dislike of a specific teaching style. I will take these ideas and formulate a motion that will ask the VP Education to lobby the faculty of Engineering to focus on ELM and produce quality class slides that are accessible for all students.

Ok, sounds good. To be totally honest though, I have not had the chance to use ELM so far, but I hear it's quite slow. Also, you wouldn't want the profs to have to put effort into ELM-ing their courses if the benefits are disproportionate.So before any lobbying, I would suggest making some kind of study of the alternatives.
These may be:
- leave things as they are
- ELM
- some other centralized course notification system(could just be a link from the undergraduate calendar to the ACTUAL course page on the prof's site)
- Making some *stricter* guidelines for course pages

Just some suggestions

Mac should really add an option during course selection: Prof needed Yes or No. I'd probably be able to save a whole lot more.

For my two years here, I feel like I'm seriously just paying money to write and receive gradings for assignments and tests.

Computer Eng II for those who're interested

Originally Posted by adrian

Hey, was your discrete prof Dr. Deza?

Ya it was Deza. He's a really cool guy, but unfortunately, I can't really say the same for his teaching abilities.

My office hours this term are:
Tuesday at 10PM in West End Pub

Only an engineer would hold office hours out of a pub :p

Hey Everyone,

Thanks again for all the input. If you have any problems with the reliability of ELM, I can also raise this issue with my meeting with the VP Education (Chris Martin) later this week.

How about getting our marks back on a decent time? 4 of my classes are prerecs for this term?....

Also, someone was complaining about how they had 5 classes? I had 7 last term and 6 this term? Max creds mac allows you to take in a term. So your 5 looks pretty good.

and +1 for never needed bell curves lets actually be able to achieve good marks.

Originally Posted by Bobert

How about getting our marks back on a decent time? 4 of my classes are prerecs for this term?....

Also, someone was complaining about how they had 5 classes? I had 7 last term and 6 this term? Max creds mac allows you to take in a term. So your 5 looks pretty good.

and +1 for never needed bell curves lets actually be able to achieve good marks.

Just because you're willing to do that doesn't mean it's right. The reason I said the thing about 5 courses is because I know from experience(from when I had 4 courses in a semester) that I was able to achieve an exponential(non-linear at least) improvement in grades because I was able to focus SO much better. I guess the issue I was trying to raise is that people's potential for learning is being stifled by the workload.

An easy way to have less courses in a semester is to just spread out your engineering degree over an extra year. I said it earlier in the thread, but all accredited engineering programs, such as every one at Mac (except tron? I'm not sure if they're accredited yet...), need to cover a specific set of knowledge, so all grads know roughly the same thing. The only way I can see having fewer classes per semester but still doing it in 4 years would be to mash courses together to have gigantic ugly things that suck even more... unless someone is more creative than I, of course.

Side note: I had 5 courses last semester compared to the 6 I had in first year, and I did a lot worse. Though that also had to do with the large amount of extracurricular stuff I did. So fewer courses doesn't NECESSARILY mean you do better... but I am also in the minority. :P

exactly id rather spend 4 years here ( hopefully passing ) then 6

but i do agree youd understand thnigs much more if there was less class.

Originally Posted by Iman

An easy way to have less courses in a semester is to just spread out your engineering degree over an extra year. I said it earlier in the thread, but all accredited engineering programs, such as every one at Mac (except tron? I'm not sure if they're accredited yet...), need to cover a specific set of knowledge, so all grads know roughly the same thing. The only way I can see having fewer classes per semester but still doing it in 4 years would be to mash courses together to have gigantic ugly things that suck even more... unless someone is more creative than I, of course.

Side note: I had 5 courses last semester compared to the 6 I had in first year, and I did a lot worse. Though that also had to do with the large amount of extracurricular stuff I did. So fewer courses doesn't NECESSARILY mean you do better... but I am also in the minority.

I've often wondered if the heavier course load isn't a result of McMaster's generalized first year. Being in engineering physics there are certain courses we took in first year that won't be particularly useful later, in my opinion. People in mechanical/civil have a much greater need for 1C03, people in chemical need 1E03, and people in materials need 1M03, etc. but these don't seem particulary relevant to my stream choice (this being said I am only in second year and may not have grasped the future relevance of these courses). It just seems that there are courses we could do without (everyone could do without 1P03), and if we were able to cut them out of our program, we could spread the future course load out, effectively reducing it. On the other hand I know a lot of people choose Mac for the generalized first year so they can be exposed to a little bit of each type of engineering before they make a stream choice. I suppose it is a double-edged sword?

I would encourage all Engineers to message me if they wish to know more about the recall of SRA House Leader, Casey Park.

Although it is in another thread already, if you feel passionate about the issue, I will be happy to express your opinions on Sunday at SRA 09M.