I realized it's been quite a while since I last ranted in my blog. And since I'm in quite a rotten mood right now, that is exactly what I'm going to do.
Firstly, studies have been nothing but a bitch. I like how one of my tutor puts it during our first tutorial class. He said, "Lecturers in NUS think that you're only taking their module in the whole semester. And they give you work and reading based on that assumption". Problem is, we're not. In fact, we are taking 5 modules in one semester. Multiply that assumption by 5 and you can forget about ever leaving your room again because you just can't seem to finish your work.
I've been trying to read my Cognitive Psychology textbook for the past 1 hour before I decided to give up and rant in my blog. There more I read the book, the more mindfucked I feel. I guess the lecturer must be very happy now to see us students struggling because he said that he purposely picked this book because it is much more difficult than the rest.
While I understand his intention of wanting to give us more challenge, as a Psych lecturer I think he should also know that not all students are cognitively gifted. I mean, why must you start off with such difficult materials with a bunch of students who have never even touch cognitive psych before? We have not even grasp the basic concepts yet (because you chose not to teach) and here you are plunging us into application, experiments and god knows what are those words. Heck, even the tutor said good luck to us.
Better still, you can say that you did not print the lecture notes out because you're lazy. Isn't an educator's job supposed to be to help us understand? You cannot just throw us into the lake and expect us to swim proficiently right? I guess I have a pretty good idea of what to write during the semesterly review of lecturers already.
Thankfully not all of my lecturers are as bitchy as the one I ranted just now (yes, I used the term bitchy for him). Though I may still have complaints about them, generally they're still okay. At least they try to think from the sides of the students and not attempt to torture them to the point of wanting to burn the whole textbook and jump down from the fourth floor.
One particularly interesting module that I took was PL3240: Group Dynamics taught by Dr Cha Yeow Siah. As the name suggests, the module is about studying how group works and stuff and for the project, we have plan a group activity together (that is highly interactive, like kayak-ing, playing paintball, or sports) and presenting about our experience. On oh, we also need to write a report. But that's not the point.
The point is that, different from other modules (in fact all of the modules I've taken before in NUS), this project is literally about having fun. Of course, the report writing might be a little bit tricky but still, getting marks for going out engaging in fun activities? Priceless. We don't have to read through countless journal articles, search high and low in the internet and crack our brains to come up with a presentation that even ourselves have no idea what we're talking about. Cool right?
Of course, the only catch is that we cannot be in the same group with people we know. Our group members must be complete strangers to begin with. That aside, I have already plans on what our interactive activities would be. Like pouring red paint together on the car of the lecturer that gave me hell through the insanely mindfucking textbook. I'm gonna suggest it in the next meeting.
Firstly, studies have been nothing but a bitch. I like how one of my tutor puts it during our first tutorial class. He said, "Lecturers in NUS think that you're only taking their module in the whole semester. And they give you work and reading based on that assumption". Problem is, we're not. In fact, we are taking 5 modules in one semester. Multiply that assumption by 5 and you can forget about ever leaving your room again because you just can't seem to finish your work.
I've been trying to read my Cognitive Psychology textbook for the past 1 hour before I decided to give up and rant in my blog. There more I read the book, the more mindfucked I feel. I guess the lecturer must be very happy now to see us students struggling because he said that he purposely picked this book because it is much more difficult than the rest.
While I understand his intention of wanting to give us more challenge, as a Psych lecturer I think he should also know that not all students are cognitively gifted. I mean, why must you start off with such difficult materials with a bunch of students who have never even touch cognitive psych before? We have not even grasp the basic concepts yet (because you chose not to teach) and here you are plunging us into application, experiments and god knows what are those words. Heck, even the tutor said good luck to us.
Better still, you can say that you did not print the lecture notes out because you're lazy. Isn't an educator's job supposed to be to help us understand? You cannot just throw us into the lake and expect us to swim proficiently right? I guess I have a pretty good idea of what to write during the semesterly review of lecturers already.
Thankfully not all of my lecturers are as bitchy as the one I ranted just now (yes, I used the term bitchy for him). Though I may still have complaints about them, generally they're still okay. At least they try to think from the sides of the students and not attempt to torture them to the point of wanting to burn the whole textbook and jump down from the fourth floor.
One particularly interesting module that I took was PL3240: Group Dynamics taught by Dr Cha Yeow Siah. As the name suggests, the module is about studying how group works and stuff and for the project, we have plan a group activity together (that is highly interactive, like kayak-ing, playing paintball, or sports) and presenting about our experience. On oh, we also need to write a report. But that's not the point.
The point is that, different from other modules (in fact all of the modules I've taken before in NUS), this project is literally about having fun. Of course, the report writing might be a little bit tricky but still, getting marks for going out engaging in fun activities? Priceless. We don't have to read through countless journal articles, search high and low in the internet and crack our brains to come up with a presentation that even ourselves have no idea what we're talking about. Cool right?
Of course, the only catch is that we cannot be in the same group with people we know. Our group members must be complete strangers to begin with. That aside, I have already plans on what our interactive activities would be. Like pouring red paint together on the car of the lecturer that gave me hell through the insanely mindfucking textbook. I'm gonna suggest it in the next meeting.
1 comments:
they're actually not "educators", most of them are "researchers" being forced to teach.
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