CMPSC 201

My 8AM class on M/W/F is CMPSC 201, which is basically programming in C++ but "for engineers" so we had to learn MATLAB toward the end of the course... that part was kind of scammy, we only did MATLAB for like three days and we didn't learn a whole ton, but anyway.

So the first day of the course, our teacher basically got right down to business even though it was 8AM and the first Monday morning of the new semester. The lecture hall was in this building called Kern in the northwest part of campus, which is as far as you can get from me, and it was probably freezing that day. It's not so bad to bike there, generally, takes about five minutes, but walking there after my wheel was broken was a piece of crap. Kern has a nice little snack shop and cafe and even some sort of restaurant on its ground floor, and the lecture hall was definitely one of the nicer ones on campus. It held probably a little over 300 people, had padded seats (although the writing boards were tiny), and had really good technology for white boards and projections and things like that.

So the first day, I didn't know what to expect with this teacher. She seemed alright, I guess. She's probably about 50 years old, has long blonde wavy/curly hair, glasses, spoke loudly and generally pretty clearly although she took her time typing things perfectly (she admits this all the time). She mentioned a few things during the lecture that I wasn't familiar with, including "Angel," and I remember I went up to her to ask her what it was after class explaining to her that I was a transfer this semester, and she told me what it was and where to go to find it. I forget if we had a lab after that class or not, but in either case I remember I got a 90 on my first lab because I didn't put my name on it, even though its impossible for them to get your lab and not be sure of whose it is.

Well anyway, I was looking at RateMyProfessor or whatever that site is when I got back. Most teachers have like a dozen or so comments if they have any at all. When I found my teacher, who I just call Suzi Q, I found that she had OVER TWO HUNDRED COMMENTS. Which usually means there is something very strange going on. So I clicked and read some of them, and they were full of just the most scathing, hateful, bitter reports on a teacher that I had ever seen, and I mean that without exaggeration. Some of the tamer reviews that I found included the following:

"With out a doubt, the worst teacher at Penn State. I would have rather taken a class from someone who speaks no english. Every time I had a question or problem [Suzi Q] was very un-willing to help. If you can avoid her classes, do so at all cost"

"If you want to relive the days of high school with teachers who hate their jobs and wreak havoc with their unprofessionalism, have [Q] as your teacher. She is the epitome of rudeness and is extremely unhelpful. If you made a mistake which was mostly her fault (i.e. Angel), prepare to be scolded when you visit her in her dungeoun lair. Worst ever!"

After reading those, all of a sudden I was like ((O_O)). But I still didn't think she was that bad, and there were some people who even seemed to like her or think she was okay somewhere in the mix, so I decided to just go with that.

So for a long time I didn't really have a problem with her. Then one day in class we were talking about what input would be needed if you used a program to find the area of a circle and how the radius being negative would be an error, and I asked if you could just tell the user that you would take the magnitude of their input and then find the area based on that. So the magnitude of -7 would be 7, so -7 would be a fine input. And she freaked out for a minute or two and I don't think really understood what I was asking and kids kept just shaking their heads and being like "Sorry man..." So after that I started to see why people didn't like her so much.

After that, I didn't have a problem with her for a while. I didn't do extremely well on my second exam, so I asked if I could see my ScanTron sheet to make sure nothing had gone wrong. I remember the day I asked to see her I was in a rush and I didn't have time to print out the answer sheet, so I put a copy of it on my Flash Drive and planned to ask her to print it out when I got there, or she could just look from the computer if she was going to hand grade it, or anything like that. I sat and waited outside her office in the basement of the IST building after looking for it for about 15 minutes, ended up waiting for her for a long while past when she said she would be there. She didn't say a word to me when she passed by me, knowing that I was there to see her. She didn't know my name and almost found the wrong kid's test. Then she found mine and told me to get out the answer sheet, and I gave her my flash drive and apologized for not having time to get to a printer, and she got very angry with me. I didn't really understand. To be honest I can't even remember her telling me to bring the answer key. And furthermore, what the hell, I already searched for her office for 15 minutes and sat waiting for 15 minutes, now you, my teacher, can lend me a hand for all of five seconds by putting the answer sheet I at least put on my flash drive on the screen for me. Angrily, she printed out the sheet, yelled at me when I almost put a mark on my ScanTron, and watched silently as I regraded my own test.

The "Angel" that I referred to earlier is the Course Management System at PSU. You can turn in homework and print out class notes and see your grades and such things on Angel. That's how we turn in our labs and projects and etc. for this class, which is why it's impossible for them to get a lab without knowing whose it is. You can title your submissions when you turn them in and attach a message if you'd like, so for instance you can title it "Lab 1" and attach the message "I don't think we learned proper commenting formats yet, please don't deduct until we have learned" and then attach your file for them. I usually make my titles and messages song to emo lyrics - Fallout Boy, Panic!, and Academy are favorites - but I don't know if they ever really read any of them. Anyway.

This last project we had in MATLAB had somewhat unclear directions for the last step. Myself and I believe a few others interpreted it as calling for one figure with three graphs on it, then another figure with three graphs on it. Then she sent out an email telling us that it should be a figure with four graphs on it: The first three graphs the same as before, the last graph combining the three from the second figure in the previous attempt. I had already turned in my first attempt, but they generally don't grade them until a day or so after the deadline, so I could turn it in again. So I turned it in and titled it, "Now that the directions have changed..." and attached my file. A few days later I got this in my inbox:

"The directions did NOT change. There was on point for you to use different line styles and legend unless you put different ones on same plot. Be careful of your attitude, it could cost you points!"

I think she sort of misinterpreted my tone. Maybe I should have used a smiley. In either case I'm expecting my next project to have the line "-5: Attitude" in the grading section. [I'm kidding about that last part. I think it'd be hilarious though]

I want to say more about this class but I'm kind of tired of talking about it.

I hated waking up for it. On Wednesdays you only had to go if you didn't complete the lab on your own, and I would always complete the lab on my own just so I wouldn't have to go because there's nothing I'd rather not be doing on Wednesday at 8AM than in Comp Sci doing a lab for Suzi Q. We had unannounced quizzes basically every Monday and sometimes other days, but you go to drop one every third of the semester. I think I lost one point on one of these the entire time, although I'm pretty sure I skipped two. I didn't really keep track though...

Overall the COURSE was good. I learned C++. I wrote a program to find primitive elements of prime numbers with it. However, the instruction was pretty terrible. It was kind of like the textbook, except with lots of typos and a terrible attitude. I really hated the quizzes more than anything else in class because they made you have to go. I wish I could have just gotten the labs and projects and the textbook and done it through the web. It should be a web course. I think that's my recommendation.

Peace out.