Midterm, Redux
I got my Discrete Math midterm back today, and I'm quite happy to report that I got an A! More importantly, I actually answered every question correctly, and even got some points on the extra credit. I have to say that, because an A in a grad class at Columbia doesn't exactly mean that you learned anything.
I want to note that this is entirely to the credit of the Professor, who is really an excellent teacher. (A word of advice to the young undergrads who are pondering a career in academia - whenever you do well, commend the professor; whenever you do poorly, blame yourself.)
However, this really has nothing to do with my interest in the area, or my background in Engineering, or anything like that. Basically, Professor Pollak could have been teaching a class on spider monkey mating habits, and I would undoubtedly have made an equally concentrated effort to become an expert in the subject. Maybe if I had him for freshman calculus, that class wouldn't be such a vague and unpleasant memory for me.
I think that it boils down to a few basic elements of teaching. He knows how to explain the material really well. That is very important. He is also very patient, and takes as much time as is necessary to explain a particular concept. He is very responsive, and actually reads all the papers very carefully (a somewhat rare phenomenon, frankly). And also, he assigns just the right amount of work to facilitate the highest degree of retention - not too much that everyone stresses out, but just enough to really get the gist of the problem and the method.
So, take his class next semester. Regardless of what he is teaching. I definitely will.
11 Comments:
I want to point out that Irina is notoriously partial to older professors. It is well known that she won't even pay attention to anyone who is under 70!
Now that is really unfair. As an undergrad, my favorite professor was Leon Gold, with whom I took 2 classes in Industrial Engineering. And he was... what?... 45, 50 tops. Definitely well under 70.
A more accurate statement would be that I favor professors who are expert educators. At Columbia, and other major research universities, the focus is always on research (obviously) because that's where the patents are, and therefore, that's where the money is. So that's why it's very rare to run into a Professor who cares more about TEACHING mathematics than DOING mathematics (or engineering, or science, etc).
And another thing...
It just so happens that the young Professors really need to make a name for themselves in their field, and so they have to focus on research. Teaching is just something that they have to do, and most of them, don't really like doing it. However, those Professors who have already retired from their career in research or industry are in it just for the teaching. That is what they care about, so naturally, they take more time to prepare, and pay more attention to the students.
This is just a generalization, of course. But you started it.
Well done on the midterm, and I agree with you on everything in the comments. You should bump this up into a new post. We are always talking about this issues of teaching vs research.
Irina's been drinking the Teacher's College cool aid. :)
Irina, very good comments. We have very similar issues in Israel. You want to go the best university like Technion but there you find out that the focus is on research. So classes are taught by graduate students and you never get to see the senior professors because they are so involved in their research and always try to get out of teaching.
at Brown you can major in spider monkey mating.
1. phil's accusation is totally valid. how many times have you heard irina say "oooh he graduated from Harvard in 1950! i have to take his class!"
2. gold was more like 55-60 if I remember correctly.
no, she says "ooh he graduated from harvard in 1940! i have to take his class!"
but i think i tend to agree with irina on this one. older professors are smarter.
i just think that irina has an unfair bias which i take personally.
Bah!
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