Too Many Tests

Last night was the second week of class at UHCL. As I mentioned last week, this semester I’m taking a lecture class — the first class I’ve taken there that doesn’t involve design projects and lots of computer work. Instead, the homework is almost entirely reading and then reporting on the reading.

It is an odd class. The first hour is a “viewing” of something related to communication technology, and the rest of the class is lecture time. Last night’s viewing was a PBS special called Transistorized that covered the invention of the transistor and how it changed the world. It was very interesting. The lecture discussed digital and cable television, since those are the chapters we will be reading for next week. It was also very interesting.

However, the class is nearly ruined by incessant quizzes and busywork that make me feel as if the professor thinks I’m about five years old. We have not one, but two quizzes per class. We have one quiz when we walk in the door, which covers the reading we were assigned the previous week. Ok, fine. He quizzes us to make sure we did the reading. But then halfway through class we have another quiz, this time covering whatever viewing we just had. So last night we had a quiz about the PBS special — which we had just watched. The professor was there and saw us all sitting there watching the special. Is a quiz really necessary? All it does is prove how well you can take notes — or how good your short term memory is.

Our weekly assignment (in addition to reading) isn’t much better. We have to find an article about that week’s topic. Once we find a few, we have to email the professor with the headlines so that he can pick which single article we should continue working with. (That’s the part that bugs me the most — that we have to get approval from him on our article.) It has to be an 800+ word article, which we then have to summarize in 400-500 words. That sounds to me like I will be basically rewording the article with a lot of edits. Then we have to report on it in class. Sigh.

Maybe I was especially annoyed because I wasn’t feeling very well last night. But it is so frustrating to me that a class with good content is being strangled by pointless (and endless) quizzes and 5th grade book reports. I know I’m going to sound like an educational snob again here, but I feel like I’m above all that. I have been to college. I have done the whole pop quiz thing. I have done the whole book report thing. I don’t want to do busywork anymore, I want to be treated like an adult. This is a graduate level class. Is it too much to ask that he treat us like graduate students? That he trust us to read the material, and grade us on a couple tests and overall class participation?

Anyway. The good content means that I will suck it up and put up with the pointless busywork for the semester, but it doesn’t mean I won’t be frustrated every week. Rant over.

I am feeling a bit under the weather. Sore throat, slight congestion, general achiness. It is another of my typical “functionally sick” periods, it seems. I rarely get so sick that I can’t continue with life — working, going to class, etc. It just means that I spend a few days doing all my normal things but feeling really icky. It’s no fun. And it popped up fast. I did speedwork on Tuesday night and felt fine. Later that night at the Astros game, my throat started hurting. And now here I am.