What are some things college professors wish they could tell their students?
My students are MIT students, so what I tell them may not translate to other schools.Study less. It’s better to master a moderate amount of material than drown in a sea of it. Future employers (and graduate admissions) care that you’ve mastered the key courses of a major, but do not care whether you took any specific course. You’re going to do a lot of learning on the job; demonstrating that you can learn well is far more important than knowing everything already. Studying less also gives you time to think about what you’re learning.Play more. The two most important things I did in college were to pick up music and dance. They’ve defined my life (and made it enjoyable) far more than any particular course that I took.Meet people and get to know them. After college your opportunities to run into random strangers with whom you share significant background become much fewer; college is a key chance to build a social network that will stick with you for life.It should be fun. College isn’t some place you grind through to prepare for life; it’s part of life. If it’s not fun, find a way to change it. Of course it’s not fun all the time, but the unhappy times should be limited, not chronic.Networking matters. You may get a decent job by checking the boxes on your resume and submitting it at the campus placement office, but many great opportunities come from getting to know people who can offer great opportunities.If you want to stand out, do an independent project, by yourself or with some faculty member. Even if some of your classes have big projects, it really makes a difference when you create your own (and can talk about it as an expert) instead of just doing what someone else tells you.
Do professors know when we log into Blackboard?
Actually, they can see when you log into Blackboard. They don't care what time that is, but many professors do check to see (1) how often you log in, (2) how much time you spend logged in, (3) that you've downloaded or viewed everything that has been posted, and (4) when you did those things in relation to deadlines. For example, let's say a student fails an exam and then complains that something went wrong with the computer and wan't able to complete it properly. The instructor can check all of the above information to see if you were properly prepared for the exam or whether you're using it as an excuse to take the exam a second time. The instructors can easily tell when students are just making excuses for work they didn't do. It happens all the time. So let's say that the instructor discovers that the student hasn't even downloaded the material for the exam, or waited to the last minute to do so. The student better have a very good reason to explain why that happened. Or let's say that a student complains that they didn't receive an instructors email in time for some important detail. The instructor can see how often the student was logging in during the period. If the student only checked blackboard one in a week, then guess who's at fault for not seeing the message. Students are required to check in frequently. But professors don't care to monitor everything the students do unless there's a reason to do so. Blackboard just provides a lot of evidence for them to use when they need it.
How many books do professors read a year?
You nailed some of the issues. Let me add some more.1) Does the professor's discipline rely upon books? In most of the humanities, book-length monographs are still the major method to transmit advanced research. English professors read a lot of books. In most of the sciences, paper and journals dominate. Professors only read textbooks to get their feet wet.2) What is the professor's primary role -- teaching, research or administration/service. Teaching faculty need to have more general knowledge as they connect their work to current events. They also know a little about a wider range of subjects Many research faculty have little or no time to study outside their narrow specialty. Administrators may be reading more books on leadership and management than in their field.3) Level. Community College and Junior College faculty have heavy teaching loads and limited time for sustained research. Liberal Arts faculty may have limited time during the Academic year, but catch up intensively during the summer. Unversity faculty can run the gamut based upon their role.4) I can speak for myself. I ready 5-8 fiction books every quarter (4 quarters per year). I also tend to pick up 1-2 non-fiction books per quarter. The non-fiction may be in one of my teaching areas or may relate to management. Add lots of keeping up with online and print periodicals.Thanks for the A2A, Pat
Is Dirac the fired Penn State physics professor in the article below? Did Dirac get fired by trying to date his student?
Don't know if it's him or not, but there is some interesting psychology. Take a guy who has worked one job his entire career. Maybe 45 years. He puts himself into that job. He puts everything into it. He even becomes the job. Now take a guy who gets fired from his only job he's ever had. You've taken away what has validated him his entire adult life. He then puts up a defense mechanism. He needs to reassure himself. The psychology goes haywire. He has to prove himself worthy. He has to be vindicated. He has to prove HR wrong, except he can no longer do it on the job because he got terminated. He displays his credentials to anyone and everyone for validation. It's a desperate plea to tell the world, "I'm still worthy. My career wasn't for nothing." That's what I see in Dirac.
How do professors/PhD students read research papers quickly while obtaining as much information as they can?
These answers are pretty good already. Not sure what I can add except to repeat what has been said in a different way.You can’t read a paper quickly to obtain much detailed information. At least only people with amazing memories who can understand almost any written information instantly could do that. Of course if its on a subject you just wrote a paper on that would different. But there are no tricks for that. Most people simply can’t do this unless they know the subject almost as well as the person writing the paper.OK, that all being said here are my tricks.1. Read the title. It seems silly but sometimes only experts even know what the title means. Look up the words of the title if they are not all clear to you. If you know what the paper is about more clearly before you read it that is of immense help!2. Read the Abstract and then the Conclusion next. Again look up terms and words to make sure you understand what the paper actually does.3. If you want to gain real details from the paper to understand what was done then you probably should read most of it quickly, maybe skipping or skimming over parts that don’t interest you or are not germane to the main points. This puts things into context for the next steps so read as much to put things into context.4. If there are figures that tell a large part of the story then focus on the ones that you think are important and strive to understand those completely.5. Same thing with equations. Make sure you understand those. Look them up if you have to.6. Other tricks: Make notes of the important parts and discuss these with colleagues. Make sure to try and explain things in your own words because if you cannot communicate your understanding to others in a way that is useful, then you probably don’t understand it either. This is really the true test. If you can write a two paragraph summary of what a paper details then you can decide if you need to explore further to attempt to understand things as well as the person who wrote it.
How much time did you spend writing SOP for a successful MS/PhD admission?
Maybe an hour, plus some time spent reading up on the professors. I knew what my strengths and weaknesses were, and I knew what my interests were. I also knew that I knew how to write. So, all I had to do was write them down as a coherent narrative that makes me seem like someone the department would want. I don't think that the results would have been any different if I had spent dozens of hours writing them. No one knows how much time you spent writing something. I had better things to do than waste time rewriting perfectly fine sentences that an admissions committee would probably only scan anyway. At the end of the day, admissions are highly subjective. The hifalutin sentence that one professor may think shows my command of English may just annoy another professor who thinks I'm pretentious. So, really, why bother worrying about it? That was my reasoning, in any case.
Where can i find my college professor's tests online?
I would take a look at the Duke University scandal that is unfolding right now for a point of reference. A slightly lower GPA is better than being expelled and damaging the credibility of your University.
What are college professors like?
A college teacher's job is to tell you what there is to learn, and help you learn what you're most interested in learning. One of my college teachers handed out this eight-page single spaced reading list on the first day of class. When everybody in the class gasped and groaned, he said, "my goal is to let you know what there is to read in this field. Your job is to decide what you want to learn about and learn it." A high school teacher's job is to tell you what you have to learn, and try to make you learn it.