11011 - Numerical Methods! A Satire

[sohel]

This is not a mistake, I intentionally posted this under 'other words'.
Because, my question is not based on the solution of the problem, but on the problem description.

I think the problem setter is trying to say something about the teaching methods of courses like numerical methods. I strongly agree that questions like 'Find the root of the following equation using secant method', doesn't actually test anything. And in algorithm course, questions like 'what is bfs, give an example', doesn't actually test the depth of the knowledge on that particular subject.

Can you guys share the scenario in your respective university? Whether you are faced with questions like the ones mentioned above.

[sumankar]

Well, I dozed off in every single CS course that I had to take
(though I have a degree in CS ) while in college (which is as far as
I could get, crawling on all four limbs.) And that answers your question!

On a more serious note, I would surely like to add, that there were
very very few profs in our dept. (yes CS) who knew what they were
teaching (not that I know all, but you can always make out.) to say
nothing of the methods they applied.

I'll narrate one incidence: there was this poor guy who had a AI course
in the final semester. He had to attend this viva-voce, where he was
asked on the time complexity of BFS & DFS. The person sitting on the
right side of the table was so flabbergasted with the correct answer that
she had a *huge* fight with this poor chap ending with a you-fool-get-lost
response from the prof.And don't think I made this up, 'cause this happened
to me!

So, in a nutshell, we faced stupid questions and even worse profs.

[Moheeb]

edit//

[aha2007]

////

[shamim]

Any idea, how such people end up being the Dean of Faculty?

[aha2007]

@@

[shahriar_manzoor]

I think the most obvious cause of the poor status of computer science in different universities is teachers teach computer science like social science, memorize some thing and write in exam paper.

Also what I find annoying here is that a single teacher has to teach 3/4/5 courses in the same semester, which don't happen in very good universities of the world. So the teachers cannot put too much attention in their courses. Lack of good programmers among teachers is also a problem. I once heard ne of my friends say "I taught my students stack, queue, tree, heap and still they cannot write programs", but really it does not happen like that. Like when you teach someone Alphabet, he cannot start writing poems after that.

[Jan]

Nice explanation. Thanks. But is there a way out? I think this problem is not a new one, but fairly an old one. But nobody did show too much attention to it. And there is a common thing in the students, "If we memorize well we can have good marks, so why should we practice programming?" I know some students who memorize codes to get rid of it. I saw uva statistics of a junior student and found some good problems solved by him. So, I asked him, "You have solved 'this' one, so you can solve 'that' one, too. Have you tried 'that'?" He replied, "I got the code of 'this' and memorized it. And I dont know how to do 'that'. I had to solve 25 problems for my course, and I did(!) it."

Students with good results become teachers most of the time. And it is obviously true that 'Exception is rare'.

[shamim]

Students with good results become teachers most of the time. And it is obviously true that 'Exception is rare'.

Sounds like a vicious cycle

[shahriar_manzoor]

There is no easy way out. Why?

For example if I was in a decision making position I would assign retired good contestants to teach c++/c and algorithm courses in all universities. But then what would happen to the current experts?

Now as they are taking decisions they are striving for their existance rather than good cause of the nation (In my opinion).

[Niaz]

OFF THE RECORD

I can't stop writing comment on the Abul Dean of Eastern University.

Two of my friends (Gold Medalist from East West University, having a CGPA of 3.99/4.00, now doing their Masters in Germany) were called by the Eastern University (EU) for an interview for the post of Lecturer in CSE. When EU's Mr. Dean saw their academic records, he started in this way, "Actually you may have a good record but it doesn't mean your are a good student. Good student is created by the environment of the university. See this university. It's environment is so nice. Why? just because this uni has got a nice dean. ..." bla bla bla. In this way he continued. In all the questions at least once he said "its because of the dean!"... finally at the end of the interview one of my friends asked him, "Sir, who is the dean of this university?". He replied with a smile..."It's me ".

One of my junior brother passed from IUT, currently posted as a lecturer in Eastern University's CSE shared his experience in this way..."He is such a pain..." LOL.

I never heard anything good about this particular person and this thread also failed to create an exception . I wish one day I could meet him!

[shamim]

hmm, it is interesting to see how this thread has changed from its original message to a discussion about this "Abdul" guy.