This problem is not limited to freshman level courses. I still saw high dropout rates up until my last few quarters in senior level classes. Yes, freshman, sophomores, and juniors were all dropping out at high rates.
By calling these dropout rates "normal", schools do absolutely nothing to help these students and keep them in the program. And no, these are not unintelligent students who can't hack it, otherwise they would not have been admitted into school in the first place. No, the problem is with the school hiring professors that are more interested in research than teaching.
And then everyone wonders why so few people graduate with engineering degrees. So, they blame the students and blame the high schools. A great deal of the blame should rest on the colleges as well.
If you're going to a good school, then the admissions officers should only be letting in good students. If good students are failing or droping out at a 50% rate, then that is the school's fault, not the students. Something should be done regarding the school to fix this problem, not exacerbate it by calling it normal.
Honestly, a ton of the stuff in an undergraduate education may never be used by a practicing engineer.
Look, you go to college to get a college education, not a vocational education. A college education includes things like English and History as well as Math and Science. College is not a 4-week job training course.
The previous poster was bitching about having to take a bunch of classes other that computer engineering. Well, boo hoo... Everyone else also has to take a bunch of classes that they don't want. If you still don't like that, then just think that it's good to be exposed to other fields since you're likely to be working with people from other fields on the job. And, you have to be able to communicate with them in their language.
If you want spoonfed technical classes, consider a degree in "technology" or MIS or something else but engineering.
No, if you want spoonfed tech classes, consider ITT or Devry.
I really dislike the whining about foreign teaching assistants and professors. Yes, it can be a bit challenging sometimes but this is relevant job-training experience. You will be working with these people in the future.
Fine. Learn to communicate with them on the job. The point of a college class is to learn the material and be graded on your understanding of the material, not your understanding of someone who can barely speak English.
Just imagine it from the other side - not only does your TA have to be engineers/scientist, but much of the relevant research is written only in English, and they must be able to speak English to do their jobs. Despite the complaints, it is a lot easier to struggle to communicate in your own language than in the other guy's language.
I don't care about "the other side". I did not go to their country, they came here. And considering that they're earning just as much as any other TA and that I am paying them just as much as any other TA, they should be able to communicate just as good as any other TA.
It is not fair to me or to any of the other students in my class to have to interpret this TA on top of interpreting the material when people in other sections of the exact same class do have compresensible TAs.
Several times on this thread, I have seen someone basically say "I asked my TA (insert absurdly complicated, 40-word-sentence question here), and he had no clue".
This is as much a failure on the student's part as the TA.
No. The TA should be able to take any question thrown at them. That is the job description. Being able to properly speak and understand English is part of their education. If they can't do it, then they should not be a TA.
People whining about TA's language skills is a pet-peeve of mine. Im in the middle of Indiana. Outside of Purdue, the population is pretty homogenous. It doesn't matter. Now that I'm in grad school, and I go to conferences, I have to be able to talk intelligently with these same people. To work in any modern corporation, one must interact with many differant langauge backgrounds.
Fine, learn how to understand Indian English or Chinese English on the job. The point of college classes is to learn the material and be graded on your understanding of the material, not your understanding of the TA who can barely speak English.
Texas A&M offered a freshman honors level Engineering Chemistry class. And yes, that is approaching "genius" level for people coming straight out of high school.
Your post totally reminds me of my experience in school. I was a computer engineering student forced to take statics. So, in the middle of learning of the forces under which a bridge is subjected, I sat and wondered how that had anything to do with computers... I couldn't come up with a damn thing other than the force of the monitor sitting on the side of the case.
80% dropout rate, and you think that's fine? That's damn ridiculous if you went to a halfway decent school where they don't let just any idiot attend in the first place. But, that was the entire point of the article and the previous post, which seems to have gone over your head.
If your school was like the rest, then it has gone out of its way to eliminate perfectly good candidates. And for what? Simply because they can't put teachers in place who can actually teach. So, students are floundering under that German TA who may or may not know the material, but certainly couldn't explain it either way. Or, they're floundering under the asshole professor who flunks half the class on the midterm because he couldn't tell them what to focus study on and instead said "everything". Or, they get a shitty grade from the physics prof because he only gives good grades to physics majors. All this shit happens because I've seen it myself.
Then, this system perpetuates itself because products of this system, like you, then go on to become professors. So, instead of asking and lamenting "why are so many students failing", you instead think it's normal to have an 80% dropout rate. And then you wonder why so few students actually want to become engineers.
He has no point except that he didn't select the right school. Want to go to a school because of it's reputation? Or because the professors are famous? Congrats, you failed the first test.
Bullshit. Students choose reputable schools because supposedly they are good teaching institutions. You EXPECT Harvard to teach you something. You EXPECT MIT to teach you something. What you don't expect is to get there and be taught by some German TA who may or may not understand the material, but certainly can't explain it regardless. If students aren't able to learn the material as it's actually presented in class, then it's the professors' fault or TAs', not the students.
Given the lack of actual education during class time, the student should NOT have to jump through special hoops and go through the effort of learning the material all by themself. Otherwise, the student could just stay at home and get just as good an education without paying the exorbitant tuition fees. The whole point of college is for them to teach you, not for you to teach yourself, although that is what college students have ended up resorting to.
Boeing is actually a great example of the downfall of a career in engineering. The Engineer's union has far less power than the Machinist's union, although engineers require far more knowledge and schooling than machinists. Why, you ask? Because Boeing makes no money from getting the design of a plane. Thus, when the engineers go on strike, it doesn't affect the company much, they can still produce the planes that have already been designed. However, when machinists go on strike, then planes stop rolling off the assembly line. That does affect the company - right in the checkbook. So, Boeing bends over backwards to keep machinists happy, but just does the bare minimum to keep the engineers happy.
Having a burned out grad student teaching an upper level engineering class... That is just an insult, slap in the face!
No shit... That's especially true considering the amount that students pay to actually attend school these days. If my investments went up as much as tuition does, then I'd be a millionaire already.
Look dude, YOU are the one saying that porn causes harm. Ok then, where's your evidence? Oh, you don't have any? Fine. Then YOU can not say that porn causes harm. Period.
Given the fact that modern scientific studies cannot show that porn causes harm combined with the fact that porn has been around since the DAWN OF MAN, either in video, pictures, paintings, or statuary, WITHOUT any deleterious effects, I feel pretty damn safe in saying that it is HARMLESS. Now, you may want to continue arguing with me over that, but you have a serious burden of proof given the MULTIPLE MILLENNIA that porn has existed side-by-side with civilization without causing any damage.
And frankly, your statement "lack of evidence against is not evidence for" is pure horseshit in everyday practise. That never leaves ANY point when you can say that ANYTHING is harmless. You couldn't even call saccharin harmless even though it's been around 125 years, been used safely for over a century, and has 30 human studies conducted with it saying that it doesn't cause harm. Oh no, you would say that there's a POSSIBILITY that saccharin causes harm, at which point I would give you a tinfoil hat.
...do you think what the FBI is doing now will go all the way to the SCOTUS?
It certainly has the possibility. And it depends on the actions that the FBI upon their findings. Porn is not a rigidly defined concept, which leaves what constitutes as porn open to judgement. A lot of people don't think a naked statue is porn, but our previous US Attorney General thought so. He went out of his way to cover the bare breast of Lady Justice in the White House. If they go overboard and start trampling on peoples' rights, then you can damn sure bet this will go to the Supreme Court.
Look, dude, the issue is whether it is cheaper to provide services to people living closer together or farther apart. Now, this is basic logic, so listen closely. We'll look at roads, electricity, and telephone since even the most remote rural areas have these three things.
The cost to build and maintain a road between house A, house B, and house C is far, far cheaper if those houses are separated by 10 feet versus separated by a mile. In the 10 feet scenario, you might have 100 feet of road versus 2 miles of road for the mile scenario. If you break out the road cost per person, then each person pays far less in total for each section of road if they live close together.
Substitute "electricity" and "telephone" for the word "road" in the previous paragraph and you'll see that's it far, far cheaper to provide all three services to people who live close together.
Now, let's combine the two scenarios. We have houses A, B, and C separated by 10 feet together in a state that has houses X, Y, and Z separated by a mile. Everyone pays the same percentage in taxes. You can easily see that the costs to connect houses A, B, and C with their 100 feet of road are far, far less than the costs to connect house X, Y, and Z with their 10,560 feet of road. And with everyone paying the same amount in taxes, you can also see that the money collected from A, B, C are going primarily to X, Y, Z's road. Same thing happens with electric and telephone.
So, living in the city means not only do your city services cost less, but your state and federal taxes primarily go to rural populations.
Now, let's look at how these services scale. Say we have city A with 25 residents living in a 50'x50' area. And say we have city B with 4 residents living in a 10'x10' area. Certainly, the costs to connect each house to each other house on the grid is more expensive in absolute terms in city A. But, if you account for fixed costs, the per person cost of connecting each person is more expensive in city B. Those fixed costs include the construction equipment to build the roads, the crew to run the construction equipment, and the administration in place to run the construction equipment. And of course, the construction equipment, workers, and admin are different for electric and telephone. City A may take longer to contruct than city B, but in the end they'll end up paying less.
So, let's take into account cost of living. The residents of city A make 100,000 each. The residents of city B make 50,000 each. Let's assume a flat-tax system where each resident pays 50% in state and federal taxes. Each city A resident pays 50,000 in taxes. City B residents pay 25,000 in taxes. The total tax base of city A is 5,000,000 while city B is 100,000.
Now, let's assume that constuction equipment costs 100,000 and requires 2 workers and 1 admin. In city A, those costs come to 400,000. In City B, those costs are 250,000. The variable costs include 1,000 per foot for cement. So, city A variable costs comes to 500 feet for 500,000. City B variable costs comes to 40 feet at 40,000.
City A: Fixed + Variable = Total
400,000 + 500,000 = 900,000
City B: Fixed + Variable = Total
250,000 + 40,000 = 290,000
As you can see, city B has already eaten away all their funds from tax, while city A still has 4,100,000 in the bank. City A can go on and start building the electric while city B is going to have to wait another year to start that. On a percentage basis, all of the taxes paid by city B residents have gone to build the road while less than 20% of the taxes paid by city A residents have gone to the road.
But wait, those taxes were state and federal money, not City A money. The federal and state governments attempt to be "fair" to residents of both city A and city B. They don't want any of their residents to have to wait for electricity. Thus, the state and federal governments give the surplus 4,100,000 to both cities.
No, you ascribe and imply the repression of free speech to an Islamic state.
No, you were the first to bring up any idea of fascism and ascribe that to Islamic states.
Off-topic? You brought it into play... deal with it.
No, again, YOU were the one to bring up fascism and ascribe it to Islamic states. You then unsuccessfully attempted to foist that idea as coming from me, which it did not.
And yes, this is completely off-topic considering the topic is over porn and NOT whether Islamic states are fascist.
Ar ethey using the bible? Did the FBI say that they are using the bible as guidance? By allowing the discussion with them to continue under the assumptian that it's based on the Bible, you allow them the argument that their position is irrefutable, since it's a matter of faith.
Who cares whether the FBI is using the bible. The FBI are directed by the Christian Republican president, who most assuredly DOES use the bible.
And the original question was not whether their position was irrefutable, but whether it was Christian.
Considering that their ideas are based on the bible or based on faith, then those ideas ARE Christian. The bible can and is used to support all kinds of different and conflicting ideas. Faith is equally bad since, by definition, it means belief without evidence, it also can be used to support different and conflicting ideas. Even though basing belief on either the bible or on faith is bad, that does not mean that people who do so are not Christian.
As for Christian ideas based on the bible and faith, those ideas are far from irrefutable. Atheists have been SUCCESSFULLY refuting the ideas based on bible and faith for thousands of years now.
My point is not that porn causes harm -- my point is that you offered an unsubstantiated claim as evidence for your argument -- don't do that, since it's exactly what they are doing that you have such a problem with.
No, there is a major distinction. The bible-bangers say that god exists and he doesn't want you looking at naked pictures of women. They offer NO evidence for those two major assertions that god exists NOR that god disproves naked pictures of women. Similarly, despite DECADES (centuries?) of research, NO CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE has been shown that porn harms people. Yet, you want to still say that it does, just like the bible-bangers. Well, the burden of proof is on YOU to say that it does cause harm, because EVERYTHING ELSE says it doesn't. The LACK of evidence saying that it causes harm COMPLETELY justifies my claim that porn is harmless.
And there is no burden of proof required, all that is required is for a majority of lawmakers to think it causes harm. You don't really understand the US governmental system, do you?
Yes, I understand the US government. And you must think lawmakers are stupid to take at face value the idea that porn causes harm. And you must think that the court system would allow outright infringement of the first amendment, regardless of whether Congress and the president sign such bills into law. Such a law wouldn't stand the light of day, even with all the conservatives the Republicans have packed into the Supreme Court.
You posted a troll, and even if it happens to agree with the views of most slashdotters, it was a troll.
Interesting that people only think posts are trolls if they disagree with them. It's even more interesting in that you can't come up with one good argument against ANYTHING that I've written.
For the record, Jupiter, FL's per capita expenditures is just under $2,000/person. Detroit, MI's per capita expenditures come out somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000/person. New York City's expenditures are somewhere around $6,000/person.
Ok, Mr Statistics, what's the cost of living in Jupiter versus New York City? What percentage of that New Yorker's salary goes to pay water and garbage versus the exact same water and garbage expenditures in Jupiter so we can eliminate cost of living differences that warp the statistics?
I've already gone over the cost of living argument. You'd do better bringing something else up. Because if you want to go that route, why don't you tell me how much more in taxes do the New Yorkers pay on their higher salaries than someone in Jupiter in the first place? New Yorkers are making a hell of a lot more money, so that means they're also paying a hell of lot more in income taxes.
And just to keep things focused, Seattle spends about $5,000/year for each of its 550,000ish residents while Spokane's 180,000 residents see less than half that spent on them ($2,300 for those playing at home).
Yes, aggregate numbers don't tell us anything. If Seattle is getting more services for their money than people in Spokane, then the comparison doesn't hold. Break out garbage costs. Break out police costs. Break out fire agency costs. Break out road and bridge maintenance costs. Now, compare these costs between the two cities by using the percentage of income paid by city residents in order to eliminate cost of living differences.
I guarantee that Barrington, IL has a higher contribution per capita than Detroit, Chicago or LA.
Yeah, and what about New York City versus, say, Barstow, California? If you want to pick and choose your statistics, then so can I.
The individuals pay for the wells - usually without government help. Same thing with the propane tanks.
Yeah, and individuals in the cities pay for their city services as well, also usually without government help.
Are you sure about that? I've known people who had a graduating class size of six - they didn't have 12 separate rooms in their school. I, personally, in a suburban school in a soundly middle class neighborhood shared a classroom with 3rd and 4th graders.
I graduated in the middle of the desert, just south of the Mojave, with a class of 64. There were 500 people total in the school. You are limiting your observations to hicks who live miles and miles from each other. Well, those are not the only rural people. Rural also includes towns the size of 5,000.
Theories are nice, but are you prepared to provide any hard numbers to support your assertions?
This is Slashdot, not some academic community. Google it yourself. I'm not here to teach you something obvious that you should already know.
Tell me one location where government pays for energy? Somewhere in the USA please. That or admit you are on crack.
I said "Energy is not the only municipal service provided." I did not say that it was paid for by the government. So, why don't you get your head out of your ass.
You realize there is no animal control (besides the shotgun) in rural areas?
Yeah, and what about small towns? You get a city the size of 5,000 people and it is likely to have someone who focuses on animal control on the town payroll, whether it's full time or not.
At that point, your only argument is whether a town of 5,000 is rural or not. Hicksville in the middle of podunck country is rural as far as most people (living in the big city) are concerned.
Sewer and water are'nt government issues for rural people. Imagine this: You pay for your own septic system and well.
I'm not talking only about hicks and hillbillies who live by themselves miles away from their nearest neighber. I'm also talking about small, rural towns of about 5,000 people or so. You put 5,000 people all in one spot, then you have to do something to get them water and deal with their sewage. Not everyone can live off a well and dump their sewage in their back yard.
In fact, I'm using a bigger number than I need to. I've seen towns of about 100 houses or so with their own water and sewage.
Bottom line. You picked very poor examples.
No, bottom line is that you are limiting your examples to hicks without anyone living near them. Rural locations also include small towns as well.
And if those are your best arguments against me, then I'm doing pretty damn good.
Energy is not the only municipal service provided. How much do you pay for police and fire fighters? How much do you pay for sheriff services? How much for animal control? How much for sewer and water? How much for road and bridge maintenance?
Given the economies of scale that New York can leverage on all of these problems, New Yorkers will pay a smaller percentage of their income on all of these things then individuals in Wyoming.
Rural areas have fewer transportation needs than cities which means the transportation costs are considerably lower. Fewer roads, fewer streetlights, fewer traffic lights, fewer collisions.
When you compare the total costs of a single town of 5,000 to another single town of 1,000,000, then and only then you are correct. However, if you break those costs out per person, then you are incorrect.
As for the fewer roads argument, that is just false. If you spread a million people into 200 towns of 5,000 people each with a distance of 30 miles between each town, then you are going to spend a fortune creating a network of roads to connect all these people together. You'll end up spending far more than if those million people lived close together such as in a large city.
Who needs a larger police force - the 600,000 people in Washington, DC or the 600,000 people in North Dakota? Who has a greater need for firemen and paramedics - 900,000 people in San Jose or 900,000 people in Montana?
It is far cheaper to provide services to a million people if those people live close together. If you break those people up into towns of 5,000 and spread them apart by 30 miles each, then it is far more expensive to provide those services. That's because you have to pay the initial fixed cost for 200 separate police departments, sheriff departments, fire departments, etc, etc. A large city pays those same fixed costs, but spreads the costs over their entire population. On top of that, large cities can then get by with 1-2 police officers or fire fighters per 5,000 residents. However, no town the size of 5,000 people could get by with only 1-2 fire fighters. Look up economies of scale.
That's why farms use wells and propane.
But then you need people to drill the wells and service the pumps. Those people and their equipment cost money. And you probably need at least one in each of those towns of 5,000. So, that's at least an additional 200 people and their equipment you have to pay.
As for the propane, you need a network to get the propane out to people. Large trucks can get the propane out to individuals. Well, those trucks come from a central location nearby. Assuming that they're not from the big city, then you have a hub out in the middle of nowhere. Which means, you have to spend the big money to build a pipeline out to the middle of nowhere. That all costs big money, which they're not going to get from the few people they service.
Prev: Virtually anything done in a city is cheaper per person than it is in rural areas.
You: Municipal services? What is the cost per person of salaries of city employees alone in New York City vs the the metric for residents of Wyoming?
You're comparing the most expensive cost of living (NYC) versus one of the least expensive cost of living (Wyoming). As such, your example is not correct given that their salaries are based on the cost of living versus percentage of income paid to municipal services. On an absolute basis, New Yorkers may pay more per person than someone in Wyoming for the same municipal services. But then, New Yorkers pay more for everything than people in Wyoming. But, if you look at the percentage of income paid to municipal services of New Yorkers versus residents of Wyoming, the people of Wyoming probably pay more.
If you want to bring up that kind of argument, then I should point out that those municipal workers in New York are also paying more in taxes than people in rural areas. That's simply a result of them getting paid a higher salary.
Removing the cost of living argument, then it is always cheaper to provide services to people clustered together rather than spread apart.
Prev: Urban taxes pay for the network of roads and highways that make suburbs possible.
You: Nope... ever see the tax rates of suburban houses spike to pay for the new influx?
You also cannot view snuff films, which are often considered porn.
As I said, two CONSENTING adults.
You ascribed fascist values, then related it to an Islamic state -- though you did substitute that with Christian. Don't pussyfoot around and said you didn't.
Let's see, I said "Nevermind that porn with two consenting adults is completely legal and does absolutely no harm to society. It's just another step towards turning America into a Islamic... -oops!- Christian Republic." There are no "fascist" values ascribed here towards Islamic states, unless YOU put them here yourself. MY statement is saying that Christians in our society want to turn America into a theocracy, not unlike other theocracies in the Islamic world. YOU are the one describing those Islamic states as fascist.
This is totally off-topic. Stick to the topic.
My point is that we should not allow them to justify their non-Christian actions by putting them under the umbrella of "Christian values." While they may be Christians, the "family values" movement is not a Christian movement, except by thir labels.
Bullshit. Many of the posts in under this topic bring up the Bible in some form or another. Some of those posts condemn pornography based upon the Bible. While people can use the Bible to justify just about anything, the fact that they ARE using the Bible DOES make this an argument based on Christian values.
You did not say "it has never been proven that it causes harm." You said that it is harmless... lack of proof against does not prove your point.
Interesting semantic argument. As far as I'm concerned, those first two statements are equivalent.
And frankly, this topic is very black and white. Something either causes harm or it doesn't, there is NOTHING in between. If NOTHING shows that it causes harm, then you are safe to say that it is HARMLESS.
Again, you claim it is harmless without any proof whatsoever.
The burden of proof is on the people making the claim that porn causes harm. And despite DECADES of research, they have been completely UNABLE to substantiate said claim.
You assumed that I disagreed with you -- I do not.
If you agree with me, then shut the hell up.
But your message was insensitve, not thought out, and not defensible.
"Insensitive"... maybe. I don't particularly care to be sensitive to the morons who would sensor our society based on their distaste of something completely legal.
"not thought out"... an assumption on your part. I've thought about, studied this topic, and argued over this for many years. I've argued about this starting on Usenet back in 1993. If anything, I am impatient in my arguments, citing my conclusions before making my case.
"not defensible"... an assumption on your part that is COMPLETELY laughable. Try me.
Nevermind that porn with two consenting adults is completely legal and does absolutely no harm to society. It's just another step towards turning America into a Islamic... -oops!- Christian Republic.
You want to fight over that last sentence, fine. Combined with the rest of the paragraph, I wrote that sentence to mean that certain elements of our society, namely Christians, want to turn our country into a theocracy, not unlike other theocracies in the Islamic world. I made NO mention whether those theocracies are fascist or not. YOU were the one to bring to call THEM fascist.
You have now taken this argument completely off topic.
First, porn with two consenting adults is not completely legal -- after all, there are some laws against it, or restricting it, no? Whether or not it should be legal does not mean that it is legal.
As an adult, then it is completely legal for me to view porn of two other adults. The only laws that come into play are access issues when it comes to children viewing such porn. There is no debate here, although you are attempting to create one.
Second, do not equate an Islamic $GOVERNMENT with a fascist government...
Interesting because I did not, you did.
Third, do not grant the agressive moralists the title of "Christians," since that is not what their actions are, despite what they say.
The fact is these people are Christians, regardless of your attempts to label them otherwise. The believe in the same Jesus as other Christians. However, their attempts at moralizing are not limited to their own actions. They want everyone else around them to believe the same things that they do. This is no different from less aggressive Christian sects sending missionaries to third world countries attempting to "save the heathens". Their targets are just a little closer to home.
Fourth, do not assume that pornography does no harm to society. To say so would violate scientific principle (since it has not been established as the best competing theory).
Excuse me?! It has never been proven scientifically that porn does any damage, so how is it thus "violating scientific principle" for me to say so? If you have proof that it causes damage, then show your proof. You are the one making that claim, so back it up.
The real question is not whether porn is harmful to society, but whether government should or should not be regulating it, monitoring it, or prosecuting it.
The government should not be in the business of regulating, monitoring, or prosecuting something that causes no harm to society. This is particularly true if the alleged harm is merely the result of religious distaste.
Is it the government's right or responsibility to criminalize issues of a moral nature, that are not part of the common law (murder, assault, deprivation of property, etc)?
Interesting that you attempt to equate porn with assault and murder. The difference would be that there is no victim when porn is created or viewed. In this case, no, the government has no right attempting to criminalize porn.
Let's see... We have the War on Terrorism and the War on Drugs. The FBI should have plenty to keep them busy with those first two things. Nope, they want to start a War on Porn.
Nevermind that porn with two consenting adults is completely legal and does absolutely no harm to society. It's just another step towards turning America into a Islamic... -oops!- Christian Republic.
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This problem is not limited to freshman level courses. I still saw high dropout rates up until my last few quarters in senior level classes. Yes, freshman, sophomores, and juniors were all dropping out at high rates.
By calling these dropout rates "normal", schools do absolutely nothing to help these students and keep them in the program. And no, these are not unintelligent students who can't hack it, otherwise they would not have been admitted into school in the first place. No, the problem is with the school hiring professors that are more interested in research than teaching.
And then everyone wonders why so few people graduate with engineering degrees. So, they blame the students and blame the high schools. A great deal of the blame should rest on the colleges as well.
If you're going to a good school, then the admissions officers should only be letting in good students. If good students are failing or droping out at a 50% rate, then that is the school's fault, not the students. Something should be done regarding the school to fix this problem, not exacerbate it by calling it normal.
Honestly, a ton of the stuff in an undergraduate education may never be used by a practicing engineer.
Look, you go to college to get a college education, not a vocational education. A college education includes things like English and History as well as Math and Science. College is not a 4-week job training course.
The previous poster was bitching about having to take a bunch of classes other that computer engineering. Well, boo hoo... Everyone else also has to take a bunch of classes that they don't want. If you still don't like that, then just think that it's good to be exposed to other fields since you're likely to be working with people from other fields on the job. And, you have to be able to communicate with them in their language.
If you want spoonfed technical classes, consider a degree in "technology" or MIS or something else but engineering.
No, if you want spoonfed tech classes, consider ITT or Devry.
I really dislike the whining about foreign teaching assistants and professors. Yes, it can be a bit challenging sometimes but this is relevant job-training experience. You will be working with these people in the future.
Fine. Learn to communicate with them on the job. The point of a college class is to learn the material and be graded on your understanding of the material, not your understanding of someone who can barely speak English.
Just imagine it from the other side - not only does your TA have to be engineers/scientist, but much of the relevant research is written only in English, and they must be able to speak English to do their jobs. Despite the complaints, it is a lot easier to struggle to communicate in your own language than in the other guy's language.
I don't care about "the other side". I did not go to their country, they came here. And considering that they're earning just as much as any other TA and that I am paying them just as much as any other TA, they should be able to communicate just as good as any other TA.
It is not fair to me or to any of the other students in my class to have to interpret this TA on top of interpreting the material when people in other sections of the exact same class do have compresensible TAs.
Several times on this thread, I have seen someone basically say "I asked my TA (insert absurdly complicated, 40-word-sentence question here), and he had no clue". This is as much a failure on the student's part as the TA.
No. The TA should be able to take any question thrown at them. That is the job description. Being able to properly speak and understand English is part of their education. If they can't do it, then they should not be a TA.
MOD PARENT UP
People whining about TA's language skills is a pet-peeve of mine. Im in the middle of Indiana. Outside of Purdue, the population is pretty homogenous. It doesn't matter. Now that I'm in grad school, and I go to conferences, I have to be able to talk intelligently with these same people. To work in any modern corporation, one must interact with many differant langauge backgrounds.
Fine, learn how to understand Indian English or Chinese English on the job. The point of college classes is to learn the material and be graded on your understanding of the material, not your understanding of the TA who can barely speak English.
Texas A&M offered a freshman honors level Engineering Chemistry class. And yes, that is approaching "genius" level for people coming straight out of high school.
Your post totally reminds me of my experience in school. I was a computer engineering student forced to take statics. So, in the middle of learning of the forces under which a bridge is subjected, I sat and wondered how that had anything to do with computers... I couldn't come up with a damn thing other than the force of the monitor sitting on the side of the case.
80% dropout rate, and you think that's fine? That's damn ridiculous if you went to a halfway decent school where they don't let just any idiot attend in the first place. But, that was the entire point of the article and the previous post, which seems to have gone over your head.
If your school was like the rest, then it has gone out of its way to eliminate perfectly good candidates. And for what? Simply because they can't put teachers in place who can actually teach. So, students are floundering under that German TA who may or may not know the material, but certainly couldn't explain it either way. Or, they're floundering under the asshole professor who flunks half the class on the midterm because he couldn't tell them what to focus study on and instead said "everything". Or, they get a shitty grade from the physics prof because he only gives good grades to physics majors. All this shit happens because I've seen it myself.
Then, this system perpetuates itself because products of this system, like you, then go on to become professors. So, instead of asking and lamenting "why are so many students failing", you instead think it's normal to have an 80% dropout rate. And then you wonder why so few students actually want to become engineers.
He has no point except that he didn't select the right school. Want to go to a school because of it's reputation? Or because the professors are famous? Congrats, you failed the first test.
Bullshit. Students choose reputable schools because supposedly they are good teaching institutions. You EXPECT Harvard to teach you something. You EXPECT MIT to teach you something. What you don't expect is to get there and be taught by some German TA who may or may not understand the material, but certainly can't explain it regardless. If students aren't able to learn the material as it's actually presented in class, then it's the professors' fault or TAs', not the students.
Given the lack of actual education during class time, the student should NOT have to jump through special hoops and go through the effort of learning the material all by themself. Otherwise, the student could just stay at home and get just as good an education without paying the exorbitant tuition fees. The whole point of college is for them to teach you, not for you to teach yourself, although that is what college students have ended up resorting to.
Boeing is actually a great example of the downfall of a career in engineering. The Engineer's union has far less power than the Machinist's union, although engineers require far more knowledge and schooling than machinists. Why, you ask? Because Boeing makes no money from getting the design of a plane. Thus, when the engineers go on strike, it doesn't affect the company much, they can still produce the planes that have already been designed. However, when machinists go on strike, then planes stop rolling off the assembly line. That does affect the company - right in the checkbook. So, Boeing bends over backwards to keep machinists happy, but just does the bare minimum to keep the engineers happy.
Having a burned out grad student teaching an upper level engineering class... That is just an insult, slap in the face!
No shit... That's especially true considering the amount that students pay to actually attend school these days. If my investments went up as much as tuition does, then I'd be a millionaire already.
Look dude, YOU are the one saying that porn causes harm. Ok then, where's your evidence? Oh, you don't have any? Fine. Then YOU can not say that porn causes harm. Period.
...do you think what the FBI is doing now will go all the way to the SCOTUS?
Given the fact that modern scientific studies cannot show that porn causes harm combined with the fact that porn has been around since the DAWN OF MAN, either in video, pictures, paintings, or statuary, WITHOUT any deleterious effects, I feel pretty damn safe in saying that it is HARMLESS. Now, you may want to continue arguing with me over that, but you have a serious burden of proof given the MULTIPLE MILLENNIA that porn has existed side-by-side with civilization without causing any damage.
And frankly, your statement "lack of evidence against is not evidence for" is pure horseshit in everyday practise. That never leaves ANY point when you can say that ANYTHING is harmless. You couldn't even call saccharin harmless even though it's been around 125 years, been used safely for over a century, and has 30 human studies conducted with it saying that it doesn't cause harm. Oh no, you would say that there's a POSSIBILITY that saccharin causes harm, at which point I would give you a tinfoil hat.
It certainly has the possibility. And it depends on the actions that the FBI upon their findings. Porn is not a rigidly defined concept, which leaves what constitutes as porn open to judgement. A lot of people don't think a naked statue is porn, but our previous US Attorney General thought so. He went out of his way to cover the bare breast of Lady Justice in the White House. If they go overboard and start trampling on peoples' rights, then you can damn sure bet this will go to the Supreme Court.
Look, dude, the issue is whether it is cheaper to provide services to people living closer together or farther apart. Now, this is basic logic, so listen closely. We'll look at roads, electricity, and telephone since even the most remote rural areas have these three things.
The cost to build and maintain a road between house A, house B, and house C is far, far cheaper if those houses are separated by 10 feet versus separated by a mile. In the 10 feet scenario, you might have 100 feet of road versus 2 miles of road for the mile scenario. If you break out the road cost per person, then each person pays far less in total for each section of road if they live close together.
Substitute "electricity" and "telephone" for the word "road" in the previous paragraph and you'll see that's it far, far cheaper to provide all three services to people who live close together.
Now, let's combine the two scenarios. We have houses A, B, and C separated by 10 feet together in a state that has houses X, Y, and Z separated by a mile. Everyone pays the same percentage in taxes. You can easily see that the costs to connect houses A, B, and C with their 100 feet of road are far, far less than the costs to connect house X, Y, and Z with their 10,560 feet of road. And with everyone paying the same amount in taxes, you can also see that the money collected from A, B, C are going primarily to X, Y, Z's road. Same thing happens with electric and telephone.
So, living in the city means not only do your city services cost less, but your state and federal taxes primarily go to rural populations.
Now, let's look at how these services scale. Say we have city A with 25 residents living in a 50'x50' area. And say we have city B with 4 residents living in a 10'x10' area. Certainly, the costs to connect each house to each other house on the grid is more expensive in absolute terms in city A. But, if you account for fixed costs, the per person cost of connecting each person is more expensive in city B. Those fixed costs include the construction equipment to build the roads, the crew to run the construction equipment, and the administration in place to run the construction equipment. And of course, the construction equipment, workers, and admin are different for electric and telephone. City A may take longer to contruct than city B, but in the end they'll end up paying less.
So, let's take into account cost of living. The residents of city A make 100,000 each. The residents of city B make 50,000 each. Let's assume a flat-tax system where each resident pays 50% in state and federal taxes. Each city A resident pays 50,000 in taxes. City B residents pay 25,000 in taxes. The total tax base of city A is 5,000,000 while city B is 100,000.
Now, let's assume that constuction equipment costs 100,000 and requires 2 workers and 1 admin. In city A, those costs come to 400,000. In City B, those costs are 250,000. The variable costs include 1,000 per foot for cement. So, city A variable costs comes to 500 feet for 500,000. City B variable costs comes to 40 feet at 40,000.
City A: Fixed + Variable = Total
400,000 + 500,000 = 900,000
City B: Fixed + Variable = Total
250,000 + 40,000 = 290,000
As you can see, city B has already eaten away all their funds from tax, while city A still has 4,100,000 in the bank. City A can go on and start building the electric while city B is going to have to wait another year to start that. On a percentage basis, all of the taxes paid by city B residents have gone to build the road while less than 20% of the taxes paid by city A residents have gone to the road.
But wait, those taxes were state and federal money, not City A money. The federal and state governments attempt to be "fair" to residents of both city A and city B. They don't want any of their residents to have to wait for electricity. Thus, the state and federal governments give the surplus 4,100,000 to both cities.
No, you ascribe and imply the repression of free speech to an Islamic state.
No, you were the first to bring up any idea of fascism and ascribe that to Islamic states.
Off-topic? You brought it into play... deal with it.
No, again, YOU were the one to bring up fascism and ascribe it to Islamic states. You then unsuccessfully attempted to foist that idea as coming from me, which it did not.
And yes, this is completely off-topic considering the topic is over porn and NOT whether Islamic states are fascist.
Ar ethey using the bible? Did the FBI say that they are using the bible as guidance? By allowing the discussion with them to continue under the assumptian that it's based on the Bible, you allow them the argument that their position is irrefutable, since it's a matter of faith.
Who cares whether the FBI is using the bible. The FBI are directed by the Christian Republican president, who most assuredly DOES use the bible.
And the original question was not whether their position was irrefutable, but whether it was Christian. Considering that their ideas are based on the bible or based on faith, then those ideas ARE Christian. The bible can and is used to support all kinds of different and conflicting ideas. Faith is equally bad since, by definition, it means belief without evidence, it also can be used to support different and conflicting ideas. Even though basing belief on either the bible or on faith is bad, that does not mean that people who do so are not Christian.
As for Christian ideas based on the bible and faith, those ideas are far from irrefutable. Atheists have been SUCCESSFULLY refuting the ideas based on bible and faith for thousands of years now.
My point is not that porn causes harm -- my point is that you offered an unsubstantiated claim as evidence for your argument -- don't do that, since it's exactly what they are doing that you have such a problem with.
No, there is a major distinction. The bible-bangers say that god exists and he doesn't want you looking at naked pictures of women. They offer NO evidence for those two major assertions that god exists NOR that god disproves naked pictures of women. Similarly, despite DECADES (centuries?) of research, NO CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE has been shown that porn harms people. Yet, you want to still say that it does, just like the bible-bangers. Well, the burden of proof is on YOU to say that it does cause harm, because EVERYTHING ELSE says it doesn't. The LACK of evidence saying that it causes harm COMPLETELY justifies my claim that porn is harmless.
And there is no burden of proof required, all that is required is for a majority of lawmakers to think it causes harm. You don't really understand the US governmental system, do you?
Yes, I understand the US government. And you must think lawmakers are stupid to take at face value the idea that porn causes harm. And you must think that the court system would allow outright infringement of the first amendment, regardless of whether Congress and the president sign such bills into law. Such a law wouldn't stand the light of day, even with all the conservatives the Republicans have packed into the Supreme Court.
You posted a troll, and even if it happens to agree with the views of most slashdotters, it was a troll.
Interesting that people only think posts are trolls if they disagree with them. It's even more interesting in that you can't come up with one good argument against ANYTHING that I've written.
For the record, Jupiter, FL's per capita expenditures is just under $2,000/person. Detroit, MI's per capita expenditures come out somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000/person. New York City's expenditures are somewhere around $6,000/person.
Ok, Mr Statistics, what's the cost of living in Jupiter versus New York City? What percentage of that New Yorker's salary goes to pay water and garbage versus the exact same water and garbage expenditures in Jupiter so we can eliminate cost of living differences that warp the statistics?
I've already gone over the cost of living argument. You'd do better bringing something else up. Because if you want to go that route, why don't you tell me how much more in taxes do the New Yorkers pay on their higher salaries than someone in Jupiter in the first place? New Yorkers are making a hell of a lot more money, so that means they're also paying a hell of lot more in income taxes.
And just to keep things focused, Seattle spends about $5,000/year for each of its 550,000ish residents while Spokane's 180,000 residents see less than half that spent on them ($2,300 for those playing at home).
Yes, aggregate numbers don't tell us anything. If Seattle is getting more services for their money than people in Spokane, then the comparison doesn't hold. Break out garbage costs. Break out police costs. Break out fire agency costs. Break out road and bridge maintenance costs. Now, compare these costs between the two cities by using the percentage of income paid by city residents in order to eliminate cost of living differences.
I guarantee that Barrington, IL has a higher contribution per capita than Detroit, Chicago or LA.
Yeah, and what about New York City versus, say, Barstow, California? If you want to pick and choose your statistics, then so can I.
The individuals pay for the wells - usually without government help. Same thing with the propane tanks.
Yeah, and individuals in the cities pay for their city services as well, also usually without government help.
Are you sure about that? I've known people who had a graduating class size of six - they didn't have 12 separate rooms in their school. I, personally, in a suburban school in a soundly middle class neighborhood shared a classroom with 3rd and 4th graders.
I graduated in the middle of the desert, just south of the Mojave, with a class of 64. There were 500 people total in the school. You are limiting your observations to hicks who live miles and miles from each other. Well, those are not the only rural people. Rural also includes towns the size of 5,000.
Theories are nice, but are you prepared to provide any hard numbers to support your assertions?
This is Slashdot, not some academic community. Google it yourself. I'm not here to teach you something obvious that you should already know.
Tell me one location where government pays for energy? Somewhere in the USA please. That or admit you are on crack.
I said "Energy is not the only municipal service provided." I did not say that it was paid for by the government. So, why don't you get your head out of your ass.
You realize there is no animal control (besides the shotgun) in rural areas?
Yeah, and what about small towns? You get a city the size of 5,000 people and it is likely to have someone who focuses on animal control on the town payroll, whether it's full time or not.
At that point, your only argument is whether a town of 5,000 is rural or not. Hicksville in the middle of podunck country is rural as far as most people (living in the big city) are concerned.
Sewer and water are'nt government issues for rural people. Imagine this: You pay for your own septic system and well.
I'm not talking only about hicks and hillbillies who live by themselves miles away from their nearest neighber. I'm also talking about small, rural towns of about 5,000 people or so. You put 5,000 people all in one spot, then you have to do something to get them water and deal with their sewage. Not everyone can live off a well and dump their sewage in their back yard.
In fact, I'm using a bigger number than I need to. I've seen towns of about 100 houses or so with their own water and sewage.
Bottom line. You picked very poor examples.
No, bottom line is that you are limiting your examples to hicks without anyone living near them. Rural locations also include small towns as well.
And if those are your best arguments against me, then I'm doing pretty damn good.
Energy is not the only municipal service provided. How much do you pay for police and fire fighters? How much do you pay for sheriff services? How much for animal control? How much for sewer and water? How much for road and bridge maintenance?
Given the economies of scale that New York can leverage on all of these problems, New Yorkers will pay a smaller percentage of their income on all of these things then individuals in Wyoming.
Rural areas have fewer transportation needs than cities which means the transportation costs are considerably lower. Fewer roads, fewer streetlights, fewer traffic lights, fewer collisions.
When you compare the total costs of a single town of 5,000 to another single town of 1,000,000, then and only then you are correct. However, if you break those costs out per person, then you are incorrect.
As for the fewer roads argument, that is just false. If you spread a million people into 200 towns of 5,000 people each with a distance of 30 miles between each town, then you are going to spend a fortune creating a network of roads to connect all these people together. You'll end up spending far more than if those million people lived close together such as in a large city.
Who needs a larger police force - the 600,000 people in Washington, DC or the 600,000 people in North Dakota? Who has a greater need for firemen and paramedics - 900,000 people in San Jose or 900,000 people in Montana?
It is far cheaper to provide services to a million people if those people live close together. If you break those people up into towns of 5,000 and spread them apart by 30 miles each, then it is far more expensive to provide those services. That's because you have to pay the initial fixed cost for 200 separate police departments, sheriff departments, fire departments, etc, etc. A large city pays those same fixed costs, but spreads the costs over their entire population. On top of that, large cities can then get by with 1-2 police officers or fire fighters per 5,000 residents. However, no town the size of 5,000 people could get by with only 1-2 fire fighters. Look up economies of scale.
That's why farms use wells and propane.
But then you need people to drill the wells and service the pumps. Those people and their equipment cost money. And you probably need at least one in each of those towns of 5,000. So, that's at least an additional 200 people and their equipment you have to pay.
As for the propane, you need a network to get the propane out to people. Large trucks can get the propane out to individuals. Well, those trucks come from a central location nearby. Assuming that they're not from the big city, then you have a hub out in the middle of nowhere. Which means, you have to spend the big money to build a pipeline out to the middle of nowhere. That all costs big money, which they're not going to get from the few people they service.
Prev: Virtually anything done in a city is cheaper per person than it is in rural areas.
You: Municipal services? What is the cost per person of salaries of city employees alone in New York City vs the the metric for residents of Wyoming?
You're comparing the most expensive cost of living (NYC) versus one of the least expensive cost of living (Wyoming). As such, your example is not correct given that their salaries are based on the cost of living versus percentage of income paid to municipal services. On an absolute basis, New Yorkers may pay more per person than someone in Wyoming for the same municipal services. But then, New Yorkers pay more for everything than people in Wyoming. But, if you look at the percentage of income paid to municipal services of New Yorkers versus residents of Wyoming, the people of Wyoming probably pay more.
If you want to bring up that kind of argument, then I should point out that those municipal workers in New York are also paying more in taxes than people in rural areas. That's simply a result of them getting paid a higher salary.
Removing the cost of living argument, then it is always cheaper to provide services to people clustered together rather than spread apart.
Prev: Urban taxes pay for the network of roads and highways that make suburbs possible.
You: Nope... ever see the tax rates of suburban houses spike to pay for the new influx?
You also cannot view snuff films, which are often considered porn.
As I said, two CONSENTING adults.
You ascribed fascist values, then related it to an Islamic state -- though you did substitute that with Christian. Don't pussyfoot around and said you didn't.
Let's see, I said "Nevermind that porn with two consenting adults is completely legal and does absolutely no harm to society. It's just another step towards turning America into a Islamic... -oops!- Christian Republic." There are no "fascist" values ascribed here towards Islamic states, unless YOU put them here yourself. MY statement is saying that Christians in our society want to turn America into a theocracy, not unlike other theocracies in the Islamic world. YOU are the one describing those Islamic states as fascist.
This is totally off-topic. Stick to the topic.
My point is that we should not allow them to justify their non-Christian actions by putting them under the umbrella of "Christian values." While they may be Christians, the "family values" movement is not a Christian movement, except by thir labels.
Bullshit. Many of the posts in under this topic bring up the Bible in some form or another. Some of those posts condemn pornography based upon the Bible. While people can use the Bible to justify just about anything, the fact that they ARE using the Bible DOES make this an argument based on Christian values.
You did not say "it has never been proven that it causes harm." You said that it is harmless... lack of proof against does not prove your point.
Interesting semantic argument. As far as I'm concerned, those first two statements are equivalent.
And frankly, this topic is very black and white. Something either causes harm or it doesn't, there is NOTHING in between. If NOTHING shows that it causes harm, then you are safe to say that it is HARMLESS.
Again, you claim it is harmless without any proof whatsoever.
The burden of proof is on the people making the claim that porn causes harm. And despite DECADES of research, they have been completely UNABLE to substantiate said claim.
You assumed that I disagreed with you -- I do not.
If you agree with me, then shut the hell up.
But your message was insensitve, not thought out, and not defensible.
"Insensitive"... maybe. I don't particularly care to be sensitive to the morons who would sensor our society based on their distaste of something completely legal.
"not thought out"... an assumption on your part. I've thought about, studied this topic, and argued over this for many years. I've argued about this starting on Usenet back in 1993. If anything, I am impatient in my arguments, citing my conclusions before making my case.
"not defensible"... an assumption on your part that is COMPLETELY laughable. Try me.
Ok, moron... let me spell it out for you.
Nevermind that porn with two consenting adults is completely legal and does absolutely no harm to society. It's just another step towards turning America into a Islamic... -oops!- Christian Republic.
You want to fight over that last sentence, fine. Combined with the rest of the paragraph, I wrote that sentence to mean that certain elements of our society, namely Christians, want to turn our country into a theocracy, not unlike other theocracies in the Islamic world. I made NO mention whether those theocracies are fascist or not. YOU were the one to bring to call THEM fascist.
You have now taken this argument completely off topic.
...you imply that an Islamic republic would be as fascist and repressive as the Christian republic you believe the US is becoming.
Any "implication" you find is your own. You are projecting your own values into the statement.
First, porn with two consenting adults is not completely legal -- after all, there are some laws against it, or restricting it, no? Whether or not it should be legal does not mean that it is legal.
As an adult, then it is completely legal for me to view porn of two other adults. The only laws that come into play are access issues when it comes to children viewing such porn. There is no debate here, although you are attempting to create one.
Second, do not equate an Islamic $GOVERNMENT with a fascist government...
Interesting because I did not, you did.
Third, do not grant the agressive moralists the title of "Christians," since that is not what their actions are, despite what they say.
The fact is these people are Christians, regardless of your attempts to label them otherwise. The believe in the same Jesus as other Christians. However, their attempts at moralizing are not limited to their own actions. They want everyone else around them to believe the same things that they do. This is no different from less aggressive Christian sects sending missionaries to third world countries attempting to "save the heathens". Their targets are just a little closer to home.
Fourth, do not assume that pornography does no harm to society. To say so would violate scientific principle (since it has not been established as the best competing theory).
Excuse me?! It has never been proven scientifically that porn does any damage, so how is it thus "violating scientific principle" for me to say so? If you have proof that it causes damage, then show your proof. You are the one making that claim, so back it up.
The real question is not whether porn is harmful to society, but whether government should or should not be regulating it, monitoring it, or prosecuting it.
The government should not be in the business of regulating, monitoring, or prosecuting something that causes no harm to society. This is particularly true if the alleged harm is merely the result of religious distaste.
Is it the government's right or responsibility to criminalize issues of a moral nature, that are not part of the common law (murder, assault, deprivation of property, etc)?
Interesting that you attempt to equate porn with assault and murder. The difference would be that there is no victim when porn is created or viewed. In this case, no, the government has no right attempting to criminalize porn.
They fucked up both of those, so I imagine they'll fuck this porn as well... Er...
Let's see... We have the War on Terrorism and the War on Drugs. The FBI should have plenty to keep them busy with those first two things. Nope, they want to start a War on Porn.
Nevermind that porn with two consenting adults is completely legal and does absolutely no harm to society. It's just another step towards turning America into a Islamic... -oops!- Christian Republic.