Monday commentary: North Campus classes insult students’ abilities

There’s this class. Statistics. A midterm on Tuesday. Not
terribly surprising, as it’s fourth week, and he, the
professor who clearly cares for his students, warned us a month
ago.

It is the most anonymous of classes ““ not so much in its
size, but in its consequence. I won’t remember it, most
likely. But impending graduation makes it necessary, and they say
statistics is important, so I go.

Now, I’ve never studied the subject. I know it has some
kind of significance, and I’m curious to find out what this
might be. But so far, significance is elusive.

First week, we learn about how the media manipulates numbers.
For three hours.

Second week, we learn how to read graphs. Another three
hours.

Third week, we finally tackle the mean, median and mode.

Early last week, someone in the front of the room has a question
about standard deviation. But wait ““ that’s jumping
ahead of ourselves! Standard deviation is for Thursday, the
professor says.

So three weeks in, we’ve reached middle-school level
material. After class, I hear two students laughing about how they
won’t need to study for this test on Tuesday because
it’s so simple.

It’s true. And the prospect of not studying is enjoyable,
at least for that one beautiful weekend. But the very fact that any
class should be so effortless is just insulting.

It’s a rampant problem, at least on the north end of
campus. I’ve been instructed how to write thesis statements
at least 17 times in the past three years, though one would think
thesis writing would be a prerequisite to attending this school in
the first place.

My own standards have fallen, thanks to receiving too-high
grades on papers that were the result of too little effort.

Has it really come down to improvement by means of
self-motivation at a place where the intellectual challenge ought
to be paramount?

With an average high school GPA that hovers around 4.25,
it’s not as if UCLA students are exactly averse to learning,
or that they wither in fear when faced with high standards.

That GPA seems to suggest we might actually be kind of good at
it ““ or were, at one point. Yet for some reason, too many
students here are saying high school was more difficult for them
than college has been.

South Campus students, on the other hand, don’t share the
same fate. They’re appalled when they hear we often get the
questions to important tests ahead of time, or when their northern
counterparts can get away with not even buying the books for a
class.

It’s not that the glaring difference between
“us” and “them” is a function of this one
particular professor, or the subject in general. I’m quite
aware that statistics has the potential to be a bit more difficult
than finding the average of three numbers. History, as much as it
is teased, has that potential too. There’s really no reason
North Campus students should be getting away with what they do.

There just appears to be a distinctly different teaching
philosophy that happens to be divided by Bruin Walk. There’s
no question that this certain professor of mine wants his students
to love his subject, and it’s no different with most of the
instructors I’ve had.

Their theory is that by telling us not to take notes in their
classes, by giving us the questions ahead of time, and by teaching
us how to write an essay (for the 12th time), they’re
actually challenging our capacity to think, rather than
memorize.

But the consequence is that their expectations aren’t high
enough. I’d venture to say that we can handle learning mean,
median, mode and standard deviation all in one day (and in the
first week, even). When I can get away with so much less than
I’m capable of giving, I just can’t take these classes
seriously.

E-mail [email protected] if your thesis statements are
17 times better than they were when you started here.