taking the worst online course now

last one was writing and research intensive

this one is just concept and formula dense but the instructor hasn't made any announcements since the term started and the lectures are all just poiwerpoint slides without any audio. who came up with this torture

Depending on your major, it could be all as planned.

For example, certain programs are deliberately stressful by design. Certain classes are meant to mentally put you through the ringer as a "test". Sometimes midterms are deliberately BS as an attempt to hurt your grade to further push this. (I've had a professor admit to doing this before).

This is actually a token class I am taking to get a professional certificate since I've been in my BA program for nearly 5 years and am still a ways off. There was a huge amount of overlap between the BA requirements and Certificate requirements and I figured I would use the term to get at least something to show for my time thus far.

But yeah it's totally out of the standard curriculum for my main program, it's about surveying :\

also haven't taken a class yet where there's like two different categories of materials (required reading and lectures) but it's essentially the same thing and the lectures are all reading anyway.

Did your professor happen to have written the textbook? Because that's a pretty big red-flag.

Textbooks should offer an alternative perspective on the material to synergize with the lectures to help paint a fuller picture.

ImAMarvel posted...

What's the class?

Forest Surveying
Says it's actually designed to get students ready to take a surveying exam of some kind.
I'm just overwhelmed though lmao, the introduction materials cover everything from history of surveying to specific statistical concepts and how to use statistics to account for errors, and then there's a big focus on differentiating between errors and mistakes and measurements and counting.

And in between there's a whole section on how to properly format data collection logs / project logs and how to communicate non-verbally in the field and I'm like w t f am I supposed to be focusing on right now.

RasterGraphic posted...

Did your professor happen to have written the textbook? Because that's a pretty big red-flag.

Textbooks should offer an alternative perspective on the material to synergize with the lectures to help paint a fuller picture.

Actually I didn't even check but yes, yes he did write the textbook. There are several red flags in this class tbh

Like in the syllabus he references a third party publisher page for buying the textbook. The textbook is not listed for sale (or even shown as "required") in my university book store. And he also talks about how all the lectures are hosted on his own personal website, instead of just... embedded into Canvas like everyone else does. And like I said the lectures aren't even lectures just slideshows.

I'm also a little bummed there's no actual field work component to the class. I've taken a few courses in the past that still required me to go out and using mobile apps to collect data, write about my experience, make products with it. I imagine if someone lives in the desert or a big city maybe they can't comfortably go out to do tree measurements though :\