Monday, December 08, 2003

Explain your answer!

I am not a PhD nor graduate student, unfurtunatly that makes me beneath the authorities in Statistics at MSU. The way our TA's talked to us students during the final review was out of unbelievable. Ok, I'm no expert in Stats, I never claimed to be, but I am pulling a 4.0 in the class and I have had math higher than then Calc III. This Stat class is designed for us to understand methods of testing, not how to construct Stat-Tests. Here's a little taste of the words of encouragement and guidance we recieved...

TA (Doctoral Canidate - mentioned this 4x) - "Anybody have any questions, ...... or better .... what do you want to get out of this review"

Student 1 - " I .... well .. I was hoping to go over t-test and z-tests ..."

TA - "Nope.. won't waste your time, .. not releavent for exam "

Student 1 - "But the exam covers all material "

TA - "Who do you think wrote the exam " ... "Ok ... anyone ....."

Student 2 - " ... can we maybe go over some regression"

TA - "Ok, like what"

Student 2 - " .... Multicollinearity .... I'm still a bit confused"

TA- "Ok, like what"

Student 2 - "like when it applies during regresion."

TA - "Ok, like what"

.... this went on for a bit... most students left.... then an hour into the review... the TA said , "ok , well I have exams and I was only supposed to be here for 1 hr (He showed up late). He quickily Leaves the room."

... next TA , ..

TA 2 - " walks into the room, .... very hastily, and in a loud voice says: "Ok, I am not here to lecture, give out hints to what is on the exam or work problems. Only to answer specific questions on specific problems. Please do not ask about material which answers are in the notes. These are the Rules." "Ok, first question"

.... not that bad.... but consider this is a lecture class of 500 students, this is the only review, and there is only 1 TA. ....

I know that Grad. students work hard, and I know that they are becoming experts in thier fields... but everytime I answered a question, it wasn't good enough.... it's like they didn't want anyone to succeed. On one question he just called on me.

TA - "You, your name, .... did you do this problem..."

Me - "um... yes"

TA - holding out the chalk - "Impress me"

Me - "Um ... ok"

What's the deal with that. I was just being quite. Oh well.. .. ok back to the books.