11.12
ok so i’ve been so absolutly angered by something, that i felt the need to make a very long rant about.
recently dr. kwek changed the analysis of algorithms course from difficult to easy as hell. the reasoning behind this is apparently dr. psarris came down on kwek instructing that he make the course easier. why you ask? because apparently he’s blaming the low number of graduates per semester on the difficulty of analysis. more on this later.
so what has dr. kwek done? if you look at the link above, he removed pretty much the actual analysis of algorithms out of the course “analysis of algorithms” and left you with basically a course that a freaking MIS major could ace. there is no loop invariants, no red-black tree’s, no network analysis (kruskal and prim’s algorithms), no NP completeness, not even a single proof!! how can anyone taking this class honestly feel their degree is worth anything? if you get a degree without ever seeing any of the aforementioned topics, you’re degree weights less than the paper it was printed on.
so wise ol’ interm dr. psarris thinks that few people graduate because of the difficulty of an upper division course. let’s analyze that!
so apparently alot of people are somehow getting to analysis, flunking it and giving up. well, honestly, if you can’t cut it in (the old) analysis, you don’t deserve a degree anyways, so that shouldn’t be any skin off my nose. also, seems like the lower division courses aren’t weeding out the retards well enough. perhaps key robbins should come down on those data structures students. or systems should just up the ante. but no way possible should any morons be able to pass past the 2000’s (in course numbers, that’s lower division work). for example UT austin forces all would-be applicants to go through the lower division, coined “pre-cs”, with a satisfactory GPA (3.0). if you can’t cut the mustard, you’re ass gets one more chance to run through it again, then they boot you out of the cs department.
so it seems UTSA, and the CS department now, seeks to improve its school by allowing more people to graduate. as if the entrance requirements aren’t steep enough!! this is backwards to all logical thought!!!! to gain more students, you need credentials as a tough school, worth the potential students’ time. you don’t do that by making the courses easier. you have to do just the opposite. in fact i would be ok with analysis being even harder than it was.
im also concerned with the crop of newbies who are taking the course now and getting higher marks. i’ve heard a couple comments on how they think they’re some kind of geniuses. there aren’t any proofs!! ask anyone who’s taken the course before, and they will iterate this: dr. kwek has very largely dumbed the course down.
as a matter of fact, i did some digging on MIT’s OpenCourseWare site, and dug up the materials for a fall 2001 MIT version of analysis. if you check the assignments, tests, and schedule, we covered about 90% of the same materials as they did, and then some. as a matter of fact, they don’t even cover NP completeness or red-black trees!! we covered more material than the MIT course!!! personally i find that to be a very high honor.
as you can see, it makes no sense at all to make a course easier.
on a side note, i found something that absolutely made my day. while i was surfing around some UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana Champange, the school i intend on attending), i found this rather hilarious tidbit. what makes it even funnier is the proof of pikachu’s answer for #3.