Why our curriculum requirements are stupid, Part N

[eirias]

For a few months I have been involved in some back and forth about whether I have completed the course requirements for my degree, specifically the "breadth" requirements. It was determined a year or two ago that my math courses did not count -- despite the importance of probability to my intellectual growth and my research, despite the fact that the courses were clearly out of my *department*, never mind my area of psychology, anything dealing with math is not a "content course" and therefore can't count for squat other than "methodology." OK then. So in order to fulfill my last "content course" requirement, I took a course that was well out of my area of expertise a few semesters ago -- in fact I think I was the student to whom the content was the *least* relevant professionally. Fun course, and I'm glad I took it, but I've had a devil of a time trying to get the relevant department staff to use this course to mark me off as done with my requirements.

Just now I got an email from one of our department's current People Who Makes Curriculum Decisions. This person didn't think that particular course should count as "core" enough for this breadth requirement... and decided, instead, to double count something else I took. That course? Cognitive Development.

Ladies and gentlemen, I do research on learning. Right now I am studying learning in infants. The course was taught by someone in my area group. If this material "adds breadth" to my degree, and three calculus-based courses in mathematics don't, I'll eat my #(*#@ probability text.

But, well, I shouldn't complain, because I'm done, right? Riiiight.

Comments

[friedenliebe.livejournal.com]

cheers to that on soooooooo many levels

*HUG*

[drspiff.livejournal.com]

Yeah as long as they say you're done then what does it matter how they reach that conclusion? :P

[beckyjen.livejournal.com]

You have to love the very knotted bundle of red tape that is graduate school at UW Madison.

[ex-miang438.livejournal.com]

Wait, what the hell? Do you all have different requirements than we do? Because that seems exceptionally wrong (as in, I thought the psych dept's requirements were supposed to apply to all students within one of the defined areas, ie not counting IGM). And what they told us was basically "throw together everything you took that wasn't a core course and call it an out-of-area minor". I did mine in Statistics (obviously); Leah did one that was a mishmash of everything else she'd taken, I think under the purported guise of cognitive development or something? But yeah, that's supposed to be the easiest part...

[eirias.livejournal.com]

This isn't about the out-of-area minor, but the "out-of-area core courses," or whatever the new requirements are calling them. I don't think the same requirements apply across area groups.

I wouldn't recommend CPS to anyone; the brownbag is great, and the profs do interesting stuff, but the red tape is just stupid. If I had it to do again I'd be IGM for sure.

[tla]

It sounds rather like they have an idea of what courses they think you should take, and want to passive-aggressively object to your doing anything different.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Do you feel well-educated? Then who cares how they justify it.

Even if it is bogus.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess I look at this from the perspective of someone who may be a faculty member somewhere some day: Do the requirements of this curriculum promote a good graduate education without being overly restrictive/prescriptive? I think the answer to that, based on my experience, is no. I think my education here has been pretty good; there have been semesters where, like, nobody had to teach and so nobody bothered to offer useful courses, but I filled those up with math. So overall there hasn't been a lot of dead space, and I've gotten a fine bargain (hard to do better than "free"). But I still think it's a dumb way to structure things.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

The thing that's dumb is that I don't actually think that's true. In general, the faculty seem to want to help you get around the requirements set by the university with as little work as possible; and have strange ideas for what their own requirements mean. There's not enough cooperation among faculty for there to be one agreed-upon idea of what constitutes a well-rounded curriculum for a graduate student -- like anyone, most of them are just concerned with meeting their own goals, e.g., teaching as little as they can get away with, so as to maximize the possibility of grant funding. And that's not really compatible with ensuring that particular content areas get covered. Honestly, I think it's just them being capricious and weird.

[kirin]

I think I know a few people who would take issue with the notion that Math is not "content". ;)

(Yes, I know, we're dealing with some technicaly definition of "content", but still... anything that sounds that silly probably is.)

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I feel the same! Especially given the circumstances -- the research area I'm in makes hypotheses about the kinds of relationships people can learn, which are expressed as conditional probabilities. That math isn't a means to a data analysis end, it's central to understanding what the hell we're talking about. It's hard to get more contenty than that. But, you know, I didn't get a vote ;)

[harleybitch.livejournal.com]

Case is backwards too. I couldnt take the usual 'course perscription' because I was there as an undergrad and had taken the courses. As a result I took courses in other related departments (eg. psych, biomech, neuro). I have been getting things approved by my dept as I continue because I dont want any nasty suprises.
Still I get them:

I got my butt in a ringer in one of the courses and had to withdraw which means my coursework is taking 2.5 years instead of 2. Because I have to take one more semester to finish coursework they insist it must be a FULL semester (9 credits instead of the 3 I need) which is worse because there are grad students who arent getting paid because the dept is broke. The worst part is it is a dept rule not university-- the engineers take one class a semester, not 3 and dont take classes when they teach.

They decided I needed a certain number of courses in my home department (which is understandable, but they should have spoken up earlier-- still with some re-working of my schedule that semester it got fixed).

They brought me my teaching assignment-- one class, two sections, 60 students. They decided this was 'fair' because they 'pay' my tuition even though I am on a NSF grant. The boss screamed about this one. I ended up with one section.

Basically I keep a stack of emails with useful statements on them so that i can prove that they said my courses were ok, my teaching requirement is finished, etc.

[littlepurple.livejournal.com]

Its all just random politics, and depends on everyone's mood at the given moment. The devo people the year before had to add courses to the curriculum and change things around. Me, I was allowed to double AND TRIPLE count things....
Its all bs.
BS