The "Education" Thread

[Einherjar86]

No, I haven't posted this to the blog. I can't post it anywhere else if I'm trying to get SFS to publish it. Part of the agreement. It's on a set of novels by Peter Watts, Blindsight and Echopraxia.

 

[rms]

Ah. Blindsight sounds pretty interesting, would you say must-read worthy?

 

[Zephyrus]

Very nice. You're hitting the conference circuit hard my friend - which is great, of course! Best of luck with all your final papers, and with your presentation!

Thanks! The person running my panel happens to be the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Late Antiquity, to which I'll be sending one of the articles this summer. It should hopefully prove to be a well-timed introduction.

The other article would be sent off to Greek, Roman, & Byzantine Studies. Going to have to keep the work ethic up this summer and the drinking moderate.

 

[Einherjar86]

Ah. Blindsight sounds pretty interesting, would you say must-read worthy?

Absolutely. It's one of the best SF novels I've ever read, and definitely doing things that no other SF novels have managed yet. It demands a lot from its readers, but I think it's captivating. And it explores some fascinating phenomena in recent neuroscientific studies - for instance, the phenomenon from which it gets its title.

Its sequel, Echopraxia, is much more difficult and not as exciting, but equally as compelling.

 

[rms]

My library has it, I think I will rent it, thanks.

 

[unknown]

I'll have to keep an eye out for those books, but I just started the Wheel of Time series, so I think I'm gonna be busy for the next decade.

One college has finals next week. Another at the end of the month, and the third gets out around the second week of June. Then I have a week off before I dig into the Summer program I'm coordinating at one of my campuses. Hopefully it leads to some good CV material. I've received two rejection emails in the past few months from potential full time gigs. Adjuncting is for the birds.

 

[Dak]

My essay submitted to Science Fiction Studies has been recommended for "acceptance for publication contingent on some quite substantial revisions." Which is awesome, although it means I have even more work now this summer. I must admit that in my (albeit limited) experience with peer review, I have found it to be an extensive and grueling process. Which, of course, is for the better.

Congrats! I also have revision work for the summer to submit my thesis for publication but that will be to shorten it to article length rather than an overhaul. If you have someone with disagreement challenging it that doesn't necessarily provide good feedback, other than things you may need to address in rebuttal. The best example that comes to mind would be the "Definitional Stop" move.

I'll have to keep an eye out for those books, but I just started the Wheel of Time series, so I think I'm gonna be busy for the next decade.

I have failed! Now it is too late to stop you lol

I read everything up until Jordan died and there was the delay while the family or whoever put together the last 2 books I think. I found I didn't even care to find out how it ended anymore, and kind of wish I hadn't wasted the hours of my life reading what I did.

 

[Einherjar86]

My library has it, I think I will rent it, thanks.

No problem. In fact, if you're really interested and would like a more unrestricted/unlimited access, Watts has actually uploaded it for free online:

http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

I'll have to keep an eye out for those books, but I just started the Wheel of Time series, so I think I'm gonna be busy for the next decade.

Ugh, I read the first three books in that series and chucked it. They seemed very immature, to me at least; although I have heard from other fans that it begins in a somewhat "young adult" fashion and matures as the main characters get older.

Congrats! I also have revision work for the summer to submit my thesis for publication but that will be to shorten it to article length rather than an overhaul. If you have someone with disagreement challenging it that doesn't necessarily provide good feedback, other than things you may need to address in rebuttal. The best example that comes to mind would be the "Definitional Stop" move.

The reviewer who disagrees with me in this case provides some very helpful criticism, primarily by demonstrating a point of view that it will be important for me to at least acknowledge. The first round of reviews turned back some very positive but less detailed material; this second round has proven equally positive but far more engaged, meaning that the reviewers found the piece compelling but also found quite a bit that could be revised prior to publication. Ultimately it will only make my argument tighter.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

I just got home from taking the GRE. I'm not happy with the preliminary results-158 Verbal and 154 Quantitative-but I guess my score isn't terrible. I've studied for the past couple of weeks and got a 159 on the Verbal and 151 on the Quantitative on a practice test yesterday. I was hoping that assessing my flaws on the Verbal practice would improve my actual score, but this wasn't the case. I have to wait for a couple of weeks to receive my essay scores. I'm hesitantly confident about how high my score will be. My "Analyze an Issue" essay revolved around Bismarck's policies in bringing about German unification. It was a risk, but I think I defended my argument adequately. It is, however, hard for me to predict how well the ETS-contracted hung-over TAs will grade my essays. I'll try to avoid thinking about it until I receive the official scores. Whatever, I guess. It's beer time.

 

[Dak]

Solid scores. I don't know what to tell you about the essays. I thought I shredded em and got an average score ("56% below"). Given that my verbal scores were perfect, and I've now won cash prizes for my writing both at my former community college and my uni, as well as being told my undergrad thesis was masters level work, my opinion of the GRE writing grading is pretty low.

 

[MasterpieceMesias]

Jesus, they allow you to teach. And I thought it was crazy that I teach some unfortunate fucks. How many times do you tell them about your sexual exploits getting off to people walking by your desk?

Lol I was thinking the same thing

I've posted about teaching before dude. My students often write in my evals that I'm very sweet/kind/cute but that I'm too shy and need to be more confident, and my sole RateMyProfessor feedback is similar. I cry at the end of every semester reading them tbh.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

Solid scores. I don't know what to tell you about the essays. I thought I shredded em and got an average score ("56% below"). Given that my verbal scores were perfect, and I've now won cash prizes for my writing both at my former community college and my uni, as well as being told my undergrad thesis was masters level work, my opinion of the GRE writing grading is pretty low.

You got a 170 on the verbal? That's nuts.

From what I understand, essays are given two minutes of attention a piece by two graders. Your grade is the average of the two graders' scores. At that rate, a single grader is reading at least a hundred essays within 4 hours. The scaffolding of what constitutes a good essay is the lens through which they read all essays. Nuance and big ideas, perhaps even profound ideas, hurt more than help in this kind of setting. More so, perhaps the grader didn't have his or her coffee that morning, or perhaps you're the 70th or so essay being read. The essay topics are so abstract and you're expected to give specific examples; what if you're examples are things that the grader dislikes for reasons outside of your essay? It's a bit of a joke.

The same goes for the multiple choice section. I have a decent vocabulary, but I'm not a dictionary, so on any given test, my verbal score could variate between a 157 and 161, maybe higher, maybe lower. It depends on the day and it depends on the questions on the test. I'm just hoping that the programs I'll be applying to have a wide enough score threshold to keep me in consideration for funding.

 

[unknown]

From what I understand, essays are given two minutes of attention a piece by two graders. Your grade is the average of the two graders' scores. At that rate, a single grader is reading at least a hundred essays within 4 hours. The scaffolding of what constitutes a good essay is the lens through which they read all essays. Nuance and big ideas, perhaps even profound ideas, hurt more than help in this kind of setting. More so, perhaps the grader didn't have his or her coffee that morning, or perhaps you're the 70th or so essay being read. The essay topics are so abstract and you're expected to give specific examples; what if you're examples are things that the grader dislikes for reasons outside of your essay? It's a bit of a joke.

I can confirm this. While I've never sat in on a GRE grading session, I've participated in a few other similar sessions. We come in at 8am, we'll grade a few papers to establish a benchmark/baseline to make sure all of the graders are on the same (metaphorical and physical) page. Grades should be within a +/- range. So if Grader A gives a paper a B+ and if Grader B gives a paper a B-, it's averaged out. If it's anything beyond that, the paper is often set aside to come back to.

We would grade between 200-300 papers in eight hours. It's mind numbingly boring. What you said about big ideas is absolutely correct. This is why many English and Philosophy majors typically don't do well on these sorts of exams. The grader wants to see that you can establish a thesis statement and adequately defend that thesis. As soon as they start reading, they have a grade in mind, and it largely stays there unless if the essay turns shitty immediately. Conclusion paragraphs are rarely looked at.

Grade norming is a similar procedure that many English (and hopefully other) departments do as well. However, instead of 200-300 in eight hours, they'll do like 20-30 in a couple of hours and discuss the results as a department.

 

[Dak]

Yeah, I doubt my reader anticipated my approach to the essay portion and that probably hurt. I figured they might be looking for keywords or some stupid shit and still failed to adjust. Also yes I had a 170 on the verbal.

 

[unknown]

Yeah. At my college we had to take a written essay test as part of our graduation requirements (no joke, called the GWAR). In order to pass, you had to score at least a 12 (three readers graded it). I got a 13.

 

[Dak]

Bottom line is I can write whatever I *know* someone is looking for. On the other hand, writing poorly is hard for me to do because it affronts my "sensibilities". I basically expect that the graders for that stuff don't rate to judge my writing.

 

[Matt]

I got a 164 on the verbal, 154 quantitative and I believe my writing score was very average too. I wanted a higher quant score but whatever. I took the test twice, motherfucker is expensive.

 

[Dak]

Yeah I wanted my quant scores higher, had a 152. Not worth it to take it again though unless I took a semester of geometry and I'm not doing that/it's not that big a deal for psych related programs. Plus I can't improve on the verbal so I'll just let it lie.

 

[PrincessHades]

Not even in high school yet.
I just got out of middle school, so I will be in high school at the end of this summer.

I hate school.
I get bullied more than I get educated.

 

[unknown]

All I can say is keep your chin up. There are a lot of shitheads in high school, but after high school nobody really cares anymore. All of those popular people will fade into obscurity. You just do your thing, get a few friends, and try to get by. High school sucks. College is exponentially better.

And if somebody punches you, go for their throats