When I first started involving students in research, I idealistically took in anything that walked through the door. I quickly learned to stop this, since research can be tedious, hard work. It’s not all field trips to Hawai’i, Arizona, or Chile. Indeed, with the new generation of automated observatories, traveling around the planet to get a look at a star is sadly coming to be seen as a thing of the past, by astronomers like me.
For many years now, I have mentored incoming students in research only for academic credit, through independent study courses. It puts a limit on how many students I can take, and thankfully also on my workload, since many of my students need a LOT of help even to get even the most basic results they still don’t really understand. I used to pay student researchers out of grants. I won’t do that anymore, unless they’ve proved their worth to me by first doing at least one semester of research for credit. I hate it when students tell me they have “nothing to report,” and then immediately ask me to fill out their time sheets so they’ll get paid for it.
In the interest of fairness, I was still open to all comers. This may now be ending, with the following three cases.
(1) Student 1 was a student at a nearby college. He did not realize that to do research with me, he would need to be registered at my university. I need to get some credit for mentoring students: I am simply not in a position to work for free, without limit. (At least he didn’t tell me it would be “good exposure.”) He also had negligible astronomy background, never having heard of Cepheid variables. These are the stars used by both Edwin Hubble and the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project, to measure the size and age of the Universe.
(2) Student 2 did not deliver a scientifically useful result to me at the end of a semester of undergraduate independent-study research. This was because he was sloppy, disorganized, and managed time poorly, always letting everything go until the last minute. During every one of the weekly research meetings he had with me throughout the semester, he told me that he had nothing to report, but he’d get to it next week. At the end of the semester he requested more time, to prolong the agony. Student 2 also did not understand significant digits. All science majors cover this on the first day of college, and usually also previously in high-school chemistry class.
(3) Student 3 did not deliver a scientifically useful result to me at the end of a semester of undergraduate independent-study research. This was because he didn’t follow the directions that I gave him. Throughout the semester, he did a poor job of communicating with me, even though I repeatedly told him that if he didn’t understand, he could have emailed me at any time. I’m still waiting for him to reply to any of my emails. Student 3 also had little astronomy background, having never heard of Betelgeuse, the brightest red supergiant star and variable star in the night sky. It’s every kid’s favorite because of its funny name, often mispronounced “beetle-juice.”
Mentions (not honorable)
Mention 12: This graduate student was a mismatch, interested in nuclear physics. The last time I did nuclear astrophysics was when L7 was at the height of their popularity. I recommended he ask another faculty member to mentor him. It also wasn’t easy to communicate with him, because his email clearly wasn’t written at college level.
Mention 11: This undergraduate independent-study research student and honors college scholar produced no scientifically useful result because of his inability to understand and to follow directions. This was compounded by his lack of effort due to his pronounced senioritis.
Mention 10: This undergraduate could not understand or follow directions. He also had a serious attendance problem, missing most weekly research meetings with no notice. The only result he produced was some poorly documented code in a computer language I repeatedly told him I didn’t know. I still don’t know whether this code works, or even what it’s supposed to do. It certainly was not what I told him I needed!
Mention 9: I sure hope this undergraduate is doing something useful now. I am by no means the only faculty member who started out impressed by his intelligence and promise, only to become exasperated by his egregious lack of a work ethic. If this highly competitive field of esoteric science isn’t fun for you, why not get a real job making real money? He did produce a review of the problem in his final report, but no new science.
Mention 8: This undergraduate proved unable to contribute anything scientifically useful since he couldn’t understand even the basics in the literature. He also seemed to think this was my responsibility, much as when he could not read a DVD. I told him the university library still has DVD players, and this bounced off harmlessly. Why do students complain that college is not like the real world, but when you make it like the real world by involving them in actual scientific research, they hate it because you are not dumbing it down enough for them? The idea of rising to a challenge seems quite alien to him.
Mention 7: This undergraduate honors college scholar, who I came to think of as “Spontaneous Me,” did turn in a competently written literature review. It appeared to contain original research and thought, but careful examination showed it seemed so only because it was so poorly cited. None of the papers cited (or not cited) were papers this student found herself: they were entirely papers of which I’d given copies to this student. I hate how often honors college students are busy, busy, busy all right, but doing seemingly everything but the research they signed up to do with me, above all keeping up that all-important GPA. At least four times, this student missed weekly research meetings and Astrophysics Journal Club meetings at short or no notice (twice each), for two of which I had put substantial effort preparing. Fool me twice, and I decide you’re not worth the trouble.
Mention 6: I fired this graduate student because he couldn’t even understand the basics and repeatedly wasted my time by not showing up to research meetings with no notice. At least use that smartphone I see that you have to send me email to let me know you won’t be coming, will you?
Mention 5: This undergraduate was a complete waste of his and my time. It’s not good to go through life as a grinning idiot, especially when you’re not capable of anything else.
Mention 4: This undergraduate could not understand the literature or even the basics of the astrophysics we were trying to do. He broke the telescope’s focusing mechanism during the second week of classes (and this never happens at the end of the term), by exerting an astonishing amount of force on it. I can work with theorists with no mechanical aptitude, if they can follow directions carefully. It’s impossible to defend against negative mechanical aptitude, which is when someone breaks things in ways you wouldn’t have thought possible. This guy could screw up even a remote control. Normal people use those on TV sets!
Mention 3: This graduate student turned on me, by threatening to report me to my totally incompetent department chair. This was because his astonishingly litigiously minded wife told him I wasn’t publishing a paper with him listed as a co-author fast enough. I have a 4/4 teaching load: whenever it’s reduced to 4/3, I am made to feel like Oliver Twist with his bowl out. Particularly astonishing was that this graduate student had served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. I guess it should now be, “Aliquando fidelis.”
Mention 2: This non-traditional (or “mature”) undergraduate was a colossal waste of money, time, and effort. This touristy dilettante clearly couldn’t have cared less about publication, and gave up so easily at everything.
Mention 1: This graduate student was a pure-and-simple crank. He refused to my face to read the literature because it might affect his “ideas.” He did not even think to back up his software, not that he would have achieved any scientific result with it anyway. I emailed him, “I never want to talk to you again for the rest of my life.”
--Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno
Students want to get credit, but on their terms, not ours. Deadlines are for other people it seems. They'll have fun with the IRS on that if they file after4/15 without an extension. This semester, I've had a large increase in students not only requesting extensions but suggesting what those new dates should be. When I push back, they push back. They sometimes don't really understand what is expected of them on a given assignment.
ReplyDeleteAt my school, a number of students think they can simply get by on charm. I teach in a quantitative area so there's really no room for charm. You know how to solve the problems or you don't. For research assistants, it should be obvious that you need to have some knowledge of the subject at hand. They seem to not understand that. And these are our future leaders. Maybe we should be learning Mandarin?
Three students came to see me about a research project. Told them to forget it, they would not do the work and then I would give them an F and feel bad about it. They insisted, so ...
ReplyDeleteThey actually show up for a few weekly meetings and then vanish.
Then they show up at the end of the semester. Half an hour late for project presentation. Can't get their laptop to work.
Tell them to send me the presentation and required final report by Monday (today) by email.
Crickets ...
Hello Froderick, my old friend. I hear your pain across the pixels. As you know, I'm a lowly CC comp teacher, and so I do -- in theory as well as in practice, often -- take all comers. I do not envy you the position you're in.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you're suffering from a lot of what my 4-year college and uni colleagues -- and, weirdly, my high school colleagues -- are suffering from, a plague of entitlement. My colleagues who don't teach endless English comp -- the ones more talented than I am, the folks who teach electives in philosophy and art, for example -- also suffer from this sometimes. This plague visits my classrooms, too, in the form of point/grade grubbing, but the nature of my work gives me a certain immunity to it. I sympathize, my friend -- and all I can offer is sympathy and support.
It is really great to pop in here and see a fairly recent post from you. I hope you are well, otherwise.