

How to be a Great Lecturer (and Professor) - jchonphoenix
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~scsfacts/vonahn-simon.html

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alexgartrell
duuuudee, you're being such a von ahn fanboy.

Von Ahn has some pretty good lectures, but that's due, in no small part, to
the fact that the courses are "Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer
Science"/"Science of the Web"/"Artificial Intelligence". He gets to cherry
pick from some of the coolest stuff out there, and though he presents it very
well, I wouldn't describe him as the best lecturer at Carnegie Mellon.

One complaint I have about his excellent TAs is that, though many of them are
stand-up guys, a lot of them perpetuate a long standing Carnegie Mellon
tradition of dickish undegrad TAs (Full disclosure: this is also true in one
of the courses I've TAed, and is a much stronger influence in the Systems side
of things at the school).

Von Ahn is a pretty good professor, and he's pretty funny too. I just wish
that people would realize that things like the "Luis Von Ahn Awesome
Classroom" in the Gates Center are him poking fun at his own image (I hope)
rather than the foundation of some sort of Cult of Von Ahn.

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bugs
The link reads like a joke and you seem to be taking it as fanboyism (word?
sp?).

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alexgartrell
He gave a presentation that I attended emphasizing exactly the same set of
points, so don't take it "as a joke", though Von Ahn tends to make jokes a
regular part of his presentations.

The fanboyism to which I am referring is common among undergrads at Carnegie
Mellon. Though I applaud Von Ahn's efforts with Human Computation and think
the awards and rewards (namely, the acquisition of reCaptcha by Google) are
well deserved, I question the apparent need to discuss his greatness on a
regular basis. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) oughta be enough
approval for anyone.

Simply look at the poster's comment and submission history to see what I mean
by fanboyism.

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jchonphoenix
Haha, seems like someone's getting a little worked up. I do research for the
guy. Obviously I support what he does. After all, aren't you supposed to learn
from the best professors at your university?

However, Von Ahn doesn't get to pick any class to teach. He received 251 while
still a Grad Student and was rather "forced" to teach it. He created Science
of the Web so I think he deserves to teach it if he wants to correct? And he
absolutely hates AI and didn't, by any means, choose to teach it. What's
interesting is that even you admit he's a great teacher, but he himself admits
he hates teaching. Guess that means he must have some talent.

(as for TAs in Systems being dicks, I completely agree with you. 251 TAs too.)

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146
I'm taking this comment into account when calculating your final grades, jc,
dude.

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jchonphoenix
Ok as, (I would say dude but TAs have names)

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joshu
I am so, so glad I did ECE.

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Xichekolas
I realize this was posted as a joke, but I'd be seriously miffed if my
professor ended class 10 minutes early every day.

(And in saying that, I realize how far I've come from my undergrad days.)

~~~
ramchip
You tell me! I have an instrumentation class that's 1h30 a week, and yet we
regularly finish 20 to 30mins early. And almost every week I'll have at least
one class that get cancelled for no specific reason - and there's no extra
class to compensate or anything, it's just gone. Then again, I have a teacher
who always ends 10 mins late because his class is before the lunch time.

This is supposed to be one of the top universities in Japan. Undergrad courses
here are very hit or miss...

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pope52
I realize that von Ahn is joking, but this one isn't terribly funny.

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sjsivak
Von Ahn just has teaching envy for Randy:

<http://www.thelastlecture.com/>

Although I never took a class with either, I was at the Last Lecture and went
to the Entertainment Technology Center (the program Randy built with Don
Marinelli). Every time I saw Von Ahn speak he did not hold a candle to what I
saw Randy do.

