
Ask HN: Imposing a feedback on a school. - popekpampam
Dear HNers, this is a rant.<p>I am EE student in a small school of engineering at one of the unis in Europe. Every day I feel this is a waste of time, as most courses are conducted in downright wrong fashion, and yet I am forced to stay because I actually need a diploma.<p>Lectures are delivered by professors who dumb down every single topic because of their insufficient command in english.
At extreme cases, writing a test requires me to limit my vocabulary and I don&#x27;t even find myself fluent.<p>Programming classes are half-assed to a degree my colleagues don&#x27;t know what pointer is after three semesters of C&#x2F;C++ or find <i>ls</i> to be a mystery of unix world. Some of those people can become TAs in two years  and contribute to making next generations of students even lousier programmers via kind of a negative feedback loop.<p>But this doesn&#x27;t end there, there were classes which were sort of free credits, because profs implicitly told us they are incapable of teaching in english. And thus I don&#x27;t know how interpret stats in a research paper which is pathetic to be honest.<p>There were a few solid classes, mostly about the basics, which I thoroughly enjoyed.<p>I would like you to ask a question, is it possible to influence quality of teaching from the bottom? If not for me then for the next years of students, otherwise this country will never be innovative and stay piece of shit forever.
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blakethorne
"I actually need a diploma."

Start by making sure you're confident in that statement. Depending on your
desired path, it well may be true. Many never bother to ask themselves the
question.

And seek out people in your desired field. Imagine the role you want to be in
in 5 years and go introduce yourself to someone in that role. Even if it has
to be via email. They likely will have a better pulse than your instructors on
what you should be learning.

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JSeymourATL
> is it possible to influence quality of teaching from the bottom?

Highly unlikely, university bureaucracies are engineered to be resistant to
change. This is an age-old problem in all disciplines.

There's a wonderful Mark Twain quote— "I have never let my schooling interfere
with my education".

Best advice- complete your degree program requirements, get the credential,
and move-on quickly as possible.

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mattmazzola
"this country will never be innovative and stay piece of shit forever"

Sounds like America, but then...

"small school of engineering at one of the unis in Europe"

If you're saying school in Europe is bad... try getting worse education in
United States and then also being in $50,000 debt for it.

I would say people at the bottom usually have to vote with their wallets.
Education is becoming distributed and you can learn from high quality courses
online for free now a days.

