Square Galaxy » Education

That chair is worth how much?

Jacob — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:06:53 +0000

From a recent BYU Police Beat:

June 2: An office chair was taken from the Faculty Office Building. The chair is valued at $900

The real shocker here is that BYU is paying $900 for office chairs. That does sound like theft.

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BYU should use parking meters

Jacob — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:33:00 +0000

A Parking Meter

Like many university campuses, parking is a problem at Brigham Young University. All the parking lots near campus are reserved for faculty, forcing students to park off campus and walk to class. While this situation isn’t that bad, it can be very difficult for those who are taking a big project to campus for a class, or those who just need to drop an assignment off or talk briefly to a professor.

I suggest that BYU should convert a few of their prime parking spots to paid parking with parking meters. They would allow for those few students who have a special situation requiring them to park close to do so, while raising parking revenue for BYU.

The cost of parking should be high enough so only the students who have a dire need would use them, and the maximum time allowed should be somewhere in between 30 and 75 minutes, so that students couldn’t park there all day using up the prime spot.

Parking metered spots should be placed near campus classrooms, but only one or two per lot so that they don’t seriously displace staff and faculty parking.

I think it is a win-win situation. Students have one more parking choice, and BYU can raise additional money.

(Photo Source)

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Eighth grade ID card

Jacob — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:26:33 +0000

I was looking through on of my old boxes tonight and I came across my old ID card from the 8th grade. I was 13 years old when this photo was taken.

ID Card

I just hope that by posting this online I’m not opening myself up to identity theft.

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Advertising on tests

Jacob — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:24:55 +0000

I found an interesting story today about a math teacher who is selling advertising space on the tests he gives to his students. $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final. The money raised pays for the printing costs of the test, which would otherwise cost almost $200 more than his copying budget.

While I’m cautious about commercializing education, I think this is a good idea because it allows the community to get more involved in sponsoring education. The idea could sour if the advertising becomes a distraction to the student while taking their test.

At BYU, they have a testing center which allows students to take their exams over a range of dates. Often the last day the exam is offered is considered a late day in which a fee is charged. The late fees help departments to offset the cost of the exam. Perhaps the BYU testing center should offer exam advertising to as an alternative to late fees.

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Notes from Saturday afternoon General Conference

Jacob — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:28:39 +0000

Here are a few of my notes/thoughts from the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Wirthlin – Learn to laugh. Leason learned from his mother: “Come what may, and love it.”
Elder Holland -Angles are dispatched to help us in times of need. But not all angles are from the other side of the veil.
Gerald Causse – Little children have a great ability to learn and trust… the same qualities help open the door to the holy spirit.
Lawrence E Corbridge – Christ offers a well of living water… He is the bread of life. He is the only way.
Elder Christofferson – Building a Zion. Zion is zion because of the attributes and character of its citizens.
Elder Bednar – Council in all that we do. Prayer becomes more meaningful as you express heartfelt gratitude.

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Reasons why it stinks to be an engineering student at BYU

Jacob — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:52:07 +0000

A WIRED.com post (also posted to Slashdot.org) gave 5 reasons why it stinks to be an engineering student. I’ve decided to list each reason and give a letter grade to BYU on how they appeared to do while I was in the program. If you want to rant about your education, here is your chance. Higher grades indicate a better student experience.

5. Textbooks Quality: B-. I’ve had some great textbooks which the professors used well and still are used by me today. I also had some classes where I was provided only with an electronic copy of a manuscript that the professor was putting together.

4. Encouraging Professors: C+. The WIRED post presented the problem as, “A professor that would rather be tending to his research will walz up to a blackboard or overhead projector and scribble out equations for an hour.” About half of my professors seemed to do this to some degree, and several of which had severe problems with this. There were a few professors who seemed burdened to be having to teach an undergraduate class, they would rather be working on research, and you would never see them attempt to interact with students outside of the three lecture hours a week. However, there were some professors who made every effort to get to know their students by name and do whatever it took to help them succeed.

3. Quality Counseling: B+. I found that there were many great counselors who were very skilled, approachable, and available. I only gave a B+ grade because in my experiences, I found that these counselors did better with course work academic counseling and were not so pro-active at personalized career counseling. I also didn’t give an A grade because those seem to impossible to earn at BYU.

2. Reasonable grades: C-. Engineering classes are just plain harder than classes in other majors. I always found it amusing when taking a class from a different department (not math) and was able to put in less work for a better grade when compared with an engineering class. Anti-grade-inflation tactics are well employed in engineering classes, where students compete harder for lower grades than students in other disciplines.

1. Interesting assignments: C. The complaint being, “Every assignment feels the same.” Homework assignments were often many page, green engineering paper, math problems. Varied labs and coding assignments made things interesting sometimes, but it seemed like the hard work-out problems from the text book were never-ending and downright miserable compared to the homework I saw my non-engineering friends do.

Bonus reason, girls: D. I’ve been in classes where there were no girls at all, and I’ve been in classes where the only girl was my sister. On average, there might be one girl to twenty guys. Without even touching on the limits this puts on dating, having fewer girls around just adds less excitement and variety.

Overall GPA: 2.17. If these grades get any lower, engineering classes would have to be put on academic warning status. These grades aren’t to say that engineering is bad, or to discourage people from entering an engineering field. Its just illustrating that engineering is hard. BYU’s use of student teaching assistants could especially be a source of many problems, especially as these TAs create an inappropriate buffer between the students from the professors.

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Working at BYU while schooling at BYU

Jacob — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:35:08 +0000

Today at work, my boss told me about some new student employment policy changes coming into effect for Winter Semester 2008. I haven’t been able to verify these, but student employees at BYU should inquire if they think these changes will effect them.

Starting Winter Semester 2008, there is a change in the number of credit hours of classes a BYU student employee can take. Undergraduate, non-international students, may take between 6 and 15 credit hours and work for BYU. Students who work outside of this range of credit hours need special permission. This is a change because previously there wasn’t an upper limit on the number of credits a student employee could take.

I’m told that the reason for the change is that students taking more than 15 credit hours are less likely to perform well at their job, nor are they likely to succeed at their education.

The credit-hour ranges are different for graduate students and international students. Again, don’t take my word for this, but ask your supervisor if you plan on taking more than 15 credit hours and working next semester.

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BYU continues to block YouTube

Jacob — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:30:08 +0000

Brigham Young University’s Internet filters continue to block the popular video sharing website, YouTube. BYU blocks the site completely “because it allows inappropriate sexual media throughout its URLs,” according to an article in the student newspaper. I appreciate that BYU wants to block inappropriate content, but YouTube contains so many videos that it is unreasonable to block all of YouTube content because there might be a few bad videos. Likewise you could argue, that BYU should block the whole Internet because there are a few bad sites.

By blocking YouTube, BYU is prohibiting students from accessing great video content. For example, recently The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the sponsoring organization for BYU, has published public affairs videos on YouTube that show Church Leader Elder Ballard explaining church beliefs. Students trying to access this content from BYU campus Internet are blocked from the site.

Other educational materials are also on YouTube. Recently, UC Berkeley started posting full lecture videos online. So far, they’ve posted over 300 hours of video taped lectures online for free access to the public. These lectures could help BYU students supplement their own studies, except that BYU blocks the UC Berkeley’s YouTube site.

BYU’s efforts to block video content come in addition to Google’s own safe-search program anyway, which limits access to inappropriate “adult” material. Why does BYU feel they need to be extra restrictive about YouTube? When does blocking bad content at the consequence of blocking good content go too far?

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New CD album out for EcEn 313

Jacob — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 18:02:25 +0000

There is a new musical group in the BYU electrical engineering program. Their name is,
The MidBand, and their new album is called, decibels. Here is a list of track titles:

Twenty log wha?
Induced Comer
The Selfridgister
Bored room analysis
I’ve got a periodic table in my pocket
J-maginary
I’ve got a tackle box, but I ain’t goin’ fishin’ (country rmx)
C-, it’s good enough for me
Jack’D
Somtimes, always or never
We’re Comer and Comer

I hear their next album with be greedy with sound quality and be called, Gain.

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Gordon B Hinckley quote about education

Jacob — Thu, 17 May 2007 00:31:49 +0000

President Gordon B. Hinckley has repeatedly stressed the importance of getting an education. Here is one quote that I like:

Be smart. You are all in school. Do not waste your time. This is a time of great opportunity that you will never have again as long as you live. Make the most of it right now. It is wonderfully challenging. It is hard, it is tough, isn’t it? But what a wonderful thing to go and learn of all the accumulated knowledge of all the centuries of time. Go on to college or whatever school, vocational school, whatever your choice is, but take advantage of every opportunity that you have because the Lord has laid upon you a mandate through revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith concerning not only spiritual learning but secular learning. Yours is the responsibility, and you can’t afford to waste your time. There is so much to learn. Be smart. Give it the very best that you have.

Source: Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Vol. 1, pp. 395-396

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