Laelaps

It's not easy putting myself through college. My wife and I work hard to make sure that we have enough money for us to have a roof over our heads (however shoddy that roof might be) and to finish up my schooling. $12,000 a year is no paltry sum. Given that Rutgers considers itself a "public Ivy"* I would expect to receive a good quality education for my money.**

[*I will leave it for you to decide whether this is delusional or not.]

When I walked into one of the lecture halls for the first meeting of the 2nd half of the two-semester chemistry program, I was mildly impressed by the renovations. The hall was where I had many of my first college lectures back in the fall of 2001, and for most of my college career it was a dim, ugly, brick-lined room with water stains all over the ceiling. The university invested in some improvements, and over the summer some shiny faux-wood paneling, new seats, and a fresh coat of paint were added.

The glossy facade gave the impression that administration at Rutgers cares about students, but I would rather have an effective teacher rather than comfy seats. Indeed, I could barely understand what the professor was saying, and if it were not for the basic nature of the 1st lecture I would have been entirely lost. (The most common complaint of students around here taking any science or math course is typically that their professors or TAs have a poor grasp of English, making it difficult to understand them and making it hard for them to comprehend questions asked of them.) We went through the three states of matter and the basics of intermolecular forces, but out of nowhere strange equations and terms like "the time clausius-clapeyron equation" started appearing on the overhead projector. (Actually, they were written down long before we could see them; the professor constantly went off the bottom margin of the transparency and did not shift it up.)

Maybe it's just me, but the classes that have constantly and consistently been the most difficult have been the large 100-level introductory courses. Put me in a small class with a professor on a specialized topic and I'm fine, but I have never had a good experience in a large lecture class. In one of the most frustrating moments last night, a student asked what the teacher had written on the transparency; not to explain it, but just to read the line because they couldn't read the handwriting. The instructor tried to answer the question but misunderstood it, and neither student nor teacher understood each other. If this is an indication of how chemistry is taught here I have the feeling that I'm in deep trouble.

There seems to be an assumption at Rutgers that if you put a professor who is knowledgeable about a topic in a room with students, learning is going to occur. In smaller classes this seems to be a relatively safe assumption, but by far the worst classes I have ever had to take have been the basic science courses. There's not much I can do about it, I have no real choice other than to take what is required of me and make my best effort, but they sure as hell don't make it easy here.