So, it has finally come—my last editorial while at the top of the newspaper here at RPI. I could use this space to talk about how I accomplished some of what I wanted to and how the paper is in capable hands for the future and how we should all beware the military-industrial complex, but I am not going to. I am going to use this space to make one more recommendation to the campus (or one more complaint, depending on how you look at it) on something that has plagued me since before I even took my first class at RPI.
I will openly admit that after my first campus tour, I hated the school. I remember remarking to my father that out of all of the schools I had visited, this was the first that I felt I would not get a good education at. After three and a half years I feel, and many others I have spoken to lately agree, that this was more true than not. On the whole, the education here seems to be more like that of a vocational school than a technical university.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I certainly have learned many new facts and ideas that will help me in the workplace, and certainly have had plenty of work to do while on campus, but as an Institute official who wished to not be named told me recently, “There is a difference between having a lot of work and being challenged. I do not think our students are being challenged.”
What exactly does being challenged mean? Challenging means that instead of spoon-feeding material to students in lectures that the professors themselves are barely awake for and then asking the students to regurgitate the material on tests, professors give students problems to work out on their own, applying concepts they have learned and coming up with their own way to solve a problem. A textbook can teach me what Thévenin equivalence is. ITT Tech can teach me how to analyze a circuit. RPI should focus on challenging me to derive the Thévenin and Norton equivalency equations myself and show why they are useful. Original, innovative thought and problem-solving should be required at every point in the process from every one involved in the process.
This school was founded on the premise that the best way to teach students was to offer practical application of material in the classroom setting. Unfortunately, this is being scaled back at the very school that pioneered it. Some classes where innovative projects should comprise the core of the course are now purely lecture and test-based, ruining any chance of actually learning something from the course. In classes that are still studio-based, the assignments at all levels have slipped in quality to the point that students are merely asked to plug values into equations without considering what anything means.
LITEC is one of the worst offenders. Videos from the ’80s show what the course was and could still be: the greatest force for innovation in the curriculum. Students were given general problems and asked to design their own project that satisfied the project goals, a series of miniature IED projects. Through this method, students learned much, and many projects grew into companies. In one of the greatest disappointments of my academic career, however, LITEC has degenerated into plug and play. Every lab is laid out in meticulous detail so that no real thought is encouraged or allowed. Its only real use now is in public relations: “Connect this wire here, write this code here, then stand back and let the tour group see it whiz around the track!”
There are success stories, however. The Lally School made one of the greatest strides with the Design, Manufacturing, and Marketing courses in the MBA curriculum. In these classes, students are taught a piece of the material, and then are forced to actually apply it in an original way in a real-world setting before they learn the next step. For example, one would learn how to market-test an idea, then meet with focus groups before coming back to the classroom and learning how to analyze the feedback they gathered, and then actually analyze the feedback. At no point are the exercises scripted and no material is regurgitated. I submit that these students will have learned the material far better in this manner than in any other that could have been tried.
It may be argued that professors should not have to put this much effort into their classes, that they have other responsibilities such as research. True, students do have the onus to involve themselves in their own education, but professors need to create an environment that encourages that involvement. And unlike many who would claim that professors do not even care about teaching, I believe that professors genuinely want to teach but many have become disillusioned by the current state of education. As a result, corner-cutting is common, with PowerPoint lectures and easy tests becoming the norm. For the sake of the school, this trend needs to be reversed through individual effort. Every professor needs to re-evaluate the way they run all their classes and ensure that every topic is being reinforced with an assignment that challenges the student and demands original thought. It is common sense: Innovation in the workplace cannot be expected of someone who has never been asked to think creatively.
Some may be surprised to see a student asking, begging even, for more and harder work to do, but all my experience over the past few years says that it is not so uncommon. At this point, one of the courses that I loathed is the one I point to now as one of the greatest courses I took here. Data Structures and Algorithms with Professor Malik Magdon-Ismail was so bad that my friends and I actually discussed writing a letter to the Promotion and Tenure Committee to block any future advancement on the grounds that he was sadistic. Now, however, I think back on the class and realize it was exactly what is needed in a college-level course (hating the professor can be optional). If you were to speak to the students on this campus, I am sure that you would hear similar stories from most. They are all here to gain the best education they can, and would do what they can to have it. I truly believe a course that demands more will get more from the students.
This campus has always bragged about training the leaders of tomorrow, but if the current model persists, there will be no leaders. Many are currently talking about the best way to pull the school out of the stagnation that gripped it for decades. These discussions must include ways to challenge students in the classroom to think creatively and innovatively. Undergraduate education is the cornerstone of the school, and without these changes, every other effort will fail.
