If you feel so inclined today, I’d appreciate if you could pray or rub crystals together or do whatever it is you do to plead with the Powers That Be on behalf of another human. I need a healthy dose of level-headedness with a side-order of professionalism.

So… what is PDEng? If you’re curious, the best place to read it is right from the source. I won’t try to explain, in this space, what it is.

It’s unfortunate that I’m one of the very few first-year Engineering students still in town this term, and it’s fallen to me to have a meeting with the directors of PDEng to discuss the collective concerns of a small body of students from my class.

I’m just compiling notes now, printing emails, surfing the old discussion threads, discarding the worthless gripes and harvesting the meaningful suggestions for improvement. Some of it is just people coming off a PDEng Module and venting, and that’s always the most amusing to read. It would never fly as an argument, and most is too lurid to be pasted into this space, but some little gems are terrific:

I mean honestly, learning style quizzes and reading journals of kids who can neither formulate grammatically error-free sentences, nor distinguish fantasy from reality? Come on! I mean, imagination is great, everyone should have one, but what person writes their ACTUAL logs like a spaceship commander?

This is with reference to the journals such as this one from which ethical dilemmas are the source of a number of essay questions throughout the course. (UW: If the picture is a violation of intellectual property, contact me and I’ll remove it)

Anyhow, if you’re a student in the program with suggestions, the best place to send them is your Assigned Mentor within the program itself. Failing that, contact the director or assistent director. If you’re not a student, but you have questions, you could email the Director, or you could join the public area of our class forum and ask the students.

Mike

← Earlier Later → Posted at 5:20 am to School, Waterloo.