Monday, May 09, 2005
Beginning of Summer - Don't Panic!
It's that time of year again when hundreds of university students begin to panic as their final courseworks and final exams are due. As a mentor to a panicy undergraduate student I am in the unfortunate position of having to now read chapters of badly written engrish before Thursday, of the deadline. Admittedly, she's very grateful, and I should think so too, but why do they always leave it so late.
As a computer science coursework, it's worth 30% of the final be-all-end-all grade of her degree. If she flunked every exam, but shone in her coursework, it's possible she could pass her degree. So, why-oh-why, leave it so late? Her computer program doesn't work; the report is 5,000 words of not well written engrish, with no testing, and no details in the part of the report which is actually the interesting part of the project. I'm not mad, I'm just aghast.
However, I was once a lowly undergraduate, and I, also, remember leaving all courseworks to the last minute, which was NEVER a good idea. Often the deadline got extended to the end-of-the-weekend, or something, but it didn't stop the piles of zombies, who'd been up all night, arriving in the morning all attempt to print 50 pages of report all at the same time.
Perhaps I should have faith in my mentee. She says she wants to get it all in on Wednesday so she isn't part of that rush. Wise, indeed, however, the current state of the report doesn't fill me with confidence.
As a computer science coursework, it's worth 30% of the final be-all-end-all grade of her degree. If she flunked every exam, but shone in her coursework, it's possible she could pass her degree. So, why-oh-why, leave it so late? Her computer program doesn't work; the report is 5,000 words of not well written engrish, with no testing, and no details in the part of the report which is actually the interesting part of the project. I'm not mad, I'm just aghast.
However, I was once a lowly undergraduate, and I, also, remember leaving all courseworks to the last minute, which was NEVER a good idea. Often the deadline got extended to the end-of-the-weekend, or something, but it didn't stop the piles of zombies, who'd been up all night, arriving in the morning all attempt to print 50 pages of report all at the same time.
Perhaps I should have faith in my mentee. She says she wants to get it all in on Wednesday so she isn't part of that rush. Wise, indeed, however, the current state of the report doesn't fill me with confidence.
