Signaling pathways and scheduling woes.

Today was one of minor disappointment.

The nonfiction writing course that I really, really wanted closed before I got a turn to register.  I don't really have a backup for now, but we'll see.  On the bright side, I might be gearing towards some sort of independent study in the next few semesters. And holy shit, am I excited for it. Updates later, I'm sure.

The much-anticipated bio exam ended a few hours ago.  I studied a certain case study about vertebrate eye formation as recently as last night. I wrote it out dozens of times on the chalkboard. I didn't even know why I was concentrating so much on that slide in particular. But I blanked on it today, and wouldn't you guess that it was a major question in the exam?  It's alright though, because I know it now. I think it's funny the way that the questions you miss become the answers you never forget.

I have to go over some of the concepts that I evidently didn't know so well later. But for now, I have weeks of philosophy reading to catch up on. Ouch.

*grumblegrumble*

The other day, I ranted about one of my biggest pet peeves- the idea of the question,

"What should I know for the exam?"

In my previous argument, I chose an interpretation implying that the student is misguidedly striving towards the superficial end of a grade.  There's nothing I hate more than attaining knowledge for something other than its own sake.

But an alternate possibility occurred to me this morning, when a girl asked the question in my biology lecture.  Maybe what a person means by asking this of a professor is something along the lines of,

"What do you, as someone who has (hopefully) already done this, believe is the most pertinent information for me to grasp at this point in my learning?"

...with the implications that the exam is equivalent to, "relevant information," and that impertinent information would only serve to muddy the waters and impede progress. 

Setting aside the obvious point that the idea of a lesson plan itself is inherently what one (namely, the professor) would call, "relevant information," should we be able to decipher the pertinent information independently?

I think the answer is a resounding, "yes."  At some point, we must become self-sufficient.  We may seek advice, but we cannot depend upon it.  If you're building a table, the instruction manual is helpful (maybe necessary).  But if you wish to become a carpenter, you can't still be gripping tightly to that crumpled piece of paper without any of your own additions.  If you do, when someone takes it away you'll end up like my father and I with a backwards computer desk and a disheartening amount of "extra" screws and washers.

 God help you if it's from IKEA.

I sat in the lecture hall thinking, "Good lord, look at your career path.  You want to be a scientist?"  Scientists have to, perhaps more noticeably than others, interpret novel information.  But even if you're not a scientist, you still have to make decisions. If you're presented with a set of information, you need to have the tools to examine it and to separate it into its important and unimportant pieces.  If you don't have those tools within yourself, I don't see how you can succeed in the highest level of academia.

I'm not saying that I'm not equally guilty of the same thing at times.  I practically cling to my chem lab TA on certain days, acronyms (HPLC! TLC, DMSO, LDA?) and second-guesses flying through my head faster than the chemicals in my reaction vial.  But I'm slowly working on improving that in myself. 

So, when you look at the professor and find yourself asking him what, precisely, you should be focusing on, perhaps you have good reason (maybe he or she is just a really awful professor).  But don't expect him to know what to tell you. Don't expect that from anyone but yourself.

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard."

I just got back from a bio review session. Something I'll never understand:

Why do students ask questions specific to an exam?

"Do we need to know XYZ?"

I will never understand why people learn for the exam. Why are they here? Learn because you want to know, because you are curious, and because you think it will better you to know. Keep learning. It's the greatest ability we have.

If you want to know it, you will. It will reflect on any exam, which is simply a formality. Why? Because the tests will be reasonable. Because professors are people too, people who hopefully believe beyond the test and who have reason and judgment not to ask impertinent questions. And if they do? You still have what you've learned.

Just another reason that I dislike grades when they're taken as ends in themselves.

And the next time you spend a month teaching concepts, three days a week, let me know how it feels to be asked, essentially, to reteach everything as if they were novel concepts in one condensed, two-hour review session. Don't be that guy.

These adorable, plushy common cold microbes cry when you ask stupid questions.

Silly me, here I was thinking that I should be learning these things for indefinite future use in the field of my major.