NYU Prof fired because his class was too hard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter goes to NYU and said she sides with the professor. This is happening everywhere. Do you really think at the other universities this is not happening? The liberal universities, ie most of them are letting this happen. However, do note NYU is 2 for Med school.
The kids shouldn't have a right to have a professor fired. This class weeds out the kids who are not med school material and should.

NYU is 2 for Med School? Huh? What ranking is that?

Not sure it is even 2 in NYC.

It is likely #2 (or even #1) for difficulty of med school admissions because it is free.

OK I stand corrected. Can’t argue with free.

[Anonymous]

Just because a school has a selective med school does not necessarily mean that you should go there for undergraduate premed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Organic chemistry is hard? Who knew?

This was especially interesting in light of discussions over Covid learning loss:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html

“Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams.

The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros.”

After several years of Covid learning loss, the students not only didn’t study, they didn’t seem to know how to study, Dr. Jones said.

Sounds like an awful professor. Good riddance.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:He was used to Princeton students and failed to adjust down for a lower-achieving cohort. Pretty straightforward.

Profs are ordered to fail read “weed out” a certain amount of students because the universities don’t want to spend big money adding capacity to highly expensive STEM depts. They want to force XX% of each freshmen class to high margin soft departments. It’s a big racket and has literally nothing to do with the students being equipped to handle medical school.

Actually, I never found this to be true. The students just usually aren't up to the material and these are classes they need to get through for STEM, which is by nature, hard.

This professor didn't understand he was going to be tecahing in a much easier environment in retirement and was not familiar with being left go, in order to appease the tuition payers. The younger, non retired faculty know they better score well on the student surveys or they are out.

When I pay high tuition for my kids, I would want them to be challenged by difficult problems that will push them, advance their analytical ability and expand their perspective. I want these professors to test their students’ limits and push their boundary. If these professors don’t do this and just try to make it easy for students, why would I send them to top school? They might as well learn it from YouTube lectures (which is quite good for just learning materials). I suggest these NYU students to take khan academy organic chemistry instead

You’re fine with your kids being challenged until they earn a C or below. Then you would lose your shit.

+100. The parents are the ones calling the Dean, and then the Dean pressures the prof to make everything easier. Most STEM profs I know say this same thing.

Tuition is so high now that the expectation is, if you pay it, you get the grades necessary for med school, etc. To pay that much and then be weeded out is unacceptable.

+1. I hate this trend, but it’s not *crazy* to expect good customer service from an institution that is charging you 60k per year or whatever it is now. For that kind of money, people are going to expect results. They aren’t entirely wrong to do so IMO.

What if the truth is some kids just can’t handle difficult subjects like organic chemistry or engineering, and careers in medicine and engineering are not good fit for them? Many parents believe that their kids have special talents or are genius, but the reality is most kids are not.

Agree! Many if these kids cheated their way through high school so they are unprepared and not actually of the level they appear to be. Their parents are either clueless or turn a blind eye as long as they have the perfect GPA. The kids (and the parents) feel entitled to As. It’s insane.

[Anonymous]

Genius is not always manifest by getting a high gpa.

People with very high gpas are generally hard workers and smart but not necessarily geniuses.

Geniuses often don’t work hard and tend to not do well in subjects that don’t interest them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Organic chemistry is hard? Who knew?

This was especially interesting in light of discussions over Covid learning loss:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html

“Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams.

The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros.”

After several years of Covid learning loss, the students not only didn’t study, they didn’t seem to know how to study, Dr. Jones said.

Sounds like an awful professor. Good riddance.

This is what the Russians are fighting against in Ukraine. Idiots like you. (And against gay pride parades.)

(Not saying the Russians are right, but if we dumb down our education system enough the Chinese will eat our lunch.)

[Anonymous]

More and more people feel entitled today. The students feel entitled to an A. It’s true.

[Anonymous]

Individual human beings do not all have the same intellectual capacity. Certain areas of study may just not be possible for some students, no matter how much they try (or not try, as appeared to be the case in the NYU example). Not everyone is cut out for everything. I don’t think the answer, however, is to just keep lowering the bar and removing minimum thresholds. Some professions NEED to maintain a certain degree of rigor as the consequences of unqualified practitioners can be severely detrimental to society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The inmates are running the asylum.

this! scary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Individual human beings do not all have the same intellectual capacity. Certain areas of study may just not be possible for some students, no matter how much they try (or not try, as appeared to be the case in the NYU example). Not everyone is cut out for everything. I don’t think the answer, however, is to just keep lowering the bar and removing minimum thresholds. Some professions NEED to maintain a certain degree of rigor as the consequences of unqualified practitioners can be severely detrimental to society.

What is more important, competent doctors or equity initiatives? Obviously equity. If a few grandmas have to die, that's nothing compared to correcting historical wrongs of this horrible country.

[Anonymous]

I relied on the bell curve in Organic Chem in college (as did most of the class). It was foreign to me and those long labs…yikes. It was sophomore year and a lot of those required core courses had few As. My gpa the first two years vs the last 2 years when I was in courses more specifically for my major—more microbiology and immunology- were very different. My grad school thankfully wanted gpa from the last 2 years only.

It’s a tough course. It’s always had a reputation for being a gpa breaker.

And my dad is an organic chemist who found it so easy that he just couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting it.

I’m shocked a student petition worked. It’s crazy. Every college has a notorious tough old geezer teacher. Stuff of legends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember being the age of the students and thinking I knew everything. I knew nothing. I shudder to think what we are coming to with kids having a voice via social media. I don't think I really understood how the world worked until I was 28, maybe even 30.

Exactly!! This current generation is far worse thanks we were though. We didn't get people fired.

ACT scores haven’t been this low since 40 years ago.

Schools are failing the kids. The public education system is broken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Genius is not always manifest by getting a high gpa.

People with very high gpas are generally hard workers and smart but not necessarily geniuses.

Geniuses often don’t work hard and tend to not do well in subjects that don’t interest them.

So true based off of people in my family , a strong mix of "high achievers" and only two people who actually have crazy high IQs that really stood out in what they could master and do starting at very young ages.These two people did/do not have a Unweighted 4.0
Most "high achievers" are not geniuses. And even highly successful adults who are actual geniuses were usually not "perfect" students as kids.

[Anonymous]

If other professors were teaching the same course but seeing different results then the problem was the professor. It is likely that students did not gain the math skills or other foundations necessary to do well prior to the class. However if other professors were able yo recognize this, provide a different level of instruction and address it while this one could not then firing him made sense.

Many professors do not really teach. They reuse the same lectures and variations of tests year after year, They don’t watch or measure the performance of their students to see if they are teaching effectively. This is frankly always a problem but after the pandemic it can’t be ignored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If other professors were teaching the same course but seeing different results then the problem was the professor. It is likely that students did not gain the math skills or other foundations necessary to do well prior to the class. However if other professors were able yo recognize this, provide a different level of instruction and address it while this one could not then firing him made sense.

Many professors do not really teach. They reuse the same lectures and variations of tests year after year, They don’t watch or measure the performance of their students to see if they are teaching effectively. This is frankly always a problem but after the pandemic it can’t be ignored.

Exactly.

I do think that the professor wasn't the cause of the problem, the cause is the entire education system. But we all have to deal with the impacts of the pandemic, professors included.