Experience with GMU engin/comsci -- professors with tough accents/hard to understand?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to be rude and for certain individuals, downright wrong, but here's the thing:

1. In STEM, you'll hear many accents and some of them will be very hard to understand. I say this as an immigrant myself, who went to grad school here and heard lots of other accents that I could not understand.

2. In the more selective institutions, such as Harvard, students are intelligent, used to figuring things out, and competitive enough that they will power through because after all, they were selected to go to this prestigious uni!

3. At GMU, you don't often have that confluence of factors in the student body, hence all the whining. But guess what? They have to power through anyway!

Again, my apologies.

Then why pay 80K tuition if you have to do it on your own?

Because they couldn’t get in anywhere better, presumably? Nothing wrong with that. I’m sure they’ll do well in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to be rude and for certain individuals, downright wrong, but here's the thing:

1. In STEM, you'll hear many accents and some of them will be very hard to understand. I say this as an immigrant myself, who went to grad school here and heard lots of other accents that I could not understand.

2. In the more selective institutions, such as Harvard, students are intelligent, used to figuring things out, and competitive enough that they will power through because after all, they were selected to go to this prestigious uni!

3. At GMU, you don't often have that confluence of factors in the student body, hence all the whining. But guess what? They have to power through anyway!

Again, my apologies.

Then why pay 80K tuition if you have to do it on your own?

Because they couldn’t get in anywhere better, presumably? Nothing wrong with that. I’m sure they’ll do well in life.

I think 80k is meant for Ivies, not GMU. But you do get degrees from Ivy and an ability to learn on your own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to be rude and for certain individuals, downright wrong, but here's the thing:

1. In STEM, you'll hear many accents and some of them will be very hard to understand. I say this as an immigrant myself, who went to grad school here and heard lots of other accents that I could not understand.

2. In the more selective institutions, such as Harvard, students are intelligent, used to figuring things out, and competitive enough that they will power through because after all, they were selected to go to this prestigious uni!

3. At GMU, you don't often have that confluence of factors in the student body, hence all the whining. But guess what? They have to power through anyway!

Again, my apologies.

Wow. You're charming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to be rude and for certain individuals, downright wrong, but here's the thing:

1. In STEM, you'll hear many accents and some of them will be very hard to understand. I say this as an immigrant myself, who went to grad school here and heard lots of other accents that I could not understand.

2. In the more selective institutions, such as Harvard, students are intelligent, used to figuring things out, and competitive enough that they will power through because after all, they were selected to go to this prestigious uni!

3. At GMU, you don't often have that confluence of factors in the student body, hence all the whining. But guess what? They have to power through anyway!

Again, my apologies.

Complaining about a teacher who lacks a fundamental professional skill (understandable communication) is not “whining.”

Exactly. And that goes for *any* university in which a student is paying tuition. It's unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

DD was in computer science at GMU and never had this problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, my kid goes to another college and is a CS major. They said that one CS professor is known for being difficult to understand, so DC is trying to not end up in that class.

I work in tech. Yes, a lot of the people I work with have accents, but it's not the same. At work, I can ask them to repeat (a few times) or email me what they want to convey. Can't really do that in class at college.

+1. Maybe I have a verbal processing issue, but there are people whose accent is so thick that I need to have them e-mail me so I can figure out what the heck they are going on about.

But, at a college, any concerns along these lines needs to be handled extremely carefully lest you become the poster child for racism at the campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to be rude and for certain individuals, downright wrong, but here's the thing:

1. In STEM, you'll hear many accents and some of them will be very hard to understand. I say this as an immigrant myself, who went to grad school here and heard lots of other accents that I could not understand.

2. In the more selective institutions, such as Harvard, students are intelligent, used to figuring things out, and competitive enough that they will power through because after all, they were selected to go to this prestigious uni!

3. At GMU, you don't often have that confluence of factors in the student body, hence all the whining. But guess what? They have to power through anyway!

Again, my apologies.

So students at schools like Harvard are learning despite these profs, not because of them. Got it.

Imagine what would be possible if similarly high scoring and hard working students could go to colleges where profs actually excelled at teaching… Oh, wait…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is true of most schools with strong STEM programs. Including Harvard, back in the day at least.

+1 back in the 90s.

+1 at a HYPSM. Calculus TA (this was a class in sections with no professor or main lecture) would even use Chinese characters on the board to reiterate his points as he worked through equations. It happens anywhere that values research/graduate study over undergraduate teaching.

+1 at Michigan in 90s. Every math and science prof was very difficult to understand. My husband was a history major - no accents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My brother was an engineering major at a top program and they would have lecture classes with 700 students in intro and a professor with a heavy accent and 1990s technology to broadcast to the back of the room. Basically he just got the notes and worked from the textbook. At least now for all these classes there is better technology, including explanatory videos etc.

I would guess that schools are not allowed to discriminate in hiring based on accent.

If they did some schools would have to cut back on STEM majors. Accent and STEM majors go together. I was an undergrad in the 90s and that was the case even then some 25 years later and nothing has changed. I guess, in STEM, accented people go to academia and the non-accented go to industry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother was an engineering major at a top program and they would have lecture classes with 700 students in intro and a professor with a heavy accent and 1990s technology to broadcast to the back of the room. Basically he just got the notes and worked from the textbook. At least now for all these classes there is better technology, including explanatory videos etc.

I would guess that schools are not allowed to discriminate in hiring based on accent.

There aren't enough candidates for discrimination to be an option. America sucks at STEM. This is the result.

Why aren't there enough candidates? Why does "America suck at STEM"? Is this some collective decision made by "America"? Demand exceeds supply - did "America" decide this?

BTW why don't you something about it and stop sucking at STEM? Or maybe there are better things for you to do - like it seems to be for a lot of America?