Great Expectations...

Today is a weird monday... I have only has 3 hours of classes so far and so much has happened...

1st hour was econs tutorial... hardly anyone came for class today... might have been due to the heavy rain... i've come to notice that the no. of pple who turn up is inversely proportional to how much rainfall there is... ie the heavier the rain, the lesser the attendance... anyway since there were so little people, the tutor could ask as many questions as she pleases and expects an answer from us for every one (or one) of us. well nothing wrong with this... except that there happens to be this rather "loud" guy in my class.. he's ok la I guess, usually he's the only person who "answers" the tutor... the tricky part is that he doesn't know the answer so either he guesses, or he craps something...

It is quite amusing to have such people in your class.. adds some entertainment you know... but at the same time i can't help feel a bit gek that he wastes the class's time like this (cos the tutor usually re-explains and stuff after his odd answers)... maybe I have too high expectations... u know, go to class, learn stuff, efficiency... but here, that obviously isn't the case... but at the same time, you can't really blame the guy right... i mean everyone asking students to speak up and not be afraid to give wrong answers... well I think he'll make a good role model in this sense... he can be wrong all the time but still not shy... so... I really dunno what to think about this...

ok... so the next 2 hours i spend in my MP2911 class (refer to prev post for more details) I tot I could go there, submit my report and drawings (which made me stay up till 4am on Sat to do) and get off of there.. but no... the tutor goes around looking at the drawings, and then a lot of scoldings start taking place.. in the end, he extended the deadline of submission from today to this friday, because he wanted some people to redo their drawings...

now I can say a lot about a request like that.. for one, tutors from other classes only require a drawing of 1 shaft... we have to do the whole 3 views of assembly diagram (which has ALL ur components and dimensions).. I think this is ok.. cos hey he does have high expectations, and what better thing to "push" students to work than something lidat? Unfortunately, i think he has high expectations AND not enough flexibility. I can tell u it takes a LOT of effort and time to do the drawings... if a group used a 1:3 scale, yeah it's not really "right" but considering the amount of effort put in, isn't it a bit too much to ask them to re-do? A scale likes that makes the drawings hard to read for u (tutor) but i'm sure it was very hard for them to draw as well.. Also, we do not just have this module to care about; we are not experienced MPE students to know exactly what you want; we are not engineers who will be submitting our work to an office for our assembly to be built; We are year 2 students with 7 other modules to handle, exams next week to deal with; We have put in a lot for this and yes we made mistakes; but we are learning, we see this project as a means to better understand the concepts presented in lectures, as a means of practice of calculations so that we can deal with exams questions...

I don't think it's a problem of setting high expectations for students (or whoever), rather, I think it is a problem if we dunno how to be flexible to compromise... wait not compromise, but accept that everyone has different standards, and that judgement shouldn't be passed so quickly just based on these differences..

After all, in life, isn't everything about being a bit more understanding, a bit less of giving hell to someone else? you don't have to lower your standards, but if others don't meet your standards, it isn't the end of the world or the worst damnable thing either...