The end of the semester is rapidly approaching and with this, it signals the end of my 20th fall semester as a full-time faculty member at Marshall University. 329 sections and 5277 enrollments since I started teaching. It is hard to believe that I have now been on this campus as a student, staff member, and faculty member for more than 27 years, which equates to roughly 60% of my life. I have been fortunate to educate some of the very best and brightest. I have had the privilege of being a part of the education of 6 of our graduates who have earned a 4.0. I know where 5 of them are today and I follow their careers because I have been able to see them do great things in the classroom and beyond. Some of them do not even know their potential yet. There are 3 students currently in our program that have the potential to graduate within the next 6 months with 4.0 GPAs and I know that they are going to contribute greatly professionally once they find their purpose. I just hope that I have helped guide them in a positive way.
Speaking of which, I would like to think that I have been a positive influence on the vast majority of my students. I am not naïve to think that I am a great professor or that everyone who has taken my classes likes me, as I know that some most likely feel that I have done them an injustice. I am tough on students because I demand a lot of them in and out of the classroom. I firmly believe that to succeed in my class that you have to come to class, prepared, participate, and put in your time outside of class. I have tried a variety of approaches to courses and coursework and just today was told I teach old fashion. I took it as a compliment. The majority of what I do may be old fashioned, but I also try to teach this generation with modern techniques and of course, technologies. Good or bad, I know that I am fair in the sense that if you work hard and do your own work and leave my classes with an understanding of the material, you will be able to program and/or work with databases. You will be able to analytically apply yourself to solve problems with data, build mobile apps, build interactive web applications, and more.
Some students have told me that others are scared of me. Why? Hearing that bothers me in the sense that it means that there are those that will not ask for help if they need it. It may be because I will not sit and just tell you the answers, will not give you a grade (you have to earn it), that if I catch you cheating I am tough on you, or that I return your questions with several questions to help lead you to the answer (if you are truly willing to learn and apply what we are covering in courses), but whatever the case, if you perceive me as scary, ask others and I promise they will say that I am helpful and that all you have to do is approach me. I am gruff. Why? That’s the majority of the bosses you will have. They have deadlines and they expect results. I teach my classes in the same way. The difference? You can mess up in college and not be fired. You get second chances in my classes. But you have to learn from those second chances and prove to me that you have learned the way.
There are times that I have love my job and there have been times that I have seriously contemplated changing jobs and some days the gamut of emotions have swung drastically to and fro each of those thoughts. In all sincerity, I love educating young minds. Give me a young mind with a desire to learn and I will help produce someone that is going to make an impact in IT. I wish I could say that about every single individual who is in my profession, but I hear the horror stories and listen to people complain about what is taking place in their classes. If what people tell me is true, shame on some people. I am not vindictive, but I see others being that way. You err, you cheat (once), we move on and you are treated just like everyone else. You irk me, I still grade you fairly. You disrespect me (yeah don’t get me started on this one right now), I still grade your work, fairly. I may not be willing to give a glowing reference for everyone, but I guarantee everyone is assessed equally. I will stake my career on it.
But through it all, it is the students who I hear from every once in a while that thank me (I am not in it for the thank yous) and those stories of negativity about other classes that keep me grounded, keep me focused, and keep me going. I hope that negative experiences do not hurt individual’s desires to continue learning, but unfortunately I see it happening.
I love programming. I love solving problems. I love to show students how they can solve any problem with programming. I love teaching. I am never satisfied with how I handle a class and want to continue to better myself so that I can better those around me. However, the strength required to do this over the past several years has been difficult and is getting more difficult every year. Some students want their degrees handed to them without the effort. Some can do no wrong in their own eyes. Some have no respect for those that are here to share their knowledge with them to make them better at what they do. Parking this week has been a bear and everyone is on campus and working hard. If students worked half this hard the previous 13 weeks, they would not have to work very hard at all this week. I have had students in my office over the past 3 weeks that have sat for 3+ hours asking questions in a given sitting. This is good that they are asking questions, but this is also bad as others are left outside waiting and never get to have their questions answered in person. I have had students who never visit my office that should. I allow my students to text me and email me questions and many do. It’s a mixed bag every time, but what I want to encourage students to do, no I implore students to do, is to read outside of class and take class time to ask the difficult questions that will allow me to help them understand their problems and their perspectives and allow them to accomplish their goals without having to just give them the solutions to the problems. I have never been a professor who simply tells you the right answers. I want to help guide you to the path that you can follow to solve the problem, but you are going to have to put in the effort to get over the hump. I simply provide the tools and the methods and the nudge in the right direction. I want every single student to be a problem solver and not simply someone that can copy and paste code from one program to another (which of course, never works and does not lead you to the complete solution). The current generation of K-12 students need to realize this. They need to be ready to solve problems and apply knowledge to different problem sets once they reach college, no matter their major. Life is not about regurgitating facts.
I thrive off of students who want to learn, but at the same time, those that are responsible for their own learning, those that I call model students. What do I mean? A model student is not always a 4.0 student, but I believe all 4.0 students are model students. Model students are those that are willing to learn new material, willing to try new things, willing to put in the time and not just look for the shortest and quickest route to submit an assignment. A model student is one who reads their textbook, asks questions about course notes and examples, completes practice problems that are not due for a grade, does ancillary readings, jump on projects outside of class to gain experience, etc. From my perspective, model students seem to be so few and far between today. College should not be about attending and earning an easy A and trying to complete a course simply through the path of least resistance. College should be the best time of your life. It’s a place to explore more opportunities, broaden your skills and the best thing about it, whether you take the path of least resistance or take it all in, it costs the same price. College should be a place to go to tackle the great challenges that lie ahead in order to be the very best in your profession of choice. And something interesting is that often times, that means failing. Failing, learning from the mistakes you make and trying again. But those who work on the minimum and fail set themselves up for disaster and they panic. If you fail in the practice assignments and ancillary material and learn from those failures, I guarantee you will not fail on the graded assessments and not be behind the proverbial eight ball. You will be setting yourself up to be a success.
College and in particular, my classroom, are places to come to learn how to code, learn how to analyze problems, and learn how to apply code and techniques that you learn to solve problems and build code-based solutions. As I told one of my classes this semester, I literally gave them the keys to the kingdom without telling them what key opens what door. Basically, we built code examples in class sessions throughout the course of the semester. They have a semester project worth 35% of their grade. Roughly 99% of the solution to this project is within those examples, but in various forms. I assign and go over the semester project the first day of class and tell students that they should work on their project through the semester as they learn different things. Sadly, the vast majority of my students started the project this week even though I have said numerous times… if you have not started, please start now… for weeks. It is sad from my perspective to see this and frustrates me, but I promise each of my students that I am going to keep striving to be the best I can in order to help you be the best you can be, but it takes equal participation.