I teach at a university

I teach at a university.

Broadly speaking there are three sorts of people who tend to come to my office for help in their assignments. The majority don't do it at all and at most ask one or two questions over e-mail so I'm not counting those.

The first type is the diligent student who just wants some tips, often in doing something more advanced than what the assignment asked for. Sometimes it's clear they just want a pat on the back or want to show off, but that's okay. Very rarely they have some exotic problem (often caused by their unorthodox approach) that they need proper help with.

The second type is the lazy but smart person who started working on their assignment very late (and probably missed some classes too). Their problems are usually a combination of being far behind schedule and having some serious holes in their knowledge of the material (probably covered in the classes they missed). They're usually intelligent enough for an explanation and some pointers to put them right on track to a passing grade.

Type three is the genuine thicko who usually works VERY hard but is just too thick to get it. Instruction rolls off them like water off a duck's back. They're usually very respectful as they continue bugging you about even the most obvious things. They rarely ever "get" anything; they can be instructed to reach a goal but will then be stumped anew the next time they encounter the very same problem.

Even though their reasons are the most innocent and admirable, I fucking hate type three. They're so annoying to deal with. I don't mind the other two types at all.

Am I a bad person? How do I learn to deal with type three properly?

What do you teach?

>tfw you're not sure if you're type 2 or 3
FeelsBadMan

There is only 1 type:
Type retardo: Wastes his time going to office hours instead of downloading another book to keep advancing at an accelerated pace.

t. expert in the quotient rule

You aren't a bad person, but you are a bad teacher.

>I got 74% in analysis 1. And all I need was a couple of textbooks, the internet and my peers.

I took calc I like 3 years ago so you better believe I am the master at the quotient rule.

I passed analysis with an A. All I needed was the internet.

I don't have friends in my major so there are no peers I could cheat off of. Friends are for brainlets.

Couple weeks into calculus 1 now, doing well, already past the chain rule and beyond. Quotient rule was a joke. Product rule remains my specialty.

I ask my professor his thoughts on quantum mechanics and partial derivatives. He's impressed i know about the subject. We converse after class for some time, sharing mathematical insights; i can keep up. He tells me of great things ahead like series and laplacians. I tell him i already read about series on wikipedia. He is yet again impressed at my enthusiasm. What a joy it is to have your professor visibly brighten when he learns of your talents.

And now I sit here wondering what it must be like to be a brainlet, unable to engage your professor as an intellectual peer.
All of the deep conversations you people must miss out on because you aren't able to overcome the intellectual IQ barrier that stands in the way of your academic success... it's so sad.

My professor and I know each other on first name basis now, but i call him Dr. out of respect.

And yet here you brainlets sit, probably havent even made eye contact with yours out of fear that they will gauge your brainlet IQ levels.
A true shame, but just know it is because i was born special that i am special. I can't help being a genius, nor can my professor.

Two of a kind is two flocks in a bush.

>Am I a bad person? How do I learn to deal with type three properly?
Don't. You're a TA, not a pedagogue, you're expected to be a supplement to the lecture and the book, not a guide for their life. You're NOT expected to drag every retard along, some people deserve to fail and some people deserve to be hated for being stupid. They'll drop out, or if they get a degree they will just cause damage to whoever hires them. Spend as little time as possible on them, your time is to valueable to learn "how to deal with people who shouldn't be here in the first place". You're at a university, not a school, they need to learn that they are stupid and you must learn to not give away your time for free. Be polite and so on, but a straight "you will never make it, look for a degree that matches your ability" will be of bigger help to them then whatever you can do to make them pass your class.

Mostly exploratory data analysis, stats, and a bit of programming mostly in molecular biology related areas (metabolomics, interactomics, that sort of thing).

Many things we cover (with one exception I teach only postgraduates) haven't filtered down to textbooks yet. Though the literature (review articles etc.) is out there so they could read that. It's still sensible for them to ask me to point out some of those for them instead of looking blindly on their own.

>You aren't a bad person, but you are a bad teacher.
Yeah I sort of feel like that.

I do remain civil and helpful with type three, but it's very tiring and frustrating. I was looking for tips on how to adjust my mindset for that to be less of a problem.

>quantum mechanics

True math majors like me know physics is a trivial application of mathematics, meant to be left as an exercise for the reader.

Explain it a different way every time, making it clear that the conclusion is the same. If it's an abstraction, use an example. If it's a proof of a new concept, assume it's true and work backwards.
One error in either the instructions or the student's method can result in them forming an infinite variety of ad hoc misunderstandings (falsehood implying everything), and they'll need to unlearn those misunderstandings in order to use that approach effectively.
There's no way to predict exactly where they're getting hung up, so it's best to try a new approach entirely to get to the desired conclusion. Ideally, being able to work backward will assist them in later undoing their misunderstanding about the other approach.
That obviously isn't always possible, but hopefully there's some value for the professor in reaquainting themselves with alternative approaches to the material.

>Yeah I sort of feel like that.
I don't think it's anything to feel ashamed of, you can't be expected to like everyone. But yeah it does make you a lesser teacher, at least imo.

Pretty much what I expected you to say.

>with one exception I teach only postgraduate
>Though the literature (review articles etc.) is out there so they could read that. It's still sensible for them to ask me to point out some of those for them instead of looking blindly on their own.
Literature research is something that can be expected of postgrads, you're just pampering your students.

Just throw one hundred repetitive relatively simple exercises at type 3 until they get an intuition of the concept.

This guy has it. I was an instructor in the military. Taught some very watered down EE concepts and generator maintenance .

had kids with bare minimum ASVAB scores coming through my schoolhouse, and you basically just got to grind that shit into them.

the hands teach the mind with type 3.

The simple truth is that type 3 does not belong in postgraduate education.

This made me lel.

>Even though their reasons are the most innocent and admirable, I fucking hate type three. They're so annoying to deal with. I don't mind the other two types at all.

In other words, "Wah, I don't want to actually help anyone and just want to get my paycheck". You want to know why you prefer the other two types? Because they honestly don't need you and you don't have to put any real effort with them.

brainlet detected

trips confirmed brainlet

University should be limited to men with an IQ above 110.

Every single woman I know starts with a real major and drops out and takes management or some stupid shit 2 years in.

I'm the emailer who sends you an urgent question with a tone of panic, then five minutes later sends a follow up saying "disregard my last, I found the answer written plainly in the handout you gave us two weeks ago and I only just read". Usually multiple times per term.

How much do you hate me, Dr. user?

>only five minutes later
You need to step up your game, he probably didn't have the time to hate you yet as you caused no work

Would you suggest using the military as a path to getting a degree? I scored reasonably well on my ASVAB but decided to attend university. I ran out of funds quickly and am now working a full time job on 2nd shift while trying to take a few classes. What are job prospects like following service? How fit should i be before enlisting?

I always feel bad for type 3 people, mostly because I know how it feels, I am fairly good at chemistry but when I tried to study programming it was like everything made sense but stopped being right as soon as it went in my brain.

t. someone who has never touched a quantum problem

literally tiny problems

t. someone who has never touched a quantum problem

Keep in mind that some of the type 3 people aren't necessarily unintelligent, they just seem that way because they learn differently.
Maybe you're teaching using some kind of visual aids that for most people are totally intuitive, but for some people could be very hard to translate into something they understand.

110 for social sciences probably. 130 for STEM, excluding biology ofcourse.

Although the standard deviation of IQ is smaller for women, resulting in less gifted ones, women can be seriously smart too. More importantly, they tend to be less autistic.

t. someone who has never touched a girl

>women can be seriously smart too
Yeah. Too bad those women end up crying about sexism all day instead of doing actual intellectual work.

t. someone who never touched a girl without worrying she'd tell her parents.

Fuck.

Fucking lol.
>[math] user WINS [/math]
>[math] FATALITY [/math]

someone who never touched a girl without worrying he'd tell his parents.

>product rule
>quantum mechanics
>partial derivatives
>series
>laplacians
>thinking he's smart for knowing this brainlet math
Fucking kek. You don't anything about real math until you learn triple integrals. I mean, if you're intelligent enough to learn it. Your professor probably never mentioned the topic because he noticed you are a brainlet.

Whatever you say, OP.

t. someone who never touched a girl without checking his privilege

> that's the joke. It's okay, we know your autism makes it hard to pick up on social cues

There should be a branch of psychology that deals with identifying "cognitive maps" that lead to misunderstandings in such-and-such fields and developing presentations that minimize these risks. Then maybe we can have 21st century pedagogy that's interesting and illuminating, and maybe we wouldn't have so many brainlets walking around.

Not that I'm saying you're not a bad person--to some degree--but so far you seem reasonable.

Some people cannot learn. They do not have feelings to understand good from bad, yes from no. Not only do I gravitate towards positive people, but I avoid (not ignore) the ignorant people. The are negative so there's no positive outcome from such encounters. You chose and this is one of the negatives in your profession. All professions have negatives. All you can do is be glad when they go away, finally, as all must one day do.

>not recognizing the joke within the joke

>not recognizing the joke within the joke within the joke

These high order jokes are getting out of hand.

>lazy but smart
lmao

Dont beat yourself up. Its just human nature. You can fight it but you wont win.

He's a bad teacher because he has little patience for extreme brainlets? BTFO

This

>not going to office hours with well thought out questions that go beyond the scope of class
>not making sure the professor remembers who you are and what your capabilites are
>not having a large variety of professors to call on for letters of reference

You have to remember that some people are not meant to be academics. Your brain has to be rigged in a certain way to fully understand STEM field programs. From my experience, all the type 3 persons I've met were not interested by the courses and the jobs afterwards. They were more focused on partying, having fun, sports. I'm not saying that these are bad, but not having any interest or curiosity for the subject of a course can surely create type 3 easily

>going to graduate school and become a poor depressed faggot for the rest of your life

>"a-at least I a ton of pointless knowledge in an extremely specific subtopic of a subfield of my field!"

>in PhD program
>CS
>Will transcend the bullshit codemonkey life as a corporate researcher

get btfo brainlet

Kek those types ate dead on

>will earn one third of what the codemonkey does

Only true due to opportunity cost.

In actuality I will be doing a job I like and making more money as well. Think, Google or Yahoo research labs.

And before you say this isn't going to happen, my advisor has super high placements for phd graduates in research labs or academia

It is a thing. If you aren't smart enough to coast by while being a lazy ass you either put your shit together and drop the laziness or drop out. By survivor bias alone once you get past some level most lazy people are smart because the lazy dumb ones were culled.

Mind you the bar for "smart" in this definition isn't that high though it depends and institutions, fields, etc.

lol fuck off.
>tfw I do a harder degree than you at a better university + I have a vagina

>tfw calculus was literally invented to solve physics problems
>tfw physics needs have dictated the development of math for the last 300 years

>yfw physics and calculus is for brainlets

This is sad to read. You sound like an awful teacher.

Oh, you're one of those

yeah dawg

the entirety of math came from looking at the universe so it's only natural math comes from physics

Why do women always let their emotions get the better of them?

It's difficult to think rationally when you always succumb to your rapidly changing emotions.

The true redpill is when you realize that math and physics are one and the same.

Former military here; if your ASVAB score is exceptional (90+) along with AFQT, I would recommend either cryptolinguistics or Nuke Tech with the Navy or Air Force. When I signed up, I was a nutted up 17 year old with a death wish, and in spite of my outstanding AFQT/ASVAB, I became an infantry Marine. I met a few other men with minds like mine during my time in, but the majority were all balls, no brains. Don't be like me. Learn valuable skills, gain discipline, and understand fully what you're signing up for. Good luck with your decision, user.

>military

GET OUT CHADS REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Why do men always complain about women being distracting because they're unable to control their hormones around them?

some things can't be gotten from books, at least not properly, and require hands-on guidance.
ask any micropaleontologist.

Because it's a bullshit excuse that people come up with because they're afraid to say "don't dress like a slut because it looks bad for the school" or "most women just aren't as physically or emotionally prepared for war and the presence of a few fucks with male instincts".

Good instructors don't leave questions. That's why admins made the survey.

There's also type 4
>the one that goes to his professors office hours every week to suck his dick and get recommendations

That's me. I literally don't need to go to the office hours and have no questions most of the time.

sounds like type 1 to me

there's also the ubermensch type 5 who just goes to his prof's office to talk to them and know them personally since he hates the rest of his class.

I'm type three and wish someone would have told me I should go do something else.

Now I'm in my third year of a PhD program and it's too late to quit.

what type am I? I only see professors if they assign group assignments and there is some problem relating to a group member not pulling their weight or if I'm unable to meet with my group so I go to the professor to discuss the topic with them.

I'm pretty sure I'm not type 2, feeling like type 3 lately.

Taking an analysis class (actually two) and for some reason everything being talked about does not chain together for me. I mean sure I understand the words but that's it. It may just be that it's early in the semester but I don't recall having this much trouble even BEGINNING to understand how things work in the course. It all looks like when they're solving something it's just random jumps from one thing to another and I just can't make those connections, whether I read and re-read examples and definitions and all.

Tried going to office hours too but all that did was make me angry. Don't usually go to office hours so I was looking forward to finally being helped into understanding the concepts. Professor stopped me at the door and had me explain my problem but when I finished explaining myself he would stare at me trying to understand so I'd just keep trying to explain more the fact that I'm an idiot and don't know what I'm doing without saying it like that.
There was also someone else in his office at the time, which I would have been fine for him to finish what they were doing, but he called me in as soon as he saw me and I felt like I was interrupting.
He did try to answer *a* question, but it definitely was not the question I asked and I just sort of lied about how I understood and left angry.

Now I don't want to go back again because I feel like maybe he expects that his students should either
a) have some previous knowledge (that I must not have) that allows them to understand what's going on or
b) be able to understand what's going on in the course as it all seems to make sense to everyone else

If I go again I know I'll just end up nearly stuttering out my 'question', which doesn't make sense because I don't have a specific question I just sort of want to know if I'm too stupid to be taking the course or if there is salvation.

I tutor a lot of high school students, so I may be able to relate. Type 3 students I find (and I assume there is some continuity into university) are usually students who have a lack of good grounding and familiarity with the topics at hand, they have sort of holes in their understanding of a topic, that makes it difficult for them to make logical moves when trying to solve a problem, or trying to understand a new topic.

As such, I don't think it is your fault, nor necessarily theirs, they just had the misfortune of having a shitty education

>i dont like my job or parts of it
no you're not a bad person

do your job ass hole, and dont think too much about it

This is pasta you fools.

Type three is most commonly people who were pushed hard to succeed by their parents/social pressure even though they were not very smart, so they had to make up for their lack of intelligence with more work.

Asians are overrepresented in type three even though they're very intelligent on average, simply because even the less intelligent ones were pushed to succeed.

Im hungry :'(

there was no joke within a joke within a joke, he was backpedalling and I cant believe you didnt notice

I would give you piece of my mind as a student that went through hell in ex-communist hell hole but I have a bad headache.
Idiots like you allowing bullshit is what makes the standards as they are today.

stop being such a beta
you know that you dont understand what you are doing
so man up and accept that you dont know what you are doing and go get help

the alternative is death

I'm too insecure about my intelligence to ask for help so I'll just google or get a book.

>he
That's sexist.

>That's sexist
>implying two sexes

That is transphobic.

>I passed analysis with an A. All I needed was the internet.
Cool story man

>transphobic
>implying 4 sexes
That's interdimensional being hate speech.

I am so sorry

I know I'm not type 3 because I don't work hard at all

type 3 people often are lazy asses as well

They are also complete normies because they seek to ask someone for help instead of using the internet. The truth is this type of thing goes way smoother when you do it on your own. Who the fuck are they to ask for your help?

I personally hate type 2 the most. I don't mind type 3 or type 1 because they both genuinely put effort, which is all I want.

>normies because they seek to ask someone for help instead of using the internet.
So much this.
I love whey they dont ask if you have time for it they just go "do this for me ok" and get mad as all hell if one says no.

I know he was backpedalling, but these jokes within jokes give room for claiming everything is deeper layer of the matryoshka of jokes.

If you got that far then you aren't type 3, you just got cold feet and you are trying to justify going the easy way out.

>I teach at a university.
Okay. Do you want to talk about science and/or math?

Really fucking sucks that this kind of thread gets 100+ replies.