Tag: classmates and peers

[12-13; 27-29; 33] This semester started off pretty good because the school year starts off kind of easy like homeworks and it’s no tests. I’m taking two human factors classes. One is an introduction to human factors, and one is ergonomics. I’m also taking engineering economics, senior design, one graduate level class, and controls.

[37-42] The classroom experience for Intro to human factors is very, like it’s a PowerPoint. It’s very few words on the PowerPoint, sometimes it’s just a picture and then he talks about it for maybe 20 minutes for each picture. It’s very difficult to take notes since he’s talking. I usually always take notes but in this class I don’t because it’s very difficult to keep notes for someone that’s only talking, and you don’t really know what is important and what is not important of what he’s saying.

[246-253] Now, I think human factors is so much easier. It doesn’t require us much time to study because nothing is hard to get. I think it’s a lot of common sense, so you just memorize words they want to use. Now the design process is memorizing the steps or something, what are all the steps that make some kind of sense. In the classroom experience, I think there are a lot of stupid students compared to what I’m used to. I’m used to being surrounded by smart people that know some kind of general knowledge that can think outside the box. A lot of students in my human factors class can’t do that. They can ask stupid questions which sometimes can annoy me because it takes so much time for him to answer something that’s so obvious.

[255-262] But the hard part with it was that when you were studying for a test it was a bit difficult to know what was going to be on it because as I said before a PowerPoint can just consist of a picture. So, when we’re trying to study for it you didn’t really know what it said on that picture that was important that you should remember. And then I think some questions that in my opinion is very irrelevant to the topic that he can put on there. I don’t know the reason for it. Maybe it’s to see if you paid attention. But it has to have some kind of relevance or like knowledge. I’m used to only having questions that would show that we have learned something while they can have questions that doesn’t have to show anything that we learned.

[44-48] Then, for the ergonomics type of class, that classroom experience is similar to the intro to human factors course with PowerPoints but it’s more words on it and bullet points that she talks about every bullet point. So, ergonomics is much more possible to take notes and also when you’re going to study for the exams you have help from the PowerPoints which you don’t have in the introduction to human factors class because sometimes it can just be a picture.

[53-55] In the intro to human factors course, we’re sitting in a lecture with no interaction with my peers. It’s more interaction in the ergonomics class because sometimes you really can-do exercises like measuring each other with different tools so then there’s interactions.

[60-67] The peer interactions in the ergonomics course involve using different tools to measure different body parts. It can also be like chair evaluation. So, you can walk around the whole campus to find different chairs and then you write about it. You have a checklist and everything like comfortable or whether you can adjust it, or you cannot adjust it and everything. Then you come back to class and then we’re presenting all the results. So, with the measurements we are saying yes, as you can see, I’m taller which means I also have larger feet. With the chair you could say the ones in the library where you sit for a long time those are more comfortable leather ones in comparison to chairs outside the classroom where you’re maybe not sitting for so long a time.

[72-74] Then we have a paper where we’re writing everything on just like the results of the person or a chair. At the end of the class, we just hand the paper in to her and as long as you complete it you always get 100% on that assignment.

[84-91] Engineering economics was a class which I looked forward to for a very long time since like sophomore year. Then, I got into class and now unfortunately I don’t like it at all because it’s a lot of work in Excel. I do like Excel. It’s not that issue. It’s more that it can be a problem and he can show the problem very quickly and you barely have time to read it. Then he has already solved the problem in Excel so it’s just going over the numbers very quickly in Excel. The issue with that is to understand Excel you need to see what’s inside every box because every box has a formula. So, he’s not teaching us what formulas are used when. It’s here you get a number and here you get a different number. So, most of us don’t understand anything. So, the classroom experience for engineering economics is not great.

[96-100] The time spent in the economics classroom is mostly a waste of time. I mostly go there just because it’s required attendance, but I don’t learn anything even though I try to pay attention. Then we have some homeworks that’s due. I have people that have taken the class before, so they have been very helpful. Some of their homework can be similar so then I learn by looking at the example and can implement it to my question. That’s how I’m managing the class.

[228-236] I have always been very interested in economics. I’m thinking about doing an MBA on that. I always thought it was important to, especially if you’re going to start a company not only knowing the engineering part of it but also knowing the business part of it so you can actually sell it. I actually didn’t really know what to expect from the course. I just thought the name was fun because I like engineering and I like economics so I thought hey, this can be something useful if I start a company one day. I will maybe learn what to think of and where to plan. Maybe it’s like how much of revenue are you spending on marketing. How can you come up with an investor offer and everything? But when I got there it was nothing like that. It was very focused on aerospace because we’re an aerospace school. I’m not that interested in aerospace.

[238-240] Overall, the main issue is because I don’t understand what’s going on in the class because you’re just going over some numbers without even showing how to get there. So, that’s the most disappointing part of the class.

[192-197] For the controls class itself, it’s mostly PowerPoint and he’s also posted them on the university page which makes it easier to study for the tests. It’s a lot of math in it so sometimes we do a problem and then he works through it in MATLAB and all of us have computers in the classroom. Then we are just trying to follow. He’s very good at MATLAB so he has a tendency to do it way too quickly than we can write in all the commands. So, we’re trying to write down what he’s doing in MATLAB but he’s going too fast to be able to do it. But the concept is good.

[199-204] Then for the lab that’s only once a week, three hours long. We usually start with a quiz and the quiz represents what we’ve been doing in the classroom, but they don’t coordinate it, so the quiz is about a topic we haven’t even done in the class. So, we have never been able to do the quiz. We always get the quiz and then we realize we cannot do it so then we just start working on the lab. So, we have to take home the quiz and turn it in another day. For the lab, we can get lab manuals where it can tell us from the beginning it’s very simple because they give us step by step.

[206-212] Like click here, click here, click here. The more we’re getting into it is just all this is what he wants. Just find it. And then it’s become difficult because we’re not used to using any software so much. It’s a software called Simulink and we also use MATLAB so that has been very challenging to do something without instructions. We always need help from the professor and it’s only one lab professor for the whole class. Sometimes the instructions don’t show us what to do about the issue that students are facing. Then it takes a long time for him to help every student so then he can see you’re not doing anything for a long time just because you’re stuck and can’t get help.

[218-222] Yeah. So, in lab since we’re using so much equipment in the lab you have to finish it while you’re there if you don’t want to come back on Friday afternoon. You can go to his office hours and get help so you’re basically just waiting for your turn for him to come. If he realizes that you’re running out of time compared to when class is going to end, and you’re not done he tries to help a lot and he’s helping get us through is goals quickly. Of course, he can finish in a much faster time so he can help us through that.