Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Technically yesterday I had only two hours of classes because during the programming hands-on session I was sitting down most of the time except when the students had any questions.

Surprisingly, the student that my co-teacher warned me about was one of the first to finish and submit her diskette. So it’s either she’s been honing up on the subject during the summer, or she does know this early and relatively simple part of the lesson well. The more difficult sections of the syllabus will have to be wait and see though. At the very least I’ll be trying to make those areas as comprehensible as I can.

And I was thinking that the exercise was too easy for them that I should give them two or more exercises per week for the easy topics. Maybe I’ll do that next week.

This morning I witnessed one characteristic of the students that I really don’t like. That’s when the students have a class in a room that is beside the stairs, and they sit on the whole breadth of the steps while waiting for the earlier class to let out. It usually happens when the students have an exam and need a place to study. It’s too early for that though, so these students weren’t really preoccupied when I just stood there and waited for them to part and let me pass.

On a related note, since all of our bound theses in the department are on two knee- and foot-level shelves along the aisle between two cubicles, upperclassmen have now formed the habit of sitting in front of the shelves when they are looking for reference materials for their research topic. This makes it a narrow fit to walk through.

In the first place, why can’t they just get the copies of the theses they need and bring them to the consultation area? Why do they want to plonk down on the floor where it’s uncomfortable for them and for the teachers who have to move about? Is it the defiance of staying in an area usually off limits?

Second, three copies of the final bound draft of the theses are requested from the students: one for the research group, one for the department and one for the library. So they could just as easily look through the relevant papers at their respective research labs, or more conveniently, at the library.

This is also better because the library has safeguards against students not returning borrowed materials, something not strictly implemented at the department with the students just allowed to look through the shelves without supervision.

I guess it’s just a facet of students having grown more demanding since I started teaching, even since I was an undergrad.