Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

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

I was talking about a certain student showing up in my general science requirement mechanics lab class to work on his project. Unlike his classmates, who all took the tables farthest from the whiteboard and the teacher, this student went to the table nearest the teacher, even closer than the actual students of the class.

When he approached me about the project document that I gave the class weeks before, I said it was in the faculty room. He asked if he should get it.

I certainly was not going to allow him to go through the papers in my cubicle. I clarified to him that when I said it was in the faculty room, I meant in the computer.

So I just told him to ask his classmates, since it was something he should have copied from them at least a week before. He left the room and returned two more times, probably to get money to have the file he got printed out.

Next he said he needed to borrow a soldering iron from the lab, but the technician (whose name he didn’t even know, and said was Roland when it’s actually Ronald) wasn’t there, and the teacher in the lab would not allow him to borrow.

Again, I told him to ask his classmates, something he should have been doing before he approached the teacher. I’m starting to believe that he was weaned in his high school to always approach the teacher, because his classmates were probably unreliable sources of help. It’s now become part of my goal with him to see that in college, this is not true, and that he could not survive the course without the help of his classmates, just as he would not survive in his career without the help of his fellow employees.

When his group mate finally showed up (that he just had to point out was late) they ended up not doing anything at all, but putting everything off to the next day.

Most of the things he wanted anyway weren’t really necessary, such as the breadboard (what for? Recreating the circuit before placing it in the PCB? Superfluous!) and the meter for measuring the resistance (that’s what learning to color codes is for) and the materials for making their own PCB when they have the option of using the one that came with the kit (no bonus, though, since they also won’t be asked to make their casing transparent).

And I definitely doubt they will get the double points bonus for submitting by tomorrow.

Session 1563 needs to know how to get his hands dirty on an electronics project. Class dismissed.