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anyone else one? Im finding it really easy to just put a slant on 3 or 4 facts and write for pages.

is this just me?

Enforcer Talen wrote:anyone else one? Im finding it really easy to just put a slant on 3 or 4 facts and write for pages.

is this just me?

I'm not a liberal arts major and I find that easy to do for humanities classes.

I used to ghost-write essays for people taking liberal-arts classes in university. I didn't always get an A, but I could always get a B or better. All I needed was a bit of notes from the class and a brief description of what the essay was about. Mind you, I never tried doing this for fourth-year classes, but I did first, second, and third-year liberals arts classes with no problem. And this was generally without actually attending any of these courses.

I've said this before and I'll say again: just try handing in a third-year engineering project based on such superficial preparation. The calculus alone would kill you. Liberal-arts essays are easy.

I was a political science major.

*barely dodges incoming fruit, eggs and Dunkin Donuts applications*

I became so adept at writing good papers quickly using a little bit of information to come up with some new interesting ideas, that I wouldn't even begin papers for poli-sci, philosophy, or psychology until the morning of the day that they were due. I was able to get "A's" on virtually all of them.

Yeah, it's absurdly easy to do stuff like that. I got an A+ on a speech I'd written the day of the speech, and a 90 on a final paper for Comp II on the day it was due, without doing much work beforehand.

Compare that to Calculus and Applied Calculus...I mean Physics, where I've never passed a test if I hadn't done at least an hour of work on each chapter, and I've never done well without working the material to death.

Enforcer Talen wrote:anyone else one? Im finding it really easy to just put a slant on 3 or 4 facts and write for pages.

is this just me?

Meh, I used to do History..one day I..after playing Civ1 for two days straight, I sat down and wrote out some essay that was due in at the end of that day and got a B. In short..get a hair cut and get a real job......... Which is what I went and did.

I know someone doing media who has currently on her plate about four 2000-4000 word essays. I took one look at the title of her first piece, one she's actually doing on the history of animé, and have to wonder why she's complaining.

Quite simply, how does one not know how to do part of their dissertation on a subject they love and have for years? I, for instance, am stuck with doing works that require just as much basic reading, a firm grasp of the key concepts and intuition as to how all this works in the grand scheme of things.

I don't openly say it out loud, but I can't stand arts and humanities majors complaining about workload when I have seen what they've had to do in comparison to science and engineering majors. I almost wish I had gone and done English Language as a course since I'd have aced it like I did in college and school.

Bertie Wooster wrote:I was a political science major.

*barely dodges incoming fruit, eggs and Dunkin Donuts applications*

I became so adept at writing good papers quickly using a little bit of information to come up with some new interesting ideas, that I wouldn't even begin papers for poli-sci, philosophy, or psychology until the morning of the day that they were due. I was able to get "A's" on virtually all of them.

As much as I hate certain non-scientific subjects adding the "science" suffix to sound respectable, I find comp-sci majors the worst for this. I know a load of them and some of the shit they talk about is mind numbing. I did computing for years before I finally saw myself as almost heading for a cubicle based job for life infront of a computer monitor. No job satisfaction, long hours and the audacity to call it a true science (it's close to maths if nothing else). Electronics would be better suited for a science title.

It takes me an hour or 2 to get the basic report done, then I need to spend the next couple days or so stretching the 2 page report into 20 pages of bullshit which says exactly the same thing. Damn psych class, if it weren't for all the hot chicks (and my need for a better GPA) I wouldn't have taken it.

aerius wrote:It takes me an hour or 2 to get the basic report done, then I need to spend the next couple days or so stretching the 2 page report into 20 pages of bullshit which says exactly the same thing. Damn psych class, if it weren't for all the hot chicks (and my need for a better GPA) I wouldn't have taken it.

"One of the reasons I became a doctor was for the laughs. That and the pussy. And that dried up ten years ago, if you pardon the expression."

Plenty of gorgeous girls in biology if you ever get bored of being a budding Freud. Ratio must be near 2:1 in my class against boys.

I always found it strange that they call Computer Science, well, Computer Science since it isn't even a science. One of my textbook says that it is the "science of the artificial" rather than a natural science, but meh. CS departments churn out software engineers for the most part.

I'll agree that most lib arts classes are relatively easy, but surprisingly enough our religion department gives out the lowest grades on campus. It's more because it requires very specialized writing and language than due to being really mind-numbingly hard, but it's ranked as the most difficult major on campus, with biology second and chemistry third. Education is the least demanding academically, but most demanding project wise. Journalism we jsut ignore, since they appear to be roughly at a low high school level for ability, based on the school newspaper. Economics is ranked middle to high, given that it's a fairly difficult major, heavily math-based (in our curriculum), and our fourth-year courses are considered the equivalent of second-year Master's courses by students we talk with from other Unis. We try to approach it more scientifically, looking at what theories work and which don't, and what can be done (if anything) to make any of the theories better reflect and predict the real world. Business is roughly the same, though with less examination of theory and more time on contract writing and ethical concerns (1 course in each is optional, but suggested). Most other majors I know little about on campus, other than the fact that we have the best Citrus department in the US (not hard, considering the only other one is at UF, and it's a much lower-grade program than ours).

phongn wrote:I always found it strange that they call Computer Science, well, Computer Science since it isn't even a science. One of my textbook says that it is the "science of the artificial" rather than a natural science, but meh. CS departments churn out software engineers for the most part.

I find that odd coming from you, I expected you to correct me as one friend did by saying something to the tune of "well, computers deal with algorithms and the interactions between man and machine and more maths" which, while true, does not make it a true science like the Big 3. Psychology, sociology et al are soft sciences, but I doubt computer or political "science" can even rival them. There's no scientific method to speak of for the most part.

I was an English and Poli Sci major.

There were, of course, different kinds of papers we had to write. The easy ones were the frosh level "prove some statement using the text" but when you got deeper into the major, especially english, critical arguments were a lot harder. Literary criticism is not a shoot from the hip topic (if you dont believe me, try to read some real feminist lit papers and then tell me "this is easy") And by real, I mean accepted as "the go-to" papers in the topic. Probably the hardest, and most rewarding, paper I ever had to write was a discussion of "The Wasteland" wherein I had to take the pre-edited version and the final product and discuss the influence of the two poems taken together, the effect Ezra Pund had on what was kept, and the change of period seen by camparing the two different apexes along with a few other points. Its those kind of papers that you cant pull something outta your ass and talk on about it. However, in classes that discussed texts like Hamlet or Crime and Punishment or even Turn of the Screw type books, you really could say anything you wanted, provided you backed it up with the text itself.

However, I found that i really could BS almost EVERY paper I had to write in Poli Sci...the major was a joke...

Enforcer Talen wrote:anyone else one?

I got my degree from the College of Liberal Arts, though it is a BS. I did however pick up a minor from the College of Engineering and Science so I could at least try and claim to be smart.

Im finding it really easy to just put a slant on 3 or 4 facts and write for pages.
is this just me?

Maybe. I had the hardest time writing papers. Even with the easiest courses I found it difficult.
There are in fact many thread here on SD.net that I never posted to because while I had strong opinions on the matters, I couldn't find a means of writing them out in an adequate matter. If you have good writing skills then by all means milk them for all their worth.

phongn wrote:I always found it strange that they call Computer Science, well, Computer Science since it isn't even a science. One of my textbook says that it is the "science of the artificial" rather than a natural science, but meh. CS departments churn out software engineers for the most part.

You could call it the "science of that which can be automated." But since everything in computer science is based on application, you have to wonder whether it qualifies as more an engineering field or a science.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:I find that odd coming from you, I expected you to correct me as one friend did by saying something to the tune of "well, computers deal with algorithms and the interactions between man and machine and more maths" which, while true, does not make it a true science like the Big 3. Psychology, sociology et al are soft sciences, but I doubt computer or political "science" can even rival them. There's no scientific method to speak of for the most part.

Durandal wrote:You could call it the "science of that which can be automated." But since everything in computer science is based on application, you have to wonder whether it qualifies as more an engineering field or a science.

CS is something of a fusion of maths, engineering and science (heavily weighted towards the first two). There's no easy description of the field. Most people who get a CS degree become software engineers while the majority of people who go into research seem to either do engineering or mathematics.

I am a Politcal Science, Law & Society double major...its my university's fancy way of saying Pre-Law.
Ok, so maybe the papers don't always take as much time to put together, but they still require a good amount of analytical thought. I had a professor a few semesters back who made us write two versions of our papers. The first had to be at least 5 pages. We then had to cut it back to 2 pages at a maxium. Now that was painful. Not all papers are that short though. I've written several 20 page papers, and the footnotes/endnotes were not counted as part of the page count.
I realize my major is far from a hard science, but it certainly still has credibility. (Now general liberal arts majors, who don't actually have a major...not so much)

phongn wrote:

Admiral Valdemar wrote:I find that odd coming from you, I expected you to correct me as one friend did by saying something to the tune of "well, computers deal with algorithms and the interactions between man and machine and more maths" which, while true, does not make it a true science like the Big 3. Psychology, sociology et al are soft sciences, but I doubt computer or political "science" can even rival them. There's no scientific method to speak of for the most part.

Durandal wrote:You could call it the "science of that which can be automated." But since everything in computer science is based on application, you have to wonder whether it qualifies as more an engineering field or a science.

CS is something of a fusion of maths, engineering and science (heavily weighted towards the first two). There's no easy description of the field. Most people who get a CS degree become software engineers while the majority of people who go into research seem to either do engineering or mathematics.

And in NZ some of these CS types can barly turn on a friggen computer after they graduate let alone fix one.

It depends very much on the level of the class and the quality of the department. I was a history/polisci double major and I had classes where I could throw together a paper in a few hours and classes where I had to work for weeks. Generally those subjects get difficult when you have to start doing original research--hitting the archives and the primary sources, or fooling with statistics. But writing a report based on secondary sources is typically not that difficult; anyone with good writing and critical thinking skills ought to be able to do well with that.

I used to ghost-write essays for people taking liberal-arts classes in university. I didn't always get an A, but I could always get a B or better. All I needed was a bit of notes from the class and a brief description of what the essay was about. Mind you, I never tried doing this for fourth-year classes, but I did first, second, and third-year liberals arts classes with no problem. And this was generally without actually attending any of these courses.

They actually turned in your essays for their classes? Isn't that kind of unethical?

Or did you just do them in your spare time for fun?

Stuart Mackey wrote:And in NZ some of these CS types can barly turn on a friggen computer after they graduate let alone fix one.

I've found that being able to program does not translate into actually using a computer. Two different things entirely.

Joe wrote:

I used to ghost-write essays for people taking liberal-arts classes in university. I didn't always get an A, but I could always get a B or better. All I needed was a bit of notes from the class and a brief description of what the essay was about. Mind you, I never tried doing this for fourth-year classes, but I did first, second, and third-year liberals arts classes with no problem. And this was generally without actually attending any of these courses.

They actually turned in your essays for their classes? Isn't that kind of unethical?

Or did you just do them in your spare time for fun?

He was a mechanical engineering major, so I doubt he took a few hours out of his free time to do these things "for fun." He was probably paid pretty well.

And it's really only unethical for the person handing it in. The ghost-writer just writes the essay and gives the other person permission to use it as he sees fit.

phongn wrote:

Stuart Mackey wrote:And in NZ some of these CS types can barly turn on a friggen computer after they graduate let alone fix one.

I've found that being able to program does not translate into actually using a computer. Two different things entirely.

Trouble is that over here, the inablity to fix a computer in that industry, makes you about as useless as tits on a bull, we like people who can do more than one thing.
*Edit* Moreover, its not like fixing computers is a hard thing to learn

phongn wrote:

Stuart Mackey wrote:And in NZ some of these CS types can barly turn on a friggen computer after they graduate let alone fix one.

I've found that being able to program does not translate into actually using a computer. Two different things entirely.

Absolutely. Many programmers are good at exactly one thing: programming. They can't properly secure their computers, always choose weak passwords and can't troubleshoot problems.

Stuart Mackey wrote:Trouble is that over here, the inablity to fix a computer in that industry, makes you about as useless as tits on a bull, we like people who can do more than one thing.

Why should a software engineer be required to know how to fix a computer? It is a useful skill but fixing computers should be the job of the IT department.

*Edit* Moreover, its not like fixing computers is a hard thing to learn

No, it isn't a hard thing but that isn't the point. And there is much to be said about experience in the art of fixing computers.