Went to Sylvan Lake, like last year. (Well, like every year, really.) Pros: No vehicle breakdowns this time. Cons: Smoke. *cough cough* The smoke drifting in from the forest fires in BC was so bad, it actually turned a sunny day into a cloudy one.
Next: Calgary. Yes, an Edmontonian can go to Calgary without being afraid to admit it. It's just important to leave Calgary again. The trip to the zoo was especially for my youngest daughter, so she could see real “tigas,” “elfints” and “zeebas”. Her big sister liked the playground best--no manure smell. As for me, well, I just went for the food.
I had my 25th high school reunion. It was a mindbending blast from the past, catching up with people I haven’t seen since high school. Others (like Eric in the picture), I lost touch with in the middle of undergrad years at university. Unfortunately, some old friends couldn’t make it to the get-togethers, but I was able to get in touch with them again via Facebook. (Yay, Facebook! Have you heard about it yet?)
Took my wife to the Lady Gaga concert. Had pretty lousy seats, but they were better than the ones that Calgary got. Bazinga! (Her tour didn't,um, stop in Calgary.) If you look really closely at the crappy photo I took using my crappy cell phone, you can see two blobs. One is Gaga, the other is the beautiful tongue of fire rising from her piano as she sang Speechless. Yes, I need a new cell phone.
Do I have to list all the Edmonton festivals I went to? Nah. You know all about those, right?
Beyond that, hmm, let's see: the usual collection of birthday parties, days in the park, BBQs with friends. Got an MRI on my knee. Woot! Sadly, it didn't leave me with any super powers.
And work, of course. There's always work (so, it wasn't completely a summer vacation, was it?). Instead of writing new lectures, I decided to improve the ones I've got. Although--I did come up with a new mini-lecture, by special request and...well, that's another blog entry.
Now, I've got a couple of questions: What did you do on your summer vacation?
Why aren't you studying?
What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2010 version)
The Awards: 3
The Department of Psychology's Teaching Honour Roll just came out for Winter, 2010. I'm happy to say that I (*modestly*) was placed on the Honour Roll with Distinction for all three of my courses. Woot! I also have to mention that 75% of instructors who taught in that term also got on the Honour Roll. Nice going, Department of Psychology colleagues! (But why the pic of the FIFA World Cup Trophy? Because...well, because. The World Cup is on right now. That's why.)
I also had the honour of winning two (!) of the inaugural Tolman Undergraduate Teaching Awards, or TUTAs. (Just say that out loud: toot-ahs, toot-ahs. Fun!) The two I won were:
- “The adoption of fake accents for educational purposes” (blimey!) and
- “Assignment most likely to results in a missing-persons report” (because of this assignment--but I've never lost a student...yet)
"Since all the sciences, and especially psychology, are still immersed in such tremendous realms of the uncertain and the unknown, the best that any individual scientist, especially any psychologist, can do seems to be to follow his own gleam and his own bent, however inadequate they may be. In the end, the only sure criterion is to have fun." (E. C. Tolman, 1959)So, yeah, the "TUTAs" are tongue-in-cheek awards. But I'm still gonna frame them and hang them up somewhere. Maybe in my Awards Room. That's a good place for them. As soon as I get an Awards Room.
Finally, by popular demand, here are some selected comments from my courses in the Winter, 2010 term, followed up by the every-popular snarky responses:
Intro psych:
"[I] pay to be taught, not to read a textbook"(Why no love for the textbook? You rated it 4.1/5, which is not spectacular, but not bad either. Like it or not, you're going to have to read in university.)
"Textbook reading should NOT be mandatory for exams"
"exam...focuses too much on [lecture] notes"(OK, I admit I do have to work on my exam questions. But peer-review? And usually, I get criticized for having too few exam questions from my lectures.)
"Exam questions need to be better constructed & peer-reviewed"
"notes are too straight forward, you can't understand"(Er, what? I should make them less straightforward...so they are more understandable?)
Perception:
"not very helpful out of class"(That's right: I'm not going to explain some theory when you run into me at West Edmonton Mall.)
"Your blog was very interesting & insightful"(Thank you. That's a very interesting and insightful comment.)
"I missed a day and could not get the notes from the missed class"(Did you ask me? All you have to do is ask me.)
"kept the class interested and attentive"(What if you three were all trapped in an elevator for 41 hours?)
"tedious...class was very boring"
"repetitive...maybe try new ways of presenting information"
"I had no time to read [the textbook] since other psych courses also require textbook readings"(OK, so it's the fault of those other courses. Those darn profs, making you read textbooks. Egad.)
Advanced Perception:
"would be nice to have a real textbook"(There are no appropriate textbooks for a 300-level perception course. But that's OK, because you like the readings I chose.)
"readings were well chosen and definitely preferable to a textbook"
"quizzes were annoying...but in the end, I was thankful for them--it engages me & forced me to read [the assigned readings]"(See? Toldja.)
"[quizzes] helped solidify my understanding of the main topics &...ensured I stayed up to date with the readings! It also taught me a useful study habit."
"I often left the class feeling as though he was talking down to us"(I don't know how I screwed that up. I apologize, and I will honestly try to adjust my tone in the future.)
"was difficult to approach and was very short with me. I find him extremely snobby and condescending"
"forced me to work harder and think longer about the subjects covered" [in a positive context](Yeah, sorry about all that work and thinking.)
Why aren't you studying?
Where are they now?
For students who have completed their degrees, it's a time of endings--and of new beginnings. It makes me think of former students who've entered the "real world". I don't hear from many, but I have kept in touch with a few. Here's what's going on with them...
Colin got his Master's degree in counseling psychology and is working toward his official accreditation (you have to do a few hundred hours of work under the supervision of an accredited counseling psychologist, then pass some tests--piece of cake, eh? :-). He didn't go into graduate school right after his undergrad, but ventured into the real world first. It can be tough to go back to school after being away, but Colin showed that it is possible. The picture here was taken at a psychology conference last year. (Yup, he's standing next to esteemed psychologist Philip Zimbardo. How cool is that?) I wrote Colin a letter of reference for graduate school. He seems to think that helped him get in, but really, it was his own abilities that did it. (I have a parallel--a person who was a graduate student at the time asked me to write some software to help her with her research. That led me into doing research as an undergraduate. Without that experience, I wouldn't have gotten into graduate school and I wouldn't be where I am today. Thanks again, Linda!)
I also keep in touch with Sherry. She was a student in the first course I taught all by myself. Despite that experience (ha!) she took more of my courses and even was even my teaching assistant for a few courses. I encouraged her to go to grad.school, and she did. She's got a Master's degree, during which she got to work with actual astronauts. Again: astronauts. How cool is that? Now she manages grants for a research group here at the UofA. She deals with budgets in the millions of dollars.
Stephanie was a standout student, from the first course of mine she suffered through (ha!). She then signed up to suffer through a few more, totally shredding the courses, and getting the top grade. (Doing that definitely gets my attention and helps me to remember you.) Later, she also worked as my TA a few times--one of the best ever! I was happy to write her a reference letter for graduate school. She also took counseling psychology--one of the most difficult academic programs to get into, period. After working outside the city for a while, she's back in Edmonton again. She gets to apply her knowledge of psychology to help actual people. How cool is that?
I hope you get to use your psychology education out in the real world someday, too. If you do, drop me a line!
Why aren't you studying?
Update 8/19/2010: Marc Roy, a former TA in Advanced Perception in the mid-90s, dropped me a line. I wrote him a letter of reference, too. He entered the Clinical Neuroscience program at Simon Fraser University, earning a Master's degree. He eventually returned to Alberta to work at the Halvar Johnson Centre for Brain Injury in Ponoka, and has recently started a private practice in Red Deer. He also taught an Environmental Psychology course at Canadian University College, which is spitting distance from where I used to live (Lacombe, Alberta). And he's got two kids. Wow, great, Marc!
The Moratorium
Perception (PSYCO 267) was the first course I ever taught all by myself. That was in Spring, 1995. I went back and dug up my lecture notes from that first course. (Word processor used: Ami Pro. Operating system used: Windows 3.1. I'm gettin' all teary-eyed. >snff<) Then I compared those numbers to the current version of my lecture notes for that course (Word processor used: Word 2007. Operating system used: Windows XP. Not teary-eyed there at all.)
Number of assigned readings:
- 1995: 12 chapters
- 2010: 14 chapters + 1 appendix
- 1995: 11,958
- 2010: 28,580
First, back in 1995, I presented my notes using an overhead projector. I remember fumbling a lot with transparencies, switching lecture notes with colour pictures and figures on separate sheets. Now, almost everything is contained in PowerPoint. That's the second reason. Using PowerPoint allows me to go a lot faster through material, partly because there's no more fumbling, just clicking. But there are two further reasons underlying my increase in speed. 1. The Internet. I distinctly remember having to pause frequently to allow students to write down my long, wordy, overly long, dense explanations and definitions--and everything else. I didn't start putting my lecture notes online until the next year. In 1995, few students had Internet access. (I also don't remember getting a single email from a student.)
2. I'm better now. Um, I mean I'm a better instructor now than I was back then--a grad.student teaching only my second course ever. I'm sure my explanations were relatively poor, and I do remember having to answer quite a few questions from students in class. I like to think that now--knowing what concepts are difficult to understand--I can provide much better and more efficient explanations.
Still, the bottom line is: There is more in my course now than ever before. You might think this is unfair, especially compared to those students who had less to learn in the 90s. Or, you might be happy that you're getting as much as possible out of a course that is loaded with lots of relevant, contemporary research and theory. I like to think it's the latter case.
There are hundreds (thousands?) of papers, posters, articles, and books published and presented on topics in psychology every year. (A $2 reward to the first person to give me a reliable estimate of how many articles were published on psychological topics in 2009). I would not be doing the best possible job if I didn't stay current in the areas I teach: human factors & ergonomics, perception, cognition, and, well, introductory psychology. Which, er, means almost all of psychology, except for personality/abnormal/clinical psychology. (I'm proud that I even have two sources from 2010 in my perception course. That's about as current as I can get.)
But here's the problem: More isn't better. I can't just keep adding and adding to each course every year. I'll just have to go keep going faster and faster to cover it all. That's not doing the best possible job either. It's stupid to include a cutting-edge study at the expense of spending time explaining some concept that is core to the course. That's why I've decided to impose a moratorium on myself. I want to improve what I've got, to make sure that what I'm trying to explain comes across clearly, to smoothly transition between topics, to simplify overly complex things and add complexity back to things I've oversimplified. I've already started doing it. If you've noticed me scribbling on my notes during class, I've discovered something that I could present better...
Why aren't you studying?
The Best Job in the World
Or: The Best Jobs in America. This CNN.com/US Bureau of Labor Statistics info (via this lifehacker.com post) lists the top 37 jobs in America. At the top is systems engineer. But let's look a bit below that...
Coming in at number 3: college professor. Median salary: $US70,400; top pay: $US115,000. Hmm, I don't work at a college, and I'm not a professor. In the US, "college" means "university." In Canada, "college" generally means either a post-secondary diploma-granting institution, or a bachelor's degree-only community college. But still, it does specify "professor." I guess there's a lot of good that comes with tenure.
In the number 23 spot is clinical psychologist (and 24 is psychiatrist). Ooh, close, but that's not me, either. Clinical psychologists are the ones who see patients (whoops, I mean "clients") and help them with psychological disorders, as do psychiatrists. Interestingly, this listing is not for professional psychologists, which in addition to clinical psychologists also includes counseling psychologists. Anyway, let's check out the pay. Median salary: $US81,100; top pay: $US172,000. Wow, that looks pretty good! (Naturally, psychiatrists make even more--remember, they can make $500 per session in private practice.) I've heard that clinical and professional psychology programs are now the hardest to get in to--even harder than medical school. If you're planning on this as a career, you better have straight As, research experience, and probably some volunteer experience, too.
While I'm rattling off stats, here are some more psychology numbers, from an APS Observer article:
- 6% of the 1.5 million bachelor's degrees earned by students in 2006-2007 were awarded in psychology
- psychology bachelor degrees awarded rose 17.3% from 2001 to 2007
- in the academic year 2006-2007, over 90,000 bachelor's degrees were awarded in psychology
- 21,000 master's degrees were awarded in psychology
- and just over 5,000 doctoral degrees were awarded in psychology
Why aren't you studying?
Career Transition
OK, this is just what I don't want to see in my email: information specifically directed to CAST (contract academic staff: teaching) about "career transitions." In other words: What to do when you are canned. Wow, how classy!
This document was prepared by Employee & Family Assistance Program (motto: "Healthy people, healthy workplace"), which is a part of the UofA's Human Resource Services. (The PDF document properties actually includes the name of the person who created it, but I don't want to embarrass her. That would not be classy.) It includes a lovely pastoral scene of a road stretching off far into the potential with opportunity trees providing gentle, sun-dappled prospect shade. Although I can't quite see what's off in the distance. Is it possibility? Promise?
Let's go through this document. Hmm, "Resume Writing, Interview Preparation." (I don't have a resume, I have a curriculum vitae, thank you very much. Sniff.) "Financial Consultation Service," "Career Consultation Service." Oooh, hey, lookit, "Counseling Services." I get to talk to a counselor about losing my job! That will help with my well-being! Er, but only for 3 months. (I guess after that, I will have gotten a job. Or I won't be depressed any more. Right?)
Now, to be fair (which I don't have to be, whyshouldI?), the Career Transition & Job Loss web page does have similar documents to this for other constituency groups: Career Transition Services for Support Staff, Career Transition Services for Administrative Professional Staff, Career Transition Services for Academic Staff. But somehow I doubt that anyone else got sent a blanket email distributing their career transition resources. Just contract academic staff.
Needless to say, getting this document freaked me out. A lot. Is this some sort of hint? Like showing the chicken the hatchet? Or was it a just-in-case sort of thing? Maybe HRS realizes that CAST will likely be the first choice in many departments to get cut. Despite my oft-demonstrated superior teaching skills (toot! tooting my own horn, toot!) when it comes down to money, sorry bub, you're the low man on the totem pole.
I did go and talk to some people about this. What I heard was reassuring: they don't want to get rid of me (or other contract staff in the Department), and they're trying to find other ways to save money--but, of course, nothing is guaranteed. So, I'm going to be a bit antsy until (if!?) my contract is renewed at the end of the summer. Yeah, I have to wait that long. Hey, look what's in my email. A notice that MacEwan University is hiring a lecturer in psychology. Excuse me while I go and prepare my resume...
Why aren't you studying?
The End of Term
In one of my classes this term
, I finished my lectures with time to spare. In the other two, I was so far behind, I had to skip content (which I hate to do) and talk really fast (which I really hate to do).
I try to make lectures fill the time available. That's not easy when I've got a new lecture: I don't know how long it'll take exactly. Maybe students will have lots of questions, or maybe my PowerPoint slides are confusing and I have to make up for it with a lot of top-of-my-head explaining. On the other hand, it could be deadly boring, and I'll rip through it just to put an end to everyone's misery.
One thing that helps is showing videos in class--for a number of reasons. They're great buffers. Running short of time? Cut the videos. Lots of time to spare? Show them all. Of course, I'd always like to show all the videos, because I believe there's some educational value in hearing people explain their theories in her own words. Especially if they're, er, dead now. I still have fond memories of some of the interesting videos that were shown in the classes I took as an undergrad.
Despite cutting out some videos, things didn't work out this term. But I know why: not all terms are created equal. For example, Tuesday/Thursday courses can have 25 or 26 classes during a Fall or Winter term. That's a difference of 80 minutes, which is a lot of lecture. It's even worse for Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday classes, which can have 36, 37, or even 38 classes--creating a maximum difference of 100 minutes.
Beyond showing videos, I really don't know how else to handle this variability. Should I create more lecture material and only use it some terms? But is that fair to the students who enroll in a different term and are "deprived" of some of my wonderful lectures? Should I just rip through it all when I'm short of classes in a given term? Or should I just try and fill the minimum amount of time, and then cancel any extraneous classes? (Why am I even asking this? Believe it or not, some students do not want profs to cancel any classes--they want to get as much of the time they paid for as possible.)
I'm looking forward to Spring term because the number of classes is always reliably the same. Although the amount of time I have to lecture in Spring is actually less than a Fall or Winter course. *sigh*
Why aren't you studying?
The Importance of Sleep, Again
What's worse is that I've been reading a lot of really good research showing just how important it is to get a good night's sleep. The Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) has an annual meeting showcasing a huge amount of interesting work on sleep. At their meeting in June, 2009, one study in particular caught my eye (and the attention of some journalists and bloggers). It was found that sleep quality (not quantity, per se) was correlated with math scores. That is, the better your sleep, the better your scores on math exams. English scores went up, too. You don't think you can affect the quality of sleep you get? Sure you can: sleep on a regular schedule, don't pull all-nighters, and don't have a baby who wakes up every couple of hours. (OK, maybe that last one is a bit hard to do.)
Sleep also has been shown to aid memory: "Sleeping on it" may just be the best way to remember something. And in another widely reported finding, sleep quality turned out to be important for learning in general, and for learning vocabulary in particular. Ya, more gooder sleeps does to help your talking goodly-like and knowing the betterer words.
Ugh, I need a nap.
Why aren't you studying?
Baklava!
That's a picture of my baklava to the left there. To get my mind off feeling sick and miserable, I decided to make baklava. Sure, I could easily stop by Paradiso Pastries (11318 134 Avenue) on the way home. But there's just something about creating using your own hands.
I'm a fan of the blog dinner with Julie, written by a (*choke*) Calgary mom, cookbook author, radio personality, caterer, and (obviously) blogger. Coincidentally, she also made baklava recently (I made mine first). I've made a few of her recipes, but this time I just wanted to get rid of some phyllo I've had in the freezer since, well, er...since before my kids were born. It was still good, amazingly.
My recipe came from my main man, Alton Brown. I thought his recipe was interesting, using three different kinds of nuts. Instead of walnuts, though, I opted for cashews. Also, to put a Canadian spin on it, I added some maple syrup to the honey syrup. Yum!
How does this relate to psychology? Well, I am talking about the psychology of food and eating in my Advanced Perception course, and I'll be talking about hunger, eating, and weight in intro psych soon. Hmm, after eating all this baklava, maybe I go and weigh myself...
Why aren't you studying?
The Laryngitis
I'm sorry for the state of my voice this week. I know I sound like a frog with, um, a frog in its throat.
I was hit by a particularly nasty virus (picked up from my oldest daughter, via daycare or school, grr!) that decided to settle in my lungs, turning into a lower respiratory tract infection--likely pneumonia--activating my asthma, and giving me bronchitis. The result of all this was a cough that was so bad that my wife took her pillow and went to sleep in a different room. Wearing earplugs.
I started taking antibiotics for the infection, and maxed out on daily doses of inhaled steroids to open my airways. Unfortunately (I am coming to a point here, really; this isn't just about me describing my illness, honestly), one of the side effects is a hoarse voice. Or, in extreme cases, laryngitis: an inflammation of the larynx, which includes the vocal apparatus. Hence, my sounding like a goat that's eaten, um, a Smart Car. Wait, that doesn't even make sense. Did I mention I've got a fever, too? But look, you're learning all about parts of the body. Yay!
I always try my best to work through whatever illness I've got. It would be nice to put up my feet at home, and snuggle into an easy chair with a bowl of chicken soup to watch Oprah. But I don't see that as being professional. If I miss a class (or two, or three), that throws a monkey wrench into my schedule. Do I cut things out of the lecture? Do I just talk really, really fast to get through it all? Both of those are not fair to students--the paying customers. So, the show must go on.
Obviously, if my voice goes completely, I've got to give up. So complete laryngitis is one of the few things that will keep me out of the classroom. The others are explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting. Of those three, I'd pick laryngitis.
So, what do you think? Should I stay at home with Oprah, or try and croak through my lectures?
Why aren't you studying?
Anatomy of a Lecture: Part 3
So far, I’ve talked about deciding on a new lecture topic, and the prep work that went into it. This time, I’ve got a collection of links to websites on synesthesia. I know I promised a “ridiculous” number of links, but these aren’t all the resources I used; I’m not going to link you to scientific journal articles, and, er, I can’t link to an actual book. Still, there’s lots of good stuff out there (and it’s not overly technical).
Tests: Think you’ve got synesthesia? Take one of these tests and find out for sure (the first one is a “real” test, the others are not so hot).
- The Synesthesia Battery is David Eagleman’s rigorous, standardized test of synesthesia
- Synaesthesia Toolkit from Multisense Synaesthesia Research lab, directed by Prof. Julia Simner at the University of Sussex
- Synesthesia tests has a number of different, um, synesthesia tests (unfortunately, it’s in poorly translated English)
- Synesthesia Test assesses your grapheme → colour synesthesia (but if you simply click on the same colour over and over though, it hilariously thinks you have synesthesia!)
- animator Samantha Moore's video An Eyeful of Sound represents her visual experience of sounds, in collaboration with Dr Jamie Ward
- a sort-of simulation of grapheme → colour synesthesia: type letters and watch them change colours
- a strange Java applet that turns visual images into sound, called The vOICe
- here’s a musical sketch pad that turns your drawings into sound
- experience sound generated from watercolour paintings by an artist
- the Music Animation Machine lets you turn any piece of music into a coloured visual display
- I think the best one so far was produced by the BBC series Horizon, called “Derek Tastes of Earwax” (love that title). It also aired in the US as “When Senses Collide” and “When Senses Overlap” (available on YouTube)
- ResearchChannel has another good one, called Red Mondays and Gemstone Jalapeños: The Synesthetic World (available on YouTube). BoingBoing has an abridged version as well (available on YouTube).
- Another Discovery Channel show, One Step Beyond, has a brief video on synesthesia that features interviews with David Eagleman and noted synesthete Sean Day (available on HowStuffWorks).
- The Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast has an episode on Synesthesia
- Everyday fantasia: The world of synesthesia from the APA Monitor
- “Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes” by V.S. Ramachandran and E. M. Hubbard in Scientific American
- Do you see what they see? from Discover Magazine
- The Most Beautiful Painting You’ve Ever Heard from SEED magazine
- Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia - on Richard Cytowic’s website
- Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia - on David Eagleman’s website
- The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses - by Jamie Ward
(related animations are on YouTube) - Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant - by Daniel Tammet
- Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens by Patricia Lynne Duffy is an older book
Websites by/for/about synesthetes: Sometimes, it’s best to hear what synesthesia is like first-hand, from those who experience it.
- Sean Day’s Synesthesia website
- The Synesthesia Tree
- r/Synesthesia Reddit
- otherthings.com
- Synaesthesia.com
- sensequence
- the Wikipedia article on synesthesia is actually pretty good--honestly (so is the page on synesthesia in art)
- the Scholarpedia article on synesthesia is also quite good
- and then there’s the synesthesia article at The Psychology Wiki
- Go Cognitive has a series of interview videos with researcher Jamie Ward
- Scientific American answers the question, What is synesthesia?
- Ramachandran and Hubbard answer some questions about synesthesia
- Ramachandran’s Reith Lecture on BBC radio, titled “Purple numbers and sharp cheese”
- Ramachandran’s TED lecture includes some of his work on synesthesia
- Crossing Sensory Boundaries from Wired Science discusses synesthesia and binding
- Educational Neuroscience Lab -- Ed Hubbard's lab at University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Eagleman Lab -- at Stanford University
- David Eagleman -- personal website
- Synaesthesia Research -- at University of Sussex (Jamie Ward)
- until Scholarpedia's article on qualia is ready, you might as well start at Wikipedia
- here's a very brief introduction
- now, here's a whole website devoted to qualia: The Qualia Manifesto
- finally, here's a really long paper on the qualia of colour experience
Why aren't you studying?
(12/31/2023: Links updated)
How to Get Free Marks
You want free marks? Sure, no problem--all you have to do is prove to me that I'm wrong.
It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Earlier this term, Melissa T. asked me why the teaching assistant had marked an answer wrong on one of her assignments. She had written an alternative answer that sounded plausible to me, so I told her about my free mark policy. Melissa came back a couple of days later with a strong journal article supporting her point, and she ended up with a free mark! (To be fair, my TA stuck to the marking guide I provided, so it's not the TA's fault Melissa initially lost a mark. It's impossible to create a marking guide that covers every possible answer, and every variation on an answer. But that's another post for another day.)
You might have learned something in another one of your classes that contradicts what I say (or what the textbook says). This shouldn't be surprising--"facts" change all the time in science. (Like, old-time doctors used to prescribe smoking. And cocaine. Nice going, stupid old-time doctors!) The instructor of one of your other classes might be up on some brand-new study that hasn't worked its way into the textbook I use, into my lectures, and into my exams. So why should you be penalized for knowing more? Or, perhaps, for knowing something in more detail?
So, to get a free mark, all you have to is:
- find an error in the marking of an exam or assignment (sorry, no free marks for correcting an error in the textbook--that is worth $2, however--and no free marks for pointing out an error in my lectures, although you will have my genuine gratitude)
- find good (i.e., peer-reviewed, primary source) evidence to support your answer (sorry, Googling some random website or even finding empirical evidence cited in a textbook is not good enough--it's got to make it through the peer-review process)
- find current evidence (sorry, digging up a peer-reviewed paper from 1847 may not qualify if subsequent research has undermined it)
- give me your supporting evidence at least one day before the final exam
Why aren't you studying?
Anatomy of a Lecture: Part 2
(
As you read in part 1, I've been working hard on a new lecture, on synesthesia.)
How long does it take to prepare (or "prep") a lecture? There's no simple answer to this. Different people will take different amounts of time. Some topics may take longer than others. And I don't think anyone actually keeps track of how long it takes (because that would take time, too; also, the final number would probably be a bit depressing). Plus, doing background research takes a certain amount of time, as does typing the lecture notes, as does creating the PowerPoint slides, as does creating the notes for the web. Do you count all of that time?
Looking around on the web, there are warnings to about how long it takes to prepare lecture material. A common one is that it takes 10 hours for a "new prep" (a course you've never taught before), and 3 hours to update a previously taught class. However, the book Advice for New Faculty Members by Robert Boice recommends that instructors try and reduce prep time to 2 hours for every hour of class, otherwise too much time is wasted, taking away from time doing research. I've also read recommendations that instructors should ask to borrow other people's lecture materials! (Note to anyone who's going to ask: The answer is No. Why? Aside from students, the sum total of my working life since 1995 is my lecture notes. Go do yours yourself.)
I haven't kept close track of how much time I spent on my new lecture on synesthesia. But I'd put it at over 100 hours. This includes listening to a whole bunch of podcasts, watching several documentaries, reading paper after paper after paper, reading (all or parts of) six books, and going to dozens of websites. I'm not telling you this to show off or anything. Maybe I'm a terrible instructor, and that's why it takes me so long. Perhaps somebody else could have whipped this off using the 2-hour recommendation: there are 3 hours of lecture to fill, so they would have spent no more than 6 hours of prep time. Yeah, I wish.
The synesthesia lecture I created is one of the largest I've created that focuses on a single sensory/perceptual phenomenon: 83 PowerPoint slides. Object Perception in PSYCO 267, in contrast, clocks in at 104 slides, but I've got a ton of image-only slides. Perception and Art in PSYCO 365 is a whopping 126 slides--but there are oh-so-many gorgeous pictures of fine art and not a lot of wordy words.
One of the hardest things to do when creating something is edit: deciding what to include and what to (*sigh*) leave out. I left out a lot of things about synesthesia, sometimes because they weren't directly relevant, and sometimes because they were just redundant with other studies. I felt obligated to talk about the current state of theories about synesthesia, and the evidence surrounding them--it turns out that research on synesthesia is exploding with the use of brain imaging techniques. In fact, from 2000-2006, there were 60 studies published (compared to less than 20 in the 1990s). I don't want to brag or anything, but I doubt there's anyone on campus who knows more about synesthesia than I do right now. Ok, I'm bragging.
If you have an interest in synesthesia, part 3 will have a ridiculous number of links to more info. Ridiculous!
Why aren't you studying?
Thanks for Nothing
When the provincial budget (slogan: "Budget 2010: Striking the Right Balance") first came out on February 9, there was cautious optimism on campus because there was a 0% increase in operating grants for post-secondary education. This was not unexpected, and was a whole lot better than facing a cutback.
Sadly however, tucked away behind all the announcements, there was a cutback of 4.5%, or $20 million. That might not seem like a lot, but it's a staggering amount, coming on the heels of a $59 million shortfall (or "budget gap") due to reduced provincial grants, and the recent tanking of global economic markets, among other things. (But hey, it's not all bad news for everybody in education--Alberta teachers are getting a 5.99% raise! Retroactive to September 1, 2009! Of course, it's up to the school boards to find that money.)
Here's the problem: there's not a lot of room to cut. Moving the UofA's email system to Gmail will save only about $1 million. Big whoop. How else can the gap be closed? Raising tuition as much as provincial law allows? Check. Introducing crazy new "fees" (*cough* CoSSS *cough*)? Check. Asking the staff association (AASUA) to take "furlough" days off without pay? Check-a-roonie. Let's just take a look at the latter one.
Academic staff will have the following days off: December 24, and December 29 to 30, 2010; as well as January 4 and 5, 2011. (In addition, there are holidays like December 25 and 26, which are observed on Monday, December 27 and Tuesday the 28th because the holidays fall on a weekend; the same goes for January 1 which is observed on Monday, January 3, 2011.) I now realize that I'm not paid for working on weekends! Wow! So don't expect me to answer any emails on the weekend. Also, I won't be answering emails on my furlough days. Mark your calendars! I shouldn't be doing any prep work for the upcoming semester, working on lectures, reading papers, that sort of thing. Of course, going back to work on Thursday, January 6th is going to be a helluva bitch.
So, where else can we cut? How about getting rid of some of the "fat cats" mentioned in some of the asinine comments following this story in the Edmonton Journal? Hmm, I don't see many people wearing three-piece suits puffing on cigars. Hey, maybe they mean tenured faculty? Ooops--nope, you can't just give a full Professor a pink slip. But the story in the paper talks about layoffs. Who could they going to lay off...? Who could they chop...?
Contract staff like me.
I'm not going to be sleeping too well unless/until my contract is renewed at the end of the summer. Sure, the classes I teach are full, with even more students wanting to get in. Sure, my teaching performance has won me awards. But how much does that count when it comes to the cold, hard numbers and cold, hard cash? In fact, my years of experience and awards may work against me: I'm more expensive than, say, a graduate student or someone with a shiny new Ph.D. So I might be getting a whole lot more "days off" than just six furlough days.
As students, you can expect higher tuition/fees (duh), almost certainly larger classes, and those classes may be taught by some really grumpy professors who've had their arms twisted to get them out of the lab and back into the classroom. (This happened before, in the 1990s as a consequence of the Ralph Klein cuts--there was a massive layoff of sessionals, class sizes grew, and some bitter close-to-retirement profs were forced back into the classroom.)
So thanks, Ed. Thanks for nothing.
Hope I'll see you next year...
Why aren't you studying?
Anatomy of a Lecture: Part 1
I regularly review the lectures in each course I teach. I ask myself, Am I presenting the current state of research and theory? Is it interesting and relevant? Is there something else I could (or should) be talking about?
Sometimes, I look at a lecture and decide that it's past its prime--either I have to revamp it completely or get rid of it. Either option is hard. It's not fun to completely redo a lecture; I've got to immerse myself in the current theories and read a whole bunch of research papers. On the other hand, because I've spent a lot of time developing a lecture, it's hard to retire it (it's one of my babies!).
Last year, I realized that my Advanced Perception lecture on motion perception was not keeping up with the times. (For example, I presented a theory that--although interesting--has been largely abandoned.) Worse, a lot of the lecture repeated the same information from my lower-level Perception course, making it repetitive and potentially even boring. But trying to get up to speed on the complex area of motion perception was daunting. So, out it went.
My motion perception lecture was followed by an extended look at the (controversial) ecological approach to perception. Why did I spend so much time on this one theory? No other theory got such privileged treatment, and I briefly talked about the ecological approach earlier in the course alongside the other major theories. Then I remembered that I originally developed the lecture to complement a chapter on the ecological approach in the assigned textbook for the course. Which I was no longer using. Oops. So, out it went.
This left me with a large hole in the middle of term that I would have to fill with a new lecture. Actually, I wanted to make room in the course so that I could talk about the strange phenomenon known as "synesthesia." Now I had room--lots and lots of room. Just really quite a large bit of room: 3 hours of lecture.
So I was faced with a new problem: Would there be enough known about synesthesia to fill out a whole lecture--and fill all that time? The answer: Yes. Oh, yes, indeed--as you'll see in part 2...
Why aren't you studying?
The Awards: 2
The Department of Psychology's Teaching Honor Roll just came out. These awards are based on teaching evaluations in Fall, 2009 term classes. I'm pleased to report that I was named to the Teaching Honor Roll for one class, and the Honor Roll With Distinction for the other two. This is a good news/bad news thing.
It's good news that, generally, students in two of my classes had a very positive experience. But it's bad news that students in the other class did not have a similarly positive experience. It's the first time since 1997 that I have not received Honor Roll With Distinction for an intro psych class. Looking back, I know what the problem in that class was: the room.
The room I taught in is dark. The walls are dark brick, and the lighting is terrible--sort of pot lights, creating dim little spotlights here and there. Making it worse is the fact that I have to turn off some lights so everyone can see the PowerPoint slides. Why is darkness a problem?
If you're (literally) in the dark in a public space, you feel anonymous. It's like you're the only one there and no one can see you. As a result, you might be more likely to engage in behaviours that you might not, if the lights were on. (Don't believe me? Check out this paper, titled "Good Lamps Are the Best Police: Darkness Increases Dishonesty and Self-Interested Behavior".) The behaviour in this case was chatting. I had some students chatting during the whole entire damn class, from the start to the end. In case you haven't guessed, this really pisses me off.
I'm trying my best to provide a certain in-class experience for students. To do this, I require the cooperation of everyone in the room. Now I don't insist on absolute silence or anything. I've got no problem with someone asking their neighbour for the last fill-in word they missed. But if you're talking during the whole entire damn class, why bother coming? I mean, really? What are you getting out of the class? Filling in blanks here and there on a printout is not the same as learning. In fact, it's not learning at all. Even worse, with your nonstop chatter, you're disrupting the other students all around you--the ones who actually do want to learn something. And it also throws me off, too.
If a pair of students continues to chat for a bit too long, I often stop talking and glare at them until they get the message and shut up. (This is not going to happen to you if you're occasionally getting fill-in words from your neighbours.) Social pressure can work wonders. However, if a classroom is dark, I may not be able to see who's talking. That's what happened last term. Although I did stop-'n-stare quite a few times, there were always other conversations that just kept going and going and going. It was so bad, I had numerous students ask me to do something about it.
So I gave my class a stern lecture about respect and taking their conversations outside. That didn't work. So I threatened to remove the talkers from the class if they didn't shut up (which I actually had to do once before). That didn't work; I couldn't see them in the dark. I grew increasingly frustrated, and dreaded going to each class. That's right: I had a class that I did not want to go to. For me, this is a worst-case scenario--disliking a class. And this was just due to a very small minority of people. With a negative attitude, I probably did not do the best possible job for that class. For that, I apologize.
The point of this rant is to get out the message that your behaviour has consequences, often beyond what you might expect. If you're excited to see one of your friends in a class, that's great. But if you want to catch up, do it after class. Go for coffee, or have lunch together. But do not spend the whole entire damn class chatting. Realize that you're not just bothering the other students within earshot, but you may also be disrupting your instructor, thereby affecting the whole class.
Why aren't you studying?
UPDATE: Here are comments from my evaluations in that noisy class:"class are also often too noisy"
"[instructor] did nothing to actually stop [the class] talking"
"I appreciate you respecting students' desire to learn by reprimanding those continually talkative students. They were the only downside in this course."
"Thanks you for acknowledging the chatterboxes in our class and reprimanding them"
"It was a noisy class!"
The Reading List: 1
This post is not about your reading list. (For that, you should Read The Syllabus.) No, this is about my reading list--the things that I'm reading at the moment. I'm not going to include the endless, neverending stream of journal articles. Here instead are some of the books I'm currently reading...
I've just finished SuperFreakonomics, which is an economics book. Wait wait wait! I didn't say it was an economics textbook, did I? No, I didn't. It's a really engaging book, looking at the microeconomics of... Wait wait wait! It's not boring, really--just check out the reviews at Amazon.com. The stories they present are interesting for their own sake, but as a psychologist, I like the intersection of psychology and economics, in what's called "behavioural economics": how our behaviour is affected by perceptions of incentives.
Right now, however, I've just started "reading" Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. Why the quotes? I'm actually listening to it as a audiobook. Although I bought the book when it first came out, I never seemed to have time to sit down and read it. I didn't want to start reading it and then have to put it aside and do work or something. Neil Gaiman is just about my favourite author; every story he writes is like a coconut cream pie with pecans, deep-fried in chocolate and covered with whipped cream. I would not want to put that down. Listening to this during my commute makes the time just fly by. Bonus: The Graveyard Book is up next! Extra bonus: if you're short on cash, these audiobooks are available from the Edmonton Public Library (membership: only $12/year).
I'm never reading just one book. Also, I'm always reading something work-related. Fun, but work-related. Right now, that's The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses by Jamie Ward. Synesthesia is a curious phenomenon in which people experience a stimulus in the usual way (like seeing a letter), but also having a cross-modal experience (seeing a letter in a particular colour, when it's actually just gray). For many years, it was pooh-poohed, but there a ton of neuroscience research being done on it now. I'm reading this to prep for a lecture on synesthesia I'm writing for my Advanced Perception course.
What are you reading? Tell me in the comments below.
Why aren't you studying?
Read The Syllabus
Q: 
What's the most important thing to do on the first day of class?
A: Go to class. (Why, what was your answer?)
The other important thing to do is: Read the syllabus. The syllabus (from Latin, meaning "list") or course outline is my blueprint for the entire course. I spend hours writing each syllabus, making very careful choices in what I include--and what I leave out. I try to keep it short, fitting it to one sheet of paper whenever possible. That's not easy to do without going to a 6-point font. So it's really discouraging for me to have someone ask for information that's in the syllabus.
Here are The Top 10 Questions That Are Answered By The Syllabus:
1. Is this class graded on a curve?I'm not going to say that these are stupid questions. ("Rrrd. Fffa. Ffllabfff." I'm biting my lip really hard right now.) But if you find yourself asking one of these questions, I hope you feel awfully sheepish when I tell you, "It's on the syllabus." I mean, if you can't bring yourself to read and remember what's on the syllabus, how are you going to do on the exams?
2. Is there a textbook for this course?
3. Is there anything specific we're supposed to be reading?
4. When is the midterm?
5. What chapters are on the midterm?
6. When are your office hours?
7. Where's your office?
8. Do I need a prereq for this course?
9. What if I miss a midterm?
10. Is the final cumulative?
OK, so my metaphor for the syllabus is a blueprint. The UofA, on the other hand, views it more as a contract between instructor and student. There's a lot of "Calendar" this and "Code of Student" that. It really is important for you to know what your rights are, otherwise, you're probably going to forfeit them. (When, for example, is the deadline for disputing marks on a midterm or other term assignment? Read the syllabus.)
Interestingly, university administration is thinking about cutting funds for printing hardcopies of syllabi to save money. I find that it's hard enough to get some students to read a piece of paper that been put directly into their hands--what if it's now just some e-document online somewhere? Honestly, I think I'd be willing to spend my own money to copy the syllabus and hand it out in class, if it comes to that.
What do you think? Does it matter to you if you get a hardcopy syllabus or not? Post your opinion in the comments below.
Why aren't you studying?
Update 1/4/2010: Just got the memo (which was supposed to be sent out last month) in my email: the Dean (of Arts, apparently) is "strongly encouraging" us to go with e-syllabi.
Update 5/10/2013: Great comic by PhD Comics: "It's in the syllabus."
The CCIS
Today, I went for a sneak-peek, behind-the-scenes tour of the new CCIS (Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science) Phase Two lecture theatres. I couldn't resist--you know how much I'm into behind-the-scenes things.
(What, you think that just because classes and exams are over that I'm sitting at home in my pajamas, watching Oprah and drinking wassail? Oh no, my friend. I'm still on the payroll, so the work doesn't stop.)
Anyway, the good news is that some of the new CCIS lecture theatres are going to open next term. The bad news is that they won't be ready for the first day of classes. That means that classes are going to be moved over--during the term. Urgh.
I know it's hard enough to find your classes in the first place. But you ain't seen nothin' yet. Finding your way into the CCIS building is going to be quite a puzzle. (No, it's not a psychology experiment. But it would be a good test of wayfinding. Hmm.) And if you're in a wheelchair, or otherwise in need of a ramp, well...leave lots of extra time. Like half an hour.
Changing classrooms in the middle of a term--or, even worse, early in the term--is a nightmare. These lecture rooms are cutting-edge high-tech. Instructors are going to have to attend a class (!) to learn how to use the room. (Try and explain that to your grampa: "I have to learn how to use the room.") The rooms are outfitted with dual big-screen displays, computerized lighting controls, multiple cameras, motorized podium, in-room Wi-Fi, and more. In other words, there are a lot of things that can fail. Hey, if the classroom crashes in the middle of my lecture, don't blame me. How do you reboot a Smart Classroom anyhow? Maybe by slamming one of the doors really hard.
There are going to be 24 classes moved over to CCIS in Winter, 2010 term. Courses like CHEM 102, BIOL 107, and MICRB 265. But by far, the most courses are going to be psychology: nine classes in total. If some of your psych instructors look a little ragged on Monday, January 11, don't be surprised. Maybe you could even help us out. By pointing which direction to go to get to our class. Thanks in advance.
Why aren't you drinking wassail?
The Importance of Backups
How important is your term paper? Oh, that important. So you must be taking precautions against losing it, right? Right?
It's the time of year for term papers to be handed in, or for excuses to be given about why they're not being handed in. "The computer ate my paper" is an increasingly popular occurrence. (By the way, I'm going to assume that no one is lying about this. I like to assume the best about students, not the worst.) Here are a few suggestions about how to keep your term paper from getting vanished.
- Save. Save save save. Don't just type away and then save your document right before you power down. Be compulsive about saving. When I work on my lecture notes, I have a Ctrl-S twitch that goes off about every couple minutes.
- Make a local backup. This is easy to do: just copy your term paper to another location on your hard drive. So why don't people just do that? It can be a hassle. You've got to remember to do it every time you close down your word processor. And then it's still possible for your whole hard drive to crash.
- Make a local backup to another device. This backup solution avoids the hard drive crash-problem. You could copy your file to a flash drive. You don't need a fancy 16GB drive to save your term paper; even 128MB will do, and those ones are going for $5. Or you could shell out a few more bucks for an external hard drive. But what about the remember-to-backup problem? Some external drives (and even some flash drives) come with software that automatically backs up certain files. A free software option for Windows is Microsoft's SyncToy using the "echo" option.
- Make a backup to the cloud. Cloud computing is a big buzzword in computing right now. In this option, you send your data over the Internet to a distant server, where it resides. You might not even have a copy of your document on your computer. There are even some cloud services that won't cost you a cent.
- Google Docs allows you to work on your document from any computer with a browser over the Web. If your Internet connection goes down, however, you can't get your term paper--unless you've saved a local copy to your hard drive.
- Live Mesh is a free service run by Microsoft (works with Windows XP/Vista/7 and Mac OS X). It runs in the background and can synchronize any changes you make to a local document folder on your computer with its online cloud storage (up to 5 GB, which is enough for a couple of term papers, eh?). Again, you have to have an active Internet connection for this to work. Another downside it that if you've forgotten to save your term paper, any changes will be lost if you experience a crash.
Why aren't you studying?
The $2 Reward
I hate it when a textbook contains an error. After reading a section I'll go, "Whoa, that doesn't make sense." The first thing I do is: Blame myself. I must not have understood it correctly. So, frustrated, I'll go back and read it again, and then re-read it again. At some point, I'll realize that I'm not wrong--the textbook is.
In the best case, I'll know what research or theory the textbook is talking about and I'll be able to spot an error immediately. But not always. And I hate that moment of not knowing--or more precisely, the moment of believing that I don't know. I imagine students feel the same way.
I've always asked students to let me know whenever they encounter an error in a textbook. But not many students did. So then I started offering a $1 reward as a sort of bounty for being the first one to find an error, and still got a low response rate. Then I started offering $2--and crossed some sort of threshold. Now I get quite a few emails from students sending me textbook errors. The response rate was also "helped" by recently having a textbook that had 47 errors. Another textbook by the same author has 31...and counting. (Yes, I am quite motivated to find errors first.)
Some errors are not a big deal--like a misspelling of a researcher's name, or saying that Halle Berry played Catwoman in the movie Batman (it was, of course, the movie Catwoman). But other errors are more serious, like explaining things backwards, or labeling parts of diagrams opposite of what they should be.
You'll see a list of errors posted on the main page of the class website. Any new errors have an "updated" tag beside them. (Make sure you pencil in the corrections in your textbook.) I also collect these errors to send them to the publisher of the textbook so the errors can be corrected in any new printings of the textbook. I figure it's the least they can do, especially when you consider the high cost of textbooks.
Interestingly, there's another way that my $2 reward can help students. If a student reads something in the textbook and it doesn't make sense--if it seems to be backwards, like the author made an error--I'll get an email asking me for a $2 reward. Quite often in cases like this, the textbook will turn out to be correct; the problem is in the student's understanding of the material. This is a great opportunity for me to directly help a student understand the material. So you won't get a toonie for a cup of Tim's, but you will get some free help in understanding a concept--and in overcoming that feeling of not knowing.
Why aren't you studying?
Time to Reflect
Recently, it has been time to reflect. On the past, the present, and the future. Of course, it was Remembrance Day last week. I hope you at least spared a thought for those people who, every day, risk (and give) their lives in the service of our country. We owe them an unrepayable debt of gratitude for letting us live a life of such comfort, safety, and freedom.
But it was recently another occasion that's made me reflect on things: the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of East Germany. I have many vivid memories of those incredible days in 1989 when events long considered impossible began to unfold. I don't know how I was able to keep up with my studying, because I was glued to CNN for about a week straight.
Now you have to realize that this wasn't just some symbolic thing happening on the other side of the world. My heritage is German--in fact, I am the first generation of my family to be born in Canada. Considering what happened in Germany after World War II, it's a bit surprising that I even exist.
My mother's family lived in West Germany. My mom, being a sophisticated world traveler, eventually found her way to Canada. (I wish maybe she had gone a bit farther--Hawaii, perhaps? But then, at least she didn't stay in Iceland.)
My father's family, on the other hand, lived in East Germany. My grandfather, having experienced the Nazi regime, wasn't too keen on going through something similar when the communists occupied his country. So he decided to pack up his family--wife and four kids--and get out. This was before die Berliner Mauer went up, but it still wasn't easy to just leave the country. And when the wall went up, it did indeed form a symbolic barrier between their old life and their new one. (My dad could never go to East Germany to visit. If he did, they were sure to "invite" him to stay--forever.) Although my grandfather lived in West Germany for a while, eventually he decided to head for new territory and new opportunity in Canada. (Opa, couldn't you at least have considered Hawaii? Selling pineapples, learning to surf, that sort of thing? No?)
So, well, one things leads to another, my mom met my dad, and here I am. So upon reflection, what are the odds that I exist? If the communists hadn't kept their grip on the Soviet Zone... If my grandfather hadn't gotten his family out... If my mom had stayed in Iceland...
But I also reflected on my relatives, the ones who were still in East Germany in 1989. And the ones who were in West Germany. And now they were all in the same country together, for the first time. That was a good thing--for families to be together, comfortable, safe, and free.
I hope that walls continue to come down in the future. (Yeah, North Korea, I'm lookin' at you.)
Why aren't you studying?
The Sick Note
Last week, the UofA's Registrar took the unprecedented step of rescinding the requirement that students provide documentation for any absence caused by influenza-like illness. (Although the memo at the UofA's H1N1 website mentions a "doctor's note," I, like most instructors, typically require a Medical Statement form to be completed.)
I have heard that students received email about this, which also specifies that you must contact your instructors as well as your Faculty's student advisor. Thanks to those of who who have already contacted me. Be aware that I will automatically transfer the weight of any missed midterms to the final exam, as stated in the syllabus. Sorry, but there's no way to offer makeup or delayed exams.
I just wanted to discuss a couple of other things.
First, do not abuse this situation. It may be tempting to get some relief from exams and assignments for a while if you're not sick. After all, you're not required to provide any evidence at all. But consider this: What if you falsely claim to have H1N1, and then you actually do get it later? I suppose you could lie again and claim you've now got the seasonal flu. But then what if, after that, you actually do get the seasonal flu? Or maybe you got your flu shots and you're confident you won't actually get the flu. At some point you're going to have to make up for lost work somehow. So, are you going to live your life based on telling lies?
Second, If you are actually sick with the flu, I sincerely hope that you recover quickly and fully. (Don't come back to class until then!) If you're experiencing severe symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, severe vomiting, high fever and confusion, please seek medical attention immediately. It's one thing to tough it out through a cold, but these symptoms are serious. Just because you're asked not to get a sick note doesn't mean that you should avoid all contact with the health care system. Take care of yourself.
Why aren't you studying?
Find It
