15 January 2010 That’s so awesome! English as a dysfunctional language

First day of classes behind me. The professor teaching History of the Holocaust spent most of the hour reviewing the class syllabus – emailed to each student. The rest of the class focused on a feature on the campus net, the D2L site for the class. It seems to be the main interface between the students and him, as well as numerous links to various document and resources germane to the class. I found the site and figured out how to get into it. Success for the day.

The class makeup is about what I expected. There is one other older male who looks about my age +/- a few. I didn’t get a chance to speak to him so I don’t know if he’s auditing the course, like me, or is actually a student. That’s something to find out next week. Almost every student was wearing brand name fleece clothing. They either carried massive back packs or nothing but a cell phone. I watched several young males literally drop their packs from shoulder height to the floor, making no attempt to cushion the drop or to protect the various electronic toys and tools I could see on or in pockets of their packs. The chatter before class seemed to be either young males recounting drunken parties recently attended or young women trying to chat up or avoid young males. I found their conversations hard to follow, partly because of lack of shared interest, partly because of the high background volume, and partly because nearly every other word I could hear was “like,” or “awesome.” English seems to have lost a major portion of its once immense vocabulary. I heard one young woman while I was waiting outside the Professor’s office to speak with him who used the word “awesome” seven times in two sentences. Well, I guess they were sentences. I overheard her state that she was an art major and really thought the History of the Holocaust, an, awesome, awesome, awesome thing would be an awesome course. I predict an early drop. A good portion of today’s class revolved around those parts of the syllabus and D2L site that explain how to write concisely and correctly. With two book reviews and a research project from each student, it must be disheartening if people submit written material that reads like their speech.

I suspect that most of the class is comprised of students majoring in history and liberal arts people who need to satisfy a requirement in history. I believe I was the only student who left this class and walked directly into the next room for the CSI course.





The CSI class seems to be mostly people in the criminal justice program. The pre-class conversation was similar. The makeup of the class was different. There were far fewer brand name jacket, most packs were smaller. I can’t say how carefully their gear was treated as the class was nearly full when I got there and I was lucky to find a seat.

There will be two instructors, both of whom probably know many of the class from other courses. One of them has intensive experience with the UT body farm. They handed out a sheet detailing what was expected, stated that no excused absences would be provided for intoxication or hangovers. They mentioned several names of local law enforcement and forensic science people who they would invite to speak and assigned three chapters to read. At twenty minutes into the class period they turned us loose.

Quick impressions of the class makeup are that these students seem too focused on a two year criminal justice track that will equip them to work in law enforcement at some level. They won’t be nearly as interested in elective courses and I would hazard a guess that few of them live on campus or have the luxury of much help from their families in financing their education.

I expect the tone of the two classes to be night-and-day different. The history course is being taught by a PhD who wants to teach people to think about history as a real force for planning the future. The CSI course is to be taught by a PhD who helped author the text we will use and who is focused on teaching people to perform CSI tasks correctly every time and to understand why this is important. It will be highly akin to my clinical rotations in that aspect. An obsessive-compulsive nature is a good thing in forensic science just as in medical science and quite a lot of the subject matter in the labs can go in either direction. As molecular diagnostics improve that will increase.

What did I learn today? I learned that I will need to sit up front in order to hear clearly. I learned that students gathering in the hall outside a classroom with an open door don’t seem bothered that they are making it hard for those in the classroom to hear. I learned that I need to allow about as much cushion to find a parking place as I do at VA.

Shabbat Shalom!