German professors
The professor teaching QFT, Herr Schmidt, told me that I should not worry about ECTS credits and other nonsense like that. When I asked him how many credits I could get for his course, he said: "Twelve, I believe... the maximum we can get out of it, at any rate." :)
There is a tutorial accompanying his course, but the exercises are not graded. I asked a fellow student how I would get my grade, and she said that that was up to Herr Schmidt, which meant I should not worry... :) again. He really seems to enjoy showing those silly grade- and prestation-focussed people from abroad that the good old German system, where all that nonsense does not exist, is really better. And, assuming that his students are interested in what he can tell them, he is right. I like it this way; I'll study anyway, and don't have to worry about grades too much. The possible disadvantage of this system is of course that the students may have too much choice: they have to decide on their own what is interesting, worthwhile and useful to study. But then again, there are many knowledgeable people who can help in this matter.
In short: if you're interested in the material, this system works much nicer than the Dutch or English systems; if you just need a diploma, the other options are better.
The professors teaching the Standard Model course, an experimentalist and a theorist, seem to have similar attitudes. When I asked if the homework exercises were to be graded, they said: "Well, no, we weren't planning on doing that. If you need a grade, we'll arrange some kind of small test at the end of term."
Of the four courses I will stick with, this is one of the nicer ones. I finally get to learn something about 'real-life' experiments1, and I get to re-read the Introduction to the Standard Model of particle physics which has been standing on my shelf for two years now, and this time I even understand it, to some degree :). The theorist is a good lecturer, equipped with the typical sense of humour (a falling pen was called a 'classical experiment in scattering', and after setting ℏ = c = 1, he also wanted to set π = 1, but decided that would get too messy...).
I also tried one lecture on tensor analysis, but decided not to repeat that. The professor, who evidently knew a lot about the subject, unfortunately did not speak too clearly. Since he spoke German (math courses are all in German, graduate physics courses mostly in English), that meant I sometimes didn't quite catch what he was saying. Now, usually, one can solve this problem by referring to the blackboard, especially in mathematics, which is, after all, a language of its own. In this case, however, that was not really a solution, because, let us say, his handwriting was really one of a kind. '≥' looked like '∧|', k looked like h, '∞' and 'ω' were quite indistinguishable, and so on. And, most importantly, even when I could decode the acoustic signal of the lecture into German morphemes and words, I often did not have the vaguest notion what it actually meant. Also, I didn't see anything I could recognise as a tensor during the whole lecture. In conclusion, I could not see the benefits of attending the rest of the lectures, while I certainly saw the disadvantages (frustration, wasting time, etc.), and hence decided it would be best not to go back.
1One may question how much particle physics experiments, where big accelerators using enormous amounts of energy are used to detect minute particles that are interacting at rates where 10-20 seconds is considered t = ∞, have to do with real life, but still. It's different from the theoretical world populated by free particles and ideal gases.
There is a tutorial accompanying his course, but the exercises are not graded. I asked a fellow student how I would get my grade, and she said that that was up to Herr Schmidt, which meant I should not worry... :) again. He really seems to enjoy showing those silly grade- and prestation-focussed people from abroad that the good old German system, where all that nonsense does not exist, is really better. And, assuming that his students are interested in what he can tell them, he is right. I like it this way; I'll study anyway, and don't have to worry about grades too much. The possible disadvantage of this system is of course that the students may have too much choice: they have to decide on their own what is interesting, worthwhile and useful to study. But then again, there are many knowledgeable people who can help in this matter.
In short: if you're interested in the material, this system works much nicer than the Dutch or English systems; if you just need a diploma, the other options are better.
The professors teaching the Standard Model course, an experimentalist and a theorist, seem to have similar attitudes. When I asked if the homework exercises were to be graded, they said: "Well, no, we weren't planning on doing that. If you need a grade, we'll arrange some kind of small test at the end of term."
Of the four courses I will stick with, this is one of the nicer ones. I finally get to learn something about 'real-life' experiments1, and I get to re-read the Introduction to the Standard Model of particle physics which has been standing on my shelf for two years now, and this time I even understand it, to some degree :). The theorist is a good lecturer, equipped with the typical sense of humour (a falling pen was called a 'classical experiment in scattering', and after setting ℏ = c = 1, he also wanted to set π = 1, but decided that would get too messy...).
I also tried one lecture on tensor analysis, but decided not to repeat that. The professor, who evidently knew a lot about the subject, unfortunately did not speak too clearly. Since he spoke German (math courses are all in German, graduate physics courses mostly in English), that meant I sometimes didn't quite catch what he was saying. Now, usually, one can solve this problem by referring to the blackboard, especially in mathematics, which is, after all, a language of its own. In this case, however, that was not really a solution, because, let us say, his handwriting was really one of a kind. '≥' looked like '∧|', k looked like h, '∞' and 'ω' were quite indistinguishable, and so on. And, most importantly, even when I could decode the acoustic signal of the lecture into German morphemes and words, I often did not have the vaguest notion what it actually meant. Also, I didn't see anything I could recognise as a tensor during the whole lecture. In conclusion, I could not see the benefits of attending the rest of the lectures, while I certainly saw the disadvantages (frustration, wasting time, etc.), and hence decided it would be best not to go back.
1One may question how much particle physics experiments, where big accelerators using enormous amounts of energy are used to detect minute particles that are interacting at rates where 10-20 seconds is considered t = ∞, have to do with real life, but still. It's different from the theoretical world populated by free particles and ideal gases.
posted by Olivier at 8:44 PM
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