Heath sure has found his niche. Too bad it consists of one race at this point.
It seems that he never loses shape, while everyone else cycles behind then in front of him. On the track he is very strong at the mile, really more of a 3000 guy, but has no finishing straight due to poor sprint mechanics. Hopefully Danny and Riley will help him out there.
work load truths wrote:
I went to a second-tier (i.e., good) school and now I'm a professor at a lower level school. I assigned the same homework and used many of the same test questions as when I was a student, so the level of work was the same for the students. However, they performed poorly compared to my class back when I was a student so I had to curve the grades.
From what I've seen, professors try to cover the same material at lower level schools, but they have to curve more than they would with better students. Thus, an A definitely has a different meaning depending on the school.
On the other hand, my professor told me that at Harvey Mudd he had the same homework assigments that he gave us, except they covered the material more quickly and did more assignments. So in some cases you could find that there is indeed more work at a top level school.
Exactly. Why did you "have to" curve their grades? Did someone make you?
lol gifts wrote:
probs a troll but... wrote:I know you are probably trolling, but there is 100% a difference in difficulty between top schools, second tier schools, and then all those other schools.
You are saying there is a "100% percent difference in difficulty" but I'm the one trolling?
Please don't misquote me. I said there is "100% a difference" not "a 100% difference". Those are two completely different statements.
After discussing grades with other professors I came to the conclusion that it was "fair" to curve the grades. Would you expect to find generally the same distribution of grades at any school? I would. You just have to realize that the same grade has different merit from different schools.
Since I gave high-level work to students at a low-level school the grades would have been quite poor. I think it would be unfair to give them low grades and end up excluding them from scholarships etc. They shouldn't have to perform at the same level as a student at a top-tier school to maintain their scholarship at a low-level school. That is unrealistic. At the same time, I didn't want to dumb down their assignments. Maybe I did the right thing, maybe not; it was my first semester. I am going to dumb down the intro class' exams so I don't have to curve as heavily next semester.
fine result from Ritz and Heath. That is a class field, Birech was back there, Lagat way back, numerous other guys. You have to love how well Ritz can run in xc after just a short period of healthy training. He absolutely should have been running world xc all these years. With him, Heath, Derrick, and a few others, we might even be able to get Kenya in a muddy, cold field at World XC. They have heart.
I also wanted to give props to Cerake Geberkidane (4:06/8:50 in high school, 126th at nationals at OK State as a freshman) for his performance in the junior race and Olin Hacker finishing just a second behind him after outstanding performances at NXN and Footlocker. I thought that Hacker was going to be a very good one in the future, given how fast he rose and his background, and he is performing already.
I think that we should grade at the same level, regardless of the level of the school where we teach, but to do that we'd have to coordinate efforts and get administrative support. The level of student complaining in American universities now is unparalleled, and they are supported by administrations that send threatening emails to department chairs if more than a certain # of students fail. I had a grad student turn in a paper a month late and it was barely at all on the topics and materials of the class. I accepted it but dropped the paper a grade and gave it a B-. On the evaluations for the course, the student reported that I could not be trusted on anything (in person the student said that this was all about the late paper>a 5 was the class rating from that student) and gave me a 2 out of 5, which lowered the average from 4.4 (above average) to 4 (below average). The administrators actually take this stuff seriously. And all they care about is having a high graduation rate and keeping the money coming.
I am quite positive a thread exists for this debate between academics at Stanford, Oregon etc. There is a forum search button where you may be able to find such a thread for these dozen or so off-topic posts. Based on the thread title, I thought this was to discuss the Great Edinburgh race from today..Yes, I realize the Stanford runners did very well, but they were not the sole American team.
Badder Than Ghengis wrote:
On the track he is very strong at the mile, really more of a 3000 guy, but has no finishing straight due to poor sprint mechanics. Hopefully Danny and Riley will help him out there.
I have always thought it was interesting that he is so fast with a pronounced heel strike and his unique arm carriage. Seems like he just can't get forward on his foot when sprinting, and it costs him that extra bit of speed you need to beat guys like McNamara or Manzano.
jjjjjj wrote:
fine result from Ritz and Heath. That is a class field, Birech was back there, Lagat way back, numerous other guys. You have to love how well Ritz can run in xc after just a short period of healthy training. He absolutely should have been running world xc all these years. With him, Heath, Derrick, and a few others, we might even be able to get Kenya in a muddy, cold field at World XC. They have heart.
I also wanted to give props to Cerake Geberkidane (4:06/8:50 in high school, 126th at nationals at OK State as a freshman) for his performance in the junior race and Olin Hacker finishing just a second behind him after outstanding performances at NXN and Footlocker. I thought that Hacker was going to be a very good one in the future, given how fast he rose and his background, and he is performing already.
Would've loved to see Ritz racing world cross all these years, and I agree the USA would've competed for the top spot in the right conditions. I doubt he does it this year as it would likely interfere w/his buildup to Boston. If he makes the Olympic marathon or track teams in 2016, he may just call it a career. What a beast.
Sagarin wrote:
Would've loved to see Ritz racing world cross all these years, and I agree the USA would've competed for the top spot in the right conditions. I doubt he does it this year as it would likely interfere w/his buildup to Boston. If he makes the Olympic marathon or track teams in 2016, he may just call it a career. What a beast.
If by "right conditions" you mean the crappiest possible conditions then I agree since those are the "right conditions" for the US to compete for a top spot.
And, if Ritz does make the US team and finish in the top 10 in either the 10k or marathon, would you consider his career a success? I am a huge Ritz fan so I really hope that he hangs up the spikes with at least one title in a major marathon or international xc meet or, at least, an Olympic or QC hardware.
looks like lagat tanked. would love to see him rebound on the track.
...and he was almost 1 minute down on Heath. He really raced like a 40 y.o. His performance was probably equivalent to a 14:15 or 14:25 5k. That's pretty bad...
kybaws wrote:
And BERNARD LAGAT? 15th out of 17 runners in that 4k, just ahead of Silas Kiplagat. Is Bernard planning to race indoors? Unless he 'pulls a Mo' and ducks competition, it seems Galen has a good shot at beating Bernard and setting more AR if Galen stays healthy.
Hate to break it to you, but oregon is barely above a Mississippi junior college. The courses at Stanford are massively better than those at oregon. But, the students at Stanford are very, very much more capable than the ducks. I'm sure that the courses at oregon are difficult for the students there, and those oregon students would flunk out of Stanford in the first Quarter. Stanford courses are more difficult for Stanford students because the professors realize that the students are more driven and willing to put in extra effort. Oregon students are typically lazy and dimwitted, thus the courses have to be watered (drowned) down. Look at elfie rupp, for example. Despite being at oregon for four years, he was only able to complete three years of courses in a very easy major. At one of the worst universities in the US, rupp had to drop out because he is a mental midget.
rupp rides the short bus wrote:
Hate to break it to you, but oregon is barely above a Mississippi junior college. The courses at Stanford are massively better than those at oregon. But, the students at Stanford are very, very much more capable than the ducks. I'm sure that the courses at oregon are difficult for the students there, and those oregon students would flunk out of Stanford in the first Quarter. Stanford courses are more difficult for Stanford students because the professors realize that the students are more driven and willing to put in extra effort. Oregon students are typically lazy and dimwitted, thus the courses have to be watered (drowned) down. Look at elfie rupp, for example. Despite being at oregon for four years, he was only able to complete three years of courses in a very easy major. At one of the worst universities in the US, rupp had to drop out because he is a mental midget.
Where did you go to college?
CoachJD wrote:
Would love to see True, Ritz, and Derrick run it. Those guys are monsters in XC. I think Heath would struggle at 12k...4k is his sweet spot.
^^This!^^ And would love to see Heath in there too. Those 4 would be the frame of a damn good team.
Races like this make me love XC, just makes you wonder if only more pro's cared about our sports oldest style of race
It's amazing to see Kenyans sucking it up so bad in cross. Worried about testing now?
that race was ridiculous, only two of the track stars were even remotely prepared for that slow surface. Their failure means nothing. Only the XC slogging specialists even tried.
What is the point of putting Choge, Lagat, Magut, Kiplagat etc in a race like this, other than hyping it up and getting people to watch. Only the top 4 had any chance at all, which the organizers surely knew well in advance. Other than Heath vs Korir there was no race.
work load truths wrote:
I went to a second-tier (i.e., good) school and now I'm a professor at a lower level school. I assigned the same homework and used many of the same test questions as when I was a student, so the level of work was the same for the students. However, they performed poorly compared to my class back when I was a student so I had to curve the grades.
From what I've seen, professors try to cover the same material at lower level schools, but they have to curve more than they would with better students. Thus, an A definitely has a different meaning depending on the school.
On the other hand, my professor told me that at Harvey Mudd he had the same homework assignments that he gave us, except they covered the material more quickly and did more assignments. So in some cases you could find that there is indeed more work at a top level school.
Mudd is definitely very hard -- I've been told that it is so hard that the grads tend not to be very generous with gifts because their time at the school was always so hard. It is one of those schools that you probably do not want to be in the bottom 10-20% getting in because it would be such a grind. However, if you make it the grads do very, very well.
There are a few (or is it the same troll every time) that keep on posting that it is the same class, e.g., calculus and the same work. It makes me laugh, except some young students make actually believe him.
Stanford is the hardest school in the US (and the world) to get in to (with a bit of a partial exception for MIT/CalTech/Harvey Mudd, which have a narrower student set). The students are a lot better prepared starting off, and many of them are not taking Calc I, having done that in high school, many of them before their senior years.
