Day 123 WHY? WHY? WHY?

Studying in Aalto School of Economics is very enjoyable, classes are good, some professors are great, I learn a lot.

BUT one extremely frustrating thing about classes here is, the professors and teaching assistants don't give out softcopy/ hardcopy of answer keys to exercise sets.

True, they have a problem set solution session, but this is extremely frustrating and inefficient. I will explain why.

1. My aim of going to all lectures and I will say, problem set solution sessions, is to listen to what the teacher has to say, any additional information or explanations to problem sets that I don't know how to do. But, without softcopy or hardcopy of the answer key, everyone in the room was copying and copying and copying from the powerpoint, and I don't know about other people, but I cannot concentrate on what the teacher is saying.

2. What if you cannot attend the problem set solution session? You are forcing people to attend classes just to copy answers from your powerpoint and not listening to you. You might as well put a janitor there and click through the powerpoint for the entire lecture room to copy.

3. The problem with these problem set solution session is, some questions are extremely easy and you already know the answer, and you just don't want to sit there and listen to things you already know of, isn't this completely inefficient learning? True, you may make mistakes on "easy questions", but why can't you discover it by looking at the answer key yourself? Sometimes, I go into these classes, just to spend almost 1 and a half hour there, waiting for that one question I am not sure of, then spending my time copying the solution instead of listening to the lecturer. GOSH.. comeon, this is 2010, ever heard of the power of computers?

I have to say, I am very disappointed with this arrangement.

I guess that they don't want to "distribute" the answer because they are afraid we might "spread it out". I have to say, if we intend to "spread the answer out", we will do it, no matter you have the softcopy or hardcopy of answer key or not.

Oh, and guess what I did in those exercise solution sessions?


I took freaking photos of the powerpoint, so I can concentrate on listening to the lecturer. Geez ... Come on, Aalto School of Economics, this is 2010!

Here is what I propose. Cancel those exercise solution sessions, distribute answer key online, and organize consultation sessions. If we don't understand after reading the answer key, we will go find the profs or teaching assistant.

Ain't this efficient and 21st century learning?