Friday, January 23, 2015

what I'm learning from g̶r̶a̶d̶ ̶s̶c̶h̶o̶o̶l̶ YouTube

So yeah, as it turns out, my grad school program right now isn't so much "teaching" me anything as it is facilitating subjects and content matter for me to teach myself, and then get tested on (or assessed via paper writing). So the main way I "learn" in a "classroom" setting is via youtube presentations that I listen to on my phone with bluetooth while I drive to and from work or school. These are lectures presented by nursing or medical faculty for, I assume, their own college courses. Why don't the faculty at my program lecture? I have no idea. One of them creates powerpoints which she emails to us (fine, better than being read to!), and the other does a messy, sloppy facilitated discussion of the assigned reading materials in theory class, which I then have to clarify to myself by listening to a YouTube presentation by another institution's faculty member.

I guess this is part of the times, right? Finding resources. And I'm lucky there are so many free, graduate level presentations out there to just stream. I just, I don't know... why are these other grad students getting actual lectures, with explanations and examples and ideas, and my professors are just sort of... assigning things and hoping we get it on our own? I'm paying the same amount of money!

Fortunately, I'm good at finding the material myself and seeking out the information I need to understand. I guess that's what being a grad student is about, at least for me, in this particular program. Still, it would be nice if someone would teach me something, once in a while.