Why PDEng Sucks, Part 2
So, my marker for PDEng 225, Module 4 reenforced my absolute adoration of PDEng.
Unfortunately, I’m inclined not to share a direct quote from the submission in question here because it discusses people from my previous workterm, and, it being a small team, assumptions could be made without names being named. Instead, below is the instructions for the section on which my marker commented, followed by a summary of the type of content that was in my submission. The module was on “people situations”.
Analyze this ‘people’ situation, and explain the factors that contributed to creating the situation, making specific reference to the concepts covered in Module 4.
This section of my submission was three paragraphs long, describing three specific factors that affected my chosen situation, using a specific example for each, and discussing the negative results of each factor. I cited different sections from Module 4, one in each paragraph. Here was my marker’s comment:
* So what are the factors that contributed to creating the situation? Identify specifically in relation to M4 topics would be much helpful.
My favourite part is the period at the end of what is clearly not an English sentence. A close second is the request to link my response directly to Module 4 topics for the benefit of the marker. I guess three citations was not enough. To be fair, I didn’t precede each paragraph with “A factor that contributed to the chosen situation was …”, and I didn’t finish with “So, in case you didn’t read the last three paragraphs, the situation was caused by [factor 1], [factor 2], and [factor 3].” I was hoping the marker could fill in those two blanks by… thinking?
Maybe PDEng modules ARE marked by machines, who knows…
Technorati Tags: PDEng 225, Module 4, PDEng, marker’s comment, PDEng modules
December 9th, 2006 at 06:49:35
In fairness, as a real engineer your reports will generally be skimmed over by overworked business-suit types of questionable mental acuity, so it probably pays to use such a bone-headed redundant style.
Of course, schools always pull out the “this is how it works in the real world” excuse in a completely inconsistent and self-serving way, but sometimes it has validity.
February 20th, 2007 at 12:44:40
Evan,
If all my reports will just be skimmed over, why not only submit a summary and save everyone a lot of time?
I’m assuming that at some point someone will actually read over the report, and when the time comes they’re not going to want to read “my first idea is… my second idea is… my third idea is…” generally if they actually read it they’ll be able to figure that out by themselves. If they want to read material in that format they can go back to kindergarden and read some of those books.