Week 2 of my horrible AIT 512 Algorithms and Data Structures class. There is so much work to do, it’s going to be tough to ensure I maintain self-care. 40+ hours of work per week, 25+ hours of school per week, plus sleep, eating, commuting etc. doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else. My wife has been amazing and is stepping up to take a lot of things off my plate, even though she is a teacher and works crazy hours already.

I spent a lot of hours just catching up on work I missed in the class last week. I’ve had twelve programming assignments (each with multiple steps to output, screenshot, respond to), nine quizzes related to each of the programming assignments, four cumulative quizzes after each concept, a cumulative exam on all the concepts so far, a research paper to start, two forum posts to create (and respond to other class members), over 200 pages worth of reading in the textbook, and hours worth of videos to watch along the way. It’s overwhelming and honestly the worst class I’ve had in all my years of education. I’m keeping notes of everything this course could do better and will be submitting my suggestions to anybody and everybody in the department. It’s not teaching my anything, it’s keeping me on my heels and forcing me to memorize things that nobody in the world would need to memorize.

I got a question wrong on my exam today because I misspelled a piece of code (lenght instead of length). In the programming environment (we’re using Eclipse) my misspelling would have been highlighted because it didn’t match my declared variables. But no, I miss a point on the exam because of it. It’s demoralizing and goes against any sort of good teaching practices. I’m reminding myself daily that this course is only eight weeks long and I’m already one quarter of the way through. Unfortunately, you all are going to have to read me bitching about it because it’s a healthy outlet for me (better than screaming or punching a hole in the wall out of frustration).

I don’t remember what else happened this week. It’s been a blur. Here’s some pictures from the week.

This post has been day 62 of #100DaysToOffload

3 Comments

  1. Any chance of asking the instructor to review the lentgh problem? And checking in with whomever is in charge of your program regarding the amount of work required when the program description says it’s for people who work full time? Your ranting on this page is a great way to let off steam. Don’t give up. Can you text the guy who told you that your first class was the most difficult and ask him about this class?

    • Professor is going to give me the “length” problem, but not the other ones that would have been highlighted in any programming environment (which makes this test ridiculous). I’ve reached out to my “success coach” and received nothing back. I’m going to wait until after the class so I don’t ruffle feathers, then I’m going to let loose on why this class is terrible, why it doesn’t teach the concepts, how they could improve it, and why it will keep me from recommending this degree (or the university for that matter) to anybody.

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