Comment on More "Personal" Introductions

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:52:42 GMT

Your experiences with liberal studies vs engineering are interesting. I had the opposite experience. The engineering profs would give examples from their experiences and we really got to know them well. The libs people seemed boring and uneducated.

Hmmm, that's a really good point, and it might be correct. But here's some anecdotal evidence to the contrary: Tthe school I went to is better known for engineering, since it's right down the street from Wright Patt Air Force Base, which has a lot of the Air Force Research Labs. I did find that most of my computer teachers were way more personable than the rest of the STEM profs. I thought it was perhaps because they generally weren't "just" professors, but were Base contractors who either taught on the side or post-retirement. They were generally both brilliant, and very personable lecturers.

I wonder if this has more to do with perspective?

Theory 1- Professors are more personable in upper-level classes, than lower-level classes. I went from upper-level history to lower level engineering, and thought that the engineering profs were less personable. You went from upper-level engineering/sci/math to lower-level liberal arts (say if senior year you took a filler intro to philosophy class or something), so you thought liberal arts profs were less personable. Both of these could be explained by the difference in level, rather than the difference in field.

Theory 2- Professors are more personable to students that show promise in their particular field. Liberal arts professors don't bother being overly friendly with STEM students who are just taking their class as a filler, and engineering profs don't bother being friendly with lower skill students.

Anecdotal evidence for both of these that when I switched to Human Factors Engineering I thought the teachers were (generally) better. I thought it was because it was a more Psychology-based field, but perhaps it was because I was finally in higher level classes, and/or that I was much better at it than I was at mech.

Theory 3- It completely varies from school to school. Possibly determined by the specialty of the university, or perhaps determined by the head of the dept., who hires profs that fit their personal preferences.

Theory 4- One discipline actually does have more personable professors than the other discipline, for any number of reasons. (Education and Social Work profs are among the MOST personable that I've had. That intuitively makes sense to me.)

Can anyone find any evidence for these?

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