EPICS 151 should be restructured
EPICS 151 is a horrendous class for students taking a full schedule. The professors, at the beginning of the semester, tell the students that they are going to be pretty hands off, allowing students to format their own designs. They then proceed to hand out a ton of busy work, very little of which actually contributed to the final goal of the class. In addition to this, once teams have narrowed down their design ideas, the professor imposes additional, unnecessary parameters, such as the minimum number of subsystems required; these parameters are only put in place so that the professor can then assign busy work to each person in the group and grade them. I can understand the need to grade people individually, but imposing these additional parameters so late in the semester blindsides students. Another problem with these classes is the way they grade assignments. The professor will hand out a rubric and, but then grade not using that rubric, or at least using their own very loose interpretation of the rubric and it leads to students who have completed everything the rubric asked for at a high level receiving very low grades. The grading also appears to be based on a system where doing everything asked of you is only worthy of a B, and to receive an A, you have to go above and beyond expectations. While I understand this in a middle school environment, where everyone is just trying to have fun, this style of grading has no place in a college. Students pay colleges an incredible amount of money to teach them the things they need to know going on in life. If a student learns everything, or close to everything, that is necessary, then they receive an A and if they understand only 80% of the material then they receive a B. Having a class that only gives A for "going above and beyond" is essentially saying that we have stuff we want to teach you, but we aren't going to tell you all of it, and if you don't figure it out on your own, then you have no chance at receiving a high grade. Considering that for an in-state student, this class costs over $1000 it is disrespectful to grade the class in such a manner. If they want us to learn something, they should tell us exactly what we are intended to learn. A final problem with the class is that it only allows for solutions that pertain to civil engineering (i.e. you have to build something using physical materials). Considering that everyone has to take this class, it should be applicable to more than a couple majors. It would be nice if chemical, computer or electrical solutions were feasible within the class. Overall, I propose that EPICS 151 be restructured and that students be a part of restructuring it.
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Bryan Marsh commented
This is an argument you aren't going to win. If you think this class is the worst of what's to come, you should reconsider your path. With as much work as you are given at this school and as little direction, they say that you will learn to prioritize your work and be efficient with your effort. I know very few students who are able to achieve all A's, regardless of the amount of work that is put in. You will learn that an A means less than how you learn to weed out the useless information and assignments and keep your sanity.
With all the other work that students have, when do you think that there is going to be time to help restructure a class? On top of that, students don't have the expertise to understand what the goals of the course actually are. And how would you deal with a student who wants to change something when you were 2/3 finished???
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Gil commented
EPICS 151 is a freshman level class designed to introduce students to college-level research and design process. Further, when in industry, you will be doing what you consider "busy" work, like it or not, as well as being given additional design constraints to follow. It feels ridiculous at the time, but it has a lot of merit and is part of why the program is ABET accredited. Believe me, a full freshman course load with EPICS is a walk in the park for what's to come. That's not to say it's easy, but, well, in comparison, it is.
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Wenli commented
I agree with a lot of points made here. While I don't agree that As should be handed out because we pay a lot of money, I do agree that asking for more than what is on the rubric is unreasonable. For example, when I took EPICS, they did not give us a rubric for our 40+ sketches in our sketchbook. When I handed in my sketchbook with 45 sketches, I was given a high B. When I asked why, I was told that when they said "40", they meant 40 was a C. However, we were not give a rubric until AFTER we handed in the assignment. I agree that the grading needs to be seriously rethought.
There is an EPICS advisory board where they ask students for feedback to improve the curriculum. They are aware of some issues, but certainly not all. You should look into this.