The class seems like it's mostly made up of geography majors, but there are a couple students from the City and Regional Planning department, which I guess offers it's own intro to GIS course (as does my department, which also has it's own intro and advanced class, but our advanced class is only offered winter quarter, plus I thought it would be interesting to go outside the Natural Resource department and get a different perspective). Apparently the CRP department doesn't have an advanced course, or maybe these students were in the same position I am in with regards to scheduling. I don't know. What I do know is that these couple students have no idea what they are doing. The class is a one-hour lecture and a three-hour lab, two days a week. The first week, I noticed that these two weren't able to finish the labs (which took me about an hour and about two hours, respectively) and I let them know that our department has a computer lab which is open pretty much all the time, which is connected to the grad lab where I spend most of my time when I'm not in class. I didn't see them in there, and I'm pretty sure they didn't ever complete those labs. The second week (last week) I sat next to them - I don't know anyone in there, and I figured I could help them out and then I'd have somebody to talk to while I sit in front of a computer for three hours, doing tasks that are essentially really simple - the instructor gives us all very explicit instructions. All you have to do is follow directions, it's more tedious than challenging. These two simply couldn't get it. At the end of one of the labs last week, one of them wasn't done and was trying to figure out how to save her work somewhere she could get at it to work on later. I asked her where her data was - where she had been working from for the last three hours - and she had NO GODDAMN IDEA. It's not a difficult concept - either you saved your files to your flash drive, and you're good to go, or you've been working from the C drive, which is fine for class, but you would have to copy everything over to your flash drive if you wanted to work on it later, on a different computer. Simple concept, right? I explained this to her, and she gave me the kind of look you see on the face of a dog watching television. Just mystified.
Anyway, this reminded me of another story which, if you're reading this, I may have told you in person at some point. When I was here getting my bachelors' in 2003 or so, I had to substitute a 300-level CRP class for a class in my major that was no longer offered. Another student from my major and I ended up taking "Planning for and with multiple publics" which turned out to be total fluff. I wasn't complaining as, at that point, I just wanted out, and was taking something like 22 units that quarter. I remember two things about that class: we had to write 3 research paper-y kind of things, and after we turned in the first, the professor scrubbed his planned lecture in favor of one on how to write. I stayed, not wanting to be impolite by walking out, and endured a lecture (can't remember how long but at least an hour) on the basic mechanics of writing. In a class full of second and third year college students. I was not particularly surprised when he handed the papers back at the end and I had gotten an A, but it did make me wonder how bad everyone else's had been. His standards obviously weren't that high - my paper had been written the night before and without actually doing any research.
When he did the same exact thing after we handed the second paper in, I couldn't bear the thought of sitting through another lecture on what constitutes a paragraph, and I got up and left. It was embarrassing.
The main assignment for this class was a quarter-long group project wherein we were supposed to identify a sub-public (some distinct group of people living in SLO county, and having similar needs from a planning point of view) and research their wants and needs for a presentation and paper due the last week of class. The other forestry student (Erik) and I had paired up for this, chosen native americans because Erik had apparently worked with some group locally and had some relevant knowledge, and proceeded to do exactly no work on the project, because we both had a full load of courses that we cared more about.
I distinctly remember the day, during the last week of the quarter, that I showed up to that class covered in mud, having just taken the practical final for my soil morphology class, and Erik grabbed me and said "Are you ready to give this presentation?" I had completely forgotten that we were scheduled to give our 15 minute presentation that day. I got a little nervous at that point, since we hadn't actually done anything, and I knew precisely nothing about our topic. Erik said, as I remember, "Don't worry, I made a powerpoint last night. You go first, just try to talk about what's on the slides, and I'll wrap it up. If you don't know, just make it up." I proceeded to talk about the needs of native americans in San Luis Obispo county for 6-7 minutes. I would look at each slide, and fabricate some background - I made up names of people we had talked to, where they lived, what they wanted from the county. Erik took over the second half and incorporated what I had made up into what he knew and, to be honest, I thought everybody saw through it, but it went smoothly.
After class we congratulated ourselves on pulling it off and made plans to get together and write up the paper we had to turn in by the end of finals week, which we promptly forgot about. The night before it was due, I remember getting together for an hour or so and dividing up the sections - Erik emailed me a bunch of stuff and I made up some more stuff and put it all together in a readable fashion. I remember thinking that at least we both had solid As in the class up until then and could afford to take a hit on the project. I also remember running into Erik after grades come out and we were both astounded that we had pulled As in the class. I bumped into the professor out downtown somewhere a couple weeks later and had a pleasant conversation which, surprisingly, did not involve him challenging me about our complete BS. Finally, I remember talking to some of the other kids in the class at a bar, and hearing them gripe about how hard the class was and their crummy grades.
So, yeah, City and Regional Planning. The bar is set pretty low, I guess.
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