nicholasguindon.com

Hey everyone,

So I’m sitting in class waiting for the second day of Phil 4150: Professional Ethics. I was pleased to learn it will be taught by David Stamos, who is somewhat similar to Dan MacArthur. They’re both no-nonsense, science oriented Professors who appreciate sound logic, reason and the generous application of established facts. I haven’t been taught by Stamos since the ineptly titled Phil 1100: The Meaning of Life a few years ago (Spoiler alert: 42*). The book is an outrageous $95 for a cheaply bound softcover anthology – the first time I’ve felt genuinely ripped off, rather than just mildly taken advantage of. For a hundred bucks I expect a nice hardcover textbook I can be proud to have on my shelf, damn it.

Anyways the signs are all good so far. There’s a participation grade, but it’s all attendance. I love that because public speaking terrifies me and it takes a long time for me to be comfortable even with small classes like this (about 20 people). Seriously – I “only” have six weeks, and it might not be enough. By the time I was talking regularly in a mere first year course tutorial it was almost over, and that was a full summer long! Fourth year courses have the atrocious habit of including “speaking” grades. Yeah, yeah, I hear you – I’ll have to speak to people at work, it’s an important skill, bla bla bla. I can force myself to do it when necessary, that doesn’t make it any more pleasant. Oh, and you say it’s an “acquired” skill? First of all shut up and listen, this is my website. Second of all I’ve been forcing myself to speak for twenty years and it’s still every inch as painful as it was in first grade.

To give you an idea of how much I hate public speaking (or, depending on how you see it, how much of a sissy I am): last year in a fourth year course the prof would check off your name on the attendance every time you spoke. How many checks you had – compared to the average – determined your grade. There was a minimum cap though, if you just spoke a little you’d get no less than a C. Every single day when the Professor said something or asked something and I felt I could contribute, I agonized over speaking and checked the math in my head – often until it was too late. Luckily the high level of apathy most students have makes this task easier.

Besides that small part of the grade, the rest is split between three essays – one every two weeks. The first two are brief, 3-4 pages long. The last one is 8-10 pages. I prefer essays to exams, I do better on them and I like to have time to polish everything until I’m reasonably confident in my ideas.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

[EDIT]

Heh, a student kept swapping between “Person” and “Human”. The Professor started to be bothered by this and pointed out that the two are not the same. He used Star Trek as an example: Klingons, Vulcans and Data (the robot) are all people, but they are not human. I may discuss this issue later, it’s been a while since I wrote a good rant. Boo anthropocentrism.

Nick

*I’m not sure why I’ve made two Hitchhiker’s Guide references in two posts… I read it years ago.