If 82% of the Plebe Class flunked Calculus II this Spring Quarter...

Dr. Strange Love said:
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Calc 3 does include multivariable … aka Vectors … and it goes into Parametric resolutioning … eg, transforming all variables in terms of the Time variable “t” for example [x(t), y(t), z(t), etc]. This is why Calc 3 is taken Concurrently with Physics 1, because Physics is all about vectors in the Time Parametric space.

Eigen vector/value and Basis vectors are not covered in Calc 3 … nor is Differential Equations …. Linear Algebra should be taken before doing these.

### More on the importance of Vectors ###

The Gradiant in any Potential Field is a Vector …. A Record in a Database table is a Vector …. an Image or some other Blob in the Cloud is a Collection of many Vectors.

The tool Elastic search just relies on a huge Index that does Fuzzy imperfect similarity recollection with an associated closeness of match score (confidence score)

ChatGPT applications are just Elastic search with Natural Language Processing on Steroids … and every data point becomes a vector before work is performed on the problem.
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Doctor Strangelove, you are bringing back memories. Vectors. It’s been a long time.

To the point about the applicability of what you learn in class….I got a B in calc III at USNA but if you asked me to take the cross product or dot product right now i would be a deer staring at headlights. Haven’t had to use it since 3/C year or in the Fleet. However…The critical thinking, problem solving, and time management those courses demanded of me were good practice for my job now.
 
Kierkegaard said:
Doctor Strangelove, you are bringing back memories. Vectors. It’s been a long time.

To the point about the applicability of what you learn in class….I got a B in calc III at USNA but if you asked me to take the cross product or dot product right now i would be a deer staring at headlights. Haven’t had to use it since 3/C year or in the Fleet. However…The critical thinking, problem solving, and time management those courses demanded of me were good practice for my job now.
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It’s really funny that we all create and use vectors every second, minute, hour of our lives when we make split second decisions, or prepare some decision analysis paper for a customer weighing the Pros and Cons of various alternatives.

When we look at the problems closer, we see that we need to do some kind of Normalization of all the inputs to the problem to set boundaries, transform categories, and clean things up in general before we try to build some kind of automation.

Just give it some thought … if you think about your problems that you solve from a different angle, you will see what I am talking about.

### We don’t stress the importance of Vectors enough in our schools. ###
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Dr. Strange Love said:
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It’s really funny that we all create and use vectors every second, minute, hour of our lives when we make split second decisions, or prepare some decision analysis paper for a customer weighing the Pros and Cons of various alternatives.

When we look at the problems closer, we see that we need to do some kind of Normalization of all the inputs to the problem to set boundaries, transform categories, and clean things up in general before we try to build some kind of automation.

Just give it some thought … if you think about your problems that you solve from a different angle, you will see what I am talking about.

### We don’t stress the importance of Vectors enough in our schools. ###
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IMG_3135.jpeg
 
3Nautiboys said:
Wow!

My DS has been wondering about validating and has asked our opinions (we're both educators). He had an A in Calc BC last year with a 5 on the AP. He's in Multivariable this year with a A. I recommended he just do his best on the placement exams and do what his academic advisor suggests. Now I'm wondering if that was the wrong advice.

He's got 2 plebe friends that have told him not to validate anything...it makes plebe year too difficult.

I cannot imagine 82% of my students failing!?!🤷

Can anyone confirm this was across all sections, or was it from one particular professor?
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I agree with his plebe friends. My 2020 grad was a math wiz as well, but, he did not validate anything so he could get accustomed to military life. He was soo happy he did not validate.
One other thing to consider- unlike my daughter who entered college as a sophomore by validating, it does not allow your son to have an open period in the day, or earlier graduation, just more difficult courses as a plebe with upperclassmen.
 
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In our day, we had sort of the reverse situation of this thread. Going INTO the Wires (EE) final second semester, roughly 80% of class had a grade below a C (as in a D or F). They were in danger of almost the entire class taking Wires (Group 2 and 3 majors) ending up in summer school. We're talking around 700 2/C mids. Summer school wasn't set up to handle that. And it would have put a huge monkey-wrench into all of the 1/C summer programs, which were already set.

The solution was to give a straightforward final exam. It's NOT that they told us this up front; we were all in panic mode. Only in hindsight did we realize the exam was relatively "easy" for those who put in the work. If you studied, you'd get at least a B. Most everyone studied (b/c they didn't want to end up in summer school with their summer plans ruined). The end result was almost everyone did well and very few people found themselves in summer school.

In hindsight, the 4,-, 8- and 12-weekers (when we had all of those) had been hard / tricky. You really had to go beyond the material to get an A or B and making a few stupid mistakes could cost you even a C.

To be fair, in our day, we didn't have the academic resources available to today's mids. I don't recall my prof -- s/he was neither exceptionally good or bad. But if I didn't do well, I never considered it the prof's "fault."
 
usna1985 said:
In our day, we had sort of the reverse situation of this thread. Going INTO the Wires (EE) final second semester, roughly 80% of class had a grade below a C (as in a D or F). They were in danger of almost the entire class taking Wires (Group 2 and 3 majors) ending up in summer school. We're talking around 700 2/C mids. Summer school wasn't set up to handle that. And it would have put a huge monkey-wrench into all of the 1/C summer programs, which were already set.

The solution was to give a straightforward final exam. It's NOT that they told us this up front; we were all in panic mode. Only in hindsight did we realize the exam was relatively "easy" for those who put in the work. If you studied, you'd get at least a B. Most everyone studied (b/c they didn't want to end up in summer school with their summer plans ruined). The end result was almost everyone did well and very few people found themselves in summer school.

In hindsight, the 4,-, 8- and 12-weekers (when we had all of those) had been hard / tricky. You really had to go beyond the material to get an A or B and making a few stupid mistakes could cost you even a C.

To be fair, in our day, we didn't have the academic resources available to today's mids. I don't recall my prof -- s/he was neither exceptionally good or bad. But if I didn't do well, I never considered it the prof's "fault."
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It’s interesting to see how things like that change. Another thing that I think plays a role is that people are much more sensitive about their grades now. Not without reason. There’s all these special programs that didn’t exist in past generations. Prestigious grad schools are way more competitive too. All the mids are smart so there’s an arms race to outdo one another, where there’s so much pressure sometimes a C feels like an F.

C supposedly means satisfactory, but nobody is satisfied with a C.
 
"I've seen you play! My dad has season tickets! I think you're the greatest, but my dad says you don't work hard enough on defense..."

"Listen kid, I've been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I'm out there busting my buns every night. Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!!"
 
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