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Summary of Comments from EECS Students
| Date: | 4/14/97 |
| Compiled by: |
Eta Kappa Nu, Beta Theta Chapter Nimisha Mehta, Aarati Parmar |
Introduction
This document contains a summary of comments received from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science students in the Bachelors of Science, Masters of Engineering, Masters of Science, and Doctoral Programs at MIT. These comments were compiled by Eta Kappa Nu as a request from the Course VI department in order to present them to this year's Visiting Committee. These comments were compiled using a web form. They have been categorized and divided into sections for readability purposes.
Distribution of Respondents:
Sophomores: 5
Juniors: 2
Seniors: 3
M.Eng.: 8
Grads: 2
Total: 20
VI-1: 7
VI-2: 4
VI-3: 9
Total: 20
Overall Education
Curriculum
Students generally enjoy the overall subject matter in their EECS classes and find the material interesting and challenging.
However, most students' main concern is that the curriculum needs to teach more modern and relevant material. They feel some courses are mostly out of date and that the curriculum should keep up with the rapidly changing modern industry. For example, 6.004 should be using a 32 bit RISC architecture instead of an 8-bit micro-controller.
Students requested that real-world business skills be taught in addition to the well-taught engineering skills. For example, 2.73, a Mechanical Engineering lab class provides students with an oportunity to work in a team of 30 students requiring them to do market research and to meet potential customers and investors.
Another concern is that some class curriculums have unneccessarily too much depth or breadth for complete understanding of the topics.
Communication Skills
Students are concerned about their lack of experience in developing communication skills before entering industry. They therefore request to have more classes that require formal presentations that significantly affect their grade. Perhaps some lab classes can teach and require students to give graded oral presentations.
Similarly for writing, students find that the required lab reports do not significantly improve their writing skills. Someone more experienced in writing than a Teaching Assistant should be grading the lab write-ups. Perhaps having a teaching staff critique on all writing reports in addition to the Phase II papers would be helpful.
Student Support Structure
Being in an environment surrounded by self-motivated and intelligent people, some students find it difficult to be on par with the others. One student pointed out that the faculty is very willing to help these troubled students and is even surprised when they do not ask for help. However, the students do not realize this openness of the faculty, and so find themselves lost and alone. Perhaps this misconception needs to be cleared up and the faculty can encourage these students even more.
It is difficult for those students who enter the department without any prior computer or electronics experience to catch up with the basics. For this minority, it would be nice to have seminars, small classes, or the like to become more confident through the experience.
One student complained about the difficulty in getting a tutor through the tutoring program. On the other hand, there are times when the tutees themselves do not show up.
Teaching Staff
Students really appreciate the faculty and find them quite approachable and friendly!
Some Teaching Assistants, however, being novice teachers, can not explain the material very well. Some have a communication or language difficulty. Also, some may not hold office hours because students do not always show up.
The Department
Class Size
Some classes in Course VI can become very large (100-200 people), so that the student-faculty ratio suffers. Constructions such as recitations and tutorials make up for this to some extent.
CS and EE
There was a suggestion to split the EECS department as is done in other universities, since CS people are not interested in EE and vice versa. Having two departments would reduce administration, and entail more support for students. Each department would then be more personal.
The department needs to keep up with the increased interest in EECS. The facilities, as well as the course material, need updating. There should be more Professors, TAs, and equipment.
More Computer Science faculty are needed to cope with the burgeoning percentages of Computer Science majors in the department. It would be nice to have more minorities in the faculty, as well.
Administration
There are a few ways Course VI could improve the way it administrates its students. Of course, Anne Hunter was cited as a positive factor in the EECS administration.
It is wasteful to redo recitation assignments, after they have already been assigned by the Registrar.
One person also thought it was a waste of time to fill out the M.Eng. application form, since all of the requested information is already available to the administration.
A final complaint was that graduate-level classes are sometimes scheduled at night which conflicts with evening events. Perhaps all graduate classes could be scheduled at the first class meeting by a student vote.
Advisor-Advisee Relationship
More student-faculty interaction should be encouraged. Many students complained that the only contact with their advisor happens on Registration Day, or when a signature is required. Usually, the meeting consists of a brief review of the classes to take, a short "how are you?", and then a signature. There is no discussion of future career or educational plans. However, the advisors are not to blame since they are overloaded with work as well.
Advisors could help students choose classes and a career path, if the advisor-advisee relationships were stronger. One person suggested training the faculty to be more proactive in the relationship. This could be easily accomplished by providing departmental funds for dinner meetings between an advisor and advisees.
Research
The EECS department is excellent at involving students in research activities, especially with the help of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). An increase in energy and excitement in the department and research would be favorable, however.
It would be nice to have a way for students to find out what research projects are available. This would make it easier to find thesis projects and advisors. Perhaps providing the booklet given to prospective graduate students ("Research and Graduate Study") would help undergraduate students find projects.
M.Eng. and Ph.D. Programs
The M.Eng. Program is wonderful! It provides a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
The Ph.D program should reflect the increase in the amount of Ph.D. graduates that now enter the industry instead of continuing their research in academia.
The new Ph.D. program seems quite complicated, although some components seem to be more effective than the current program. However, there still seems to be many hurdles when research, teaching, and overall professional development should be the focus. The discussion forum for this new program was not well advertised.
Student Workload
One of the major features of the EECS curriculum are its "Hell Weeks". A large amount of work frm different classes can all be due within a short time, such as problem sets, labs, and exams. Sometimes there can be many exams in the same week. Or, a problem set can be due immediately after an exam, in the same class.
Some problem sets can be more grungy than necessary for understanding the material.
The EECS labs should not close at night, but be open 24 hours per day.
Final Suggestions
Please make sure the new EECS building is really nice.
The EECS web page needs improvement.
The textbooks written by MIT faculty should be published via MIT,
as is similarly
done for 6.002.
Quotes
"I like Course VI"
"This is a great place; please keep it that way. Thanks!"
"When there is a major that is known for its students' body
odor there is an obvious problem."
"EE at MIT is probably the best in the world."
Last modified April 14, 1997
