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SciPy - the embarrassing way to code

May 6th, 2008<!-- by Shane Legg --> · 38 Comments

”It's very frustrating, and even as I said, for the students who come in here who say: ‘Wait a minute, you're asking me to do all this. I don't know how to do this. I don't have enough time to do this. I'm not used to doing this. I don't want to do it" said Dr. Rodriguez.

Dr. Rodriguez believes high school tests reward students for minimal knowledge, which won’t work in college where professors expect you to know how to read and comprehend complex sentences. She says college professors don’t grade you on whether you try, but what’s right.

There are no points for effort, like some students got away with in high school.

”We have watered down too much material, and a lot of teachers know that," said Dr. Rodriguez.

The students will tell you themselves what the focus was in high school. And then there's math. There are some students in these remedial courses who cannot add, subtract, or do basic multiplication. And one professor says calculators are a big problem.