Category: 2.1 Teaching (General)

  • Top three career advice for students

    Top three career advice for students

    These are the three top pieces of career advice I give to my students: In more detail: If you don’t feel comfortable with the people you are going to work with, your job will be miserable. Chances are that even after moving within the organization, it won’t get much better. If you help generate revenues…

  • Good use of ancient SD cards

    Good use of ancient SD cards

    I finally was able to find a good for of those old (ancient!) SD cards I have flying around. The ministry of education in Bavaria requires that I send exam questions to them before use, by mail (the one without an e-). I can burn the questions to a CD, or put them onto a…

  • How I work with industry guest speakers

    How I work with industry guest speakers

    I bring in guest speakers from industry into my courses, a lot. The benefits of doing so are are mostly that (1) industry speakers can cover some topics better than me and (2) the change of pace in teaching keeps students interested. In general, I don’t save time, though, because engaging industry in my teaching…

  • How not to organize written exams

    How not to organize written exams

    Das bayrische Kultusministerium

  • Why soft is hard v2 (in teaching)

    Why soft is hard v2 (in teaching)

    I previously discussed why “soft” research (qualitative research) is so much harder than “hard” research (quantitative research). The main reason is that there is less and later feedback, which can be incredibly frustrating for the impatient researcher. A similar argument applies to teaching “soft” skills, which is much harder than teaching “hard” skills. Examples of…

  • Dear ministry of paper-based exams

    Dear ministry of paper-based exams

    Dear ministry: Ten days ago I received a pile of written exams to grade. Yesterday you sent me a note asking me to finish up already. In the future, I recommend you send the dunning notice together with the exams. Alternatively, you could fix your own processes and give me adequate time. Speaking about fixing…