Quick thoughts on Data Mining

Following my format from last semester, here's some quick hits on Data Mining with a more thorough recap to follow.

I went into the class not sure how much I would learn. After all, it's not that far off from what I do every day at work. Turns out I learned a lot. Probably more than any other course I've taken since Cornell. So, why am I not happy?

Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I'm just being a jerk. I won't dismiss that, but let's shelve it for the moment.

The lectures were super dumbed-down. Basic probability and linear algebra were pre-requisites. While I certainly get that a prof doesn't want to dust half the class, I don't think there's anything wrong with telling the students that if they don't remember a certain fact from a prereq course, they can just dig out their old text and if they still don't get it, bring it to office hours. The students who do remember the stuff (or, as in my case, the students who went to considerable effort over winter break to dust that stuff off) would rather the class time be spent on the actual subject matter at hand.

We got almost no feedback on our assignments and tests until after the final. That's total bogus. Even after the final, all we got were numeric scores. That's not particularly useful even before the final. It's completely useless after.

As with the other two CS courses I've taken at UMSL, the focus was way too applied for graduate level work. I'm beginning to wonder how anybody writes a credible dissertation in this department. It's certainly not inspired by coursework.

OK, that's all true, but the fact remains that I really did learn a lot (albeit, mainly from the text and assigned papers). And, while I don't think that getting an A in this course constitutes as particularly strong academic achievement, I obviously received no injustice in the grading. So, I should probably stop being pissed about it.

I will. I'm pretty good at just moving on. But, while tuition at UMSL is ridiculously cheap for in-state students such as myself, these courses do represent a significant investment of time and there's nothing cheap about that. I think they could do better and I think they should.

That said, I'm basically done with traditional coursework at this point. Pretty much everything going forward will be directed readings or dissertation research. So, it's certainly not worth getting worked up over.

And, yes, maybe I'm just being a jerk.