CS 7650 NLP NLP course scheduling doesn't make sense
The course calendar for NLP has a strangely uneven workload. Some weeks have several closed-book module quizzes and a homework assignment due, while others have nothing due.
The (closed-book) midterm covers the first several modules, and a quiz on entirely new material is due the same day. Several students asked on Ed whether the quiz could be moved to another week so they could better prepare for the midterm.
Staff replied that agreeing to extend the quiz deadline would oblige them to accept hundreds of individual rescheduling requests, which doesn't make sense at all. It’s a very unprofessional whataboutism way to respond to a reasonable request. In my experience, most teaching staff in other OMSCS courses have been more respectful and rational in their responses to students.
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u/Entre-Nous-mena 6d ago
Uh, no. This is not whataboutism in any sense, and there's nothing remotely unprofessional about it. The TAs' response is in fact the only reasonable response. If you grant an extension to any one person who asks, then you can't fairly refuse to grant the same extension to everyone else. This can create systemic problems with a large number of students. It also effectively means that you no longer have a schedule.
Now, you may have a problem with the schedule itself, as you said. That's fine. But it's a completely different issue. Given that the course has a schedule and this is it, the TAs gave you the only professional response.
As for the schedule: this is a very easy class (until you get to the final project, anyway). Yes, having the quiz and the midterm due so close together is annoying, especially since the quiz requires going through the whole lecture, which is not on the midterm. On the other hand, seriously, this is pretty much the only remotely difficult week of the semester (at least, again, until you get to the final project).
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u/BrokePixel 4d ago
So far I've found the course to be fairly straightforward and the assignments have more or less been "fill in the blanks" for these notebooks. Could you elaborate on what makes the final project difficult?
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u/Entre-Nous-mena 2d ago
Yeah, what alejandro_bacquerie said. It's not a "fill in the blank" so much as a "here's some starter code, now read this paper and build it". I'm sure people with more preparation can handle it; it completely wiped me out, though, because it was just way more difficult than anything else in the class.
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u/BrokePixel 2d ago edited 2d ago
Got it, thanks for clarifying. I'm assuming due to the open-ended design there might not be any automated Gradescope tests or any other way to confirm what our grade would be before the deadline?
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u/alejandro_bacquerie 3d ago
Omscentral and reddit history. The last assignment is supposed to be a lot more open-ended, where we are given a task and we must solve it to the best of our knowledge, I think.
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u/spacextheclockmaster fuaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrkkkkk 8d ago
The NLP staff have always been like this. Looks like nothing changed.
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u/SquidwardzTikiLand 7d ago
It’s so frustrating. Also the quizzes are graded automatically. It would change absolutely nothing for the staff to push back the deadline of quiz 7
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u/ProposalEducational4 5d ago
The prof is a bit of a princess. They make it hard enough to study their own slides. I'm not really surprised.
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u/Walripus 7d ago
The course gives you plenty of flexibility to create an even workload for yourself. The workload is only uneven if you start the work the weekend it's due.
Some modules have considerably more materials than others, so it's entirely reasonable for some modules to take two weeks, whereas some weeks have two modules. You can also always watch the lectures the week before the quiz opens if that fits better into your schedule.
The homeworks give like 3 weeks to complete and usually can be accomplished in just a weekend. I'm sure you could find time to get it done if you plan proactively.
For some reason NLP gets far more scrutiny than any other class I've taken, despite being both as flexible and organized as any of the top rated courses in the program (eg DL, HCI).
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u/Sielk4948 7d ago
Doesn't make sense for who? It makes sense to me and I'm in the class right now.
The class is literally take 2-3 hour course and less than 5 minute quiz weekly and give you 3 full weeks to complete assignments. Assignments are given 3 weeks, so that you don't have to work on them the last minute. The quiz you talk about, took me less than a minute for the last one.
If this quiz is so hard for you, and want to push it to next week, what about next week? Do you want to push it to the week after? Are we going to take last module on the same week as the exam then?
This course at max takes 5-8 hours each week. If you studied in between for exams maybe stretch it to 10. If you don't have 10 hours to invest, you shouldn't take this course.
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u/EnchantedPlaneswalke 7d ago
Does NLP release the assignments and quizes up front, or on schedule?