MünchnerS

As the name of the title suggests, this post is all about the sorting algorithm called quicksort. This stuff was covered during my 1st semester IT basics but all thanks to my highly interesting lecturer, who never fails to hypnotise me with his deep and attractive Stimme, I spent most part of my Basic IT course in dreamland. Tja......as I was trying to kill time on a lazy sunday afternoon, I stumbled upon this website runned by a 22yr old MIT geek who attempts to explain the implementation of Quicksort. It was so beautifully and elegantly written I couldn't resist sharing it with you guys. On top of that, the website contains wonderfully written tutorials on Photoshops, CSS, PHP and FLASH.

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/quickSort.htm

For those who are wondering what the hell I'm talking about here, I suggest you dig out your IT basics lecture notes to recall what sorting is all about or you can just ignore the rest of this post. Alternatively, just go to the link and read up about it. They really make it sound so easy.

Anyway, I'm not going to do a summary of the article here, but I'll just provide the basic psuedo codes found from that website:

Ever failed an exam? Perhaps it was due to the lack of preparation but perhaps it could be due to the incompetence of the professors. Statistics have shown that the passing rate of a subject tested at different times in University XXX displayed astounding differences between 7 – 59%. In fact, for most of us here in germany, this situation is all too familiar. Studies into the causes of such discrepancies have shown that for most universities, the setting of exams belongs to the most unpopular task. Hence, more often than not, this ‘shit’ task is given to the youngest and the most inexperienced colleague in the department. Equipped with sets of old exam papers, the young and untrained setter then attempts to set the paper to the best of his understanding and abilities. Unfortunately, most of the time, the lack of proper training and experience means that the finished product lacks validity, reliability and objectivity. Such a person is totally unsuitable for the task.

It is the job of the university to ensure that regardless of when the student sits for the exam, they should be granted the same conditions as the cohorts before them. Although this is extremely hard to implement in practice, the departments should always strive as much as possible to achieve this goal. But as we all can attest, even in the so called ‘Elite’ university XXX, fairness is more a luxury than a right.

There are many issues that need to be fixed in the area of exams. Some of the most common problems include confusing phrasing of the questions, asking the same questions twice, the lack of relevance to the lectures and the tutorials, too little time, biases etc. I’m sure the list goes on. Very often, the setter tends to set too many questions from areas which he specializes in. The difficulty levels of the questions are also falsely estimated and points are often allocated wrongly. These affect all the universities including the so called 'Elite' Universities XXX. When do such situations happen? When the basics are not observed.

The 3 basic points are validity, reliability and objectivity. Validity is achieved when points are allocated fairly and tested are only the areas which are taught. Reliability refers to the level of difficulty staying constant and fair over time. For instance regardless of during Wiederholungen or different testers. Objectivity means that no students should be disadvantaged as a result of factors like sympathy, antipathy, race, religion, sex etc. Only then can the results of an exam be a true reflection of the abilities of a student. Well, this is something which German universities have failed to achieve.

Why are the universities not doing anything about it????

First of all, the students are at the bottom of the university value chain and what is of low value will be treated as one too.

Secondly, there are no rules and regulations in Germany forcing the professors to attend courses to improve their teaching methods. The universities are left to their own devices when it comes to quality control. No checks, no improvements. Same goes for the quality of exams.

Thirdly, only when the income of the professors is directly related to the success of the students, will there be an impetus for improvement. This too is lacking. We all know that universities in Germany are funded by the state and there is a lack of ownership from the students.

Fourthly, the further the professors are in their carrer, the lesser the time they have to attend courses to improve their teaching skills. Of course time is not the only factor here. The professors do not feel the urgent need for improvement nor do they see anything wrong with their methods of teaching. This is what I call a deficit in awareness that all professors suffer from. They do not see anything wrong with themselves and are satisfied with the status quo.

In comparison to many universities in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries, the universities in Germany sorely lack professionalism in teaching and exam settings. There is definitely a huge room for improvement. When there are universities where only 20% of students successfully complete their chosen field of studies, the problem no longer lies in the abilities of the students but in the way university education is being structured here in Germany.

So all in all, I conclude that Germany is the perfect place for university education. How else can we improve ourselves and raise our awareness if we only live in the rosy world of efficiency painted by our beloved P*P through our newspaper SP*. haha. so crappy.