Maybe their instructor is a technophobe who banned laptops in class? Granted that’s more likely to occur among stuffy British English proffesors than physics(?) profs with stuffy British TAs, but it does happen!
All of my teachers banned electronics in class.
All of them.
Seriously, my oceanography dropped a kid because his cell phone rang three different days.
Considering that none of my partner’s fellow students can seem to get through an hour-long class without texting or checking their phones at least thirty times, I understand this attitude. I don’t completely agree with it, but I get it.
So far I have been in one chem. class, two math classes and a marketing class that the professor did not allow laptops to take notes with. Considering I haven’t been in college very long I would judge that many professors do not allow laptops in college. Although my current college does tend to attract crazies for professors…
I’ve never had a teacher that banned laptops from class, and it actually makes it easier for me (except in math, I agree with that one). I write slowly but I type 40 WPM, so if I write notes I don’t get everything, however if I type them I get a lot more info down. I don’t see many other students use them, though, and I don’t play games or surf the net in class.
News flash for you – kids that take notes on laptops in the upper level science classes I TA do *much* worse than the ones that handwrite notes. Unless you have a “Bamboo” or some input device you can do sketches with, these pitiful little outlines that most nursing majors think will help them pass fall well short of notes they should actually be taking.
Please believe me here. If you absolutely must take “notes” on your laptop, please, please PLEASE get a sketch input device. Don’t kid yourself into believing something in word with some MS paint sketches will cut it – it won’t. If you can’t spring for the $150 for a Bamboo, you need to use a composition notebook. PLEASE!
Source: I’ve been in college almost as long as most students have been alive, and I have almost a 4.0. In a STEM field.
Nobody used laptops when I was in college. But then, professors never collected notes, either. You’d have a hard time picking up all of those granite slabs we chiseled our notes into.
I had to capture and tame a woolly mammoth to help carry mine.
MOST of my classes actively discourage laptop use. Supposedly there have been “studies” recently showing that students using laptops, even if they only use them to take notes, negatively effects their ability to retain information from lecture. I put “studies” in quotes because I’ve never read these papers and have only heard them verbally cited at me/been shown select figures from them by various professors (many of them psych or language profs), so I cant personally verify their validity. But I can say that I went to the type of school where everybody had a laptop, but still saw relatively few of them in class ( I just graduated)
A few of my classes have stuck the laptop users in one of the side-rows. I’m actually glad for this, because it’s really distracting if someone’s dicking around on the internet, especially in a multi-leveled auditorium hall. You can see everything a person any number of rows below you has on their screen, and you can’t look away, because you’d be looking away from the proff, as well.
When I got my engineering degree a “computer” involved several large boxes and 2-3 power cords. Laptops hadn’t even been *invented* yet (the first one came along my last year in college.)
When I went back to school I was one of two that had laptops. Now what I see is about 50% of the class.
And no, it’s not a gimmick. I can either write and be able to read about half of it, or type 120 words per minute on a keyboard. You do the math. Nowdays I use an iPad and a keyboard. Very light, and at least some of my books are on there too.
There is NO WAY I would give up my notes. Mark me absent. You don’t NEED to know how much I don’t pay attention to your lecture. I keep my notes, I use them to LEARN. Piss off.
How the hell are you supposed to do the homework without your notes? Idiots.
Gah, I LOATHE it when my teachers do this. Why the fuck should I bother taking notes if you’re just going to take them? Might as well just… well, write what Mike did.
Jason’s probably one of the character who I’m most like (I’m kind of boring and uptight). And I may end up being a TA (yeay for grad school beginning in January!).
Wait, did Walky sign his sister’s name to his notes to avoid getting in trouble, or did Sal also feel the need to draw Jason getting eaten alive by some horrible monster? I…either one would make me feel happy. Especially if it somehow ended in Sal and Jason in liplock mode.
No, Sal’s paper is in front of Walky’s, it’s the half-bent one that has “blah blah blah” on it. We can’t see Walky’s signature, but we knew what he had on his “notes” anyhow.
My favorite geology professor had a running gag when he reminded everyone to put their names on their test he would always add “or put the name of someone you don’t like.” I still laughed every time even after two semesters with him… maybe I’m just a dork but I thought it was really funny…
I wasn’t aware people could even use laptops in Math class. Formatting one equation to look nice would take at least ten times as long as writing it down.
As much as I loathe Macs, aparently they have a program designed especially for this. Saw someone using it in a math class a couple quarters ago. She took the notes then played games, so it was pretty quick.
I don’t know a lot of people who take notes via laptop. I find hand-writing to be easier to format, cross-reference, doodle relevant pictures. With a laptop, you can…type things out. Or check your email, facebook, MLIA, twitter, etc., but some of us pay hundreds of our own dollars for this class, we’re going to pay attention. Pretty much the only thing I do slacking-off-wise in class is doodle…and in history classes I can doodle relevant images, which is why I guess I’m a history major.
That depends, if you buy the tablet PC freshman year and plan on getting your masters it might be more efficient to have digitalized notes, which you can then sort by subject and date. This is really useful if you want to revisit older concepts quickly. I know it made my life a lot easier when I started digitalizing my notes, especially when writing essays. I can reference lectures or my previous professors. This can be especially when I remember something but can remember where I learned it from and need to reference it. (I have this problem a lot because when I study for a test I pretty much memorize it entirely and I almost never forget that I actually bother to study.)
I can’t really read them, and sucked at math even when I was taking t a decade ago…are Joyce’s notes accurate? (I suspect not, with it zeroing out without plugging any values into the variables, but…)
I can’t really read them either (the notes being bright pink and me being blind in one eye doesn’t help) but judging from what you’re saying it sounds like they could be formula instead of actual problems…
I’m also guessing this because I can read the top of the notes which reads Ratio of Change, which implies that it’s a formula involving derivatives of some kind. I can also make out dy/dx at the bottom which is a popular formula involving ratios and derivatives…
Can’t make out the writing on the left-hand side, and it’s been so long that I did calculus that I can’t remember any of it. So I hope I got most of it right…
It amuses me that Joyce signs her name “Brown, Joyce.” Also, do you think Mike wrote that on his notes before or after it was announced that they would be handed to the TA?
I don’t even know math that well, so I don’t know if its gibberish or actually coherent: But how has no one noticed that Joyce is ACTUALLY SMART AND DID HER WORK? 😮 Or maybe it’s so expected, it gets no lurves?
Smart but naive seems to be a theme I run into a lot on college campuses, so it’s not that surprising – they’re people who were overly-sheltered by their families at home, but are also intelligent, and just haven’t been exposed to anything yet.
I’ve had teachers do it before, but it was usually a lit or computer animation class, where your notes might consist of 20 words with definitions or a lot of numbers and words that won’t mean a thing in fifteen minutes anyways.
Granted, for a math class, that is stupid, but only for someone like Joyce, who actually was taking notes.
Jason = TA, Sal = student, a bit taboo, but COMPLETELY legal and A-OK as long as Jason’s not TAing a class Sal’s in. One of my roommates in college met her boyfriend that way.
It’s kinda funny seeing Joyce’s notes having just done the Chain Rule in my AP Calc class. Even funnier seeing Mike’s “notes” though. Poor Jason clearly wasn’t expecting to be Miked on the first day of class.
1. You’d be surprised, or not surprised, to find out how many people in college arrive at a differential calculus class with no previous high school calculus experience. “They” generally go very slowly the first session. Then they pile on a problem set or two that’s thick with small polynomials (usually just conic sections and 3rd or 4th order) and a some word problems. If Joyce hadn’t seen calculus much before, no wonder she took relatively careful notes. LOVED the purple: I used to color code my notes in college, but back then I was a fountain pen user. Sal’s notes: Either math bores her, or she did have calculus in high school.
2. What’s with the yanking of notes? I can’t WAIT to see how Willis and/or Jason is going to cope with the blind kid who’s punching braille and Nemeth Math Code(link goes to PDF) with a slate and stylus (because even the old school braille users don’t use a Perkins Brailler as a portable much anymore, the electronic notetakers have taken over that role).
3. Bitter? Oh yeah, I still remember the baffled outrage I felt when I realized my school’s Disabled Student Services office was on the second floor of a building without an elevator. This was about when I learned my pal’s “tennis chair” had Phil Wood hubs (long lasting but pricy) because his chair sponsor specced the chair. Was the first time I’d seen Phil Wood hubs on a wheelchair, or realized I was having lunch dates with a sponsored athlete.
I agree with all of this. I still haven’t taken a calculus course, and I’m 23.
Having had a lot of friends my first year of college with learning disabilities, I can also agree with the sentiment that it doesn’t seem ethical to take their notes away.
I am so glad that I’m not the only one whose first reaction was, “Wait, what about the people who record the lecture instead of taking notes, or use laptops or Braillers, or have someone else take class notes for them for whatever reason?” I work in a DSS office and am now wondering whether there are professors on our campus who do this. :\
No, really. You want to test comprehension, do it with a pop quiz, complete with “show your work” admonitions. Unless this is some bizarre TA/grad student hazing ritual. And Mike is my avatar?
It took my nearly a month to read every single comic before DoA….. and I love the reboot… absolutely adorable. Mike seems to be the only one who’s not even mildly changed, which goes to prove he’s a perfect character ^_^
Also: Poor Jason… wonder what’s gonna happen when Tony shows… and where he’ll be?
as the purpose of my notes is to alien ME to review what you taught in class today I will be keeping them instead so instead here’s a drawing of a kitty using only geometric shapes
*insert kitty here*
Aww yeah, Jason in da’ house… Though I wouldn’t really expect that to be his sentiment but you never know. GNN isn’t much to go off. It and his face (insert extra letters as required) says to me maybe, ‘surprised revulsion’?
I read “GNN” and thought, “Why is he saying the name of a news network? What does the G stand for?” then I realized with as an expression of exasperation.
Do any schools actually do this? This wouldn’t even be legal at my university, there are policies in place as to what the professors can and cannot require students to do. I assume other schools have the same thing… In high school this could maybe happen, but no college professor would get away with bullshit like this.
Can a professor legally require you to give up your notes? Probably not. But a lot of things people voluntarily do aren’t legally required. It is a student’s best interest to comply with the request, as getting feedback as to what the students understood or didn’t helps them become a more effective teacher and allows the teacher to gauge the progress of the class and make sure the tests and assignments are appropriate to what level the class is at.
It might’ve been nice if the teacher give everyone five to ten minutes to copy their notes (so anything they kids didn’t want the teacher to see could be excluded), but class time is often at a premium.
Looking at someone’s notes isn’t actually a good indicator since everyone has a different note-taking style — some will take everything down like a transcriptionist, some will just take highlights of the lecture. That’s why copying someone else’s notes isn’t recommended for your own review.
Of course, this shouldn’t get in the way of the funnies. 😀
Mike’s understanding of mathematics is unparalleled. In fact, his work looks like the beginnings of a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. We’re looking at a PhD by 21, and tenured professorship at any top-tier institution by 28.
What’s Jason’s thesis work in? (probably “heuristics for approximating optimal bow tie orientations” or “improved hyperbow tie packing densities in 9 and 10 dimensions”) Also, who is Jason’s adviser, and will we ever see any actual professors?
If this weren’t apparently everyone’s first class, I’d say Sal accidentally turned in her philosophy notes.
Wow that has to be the single worst TA/Prof move I’ve ever seen. The whole point of college is to NOT coddle your students and let them do whatever way of doing the work suits them best as long as they get it done (or skip all of the BS homework and pass the final depending on the class). I know it’s a comic, but I would seriously have refused that directive straight up. Probably just turned in a sheet with my name and the word “NO” written in the middle.
Still no laptops? I’m starting to wonder if Willis is intentionally leaving them out completely to mess with us, or if my joke about this being a universe where computers and the Internet never really took off as much and Twitter is something almost completely different is actually canon. O_o
I know I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but… don’t most math courses require you to do everything in pencil?
Oh, and for those of you questioning the absence of computers, I’d assume they’re not allowed in this class. My math courses don’t even allow calculators, and I’d assume that laptops would simply prove to be a distraction.
Now I want to see the disillusionment cross Joyce’s face when the math professor takes her aside and explains to her that she has to take math notes in pencil. For some reason this will be disillusioning? She will cry, and then Walky will cheer her up. Yes.
In high school yes, but I have found that in college, the profs don’t give a shit what you use to write with as long as your homework/tests are neat and legible.
Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m taking high-school-level Math, then.
Personally, I prefer using pencils and being forced to work everything out on paper. Once I get my mind into the processes, I actually learn what I’m doing!
As for laptops. I never had any in undergrad that didn’t allow me to have one, but I heard about classes that did. Now that I’m in Law School, they’re universal. And clearly distracting, since I’m in Torts
Wow, I have never heard of this happening, at least not in the states. When studying in China, every once in a while the teacher would just come up and take the notebook out of my hand and look at it. She would even CORRECT MISTAKES in my notes (mostly characters I miswrote or left blank).
I teach (gasp), so I’ll chime in. Some teachers don’t allow laptops in their classrooms because they don’t want their students checking their farmvlle farm or playing some other Facebook game.
The whole “let me take up your notes for attendance” thingie could be a first day exercise to make the students feel they “have” to take notes… do it one time, early on, and the kids will be paranoid into taking notes in the future. Psychology and all that.
My response to this thing would be to hand in a sheet of paper upon which I had hastily scrawled, “I don’t take notes.” Being one of those people who can’t listen and write at the same time and all.
I’m with you. If it’s written on the board, I can get it down. If I have to take notes simply from the teacher talking…well, not much gets done. I’m terrible at figuring out what’s important enough to write down. On top of that, like you said, I can’t listen to everything that is said AND write it down at the same time.
Anyway, the whole “collecting the notes” thing is alien to me. This is the first time I’ve heard of it.
It’s more likely to discourage someone from taking notes than encourage them to take them. I’d be too paranoid that anything I’d written down would be gone for 2-4 days.
I’ve had a few teachers that didn’t allow laptops, but they were the kind of teacher that you literally needed to listen to for the entire three hours cause they just talked all the way through it. Course, it is the first day of class and a lot of students might not care to lug around a laptop if they don’t know where/if they’ll be able to get a socket.
I’ve done bottom of the page, though on the right. But it’s more a personal thing, since it’s an issue of style that I add to journal entries or comics. Essays tend to be upper right just cause they have to have specific formating.
You need to read the comments before you comment yourself. This has been explained at least twice. Sal’s notes are the ones that say “blah blah blah” Walky’s are right below hers.
Will there be forbidden lovin’ in this comic then? No, not Mike and Jason’s mum. But will one of the female characters in that class perhaps sex up a certain TA for A’s? C: I wonder who would do that..
Sounds like a typical first-year class designed to baby frosh! “We want to make sure you are taking notes because we assume you must have to do that to learn things, even in math class”; “This is how we use the LIBRARY”; “You may have a 4th extension on this assignment/I will curve the grades on this exam, but please try harder in future”. Ugh. I would not do well in a class like this because my notes have always been illegible/half in a different language/nonexistent. They’re just for me, after all.
I cannot be the first person to notice that one of the tags for this comic is Professor Rees (aka Alan)? Or was everyone more excited by Jason’s first appearance that no one ever noticed it?
Gah My College notes would have told them nothing. my Dysgraphia meant I took next to no notes in class otherwise I could not pay attention to the lecture. and what little I took were illegible to anyone but me.
Me as well thouh the T.A. would have received a very sloppy note stating “To receive a copy of my actual notes please install a photo copier. That said what I may or may not have write is only tenuously related to what I actually understood. Practical assessments may be a better option for evaluation of that. P. Sadlon”
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Ah, he’s still the same old Mike. And yay, Jason.
JASON WOO
I love me some Brit =D
Everybody loves the Brits. I don’t know why, we’ve invaded most of the world.
Its the accent.
Some people get off on being invaded. Like your Mom.
for a shilling?
Three things Criket, Football, and tea.
Make that four things: you forgot Doctor Who
We JUST DO. Face it, you guys are hot.
Why do you think the rest of the world let you get away with invading them?
Wait, how would that work in a classroom environment where a good amount of students are using laptops?
MAGIC, OKAY? MAGIC.
Maybe their instructor is a technophobe who banned laptops in class? Granted that’s more likely to occur among stuffy British English proffesors than physics(?) profs with stuffy British TAs, but it does happen!
All of my teachers banned electronics in class.
All of them.
Seriously, my oceanography dropped a kid because his cell phone rang three different days.
Then all of your teachers are Luddite idiots who don’t understand the value of recording a class so you can listen again to clarify something.
Amen.
Considering that none of my partner’s fellow students can seem to get through an hour-long class without texting or checking their phones at least thirty times, I understand this attitude. I don’t completely agree with it, but I get it.
Are you sure it wasn’t because his phone rang in class, with the fact that a phone usually doesn’t assist in a classroom?
So far I have been in one chem. class, two math classes and a marketing class that the professor did not allow laptops to take notes with. Considering I haven’t been in college very long I would judge that many professors do not allow laptops in college. Although my current college does tend to attract crazies for professors…
Should go to comunity college like me. I swear sometimes i think the schools motto is “We just don’t give a ****”
Most of these occurrences WERE at community college…
Where are you going to school? At Miami University students are encouraged to have laptops and most teachers are fine with you having them in class.
I’ve never had a teacher that banned laptops from class, and it actually makes it easier for me (except in math, I agree with that one). I write slowly but I type 40 WPM, so if I write notes I don’t get everything, however if I type them I get a lot more info down. I don’t see many other students use them, though, and I don’t play games or surf the net in class.
News flash for you – kids that take notes on laptops in the upper level science classes I TA do *much* worse than the ones that handwrite notes. Unless you have a “Bamboo” or some input device you can do sketches with, these pitiful little outlines that most nursing majors think will help them pass fall well short of notes they should actually be taking.
Please believe me here. If you absolutely must take “notes” on your laptop, please, please PLEASE get a sketch input device. Don’t kid yourself into believing something in word with some MS paint sketches will cut it – it won’t. If you can’t spring for the $150 for a Bamboo, you need to use a composition notebook. PLEASE!
Source: I’ve been in college almost as long as most students have been alive, and I have almost a 4.0. In a STEM field.
I think you mean stuffy English “professors.”
Sorry. Too wonderful to pass up. Stay in school.
What do you call a “good amount?” One or two? Because that’s about how many laptops I see students using in my uni classes.
Nobody used laptops when I was in college. But then, professors never collected notes, either. You’d have a hard time picking up all of those granite slabs we chiseled our notes into.
I had to capture and tame a woolly mammoth to help carry mine.
You were the guy with the mammoth. I was always envious.
It’s a math class. I never figured out how to take notes on my laptop for a math class.
LaTeX would work, although I think taking notes by hand would still be much faster and expedient.
MOST of my classes actively discourage laptop use. Supposedly there have been “studies” recently showing that students using laptops, even if they only use them to take notes, negatively effects their ability to retain information from lecture. I put “studies” in quotes because I’ve never read these papers and have only heard them verbally cited at me/been shown select figures from them by various professors (many of them psych or language profs), so I cant personally verify their validity. But I can say that I went to the type of school where everybody had a laptop, but still saw relatively few of them in class ( I just graduated)
A few of my classes have stuck the laptop users in one of the side-rows. I’m actually glad for this, because it’s really distracting if someone’s dicking around on the internet, especially in a multi-leveled auditorium hall. You can see everything a person any number of rows below you has on their screen, and you can’t look away, because you’d be looking away from the proff, as well.
And sometimes… sometimes you see things no man was ever meant to see…
When I got my engineering degree a “computer” involved several large boxes and 2-3 power cords. Laptops hadn’t even been *invented* yet (the first one came along my last year in college.)
When I went back to school I was one of two that had laptops. Now what I see is about 50% of the class.
And no, it’s not a gimmick. I can either write and be able to read about half of it, or type 120 words per minute on a keyboard. You do the math. Nowdays I use an iPad and a keyboard. Very light, and at least some of my books are on there too.
JASON! And Sal’s, Walky’s and Mike’s notes are hilarious
But how can they learn without the notes! At least the Jason learned something there. Specifically, that his mom is not naturally a prostitute.
There is NO WAY I would give up my notes. Mark me absent. You don’t NEED to know how much I don’t pay attention to your lecture. I keep my notes, I use them to LEARN. Piss off.
How the hell are you supposed to do the homework without your notes? Idiots.
Gah, I LOATHE it when my teachers do this. Why the fuck should I bother taking notes if you’re just going to take them? Might as well just… well, write what Mike did.
Exactly. I don’t give my notes to ANYONE.
JASON FINALLY! I feel like I might be the only person who was waiting for his arrival excitedly. Now it has finally come. 😀
And lol… At least Walky’s a good enough artist?
Jason is my favorite after joe. OHMIGAWDITSJASON YAYAYAYAYAYAYA
Jason’s probably one of the character who I’m most like (I’m kind of boring and uptight). And I may end up being a TA (yeay for grad school beginning in January!).
I seem to be perma-Joyce, not that it’s a bad thing.
I’m stuffy, uptight, tea-obsessed and British.
As I love Jason with all of my body, I can safely say that I was probably anticipating his arrival as much as you. Or more.
…all of your body? Eww.
You were not alone! JASON YAAAY! I’m so happy!
And BTW, he’s voiced by Simon Callow. Because I say so. 🙂
I’ve been waiting for both him and Leslie.
Am I the only one who finds it odd they’ve all signed it last name first?
It’s so the TA can organize them and hand them back out more readily.
Yeah, but the TA didn’t specifically mention that they needed to and even so, I would expect Mike not to just because he’s Mike.
Could it not have been mentioned earlier?
(Not going to lie, posting to see who is my current avatar)
could it be habit from having to fill out papers in a similar fashion for the past 8-10 years?
Something looks different about Jason’s hair. Or is it me?
Its dome-ier. It used to have round corners
Wait, did Walky sign his sister’s name to his notes to avoid getting in trouble, or did Sal also feel the need to draw Jason getting eaten alive by some horrible monster? I…either one would make me feel happy. Especially if it somehow ended in Sal and Jason in liplock mode.
He’s flipping past Sal’s, which simply reads “Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah”, and looking at Walky’s underneath it.
It’s 2 different pages
I’m pretty sure the note that sal gave are the ones that go ‘Blah blah blah’ while Walky’s notes are beneath it.
No, Sal’s paper is in front of Walky’s, it’s the half-bent one that has “blah blah blah” on it. We can’t see Walky’s signature, but we knew what he had on his “notes” anyhow.
My favorite geology professor had a running gag when he reminded everyone to put their names on their test he would always add “or put the name of someone you don’t like.” I still laughed every time even after two semesters with him… maybe I’m just a dork but I thought it was really funny…
You know, that’d be really tempting in some of my science classes.
I guess the 90% of students using laptops get an automatic 0 for attendance.
I wasn’t aware people could even use laptops in Math class. Formatting one equation to look nice would take at least ten times as long as writing it down.
I suppose that’s a point.
I dunno, I’m just used to walking into class and seeing a sea of laptops and barely a pen in sight.
I have a friend who takes amazing math notes on his laptop. He types up everything in TeX and then compiles it later.
Without laptops how can students check facebook during math class?
As much as I loathe Macs, aparently they have a program designed especially for this. Saw someone using it in a math class a couple quarters ago. She took the notes then played games, so it was pretty quick.
Or you could have 15 minutes to email a copy of your notes to the TA.
I don’t know a lot of people who take notes via laptop. I find hand-writing to be easier to format, cross-reference, doodle relevant pictures. With a laptop, you can…type things out. Or check your email, facebook, MLIA, twitter, etc., but some of us pay hundreds of our own dollars for this class, we’re going to pay attention. Pretty much the only thing I do slacking-off-wise in class is doodle…and in history classes I can doodle relevant images, which is why I guess I’m a history major.
Doodle is an inherently funny word. I shouldn’t say it so much.
Doodledoodledoodle.
A tablet PC would allow you to add hand-written elements to your notes.
But why would you do it that way if, for the same amount of money, you could buy a paper notebook, a pencil, and pay half a month’s rent?
That depends, if you buy the tablet PC freshman year and plan on getting your masters it might be more efficient to have digitalized notes, which you can then sort by subject and date. This is really useful if you want to revisit older concepts quickly. I know it made my life a lot easier when I started digitalizing my notes, especially when writing essays. I can reference lectures or my previous professors. This can be especially when I remember something but can remember where I learned it from and need to reference it. (I have this problem a lot because when I study for a test I pretty much memorize it entirely and I almost never forget that I actually bother to study.)
Not for math class. That’s the only class I take notes with a notebook.
I can’t really read them, and sucked at math even when I was taking t a decade ago…are Joyce’s notes accurate? (I suspect not, with it zeroing out without plugging any values into the variables, but…)
I can’t really read them either (the notes being bright pink and me being blind in one eye doesn’t help) but judging from what you’re saying it sounds like they could be formula instead of actual problems…
I’m also guessing this because I can read the top of the notes which reads Ratio of Change, which implies that it’s a formula involving derivatives of some kind. I can also make out dy/dx at the bottom which is a popular formula involving ratios and derivatives…
Yay for over analyzing a web comic?
The notes look as if they read as follows:
2ax + 2h(x – dy/dx + y)
+ b (2y – dy/dx)
+ 2g(1)
+ 2f dy/dx
+0 = 0
differentiate with respect to x
use chain rule
dy/dx = dy/du x du/dx
Can’t make out the writing on the left-hand side, and it’s been so long that I did calculus that I can’t remember any of it. So I hope I got most of it right…
I’m saddened that Mikes lecture notes did not surprise me in the least… xD;;
It amuses me that Joyce signs her name “Brown, Joyce.” Also, do you think Mike wrote that on his notes before or after it was announced that they would be handed to the TA?
Before, Mike is psychic.
Also, yeah! It’s Jason’s FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Everyone’s are Last Name, First Name, so I don’t see anything significant with that… That it’s followed by a heart, though, is amusing.
KAMINO, NEKO ♥
I don’t even know math that well, so I don’t know if its gibberish or actually coherent: But how has no one noticed that Joyce is ACTUALLY SMART AND DID HER WORK? 😮 Or maybe it’s so expected, it gets no lurves?
It’s not surprising that she did it, I think.
I have no idea whether her notes are accurate….
Smart but naive seems to be a theme I run into a lot on college campuses, so it’s not that surprising – they’re people who were overly-sheltered by their families at home, but are also intelligent, and just haven’t been exposed to anything yet.
Wow, that is like… the worst class policy ever.
Are there actually classes that take your notes from you in order to take attendance?
I’ve never seen a class that did that. Also +10 for GiTS:SAC avatar.
+10? +1000
+1000 would only apply if it were animated.
I’ve had teachers do it before, but it was usually a lit or computer animation class, where your notes might consist of 20 words with definitions or a lot of numbers and words that won’t mean a thing in fifteen minutes anyways.
Granted, for a math class, that is stupid, but only for someone like Joyce, who actually was taking notes.
I find it amusing that Mike’s notes seem to be the ones in Willis’s handwriting. 🙂
He is sending a message to the readers about what he thinks about our moms 🙁
YOU MAKE ME CRY MR. WILLIS! CRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYY
Jason = teacher. Sal = student. Hmmmm…
Jason = TA, Sal = student, a bit taboo, but COMPLETELY legal and A-OK as long as Jason’s not TAing a class Sal’s in. One of my roommates in college met her boyfriend that way.
So, since he’s TAing her math class, not kosher.
Just wait a few months, then it’ll be Kosher for Passover.
Er- Kosher for passover is very very very strict compared to normal Kosher laws. I’m not actually Jewish, just most of my friends are.
Unless she happens to get another class with him in it the next semester/quarter.
It took me a while to realize he wasn’t saying “OH NO MY BOWIE.”
Why would he say that? I don’t know. Dinosaurs are hungry for aging rockstars/reclusive producers, right?
Also, really? I take the worst notes… I’d fail this class… how many colleges of this size keep attendance, anyway?
Maybe he dropped his Bowie knife, because everyone knows Bowie knives are the best dinosaur killer right after mini guns…
Also, isn’t this a bit easy for college? I’d have thought Joyce at least did better in high school…
It’s first-day review. Cut the prof some slack.
Wow, I swear that comment wasn’t meant to be anywhere near as harsh as Billie’s making it look.
Every time I see this avatar it takes me a moment to realize that it’s not an angry Willis.
Mike just stealth-miked Jason FTW
*rotflmao* Good ole Mike. And we have the first Your Mom joke of the series!!!
Oh..hi there Jason….
That’s a rather weird way of taking attendance..
AHAHAHAHAHAHA.
It’s kinda funny seeing Joyce’s notes having just done the Chain Rule in my AP Calc class. Even funnier seeing Mike’s “notes” though. Poor Jason clearly wasn’t expecting to be Miked on the first day of class.
Yay, Jason makes his first appearance! And Mike celebrates it in style!
Dear Everyone:
Hi!
1. You’d be surprised, or not surprised, to find out how many people in college arrive at a differential calculus class with no previous high school calculus experience. “They” generally go very slowly the first session. Then they pile on a problem set or two that’s thick with small polynomials (usually just conic sections and 3rd or 4th order) and a some word problems. If Joyce hadn’t seen calculus much before, no wonder she took relatively careful notes. LOVED the purple: I used to color code my notes in college, but back then I was a fountain pen user. Sal’s notes: Either math bores her, or she did have calculus in high school.
2. What’s with the yanking of notes? I can’t WAIT to see how Willis and/or Jason is going to cope with the blind kid who’s punching braille and Nemeth Math Code(link goes to PDF) with a slate and stylus (because even the old school braille users don’t use a Perkins Brailler as a portable much anymore, the electronic notetakers have taken over that role).
3. Bitter? Oh yeah, I still remember the baffled outrage I felt when I realized my school’s Disabled Student Services office was on the second floor of a building without an elevator. This was about when I learned my pal’s “tennis chair” had Phil Wood hubs (long lasting but pricy) because his chair sponsor specced the chair. Was the first time I’d seen Phil Wood hubs on a wheelchair, or realized I was having lunch dates with a sponsored athlete.
Yay for over analyzing a web comic?
… and I though I was over analyzing….
I agree with all of this. I still haven’t taken a calculus course, and I’m 23.
Having had a lot of friends my first year of college with learning disabilities, I can also agree with the sentiment that it doesn’t seem ethical to take their notes away.
I am so glad that I’m not the only one whose first reaction was, “Wait, what about the people who record the lecture instead of taking notes, or use laptops or Braillers, or have someone else take class notes for them for whatever reason?” I work in a DSS office and am now wondering whether there are professors on our campus who do this. :\
No, really. You want to test comprehension, do it with a pop quiz, complete with “show your work” admonitions. Unless this is some bizarre TA/grad student hazing ritual. And Mike is my avatar?
I hated the damn pop quizes: the professor was always likely to quiz us on something I had zoned out for.
It took my nearly a month to read every single comic before DoA….. and I love the reboot… absolutely adorable. Mike seems to be the only one who’s not even mildly changed, which goes to prove he’s a perfect character ^_^
Also: Poor Jason… wonder what’s gonna happen when Tony shows… and where he’ll be?
Given what we’ve seen of Jason, he seems to be very much the same as he was in the Walkyverse.
YESSSSS. YESYESYES.
Jason’s here 😀
Yay Jason!
Yay Jason! Yay Walky Doodles, Yay. Mike Burns, Yay! Sal Apathy, Yay! So much awesome in one comic!
Dear professor
as the purpose of my notes is to alien ME to review what you taught in class today I will be keeping them instead so instead here’s a drawing of a kitty using only geometric shapes
*insert kitty here*
Wow is that the most appropriate avatar for a smart asked note ever or what
Aww yeah, Jason in da’ house… Though I wouldn’t really expect that to be his sentiment but you never know. GNN isn’t much to go off. It and his face (insert extra letters as required) says to me maybe, ‘surprised revulsion’?
I read “GNN” and thought, “Why is he saying the name of a news network? What does the G stand for?” then I realized with as an expression of exasperation.
Do any schools actually do this? This wouldn’t even be legal at my university, there are policies in place as to what the professors can and cannot require students to do. I assume other schools have the same thing… In high school this could maybe happen, but no college professor would get away with bullshit like this.
Can a professor legally require you to give up your notes? Probably not. But a lot of things people voluntarily do aren’t legally required. It is a student’s best interest to comply with the request, as getting feedback as to what the students understood or didn’t helps them become a more effective teacher and allows the teacher to gauge the progress of the class and make sure the tests and assignments are appropriate to what level the class is at.
It might’ve been nice if the teacher give everyone five to ten minutes to copy their notes (so anything they kids didn’t want the teacher to see could be excluded), but class time is often at a premium.
Now all I need is a smoking hot librarian Penny and my life will be complete…
THIS
Looking at someone’s notes isn’t actually a good indicator since everyone has a different note-taking style — some will take everything down like a transcriptionist, some will just take highlights of the lecture. That’s why copying someone else’s notes isn’t recommended for your own review.
Of course, this shouldn’t get in the way of the funnies. 😀
Mike’s understanding of mathematics is unparalleled. In fact, his work looks like the beginnings of a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. We’re looking at a PhD by 21, and tenured professorship at any top-tier institution by 28.
What’s Jason’s thesis work in? (probably “heuristics for approximating optimal bow tie orientations” or “improved hyperbow tie packing densities in 9 and 10 dimensions”) Also, who is Jason’s adviser, and will we ever see any actual professors?
If this weren’t apparently everyone’s first class, I’d say Sal accidentally turned in her philosophy notes.
Jason? JAASON? JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON?
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
NNNNNN!
Wow that has to be the single worst TA/Prof move I’ve ever seen. The whole point of college is to NOT coddle your students and let them do whatever way of doing the work suits them best as long as they get it done (or skip all of the BS homework and pass the final depending on the class). I know it’s a comic, but I would seriously have refused that directive straight up. Probably just turned in a sheet with my name and the word “NO” written in the middle.
JASON!
Yay! I love Jason!
And is that Hubert I see in the background of panel one?
Jason, Mike, Sal, Walky, and Joyce all in the same classroom. Is this room 128?
WIN.
LIKE.
Whew — I was beginning to think Mike was slipping, but he isn’t: he’s stepping it up! MIKE WARNER: he’s upping his standards — so UP YOURS!
Still no laptops? I’m starting to wonder if Willis is intentionally leaving them out completely to mess with us, or if my joke about this being a universe where computers and the Internet never really took off as much and Twitter is something almost completely different is actually canon. O_o
Since the few times we’ve “seen” Amber, she’s been carrying a laptop I’d say no.
Pink, Joyce? Really?
I know I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but… don’t most math courses require you to do everything in pencil?
Oh, and for those of you questioning the absence of computers, I’d assume they’re not allowed in this class. My math courses don’t even allow calculators, and I’d assume that laptops would simply prove to be a distraction.
Now I want to see the disillusionment cross Joyce’s face when the math professor takes her aside and explains to her that she has to take math notes in pencil. For some reason this will be disillusioning? She will cry, and then Walky will cheer her up. Yes.
With onions?
Or just start taking notes with a pink-leaded pencil 😀
In high school yes, but I have found that in college, the profs don’t give a shit what you use to write with as long as your homework/tests are neat and legible.
Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m taking high-school-level Math, then.
Personally, I prefer using pencils and being forced to work everything out on paper. Once I get my mind into the processes, I actually learn what I’m doing!
This is officially now the greatest comic ever.
Yaaaay, it’s Jaaaason’s FAAAAAAAAAAACE!
As for laptops. I never had any in undergrad that didn’t allow me to have one, but I heard about classes that did. Now that I’m in Law School, they’re universal. And clearly distracting, since I’m in Torts
Distracting or life-saving?
I am not sure as to who took better notes, Walky, or Mike.
I’d say it’s a tossup. I’m pretty equally torn.
Walky was just messing around during class. Mike was clearly paying attention and managed to derive a fundamental law of the universe. Mike wins.
Now that Jason’s shown up, there’s less and less characters that may or may not show up. The one that I would be most interested to see would be Alex.
Yay for Jason, and I literally LOL’d at Mike’s notes when I read this whilst eating breakfast at a dining hall. I got some weird looks.
Wow, I have never heard of this happening, at least not in the states. When studying in China, every once in a while the teacher would just come up and take the notebook out of my hand and look at it. She would even CORRECT MISTAKES in my notes (mostly characters I miswrote or left blank).
I teach (gasp), so I’ll chime in. Some teachers don’t allow laptops in their classrooms because they don’t want their students checking their farmvlle farm or playing some other Facebook game.
The whole “let me take up your notes for attendance” thingie could be a first day exercise to make the students feel they “have” to take notes… do it one time, early on, and the kids will be paranoid into taking notes in the future. Psychology and all that.
My response to this thing would be to hand in a sheet of paper upon which I had hastily scrawled, “I don’t take notes.” Being one of those people who can’t listen and write at the same time and all.
I’m with you. If it’s written on the board, I can get it down. If I have to take notes simply from the teacher talking…well, not much gets done. I’m terrible at figuring out what’s important enough to write down. On top of that, like you said, I can’t listen to everything that is said AND write it down at the same time.
Anyway, the whole “collecting the notes” thing is alien to me. This is the first time I’ve heard of it.
It’s more likely to discourage someone from taking notes than encourage them to take them. I’d be too paranoid that anything I’d written down would be gone for 2-4 days.
I’ve had a few teachers that didn’t allow laptops, but they were the kind of teacher that you literally needed to listen to for the entire three hours cause they just talked all the way through it. Course, it is the first day of class and a lot of students might not care to lug around a laptop if they don’t know where/if they’ll be able to get a socket.
Exactly the right reaction to anyone not familiar with “The Gang”.
I was hoping it would be Jason! YESSS
I love Joyce <3 I would like to teach her differentiation and differential equations *dreamy eyes*
Hey, I thought Walky drew the TA being eaten by a dinosaur, but the notes have Sal’s name on them. Typo?
Oh, I just saw the note on this above. Sorry, I’m dumb. 😛
wait. Mikes last name is Warner? o:
Since 1987! (…which is before this iteration of the character was born, yikes…)
I wasn’t even alive yet. Doesn’t that just make you feel old?
I just want to know what he THOUGHT Mike’s last name was…
Do people in the USA often sign their name in the lower lefthand corner? In Canada, upper right always seemed to be the preferred location.
Maybe it’s different in college, but at least in high school, it’s always the upper right corner.
I’ve always signed mine in the upper right too,and I’ve seen people do upper left, but never bottom like this.
In high school, college, grad school and grad school part two the name has always been in the top left for me. Thanks to Kate L. Turabian.
I’ve always seen either top left or top right, I’ve never seen bottom of the page anywhere, much less in the USA.
I’ve done bottom of the page, though on the right. But it’s more a personal thing, since it’s an issue of style that I add to journal entries or comics. Essays tend to be upper right just cause they have to have specific formating.
Wait wait wait… BOTH Sal and Walky drew Jason being eaten by a dinosaur? Runs in the family, I guess.
You need to read the comments before you comment yourself. This has been explained at least twice. Sal’s notes are the ones that say “blah blah blah” Walky’s are right below hers.
I love seeing old characters in new roles. It amuses me greatly.
Of course, I’m mostly just glad whenever Mike gets “screen time”.
YESSSSSSSSSSSS JASON
LDHFJKS:JFLKA:SHDJKS
Will there be forbidden lovin’ in this comic then? No, not Mike and Jason’s mum. But will one of the female characters in that class perhaps sex up a certain TA for A’s? C: I wonder who would do that..
Is that Nintendo’s Howard Phillips?
I like the use of actual calculus notes!
… why can’t Jason just give the notes back next class? Unless there’s a pop quiz second day, it’s not that unethical.
Sounds like a typical first-year class designed to baby frosh! “We want to make sure you are taking notes because we assume you must have to do that to learn things, even in math class”; “This is how we use the LIBRARY”; “You may have a 4th extension on this assignment/I will curve the grades on this exam, but please try harder in future”. Ugh. I would not do well in a class like this because my notes have always been illegible/half in a different language/nonexistent. They’re just for me, after all.
Now THAT’S the Mike behavior I’ve been waiting for.
This is a little late but… OMG IT’S JASON!
<3
O NO MY BOWTIE!
Mike is only $49,999.95 short. Unless it was a really big nickel.
I find it bizarre to see maths that I’m doing in high school in college-level work…
Do college classes really do this? Man I would have gotten into a lot of trouble for sketches if mine did. Hilarious comic.
It’s great to see that Mike hasn’t changed!
I know, fantasy and all, but I have never been in a Uni class that asks for the notes to, basically, be marked.
good to know that mike will never change, well hope he will not change
This class looks promising!
I cannot be the first person to notice that one of the tags for this comic is Professor Rees (aka Alan)? Or was everyone more excited by Jason’s first appearance that no one ever noticed it?
I think that must have been added very recently. I didn’t notice it until today too.
vault boy?
I…honestly think the bright pink pen writing is far worse than any of the other stuff, as its white backing makes it murder on the frelling eyes!
Oh no, he’s been disembowtied!
Gah My College notes would have told them nothing. my Dysgraphia meant I took next to no notes in class otherwise I could not pay attention to the lecture. and what little I took were illegible to anyone but me.
Me as well thouh the T.A. would have received a very sloppy note stating “To receive a copy of my actual notes please install a photo copier. That said what I may or may not have write is only tenuously related to what I actually understood. Practical assessments may be a better option for evaluation of that. P. Sadlon”
Did the bowtie kid make anyone else think of the Venture Brothers? xD
… They collect notes now?
Also, poor Jason.