WEI, Jian’s blog

A good recommendation letter is one of the most important supports a student can get when they apply for graduate school. However, it is unclear whether the student is ethical or not to write the initial draft of the letter by himself/herself. Now here is the answer from the one expert in American Physics Society:

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200712/asktheethicist.cfm

Basically, it says it is ok the student write the first draft, and it is the teacher’s problem “ if your reference was unwilling to scrap a ghostwritten letter when necessary”.

In my opinion, this will cause unease to the students and teachers who insist to hold higher standards since the disadvantage of not doing so is obvious. Maybe, it will be fairer if there is a special remark in the beginning of the recommendation letter that states it is based on the draft written by the student himself/herself.

Recently, in Beijing University, one of the most prestigious Universities in China, there were some discussions about student cheating on term papers initiated by the criticism of a visiting professor from Yale:

http://fangzhouzi-xys.blogspot.com/2007/12/yale-professor-criticizes-wide-spread.html

During this time, professor Yi Rao, dean and vice president, also expressed his opinion about writing recommendation letter:

http://fangzhouzi-xys.blogspot.com/2007/12/rao-yi-professors-should-write.html 

I am happy to know that he “agrees that there should be no reason for professors asking their students to write their own recommendation letters. They should write themselves, or at least ask their secretaries or assistants for help.”

However, although I am impressed by professor Yi Rao’s attitude, I am not sure how much influence his words will have. I don’t see there is any way to “force” professors to write the letter by themselves. Maybe, at best, it will end up with the same situation as that exemplified in APS news. 

In fact, rl for all kinds of application, or even president’s speech, are probably ghostwritten.

More interesting links about rl:

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2006/MJ/feat/scha.htm

http://philosophersplayground.blogspot.com/2007/12/ethics-of-letters-of-recommendation.html

As I mentioned before, I kind of like more textbooks used U.S. since they are usually written in more details, with many references, and sometimes with historic context. Although not succinct as those I used back in China (mostly translated, and shortened version), they are easier for students to self-study and to have a coherent picture. Also, if later someone want to refresh his/her memory, it is easier to pickup.

In this sense, now there are excellent complementary resources for learning on wiki, since one entry usually links to many related entries, even in different disciplines, e.g., math and physics. Here is an example.

http://www.answers.com/topic/wkb-approximation

Another one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp

It combines engineering, invention, surface science, biophysics all together. In fact, the in situ plasma etching used in the evaporators in our lab are based on similar principles.

For current students and teachers, another wonderful thing is online book reviews. It can bring relief when you see many people have similar confusions, and understand there are probably always some problems and limitations with even the very popular textbooks. Sometimes, the reviewer seems has deeper understanding of the material than most of us, and the reviews seem truly illuminating, e.g.

http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-3rd-Herbert-Goldstein/dp/0201657023

Most of the textbooks have many homework problems. My personal opinion, more homework won’t help students to understand deeper the physics. Right now the life of undergraduates is more than ever busy, if spend more than a few hours and still couldn’t get a hint to solve the problem, then it is not worthy it. I guess the tradition of problem solving is rooted back to applying the knowledge to solve practical issues. Although it is very useful to actually solve a few problems, it is not worth the time to try many of them just to be familiar with the problem solving technique. Instead, it might be better to spend the time to read some historic context, or related mathematics, so can have a more coherent picture. As for the technique, you will forget it anyway unless you use it all the time.

It is not uncommon to hear about complains that undergraduate courses are difficult to teach, and the students always hate to solve problems. Some said it is important to choose how much/deep the material in textbook should be covered. I think it is not how much the students have learned that matters, but how well they understand the derivation of the subject and its position in the broader physics/science context. Of cause, it is easier said that done.

About learning physics, and keep the students’ interest in physics, professor Carl Wieman has some very interesting opinion: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200711/backpage.cfm

(Though, I am curious about the percentage of faculty members who “have the desire to have a clear and sincere desire to have their students learn physics and appreciate its usefulness and inherent intellectual beauty.”)