Threads asking for ideas to work on

[aheight]

I find it a bit counter-productive to support requests asking for ideas to work on at the university level. Shouldn't we rather encourage the idea of being more responsible doing so on your own? Wouldn't that be better than spoon-feeding? At some point in life, you must go by yourself; there's not going to be a single person on Earth to help you. Best to learn this at an early age: Maturity, independence, responsibility, decisiveness. Rather than ask for an idea, how about finding one yourself even if it's crappy, working on it and if have problems, come back to PF and ask for help. This in my opinion better prepares someone to the challenges in life and in particular science.

So I recommend mentors consider this.

 

[berkeman]

I haven't seen much spoon-feeding in those types of threads. Usually the suggestions are to look into this area or that area or read the current research, etc. Also, we often ask for clarifying information that can lead the OP to figure out the answer to their own question, like "What areas in this subject interest you the most?" or "Have you read anything about <<this subject>>?".

Can you provide a couple links to such threads/posts where there is spoon-feeding going on? Thanks.

 

[aheight]

Can you provide a couple links to such threads/posts where there is spoon-feeding going on? Thanks.

Perhaps spoon feeding was too harsh a word. Also should have realized someone would ask for references and that just creates tension which I try to avoid in here so I'd rather not identify any particular ones. I still however think it would be a good idea to more stress the importance of trying to come up with an idea yourself at least in a university setting, and if mentors perhaps consider explicitly pointing this out in such threads, might be helpful to the poster to foster independent thinking.

 

[berkeman]

Fair enough. BTW, in addition to the questions I mentioned above, I will usually try to get the OP to think about doing a broader or more complex subject/project than they perhaps thought of at first. Like if they ask for ideas for a paper in signal processing, I might suggest that they learn to program an FPGA using Verilog, couple it to a microcontroller and write a program to do some specialized signal processing tasks and write up the project and results. That gives them a project idea that will stretch their knowledge and motivate them to learn new things (which BTW have very real-world applicability).

 

[Vanadium 50]

It seems the threads go like this:

"I need an idea for my project"
"What have you considered so far?"
<silence>

And that's the last we hear of them.

 

[anorlunda]

It seems the threads go like this:

"I need an idea for my project"
"What have you considered so far?"
<silence>

And that's the last we hear of them.

Actually, that's not a bad way to filter those seeking someone else to do their work or to spoon feed them, versus someone with the initiative to read and take suggestions and to eventually do the work themselves.

The lazy ones tend to be hit and run. They post a question, hang around 15 minutes to read the first reply, then never return to PF again.

 

[berkeman]

I haven't seen much spoon-feeding in those types of threads.

OTOH, we sometimes get posts like this (which we deal with fairly quickly)...

 

[symbolipoint]

Some assignments like those, if true, are not appropriate for those students or those students at the level which they are studying. Badly created assignments may happen on a few occasions.