During my studies in Chemical Engineering, one of the most discouraging stories that happened to me had to do with the MATLAB/Octave programming language. One of the most challenging subjects in this field is related to chemical reactors’ design. The use of numerical methods to model and simulate chemical reactors is mandatory to fully understand the nature behind this complex subject. So after a first and successful introduction to this topic and MATLAB/Octave, I had a problem with the professor of the second semester.
The professor’s lectures were horrible. There was absolutely no structure other than a bad translated book and the programming classes were a real chaos. The grade highly depended on only one exam (which one the professor copied from a book and was unable to solve himself without checking the solution) and a small document using MATLAB/Octave to perform parametric studies.
The maths and numerical methods behind were interesting, though. I learned almost by myself to solve semi-explicit differential-algebraic equations using MATLAB/Octave. I was very proud of the result since I cared about the quality of my code and graphs (and enjoyed it). However, the evaluation of this document was really surprising. My professor basically looked if the graphs “have a good looking”, counting more the number of times that the students went to his office to ask rather than analysing the ending result. After knowing my grade, I discussed it with him, who explained his “evaluation method”. His final answer was that I didn’t care about his subject because he did not know my face…
From that moment I thought that, unfortunately, the appearance matters even in something so quantifiable like mathematical-modelling and programing. It took me a year to come back to this world because of the unpleasant feeling of his incompetence. Fortunately, the following professors were able to motivate me again and I currently study (and organize workshops) about similar topics. Who would have said it then! 