How Often do You do Your HomeworK?

[Sidoh]

If that's how they want to work, they can go for it.  I'd prefer to work 20 mins with a professor explaining everything rather than work 3 hours on my own trying to hazily understand it.  Work smarter, not harder.  I think the main problem is that for some reason or another, there's a stigma attached to going in for help.  If a person needs help understanding something, he's not an idiot.

You're assuming several things.  First of all, I never said someone should spend three hours on a simple problem.  I said it could take one person three times longer to do the same problem as someone else.  How are they to measure the competency on the subject if they're unaware of this fact?  Second of all, you're assuming that working with the professor is intrinsicly "better" for your understanding of the subject.  While this may be true for several cases, it's not necessarily true.  Coming to a realization by yourself is usually allows for a much deeper understanding.

[MyndFyre]

I'm not saying that they're not "getting" it.  If it takes them three times as long to do each problem as you, they're not necessarily spending a rediculous amount of time "staring at the problem."  Maybe it just takes them longer.

That's my point though.  I *never* finished my homework in that course.  I did as much as it took for me to "get it", and then I moved on.  I did exceptionally well on the tests and participated in class a lot.

The lesson that I learned in that course (and the one that I was trying to convey) was that when you're not getting rewarded for doing the work, you shouldn't make it a priority.  Understand enough of it to succeed and then move on. 

Now, that doesn't work in a class where 30% of the final grade is homework of course.  Just hope to god you don't have 4 classes that weight homework that much and pile it on.