""Andrew Dorsett"" wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, nrf wrote: > > > updated. But I look askance at demands that colleges transform themselves > > into glorified vocational schools. If all they're doing is teaching the > > technology du-jour, and neglecting the building of fundamental thinking > > skills, then I think the heart of what higher education is really all about > > will be lost. > > I never said they they should turn into a vocational school. But look at > the CS curriculum in any university right now. It is exactly a vocational > school.
I would take issue with this. Clearly I don't know what's happening at VaTech. But I can tell you what's happening at the CS departments at places like MIT, Stanford, Caltech and Berkeley. Yes, these places teach things that have a vocational bent. But there is always a great deal of theory and general knowledge-building as well. Practically all of these schools teach languages like SCHEME, Pascal, LISP, and the like - which are not exactly the most popular languages in the working world today, but are extraordinarily useful for teaching fundamental concepts. True, the schools then move on to things like Java and C, but the underlying tone of the curricula is always to understand theory and rigor - not just to slap together a bunch of code that will work but is computationally inelegant. The emphasis is therefore more on the theoretical, rather than the vocational, which is as it should be. >They teach you how to write code, how to design an app, and then > you do it. Yes in the meantime they spawn critical thinking. But the > problem I see is this. If they can teach programming, and they can teach > electronic design while still focusing on the learning as you stated, then > why can't they also teach network design. Look at it this way they can > teach anything in the world and still teach the "how to learn" deal you > brought > up. It's by asking students to solve problems. Like I said, there is significant room for improvement for college curricula. I agree that some school probably should foster a degree program that concentrates on networks. What I would say is that many schools offer an interdisciplinary choice where you can in essence create your own major. True, many times these programs are restricted to honors students or some other type of elite designation. But what I'm saying is that if you feel frustrated by what your school offers, you may want to create your own curricula. > > Yes, there is a mindset for engineers and lots of people are born with > those skills. I'll be the first to admit that my GPA is horrible, but if > you ask me to build you a network or write an application I will guarentee > I can do just as well as any other john doe off the street. GPA is not an > accurate way of showing excatly what I'm capable of. It only shows you > what > some professor thinks of me, or that I can barf up some some obscure fact > from a book thats over 400 pages. It doesn't show how much I can think or > how creative I am. It doesn't show you that I had a research project where > I designed a new protocol for ACL transfers. GPA is not a reflection of > abilities. It is a reflection of memorization ability for an exam. (I > can't even remember a single phrase in spanish but I did three > years of it in High-School and I got an A everytime) Here I have to take issue. GPA is clearly not a perfect indicator of ability - I never said that it was. There is no perfect indicator of ability. On the other hand, GPA is a pretty darn strong indicator of ability. Let's face it. The guy with a 4.0 probably worked harder and is brighter than the guy with a 2.0, all other things being equal (especially if they went to the same school and studied the same major). No guarantees of course. But the trend is clear. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the way statistics works to say otherwise. Obviously there are some geniuses who have poor GPA's. And there are some idiots who have good GPA's. But the fact is there are a disproportionate number of geniuses with high GPA's. It's like saying that smoking is dangerous (I hope you don't disagree with this). That's not to say that everybody who smokes will die young, and everybody who doesn't smoke will live a long life. But the trend is clear - smoking, on average, tends to hurt your health. Clearly I hope that if your kids ask you whether they should smoke, you are going to tell them not to, instead of giving them some spiel about how statistics are imperfect. Or, let me put it to you this way. You say that GPA is an imperfect indicator of ability, and I agree. Yet you argue that you can write an app and that kind of thing, and that should be used as the indicator. However, I could easily argue that that is an imperfect indicator also. OK, let's say that you can write all kinds of apps and do all kinds of things. On the other hand, let's say you just have a really bad work ethic (note, I'm not saying that you do, I'm just using this as an example) - you always show up to work late, or you show up drunk, or whatever. If this is the case, then despite the fact that you know how to design stuff, I probably still don't want you working for me. The guy with the high GPA at least probably usually showed up to class on time and probably wasn't drunk or high when he was there. The point I'm making is that your ability to write an app and whatnot is not a perfect indicator either. There is no perfect indicator. The problem with using things like experience as an indicator is that it is difficult for people who don't understand the skills involved to properly gauge those skills. Anybody can write a "Hello World" app, and then say that they are an app-writer. But how is somebody who knows nothing about computers, like an HR person, or a business-person, supposed to understand this? GPA is a standard which everybody - from the tech geeks to the business-types, can understand. That's not to say that it doesn't have its problems, because it does. But it's one of the few standards around that everybody can understand, and that's why it's used so universally. Think about this - I know nothing about accounting, so if I start my own company and need to hire an accountant, how am I supposed to know who's good and who isn't? Turn the situation around and say a company founded by an accountant needs to hire an engineer - how is he supposed to know who is good and who isn't? > > I'm not saying "Don't go get a degree." I am saying that the program is > behind, its playing catch-up and its are getting out lapped every day. Again, I'm not saying that there isn't significant room for improvement, for indeed there is. But what I would say is that this kind of thing has happened before throughout history - people have decried the 'irrelevance' of college and thought they discovered something more worthy. It happened just recently in the late 90's with the dotcom boom and the cert-craze. Every time, the value of the degree has proven itself in the end. Notice how these days certs are taking a huge backseat to degrees again, as well they should. But again, if you think that your college isn't offering you the proper tools for your success, I would say that you should explore those interdisciplinary options that many schools have. > > Andrew > --- > > http://www.andrewsworld.net/ > ICQ: 2895251 > Cisco Certified Network Associate > > "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all > of them yourself." Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=60085&t=59481 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
