[PLUG] Computer Science at PSU a nightmare

Russell Senior russell at personaltelco.net
Thu Dec 20 18:05:51 UTC 2007


>>>>> "Carlos" == Carlos Konstanski <ckonstanski at pippiandcarlos.com> writes:

Carlos> I wish the intro to programming (pascal) course at Idaho State
Carlos> University were harder than it was for this very reason.  I
Carlos> dropped the class because it was soooo boooring.  It was
Carlos> geared toward the biggest moron in the class.  That guy should
Carlos> have been culled from the herd.  As a result, I never took
Carlos> another computer class.  I don't feel like I missed much by
Carlos> getting a real-world education instead of an academic one.

As an aside, I'd note that you aren't in much position to judge *what*
you might have missed, as the data you collected in that region are
rather sparse.  We'd know better if you had taken other computer
classes and found them also missable.

Carlos> Maybe it pays to find a CS department that specializes in the
Carlos> area you're interested in.  I would think that OSU would be
Carlos> much more linux-oriented, being a key datacenter in the linux
Carlos> universe.

I was exposed to programming in four classes as an undergraduate: 

 a) an intro to Mechanical Engineering class had a brief section on Fortran
 b) a later Computing in Engineering class taught Fortran all term
 c) an introduction to Computer Science class taught Pascal.
 d) a unix/c class taught C

Everything else, programming-wise I learned by reading and doing.
Later on, when I was taking some classes at OGI, I ran into masters
students in Computer Science that didn't seem to know much about
programming at all, which surprised me at first.  I am not saying they
were useless.  I expect they knew things I didn't.  But they were not
well skilled at turning ideas into good programs.

I think it is generally good advice to *do* the (exclude playing video
games here) thing you like doing, because that's how you get good at
it.  And being good at that thing makes you valuable to others who
might be willing to pay you.  And if it all works out, you end up
getting paid for doing something you like doing.


-- 
Russell Senior, Secretary
russell at personaltelco.net



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