Yeah some of them do feel entitled to a good grade in class. You are the mean guy for actually making them do stuff, and making up all these INSANE requirements like showing up to class and submitting homeworks when they are due. I mean all they want to do is to pass your class without actually doing or learning anything – is it that hard to understand???

:P

Once a student became very agitated when she came to the class for the first time in a month and found out we are having a quiz. A quiz I was talking about for 2 weeks, and reviewed for the last class, handed out review sheets and etc. But she was outraged that I did not post an announcement and review notes online and send out an email to tell people they are there. Which of course would not help, because that girl never checked her email, and actually only logged into the LMS 3 times this semester. But I guess the expectation they have is that I’m supposed to chase after them, and force them to study.

I know it’s an old post, what the hey:

The sad part is that the kid doing the presentation probably wants to be a lawyer or a doctor. The other sad part is if you flunk them, they’ll get all teary eyed. “The emperor has no clothes” and they’ll take you to the supervisor’s office if you show them.

I taught college before and I had a girl just like that — she wanted to be a lawyer. However, she couldn’t pass a simple logic test, and got all upset when she failed. She felt entitled … but her abilities did not match her ambitions. Hopefully, she shaped up after my class or chose a different career…

Too many, though I do not regret it. I actually enjoyed most of my classes, and thought they were a valuable experience. I loved the lit classes, I really enjoyed Bio and Chem. I even once took a random class on “Religious Existentialism in the works of Soren Kierkegard” on a fluke – and totally enjoyed it.

The only ones which sucked big time were:

a. my gym class – intro to swimming, 8am, Saturdays in the fucking winter (agh). If I took it in the summer, and like in the evening it would actually be pretty fun and relaxing.

b. A geography class which took a strange turn into geology. The professor sped through first few chapters and then basically stopped at the point we reached geology which was his research area. So for the rest of the semester we were getting to know about all different magma rock types in way more detail that I ever wanted to know.

c. Mythology class which inadvertently turned into women studies class. We did greek mythology for two weeks, and then went on this “female roles in mythology” tangent that turned into some sort of an angry rabid feminist rant picking apart the evil patriarchal stereotypes in literature. I took this class because we were supposed to be studying and comparing various mythologies as in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, Assyrian some Affrican stuff etc… And I was all for that. Instead she insisted that we read “Devil Wears Prada” instead. I didn’t drop the class only because it was my last semester and I needed the credits to graduate.

Of course sometimes I wish I actually had more CS centric course load. But then again I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life back in HS. I knew I loved technology, but I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted to do back then. So I picked a liberal arts college with a balanced profile and really tried all kinds of different things my first two semesters. By the time I figured out I’m a CS guy I was already behind the sequence. And then I realized that some of the interesting electives (like artificial intelligence for example) were only offered once a year and then promptly canceled every time due to insufficient numbers registering for them.

You know, it is sort of a toss up. On one hand, I really do think that the liberal arts education is really a good thing. I’m all for making people “more well rounded” (I don’t think that’s grammatically correct, but whatever). I think I did benefit from it, and I am a better person for it. I do have some appreciation now for some of the other fields of study.

On the other hand, in retrospect I sometimes kinda wish I went to a more CS oriented school. :P

Well, it did make the programs take longer. IIRC, 6 yrs for architecture, 5 for engineering. But, the benefits were there. The school I was at, U of Cincinnati, has a rep as a pioneer of this type of program, so their co-op students are in demand and well-paid.

I hear you on teaching enough theory. How much of that 16-18 hrs were non-CS bs classes just to make you more “well-rounded”?

I think MSU does offer co-ops but they are optional, and the pickings are usually slim (since we are not really known for our CS program) and usually you don’t get paid (but it depends on the company).

I never really had time for these things. As an undergrad I would usually took 16-18 credits per semester and had 2 jobs (one off campus, evenings+weekends) and one on-campus (work study type of thing) and helped my dad running his business (he doesn’t speak English so all the paperwork is on me usually).

And you know what – even now after getting my MS in CS I still feel like I don’t know squat about my field. :(

So while I’d love to see more practical stuff being taught alongside the theory, I personally think we are not even teaching enough theory.

In the engineering/architecture/construction industries, there are many schools who use co-operative education to balance these ideas. Essentially, after one full year of classroom, you alternate full-time classroom with full-time (paid) work plus part-time night class. You learn the theory/history in class, and practical work experience in co-op. This system produces graduates who are very strong in both aspects. They are often able to go right to work for the firms they did their co-op with, and contribute much more than the average graduate.

Practical vs. Theoretical education is a whole huge flame war in itself. This is the argument and we run into it all the time in the CS department. Should a BS in Computer Science prepare a student for a job in the software industry or teach him theory and concepts that every “computer scientist” should know.

If you teach just the theory and concepts you get a well rounded individual who knows a lot of theory, and can hopefully apply it to solve various problems. You get a sort of Jack of all Trades who can easily pick up new languages, and was trained to learn and apply new things. Is he prepared for a job in industry?

Nope, he will still need to be trained in the process a given company uses, he will need to learn the tools, software and assortment of practices. In fact such person will probably experience a culture shock when entering the industry where mantra is more often “get it done fast” rather than “get it done right”.

If you teach just job oriented skills you will end up with a code monkey with a wide range of skills, but no good idea of how software works. And of course he will still need to be trained since each company uses a different process, tools and guidelines.

So at most universities the compromise usually falls somewhere off center more emphasis on theory and academic pursuits, and less emphasis on actual “job training”. But we do offer courses which teach “Software Engineering” principles which gives the students an overview of processes and methodologies used (or abused) out there in the big world. And of course we do teach programming in a popular mainstream language. So solving theoretical problems in that language is already a good practical training.

Then there are some universities teach programing in Scheme which while a great language in itself, is used extremely rarely in the industry.

[quote comment=”9120″] But then again the opposite is also true – a 4 year college degree is becoming a requirement for just about every white collar job you can imagine. Not having a college degree or having “just an associates degree” bears with it a certain social stigma.[/quote]

So we find ourselves in a catch 22 – workplace standards dictate a college degree though the reality is the position does not require the type of education a college degree provides. Students who want these jobs know they must “get” this degree though it will not directly serve the position but it is socially unacceptable to not have it.

This situation really presents two equally undesirable alternatives because the value of a college degree has been reduced to…what exactly? But then again I am in the Humanities so the practical aspect of education (i.e., serving the job market) was lost on me completely.

Thanks for elaborating on my comment and allowing me to vent ;)

@e – this is true. But then again the opposite is also true – a 4 year college degree is becoming a requirement for just about every white collar job you can imagine. Not having a college degree or having “just an associates degree” bears with it a certain social stigma.

So kids from affluent families with low ambition, low aspirations, low grades, and low standardized test scores tend to get funneled into universities that will take them both because of social pressure and job marketplace conditions. These folks do not really want to be in school, and should not be really be in college. But they need that degree and they are willing to “suffer” through 4 years by doing the absolute minimum of work required just to get that piece of paper. Others don’t really even care about that degree – they really here only for the 4 years of drinking, partying and living on their own away from their parents. So they only do enough classwork not to flunk out.

These are the people who think that they are entitled to their degrees I believe.

You have my sympathy. I have read the other comments so I won’t repeat the excellent points already raised. All I have to say is that there is a very frightening movement occurring in many western countries: to embrace and adapt the American educational model…and not that of Harvard or Princeton either. I think students feel they are entitled to a university degree, a possession like an iPhone or a car, rather than an honour received in recognition of high achievement.