One of the people here is taking a comp sci course at SAIT. Last semester, he took C++, and Java. He's looking forward to Pascal (not even Turbo), Fortran and Qbasic this semester. Now really, ESPECIALLY given the order they're taught in, is there any reason AT ALL for either of the programming courses he's in this semester? Sure, they used to matter. There might have even been a slightly increased need during Y2K. But really, does every comp sci student need to take them?
Kev. On Wednesday 05 January 2005 13:00, Ian Bruseker wrote: > On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 12:15:41 -0700, Kevin Anderson > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > <snip> > > > They simply make the useless courses "mandatory" so that teachers with > > tenure can teach useless subjects that are no longer relevant rather than > > being expected/required to stay current, which happens to their students > > in the real world. > > (My contribution to taking this even further off-topic and rant-ish) > > On a whole, I liked your rant and agree with it (especially the part > about parents paying to get rid of their kids, very amusing), except > this one little bit. I heard this same argument alot when I was at > DeVry. "Why do we need to take modern history? We're going to be > computer programmers." Well, ok, the possibilities are slim of you > ever having a heavy discussion with anyone about the Yalta Conference > and its effects on post-WWII Europe, but if the topic ever came up > (like it just did), do you want to look like have a clue what's being > discussed, or do you want to stand there with a blank look on your > face? Learning the skills to do one particular job, whether it be > flipping burgers or programming computers, is good, but there's a big > difference between being skilled and being educated. I'm not saying > one necessarily needs to get that education from school (read a book, > watch Discovery Channel, whatever), but I really hate seeing our > society turn into a mass of burger-flipper-education-level drones. > (There's a rant to be had right there about "the man" and how he keeps > you down by not educating you, but I'll leave that to someone else to > run with.) I just like to know the people I'm hanging with or working > with have a broad life experience so we can have a conversation about > something other than work, and I personally think broad-based post > secondary educations are a good way to give people that experience. > > Ian > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
