--- Kenneth Gonsalves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> the point i am making is the concept of 'the best learn by themselves' > which is simply not true. Self help, as i have already mentioned, is > a crucial component of learning - but only one component. Tiger woods > is the best golfer in the world - but has a coach, so for Anand. > Maria Sharopova's father flew to florida with $700 in his pocket - > why didnt he stick in siberia and encourage his daughter to learn by > herself? Sania Mizra's biggest weakness is fitness and is running > from pillar to post trying to find a fitness coach - surely she could > learn to keep fit on her own by reading books, watching TV and > googling? In fact the only guys who subscribe to this self-taught > crap is the indian hockey federation - and they are wallowing in deep > kaka. > Aren't coaches qualified and experienced people who can spot what you're doing wrong ? I'm no big trainer - I just teach as a visiting lecturer at local colleges in Nashik, and mentor B.E. Projects on a personal level. But I've observed that the weak enslave themselves. And even the best sometimes need to bounce ideas off others. Returning to the point about how important or effective self help is, I'd say that knowing how to teach yourself plays a very important role. > formal training imparts certain fundamental skills and discipline > which can only be appreciated by ppl unfortunate enough not to have > the benefits of the same. I'd rephrase that as "format training is _supposed_ to impart". Students at schools and colleges today know how to appear for exams. A limited few among them also happen to read more, or interact with industry professionals. I don't know if you've mentored projects or visited academic institutions as a lecturer, or perhaps played the role of an examiner in the Engineering exams. You'll discover horror stories of "minimum 70% marks for projects", and people charging anywhere between 8K to 20K per person per project, > It also, to a great extent, prevents one > from reinventing the wheel - i just spent 20 hours on debugging an > app due to an error so simple that it has never been mentioned in any > HOWTO or tutorial as it was considered too elementary to be worth > mention. > Not necessarily. For a variety of reasons, most lecturers today are not in touch with realities of the present day. These are the very people who influence entire generations of people. And while lecturers are supposed to teach programming and debugging techniques, their focus is more often than not on topics such as salaries, holidays, university submissions, and the like. Go visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bcslug/ and see the outrage that several young folks there have against their lecturers and the education system. > There is only one area where self taught is best - where you are > breaking new ground and venturing where no man has been before. And > this does not apply to the instant case. > I've recently co-authored a paper called "Assessing self-study ability at technical interviews". This is due to be published in a leading Linux magazine soon. This was inspired by my experiences with supposedly experienced on the job who shamelessly state "Databases was in my third year, I'll need to revise that". You are a developer yourself. How would you like it if everyone around wanted to be a "do-as-directed" programmer ? > -- > regards > kg > -- Sriram __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
