R Bartlett wrote:
I think if you ask CS undergraduates who are not very good at programming whether they want to program, the answer will change from yes to no after a couple of months.
Let me chime in with an echo of what Lindsay said, and put it to you that CS students who are, quote, "not very good at programming", are the kinds of students I expect a competent system to sharpen up, or grind out. I don't expect it to find a way to make them good programmers in spite of themselves, if those very students lack sufficient drive and aptitude to conquer the material at hand under their own steam. How much they have paid for the course, or how high their hopes have been piled, doesn't matter for CS students any more than it matters for music students or medical students or Latin students. And I have no vested interest in defending the current teaching situation; rather I'm a walking, talking data-point from both sides of the student body. I was rightly ground out of medicine, due to lack of interest; I got distinction passes in computing and molecular biology, despite copious non-academic stresses, due to compelling interest. In both cases, the teaching staff helped, but I saw it as my job to fail or succeed. I managed to do both, in different fields, according to my drive and aptitude, and I wouldn't expect higher education to be any other way. -- Frank Wales [[email protected]]
