> > if anyone wants to debate the additional values of staged curricula and
> > interaction with an instructor, please prepare arguments which take
> > bubble-form testing, 450-seat lectures, and grad-student TAs who don't
> > speak english into account.
TA's??? Never-mind them! Our Chinese physics prof couldn't speak
straight Engolitch! Half the class dropped out, and some ended up leaving
the University because they no longer had enough credits to stay in for
the semester.
> In terms of hard practical skills and learning that I may have acquired
> during my four years in university... well, I'm hard-pressed to recall much
> of lasting value. I imagine most Arts undergrads would say the same.
> Honed my research skills a little, I suppose, but I was always a lad for the
> books in any case.
My internship at the computer center served me well. The only other
useful course I ever took was touch typing in high school. Most of the
other stuff centered around science I picked up just by reading and
screwing around with... well... stuff.
> It was, I suppose, reflective of Mike's discussion on "syntony" the other
> day; it seemed to create a crucial bond of common ground with the
> interviewer, an inference that, "Yes, I'm one of you. Good solid middle-
> class stock, know what fork to use for the pie, have sensible values, can
> sign my own name without help". It made me one of the blue-suits, as per
> Mike's anecdote.
That can, indeed, make a difference.
> Whereas had I been exactly the same guy with the same clothes and the
> same articulate speech, but *without* the official piece of paper
> confirming that I had drunk beer and gone to the occasional class for four
> years on the taxpayers' dime... well, I don't suppose the interviewers
> would have been quite so chummy. Nor the job offers so frequently made.
As I noticed. My CS prof said if I had had the sheepskin before I
started working at the center, I could have gotten an MS or more for the
work I did for them. Without it, the administration prevented him from
giving me more than a few credits. I did it because it was intricately
interesting stuff to do.
When I look at some of the intricate neolithic carvings in stone, and
other so called primitive art, I wonder how much of it was done simply
because it was intricate interesting stuff to do in otherwise boring
times. We humans seem so out of place in the natural scheme of things
because we just can't sit still and watch the clouds go by like most other
animals can. We must be the crazies of the animal world. And we computer
folks, the crazies of the crazies, so caught up in our crafts that we
forget to eat and even sleep at times. All for what? Just to move some
electrons upon the face of a flask of void?
And yet... and yet... we see that elephants can be taught to paint,
and there is even a book about the creative efforts of cats, painting with
their paws, or arranging colored letters just for the sake of arranging the
letters. So maybe we aren't totally stark raving mad. Or at least, not
the only ones.
-J- (C) 1998, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------- http://www.mall-net.com/javilk
--- Laugh at yourself, Our Creator loves company -- and You! ---------------
--- After all, we wouldn't want our Creator to cancel the show, would we? --
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