[Info-vax] And another one bites the dust....

[Dave Froble]

On 2/20/2022 9:49 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 2/20/22 00:17, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 2/19/2022 11:02 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 2/19/22 21:07, Dan Cross wrote:
>>
>> Bit of a trim of the old stuff needed ...
>>
>> To me, a university is there to teach a person how to think and learn.
>
> That's definitely part of it.  BUt, based on observing life around us
> today, they appear to have abdicated the part about learning to think
> as well as COBOL.  :-)  They do  not teach yo how to learn.  It is
> pretty  much assumed you got that in the schools before you got to
> University.

Bad assumption.  In secondary schools, and grade schools, one is taught facts. 
One isn't taught to think much about the facts.  After all, onme would need the 
facts before being able to think about them.  But at some time some more 
abstract thought about the world around us is needed, and that should happen at 
university.  At least, that's how I see it.

>> When my son started school, he asked "what type of job should I learn to do?".
>
> Bad question.

I always say, there is no such thing as a bad question.  If someone has a 
question, that indicates he/she "doesn't know", and is trying to find out. 
However, there can be bad answers.

>  But then, that's probably why so many students end out
> taking 5 to 6 years to get that degree because they really don;t know
> why  they are even there.

I believe David took 8 years before getting a degree in geology.  And you are 
correct, many don't know why they are there when going to university.  A 
university should help students at least partially figure out what they are doing.

>>        My reply was "You aren't going to learn a job.  You're going there to
>> learn how to learn, and think, and to learn about the world that you haven't
>> seen yet."
>
> And partly a wrong answer.  Colleges are trade schools.  They are
> trade schools for the white collar class.  Bankers, CPA's, chemists,
> lawyers, future CEO's and yes, systems analysts (which is actually
> a higher level programmer than today's buzzword, "coder".)  You are
> certainly not going to learn any of that in the local Vo/Tech or even
> Community College.
>
>>
>> As to teaching Cobol, learning computer languages should be a part of
>> university, if the student chooses.  I had a semester of Cobol when I was in
>> school, maybe 50 some years ago.
>
> 50 years ago?  What school and what degree program?  Computers were in
> their infancy in the University system in those days with only a couple
> major colleges offering degrees in it.

I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1973.  At that time they didn't 
have a CS major.  My BS is in math.

>> What I would not agree with is misinformation.  If a professor is misleading
>> students based upon his/her own bias about how the world should be run, well,
>> that's dishonest, and it should be "former professor".
>
> But that is what too much of college has become, and especially  in CS.
> They are no longer satisfied with merely driving the bus they now want
> to even tell the riders where they want to go.

I may have mentioned over inflated egos in the past ...

>> As for skills, to me is seems it always comes down to OJT.  No school is going
>> to teach exactly what a particular employer needs.  Some basics, and how to
>> learn, yes.  Details, no.
>
> That's true up to a point.  A new entry level job always includes OJT.
> But there is an expectation that the candidate has basic skills for
> the tasks they are expected to do.  You don't start in the construction
> business as a master carpenter but your boss expects you to know which
> end of the hammer should strike the nail.

Some idea of "how to do", yes, I agree.  My CS minor included multiple languages 
and subjects.  I still remember toggling in a boot loader on the PDP-6.  Cobol 
and Fortran languages.  But it was only on the job that I learned Basic.

> Again, we really come down to the CS/CIS difference.  If one is going
> for a CIS degree it is expected that they will come arrive at that
> first job with the basic knowledge required by the job. That means
> COBOL, Databases, including SQL programming, web concepts and probably
> HTML, JavaScript and PHP and even UI concepts.  They won't design and
> code a shopping cart the first day, but they should understand what it
> entails.  Sadly, all of that is there except for the language needed
> for the backend.  For some, as yet never explained, reason that part
> was dropped.  And, the most interesting thing about it is how close
> to each other they all dropped it.  That is the stuff conspiracy
> theories are built on.  :-)
>
>>
>> As an example, I was taught about linked lists.  I wasn't taught about what I
>> needed them for, that came later on the job.  The school taught the concept,
>> the job taught the need and design.
>
> Very true.  I had been in the business for over 40 years before I
> started taking classes for a degree (which I got 4 years before my
> somewhat forced retirement!)  I got to observe a lot of our upcoming
> students in these classes.  It was funny listening to chatter among
> the Discrete Math students.  "Why are we learning about nodes?
> What is this Venn Diagram crap?  Who cares about Linked Lists?  I
> just want to learn how to be a programmer."  Of course, having done
> this for 40 years I knew exactly how all this stuff fit in.  Like
> it or not, COBOL fits in the same way.  It uses a paradigm not quite
> the same as the procedural paradigm of Pascal or Ada.  And the
> students who plan to do this for a living should at least have the
> basics under their belt before they hit that first job.  At least
> a 3 credit course although 6 credits would do them much better in
> the real world.
>
> Will it happen again?  Who knows.  But I am betting it won't happen
> at the University level.  Another major truism about the academic
> world is they never admit to making a mistake.  That would be a sign
> of weakness.
>
> bill
>
>


-- 
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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