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

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 2/20/22 12:29, Dave Froble wrote:
> 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.

I think a bit of confusion. Students learn how to learn before
University.  Universities then present information and it is up
to the student to "learn".  Professors really don't care if you
learn anything in their class.  Not their responsibility.  No one
gets individual attention.  After all, if you don;t learn the
material the first time around you can always take the class again.

> 
>>> 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.

There can certainly be bad questions.  The question he should have been
asking is what do I want to do with my life.  Asking someone else what
kind of job you should get just sets you up for disappointment and a
very stressful life.  Learned from experience.  :-)

> 
>>  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.

Nope, not their job.  They are not psychologists and they are not
guidance counselors (although my experience with them in high school
left much to be desired!)  One should have made the decision about
what one is going to study even before they have picked the school
they are going to attend.  Once you get there they can only recommend
what courses of study they offer.  None of them may be the right fit
for any particular student.

> 
>>>        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.

Which is where most of the CS Departments came from.  I am surprised
they offered COBOL, but then Pitt was at the forefront of CS and is
still a very good bet.

> 
>>> 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.

A single 3 credit course in COBOL is barely enough time to learn "how
to do".  Today even more so as the functionality of the language has
expanded greatly over the years.  There is a lot done with COBOL today
that your professors probably hadn't even anticipated.

> 
>> 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