Studies at University. - by Volitions Advocate
lost_soul on 5/10/2010 at 18:15
I personally feel that there is too much corner-cutting in higher education. A few years ago, I went to a local tech school and got an AAS degree in IT. One of the classes we had to take was a computer hardware class. This was half the reason I went into the program: to work on fixing and rebuilding PCs. When the class started out, we were told that as a final exam, we would be expected to completely disassemble a PC and have it working again in one period. I was looking forward to this!
Then on the day of the final exam, they just canceled it. They just told us we would be answering questions as a group instead. I was so pissed! Of course 90% of the practically-failing fools who populated the class were very happy about getting out of the final. Throughout the whole quarter, I had maintained a 4.0 GPA, while the rest of the class routinely got yelled at for scoring in the 60s on tests. I don't mean to brag here, I'm just explaining the situation.
End result? I pass the class with something like a 97% but feel cheated. I would rather have gotten a 70% and had the chance to do what was originally promised. That way, I would have gotten the skills I need.
It is a problem with this defective, throw-away society in general. People are only interested in taking your money and doing as little work as possible in return. They've got weasel lawyers in their pockets and as a result, we have no recourse if they change the syllabus a few weeks into the class, when it is too late to drop the class and get our money back.
This education was completely paid for by a family member of mine. If I had been expected to pay for this, I would have refused.
I won't even go into the mandatory "internship", in which I sat around with nothing to work on for four hours a day. I ended up bringing in some old hardware from the dump to practice re-building because they refused to give me anything to work on.
There were a few good instructors at this school, who gave out difficult tests. My favorite was the SQL teacher. Nothing beats spending 30 minutes to get the code working for *one* question on the test. :) I recall finishing just as class ended, leaving, and hearing one of the students crying as I left. I didn't score as high in that class, but it sure was a lot more interesting and fun.
fett on 6/10/2010 at 01:33
Quote Posted by Queue
"Rolf"?
Where are you studying, Muppet-U?
:laff::laff::laff:
Aja on 6/10/2010 at 04:18
I only have a BA, and I've been thinking lately that rather than trying to take courses in as many fields as possible (my major was English, but I took anthro, philosophy, poli-sci, art history, etc) I would've been better served going the honours route and focusing mainly on a single subject. Looking back, I can see that the education did endow me with certain skills—writing, researching, critical thinking—that I certainly lacked prior. Yet I still don't feel as though I know anything. Maybe that's the curse of all undergrad degrees, but my chemistry friends know their chemistry, my history friends know their history, while I have a stack of literature from dozens of authors and periods that I can barely remember any of, beside a smaller stack of books from the peripheral courses that I can remember exactly none of. It might have been more fulfilling to concentrate on one thing and really learn the hell out of it.
Scots Taffer on 6/10/2010 at 04:21
I learned the hell out of a single discipline and can't remember any of it.
I am probably going senile early though.
Aja on 6/10/2010 at 04:23
You should just enjoy the process, it only happens once!
