Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Northface University - Computer Science in Half the Time?

Posted by michael on from the revenge-of-the-nerds dept.

prostoalex writes "Associated Press runs a nationwide story on Northface University. The school, founded by a pair of venture capitalists and former technology chief found a niche with its highly intensive curriculum and corporate software development specialization. For example, a BSCS degree can be completed in a little over 2 years, and it comes with IBM's WebSphere and Microsoft's MCSD certification. Northface is also promoting its corporate partnerships, which allow current students to feel more secure about future employment. Grady Booch from IBM is quoted to be 'jazzed up' about the program, although there are many who oppose such approaches to college education."

8 of 666 comments (clear)

  1. Everything will be half by suso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Half the time
    Half the money
    Half the college experience.

    1. Re:Everything will be half by bay43270 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In my opinion, I feel that by requiring students to take English, Calculus, Physics, and all the other basics not only requires some sort of literacy (No, C comments are not writing!) but teaches the student how to learn rather than merely teaching a trade.

      I agree that this is a worthy goal (and the primary goal of many schools), but most schools also teach you other things that end up holding people back later in life:
      - Copying is cheating
      - If you can't take a standardized test for it, then it isn't really knowledge
      - Everyone starts with an A, and works their way backwards the less they conform

      Every day the value of a college education goes down a bit (I suppose that's the point of the story). Every day the cost goes up a little. While having a degree may help a person become more inquisitive and learn to learn, every day it seems there is less and less value for the time & money in a college education. There are better ways to improve yourself. It is however, a pretty good way to improve a resume.

    2. Re:Everything will be half by C.Batt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree that the intent of Univesity is to teach people how to learn, and then perhaps to be able to teach others how to learn. However, I would say that in practice, they fall far short of the mark. I work with enough University educated fools to know this.

      Furthermore, I've found it quite obvious that individuals who are predisposed to learn how to learn, will do so regardless of whether or not they went to University. Of course, this is a self-referential comment, but it is also a general observation that regardless off education type, learners will always be learners. Perhaps Universities help transform people who are on the cusp, but I do not believe that they can create them whole cloth and in fact I believe that they can have a very negative effect on those who are already well beyond what most Univesities can offer in terms of learning skills.

      Now, back to the thread topic... I do believe that a program such as what is offered by Northface can be very beneficial to the right type of people, namely those who are natural learners who will round out their knowledge regardless of circumstance. Unfortunately, it will also attract many who are not of this type and thus has the potential to create yet more hyper-specialized, completely inflexible, educate idiots of which there were so many in the dotcom boom times, and that helped hasten the dotcom crash. I'd really like to avoid both situations once again.

      --
      -- All views expressed in this post are mine and do not
      -- reflect those of my employer or their clients
    3. Re:Everything will be half by Wavicle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You'll know most college professors don't know how to teach for shit.

      The answer to this is, I think, a little more complicated. There are many universities out there which do not grant Ph.D. degrees. My experience has been that students from those colleges, on average, learn more than those students who attend a Ph.D. granting University.

      The reason for this is that these colleges tend to attract instructors who are simply not driven to excel in the world of "publish or perish" but prefer to actually teach. I may be biased here: I attend a university with no Ph.D. program and I have a close relative who is a full professor at a non-Ph.D. granting university who left a tenure track position at a prestigious west coast university because she disliked the focus on research and total disregard for undergraduates.

      I strongly feel that it is easy to get an excellent undergraduate education, you just have to go to a lesser known university. Of course this advice will likely come back and bite you if you don't go on to graduate school. At some point an employer is going to ask themselves "have I ever heard of this school? Is it accredited?"

      --
      Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
      Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
  2. Accredited? by ari_j · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So? Is it accredited? I got a BSCS plus math and a thorough liberal arts education in 6 semesters. I'll be impressed when they teach you something other than another fad technology. As too many people here know: a degree is not only not everything, but it's hardly anything in this field.

  3. CS = trade skill? by jaaron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So essentially this turns the CS degree into a trade skill like pumbing or electrician. Not that that is bad. My biggest concern about their technical skills would be if they had a sufficient math background -- IMHO no enough CS grads know or appreciate enough real math.

    On another note though, even a general understanding of history, politics, and a host of other subjects one meets in a more "liberal" education is very important and often lacking amongst the general population.

    --
    Who said Freedom was Fair?
  4. Re:it's a good idea by Bull999999 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Personally i'm sick of university, i was sick of it after the first year and I wish it was over.

    Maybe the reason why many employers are requiring 4 year degress in the IT field is to see if you have what it takes to work through the boring stuff. If you are sick of school after only one year, how would you last 30+ years in the work force?

    --
    1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
  5. CS accreditations are worthless anyway. by emil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Since I graduated in 1995, tuition at the University of Iowa has tripled. It has done so because the school has locked itself into a number of expensive construction projects and is not able to reduce its cash flow needs to match the decreasing state revenue.

    From what I can tell, the quality of instruction has not tripled since my graduation. Even moreso, students that I have advised to pursue Oracle DBA certification as technical electives have been repeatedly refused, even though the university listed Oracle certification as for-credit courses.

    The CS departments of most universities have been bought off by Microsoft to the extent that they already spend over a year teaching Visual Basic. They do not use open tools, and their administrative structure reflects this close-minded and obsolete path.

    IMHO, State Universities are run in a cartel system that has seen its fair share of waste and corruption. Any ideas for a system that could effectively compete with the public university cartel would be welcome indeed.