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RIP the Campus Computer Lab, 1960-2009
theodp writes "When every student has a laptop, why run computer labs? That's a question schools have been asking themselves as computer ownership rates among incoming freshmen routinely top 90%. After only four freshmen showed up at the University of Virginia in 2007 without a computer of their own, the school decided that it's no longer worth the expense of running campus computer labs. Student computer labs have been a staple of campus life since the '60s. So what are the benefits that will be missed as other schools follow UVa's lead?" The university's report notes understanding that "that students need collaborative space where they can bring their laptops and mobile devices to conduct group work, especially as the curriculum becomes increasingly team- and project-based." One of the spaces formerly occupied by computer labs "has been transformed into a technology-rich collaboration area."
Could be interesting to see a networked laser printer on every floor of every dorm in response to this. It need not be too horribly difficult to tie into a centralised auth system so you can track who prints how much, so you can have people pay for toner if they go over quota.
Sure, right now a lot of kids who just graduated from high school can convince their parents that they need their own computer in school (even if the school website says otherwise). Though as the economy continues to falter, parents should start taking a serious look at what their kids truly need for school (and realize that a computer of their own is not on that list).
Spend $1,000 on that new laptop, or instead use the same $1,000 to take out less in student loans? That should be a pretty easy choice.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
One of my favorite professors, Arthur Lo, said of his course:
"Most of my students say that they get the most from this course from the lab exercises. I think that they get the most from their lab partners."
This was back when a computer "lab" really meant a "terminal room." But you could take a quick break, discuss assignments with other students, to make sure that you understood it correctly, ask older students which courses were good, tell younger courses which course sucked.
Computer folks tend to be introverted enough anyway; encourage them to get out a bit, instead of hacking alone in their dorm rooms.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Personal printers are horribly unreliable and very expensive to maintain.
For as much as tuition costs these days, and for the fact that many schools assess a "Technology fee" on top of tuition, I think computer labs and printers on campus should absolutely be present.
Someone who lives off campus isn't going to want to cart their notebook around everyplace they go, and I know from experience that it's a lot easier to get work done in a distraction-free computer lab, compared to a noisy dorm room.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Very true. This is also important for the instructors (at least in CS) - how can you mark programming assignments if the environments used for development are that diverse.
It'll be interesting to see how VMs change that game: assignment handout is a Linux VM that runs on any host OS, an has all the necessary apps and libraries installed. Students hand in a modified VM for the instructor and TAs to run on whatever host platform they use. Not quite feasible yet, I think, but maybe in a few years?
I graduated last December, so my experience is recent as well. Almost always, all the computer labs on campus are packed to capacity, and usually stays this way until late at night.
Labs provide several things:
First, a place to do last minute changes before printing. Yes, there are portable printers, but for students, they are both expensive in both initial expense and per ink cartridge. Connecting over a wireless network can be problematic for some computers, and finding the right printer in the right floor of the right building to print to can confuse some students who are barely able to stand up due to a hangover the night before.
Second, not every student wants to deal with a laptop all the time. It is nice to just carry around a USB flash drive, or just store files in a home directory.
Third, the computers in a computer lab run by competant admins are usually decently secure, provided you reboot them before use to ensure DeepFreeze rolls back all changes done by the previous person.
Fourth, there are apps that are very expensive. Not just Maple and Mathematica, but MiniTab, AutoCAD, SPSS, Cubase and plugins, Premiere, the CS suite, Microsoft Office, etc. Yes, one can get demo versions, and yes, one can make the "demo versions" have a very long evaluation period, but most students don't pirate either for legal/ethical reasons, or the fact that infected torrents are becoming more and more commonplace.
Finally, there is something nice about going in and checking mail and Web forums on a machine without having to either dig up a laptop or try to fumble with a smartphone's small screen. Just sit down, log in, do your E-mail and Web browsing, log off, and go about your business.
Noisy dorm room? The solution to the excessively noisy roommate is very simple but requires a slight modification of the way we view the world with respect to education. The solution is to live in your own apartment while attending college. Impossible unless your parents have tons of money? Nope. You don't need your parent's money. I'll explain:
Today, it is common practice to finish high school and immediately go to college. Why?
I did things differently and I believe it was extremely beneficial. I went to college, but not until later. First, I got a Real Job. Contrary to public misconception, you do NOT need a college degree to get a Real Job!
Now mind you, in the beginning, it wasn't a particularly well-paying Real Job and it wasn't in the field I wanted to work in (software engineering). But I was out of high school so who cares? It was a job in a dirty machine shop where I started off sorting nuts and bolts, moved on to sorting expensive end mills and drills, moved on to cleaning dirty machine parts, and moved on to writing programs for their machines, setting up a company-wide network, and doing quite a few wonderful IT-related things for that company, all of which began one day when the boss found out that I knew quite a bit about computers and programming. By the way, the job started paying pretty well! Since I was living well below my means, not going out to bars nearly as much as my friends and not spending money on anything that wasn't absolutely necessary, I saved up quite a bit of dough during those years and learned a tremendous amount.
When I was 24, I decided it was time to attend college and get that degree. I noticed something very interesting. The students who were fresh out of high school had NO CLUE about living in the real world. They would cram for tests only to forget the stuff a day later. They didn't have the life experience to recognize which information was a solution to an important problem, and which information was interesting but unimportant. How many times have you heard a student ask, "When are we ever going to need this in real life?" I heard this quite a few times, and always in reference to EXTREMELY IMPORTANT KNOWLEDGE!!! But you cannot possibly recognize what is important without the real life experience that you can ONLY get by working in a Real Job before going to college and getting into lifelong debt with student loans.
Remember, back in the day, children worked after school and during school vacations. Nowadays that is very uncommon, even in high school, due to "child protection" laws that place many limitations on how, when, and where children can work. Although these laws may protect children in one way, they harm them in another way by robbing them of important life experience during those years. Today, 30 is the new 20 because you need to gain, during your 20s, the life and work experience that your grandparents gained when they were in their teens. Today, people in their 20s are less mature than their counterparts in the 1950s were. You need that time, after high school but before college, to get that real life experience. Plus you earn Real Money, live in a Real Apartment, and if your job, like mine, isn't in the field you wanted to work in, you gain additional insights, knowledge, and experience by exposing yourself to something totally different. Much better than graduating from college and realizing that you have an infinitude of student loan debt and no clue what to do next. Not to mention that you do NOT have roommates (quiet or loud) during college, and you do NOT need your parent's money! When you want noise, you can go to a bar.
So you got your undergrad degree when you were 28?
That means that at 28, you're making the average salary of a 23 year old. And when you're 40, you'll be at the average salary of a 35 year old. On top of that, when you're 65, you'll be running on 37 years of savings instead of 42. And if you get married and have children in your 30's, you'll have missed out out on the first 5 years - the most important ones - both because your savings have the longest time to grow AND you can save a lot more of your income when you're single than when supporting a family.
A college degree makes you more productive. Delaying that degree makes you more productive later. This makes no sense.
Plus, it's not like you knew how to live like an adult when you graduated high school either. You just didn't learn how to be an adult AND take classes at the same time - so while everyone else pounded that out in 4-5 years, it took you a decade.
Anyway you cut it, your way is just slow.
paintball