Slashdot Mirror
Students Sue over Difficult Class
betaray writes "Students at SMU in Houston fail class
because they need to know more than point and click.
Students then file lawsuit.
Craziness ensues. " Getting certified to use MS applications
is obviously very difficult. Can I sue over my
Calc II class? Sure, it was like 3 years ago, but
I still get the shakes. Maybe I can get
cash for emotional stress?
Hopefully you didn't advertize that your course
only needed point-and-click to pass. If you did,
then you deserve to get sued.
There's only one problem with your fine theory. You would have to be a moron to fail to get an MSCE certification.
I also have to wonder how many people really think that you can land one of those $50,000/year jobs using only "point and click" skills. I mean, really. If someone told you that you could be a millionaire, all you need to know is how to point and click (and buy his videotapes for ten easy installments of $89.95 each), would you buy into it?
If the course description said "Intro to French"
and the instructor spoke nothing but French,
would that be OK with you?
If the course description was "College Math" and
the actual content was grad-level Calculus,
would that be OK with you?
This is a simple case if misrepresenting the
course. The school screwed up.
i agree. it seems quite clear that the students may well have been misled into a course that was over their head (good god, imagine mcse being over someone's head), but the reason they were misled was 'cause of greed.
if i'm going to quit my job for a course that'll turn my career around, i'm going to make damn sure that i'm qualified to take that course. i don't think they did their research. and why didn't they do their research? because they didn't think about the sheer ludicruousness of being able to make 50k/yr for "pointing and clicking".
maybe they deserve to win the lawsuit, but that doesn't make them any less moronic. its kind of like when a lone white guy goes out for a midnight stroll in central park nyc, and gets mugged. okay, the mugger is guilty of the crime but the victim is still goddamn stupid.
I second this, I contemplated sueing my graduate school because it was a joke and didn't teach me anything. I just silently dropped out and swallowed the $20K bill, and just considered it a learning experience.
Our entire society caters to stupid people. Congress writes laws to protect the most incredibly stupid things. Lawsuits are filed over incredibly stupid things. The stupid people appear to know how to do only one thing: sue.
Darwin tells us this is NOT good. We should not be protecting these people. In fact, we should be helping them along. Spill hot coffee on your testicles? Good! Maybe you'll be sterile and won't breed now. First thing we should do is make "Sex for Dummies" and "Parenting for Dummies" illegal and burn every copy in existence. Free speech is one thing, but this is national security we're talking about here. We do NOT want these people BREEDING! The universe does not tolerate an idiot! Why should we?
You stupid people out there: Grow up! Take some responsibility! Use your FUCKING BRAIN FOR ONCE! Maybe if you'd stop and think for one god damned second before sticking your FINGER in the FUCKING LIGHT SOCKET you'd realize that hey, maybe that's not such a GOOD IDEA. And for god's sakes, don't SUE THE ELECTRIC COMPANY or the contract or built your house when nature takes its course!
Grrr!
Whew. Obviously hit a hot button there.
This cup of coffee is hot. Very hot. Hot enough to sear the flesh from your bones. That hot. Hot hot hot. Excruciatingly painfully molten hot. GOD DAMN THIS CUP OF COFFEE IS HOT! What are you doing? Don't you believe us? You shouldn't have this cup of coffee closer than 30 feet from you for the first 20 minutes after it's served. Put it down! It's much too hot! Damn it why don't you believe is! Didn't we say it's hot?...
NT administrators get paid MUCH less, generally, than their Unix counterparts. At my last job, we were treated like glorified support people. I'd have to fix the mailserver in the morning, then troubleshoot some jackass's PC in the afternoon.
"You can't MAKE me uninstall my Anne Geddes screensaver, I'm a MANAGER!"
Whatever......
Well, only in America are people doing such stupid lawsuits - and winning them with millions of $ for "reparations". I'm sorry but the USA has turned into a monopoly game where everybody is suing everybody for the silliest reason, hoping to get a lot of quick cash. No such things happens in Europe (but we laugh a lot, thank you).
The world is full of stupid people. Most people are stupid. The people you look at and think are stupid are smarter than average, and they are still stupid.
Was there only twelve in the class? I read it as all twelve who filed suit failed, but that there were more in the class...
She didn't just burn herself, she had 3rd degree burns and required skin grafts. You probably weren't aware of this, since you failed to read anything but the bold headlines on articles about that lawsuit, just like you didn't read the article about this one.
Well, I think the US problem is "fun". Everybody wants to have fun, so education is supposed to be fun too. It might indeed turn less boring than in other countries, but certainly less efficient. Is it such a surprise that most American Nobel prices were raised in a foreign country ?
From my experience in highschool, its more of a you decide wheter you want to learn or not. If you go through highschool taking all average-level courses, you aren't going to learn much or be challenged to much. While their are some average level courses, where the teachers don't assume the student is a complete idiot, most teachers just give you brain-dead work to do. However, if you decide to take honors or college-level classes, you will be forced to actually have to think and work. Of course class selection is up to the students.
Do you have any idea what you are saying or what you are doing? Have you gone through the American school system before? Do you have a reference to your assertion about American nobel prize winners. What makes America great is its diversity. Everyone has a choice. Some people (who were born in America) choose to work hard. Others choose to lay back. Its your life, you decide. The real problem is the legal system and over abundance of worthless lawyers.
Naw, Its more of a legal problem than a higher education problem. I'm sure some coniving lawyers out to make a quick buck did at least a little bit of convincing to get these students to sue. Although the students initiated the process, the laywer told them they have a case.
This is such a big problem where I go to school. It's amazing how many people JUST care about the grade and not what they are learning about at all. And its not just in stupid classes, it permeates all levels. The other day in Chemistry, I was aruging with a student over an equilibrium principle. When the teacher came and said I was right, the otehr student just said, well I'm still getting an A. And he wasn't being sarcastic or funny, he was dead serious.
It's John Q. PointyHairedBoss that wants the paper and John Q. Customer that wants the paper and John Q. Government that won't license people (not just doctors and lawyers) without the paper.
You don't pay your dues anymore by being trained on the job by someone who is more knowledgeable than yourself (apprenticeship). You pay your dues by planting your fanny in a classroom listening to a person who hasn't had any connection with the real world for at least 20 years (if at all, if that person is a Professional Educator). If you stay awake for 4 years, you get a degree. If the class is too tough (read: you have to learn something) a discrimination charge will result because one minority group or another will complain.
That's life today. I guess we have to deal with it.
You got to love this quote!
last time I checked playing piano involved a simple point with finger and push idea too..
I know how to do that...
But then they complicated it all... I haveto push the right key at the right time with the right speed and then keep it pressed in the right way (aftertouch effects)..
No, that's the definition of a sick society.
Thank God I can walk the streets of my home town any time I like to.
I don't know what WIMP is, so I can't comment on that. However, after years of computer use on various platforms, I've come to the conclusion that there will be no one perfect gui. I've used Win3.x (with and without Norton PC Tools addons), Win9x, WinNT 3.5x 4.0, X Windows (as an interface to Linux or HPUX), Amiga (ok, I poked around on one for the first time last nite :) ), and Geos. Under Unix, I've used a variety of windowmanagers (CDE, MWM, HWM, FVWM2+95, Openwindows, KDE, Windowmaker, Afterstep, Blackbox, and TWM). I have yet to find one WM that I liked completely. There were always features that I liked or disliked. Currently, I use Windowmaker over the KDE components. This has come the closest to *my* perfet GUI. IMHO, the best gui is going to be the one that allows you to modify every aspect of it's operation.
Chris
mtnbkr@mindspring.com
I have actually been in both US and German and French high-schools, and frankly, US high schools are a joke. Beside much fewer class hours, it just isn't up to the standard of other countries. The overall culture of the average US citizen is pretty low. Of course there are more educated people too (fortunately !) but overall the average is not good at all. And all internationnal studies show the same thing : US pupils are not good compared to other countries.
HEH and then you wind up getting a 2 on both of the tests! HEHEHE
One thing I have found is that the correlation between grades and scores on the AP exam are pretty low. For instance, in my Calc class last year, I got a 4 on the BC and a B- in the class, while most people who got an A in the class, got a 3 on the exam. There was like 1 other 4 and one 5. Completly skipping differential equations and doing sequences and series the week before the exam probably had something to do with the scores.
The problem is, that in highschool students are prepared properly for classes in college. So most have a hard time transiting from teacher responsible for me learning to I'm responsible for me learning. I guess they could possibly make senior course more like college courses, with students being me responsible for their learning, however the problem with that is no one wants to work senior year, me included,
Even though all 12 of them failed, were they all adults taking this as a night class? I was a tutor for Daytona Beach Community College, where the average student was 40 years old with 1 kid. I can, without a doubt, say the adult students I tutored were the most unintelligent, helpless, co-dependent puddles of human genes I ever had the misfortune to meet (for the last time, 1/2 * 2/2 is STILL 1/2 and NOT 1). Everyday they would come in to see me with a smile, hoping I can be the hero in their sad lives by defeating the evil forces of independent thinking. Then hours later after using me like a free whore, they would go to their pre-algebra classes with confidence, only to be struck down by new material! But of course that wouldn't ruin their day, for they would come to me to bitch about how hard finding LCDs are and justifying their stupidity with "I don't have time for this," only to find out their bar hopping time was at risk.
Stupid people of the world, unite and live in Florida...oops, too late (glad I moved).
What everyone ignores in the McDonald's hot coffee case is that the coffee in question was MUCH hotter than it was supposed to be. Of course coffee is supposed to be hot, but not scaldingly so. Another win for the McDonald's PR machine.
First off, the only good thing to come out of dallas is South Western Bell, sure they have problems but they're a hell of alot better then the monopolistic and ripoff of a crappy phone company such as
BellAtlantic
Secondly (sticking to topic) SMU is full of valley girls/snoby/sue everything that walks and talks type of school. dallas, well, its the same, its another town thats too good for its self, i think
the best thing for the industry and the best thing
for people who work in this field because its interesting and not because we saw an add in the paper or t.v. should be taking these course.. colleges should stick to an education, school should be for learning, and getting a degree.. not for learning talent.. it takes a skill, it takes a self learning person, and takes patience to handle any admin job or technical job, 99% of kids in colleges (with the exception of some schools) are at school because daddy is paying for it or because they're afraid to be out on there own.
i work for a living, been in the computer industry for years, i'm only 22.. i make 65k a year, i've earned it.. i've taught myself everything, hell i dropped out of high school and people thought i was a failure.. but thats besides the point..
i'm where i'm at because i can keep up on technology, i like to learn, i like to tinker, and i like to discover the unkown and see whats above the horizon..
anyone who fails a basic msce or cne course should be sued themselves for being dumbass enough to take the course..
since i didn't pass high school, and don't have a degree i can't get into college to take even the cheasiest of all courses, why should joe shmoe be able to get into these courses because he can afford it but care less about where it takes them..
i think they need a fundamental understanding before they can get in just like any other learning institution, after all would we want someone who can't pass an mcse course until the 10th try running the computers that our online banking uses? would we want someone that doesnt care to understand technology being the forefront of our industry just because they can hang a diploma and a piece of paper on the wall since mommy and daddy had money?
not me.. i went from joe shmoe techy to admin of global isp's, it took time, it took patience and lots of my life flew by, but everyone who knows me and what i do understands why and how i do it and thats what builds the trust and thats what business leaders and technology companies want and
need..
i say we shoot em all, but on a lesser not, my point is to make it just like evreything else, you need to know the basics to get in and if you pass you can become successfull, but money nor mommy and daddy can put you through here just so you can become a computer exec..
bleh..
but then again, i wish i had a rich mommy and daddy.. haha the world must be nice!
NOT!
do it yourself boyeees! the world is much funner.. experience life, don't buy it! suckahs
The mean was 4 and the median was 0.
Lots of negative scores, then, I take it?
For several years now the math section of the SAT has included a free-answer section in addition to the multiple choice.
That still doesn't excuse the inability to do basic arithmetic without a calculator.
This is drifting off topic a little bit, but I just thought I'd toss in my take on this. Probably one of the hardest courses I've even taken is Intermediate Mechanics, one of the first courses a Physics major must take. I had all the prereqs - but the course was still extremely difficult. The median score on our midterm was 26 out of 100, as part of what was a very flat distrbution. We had a terrible professor - he emerged from 'hiding' in his research to teach this class. Nevertheless, there were always people in the class who did well - 10 or 20 points above the median. Conversely, I later took a Quantum Mechanics course - interestingly enough, even though the prof. was highly regarded as an excellent teacher, that class was in some ways even more difficult. Those front runners were still there in QM as well.
:-)
I suppose that what I'm trying to say is... at some point one must realize that one can't always excel academically in some area - you have to take your 'lumps' as it were. I know of some people who stuck it out in Physics and are well on their way to a PhD (!) although I can honestly say that on an intellectual basis, I beat them hands down. However, this is a perfect example of how there is sometimes little correlation between superior grades and accomplishments and one's ability to excel in a field.
One other aspect of the excite article reminds me of the differences between a system of letter or numerical grades versus a mastery system. I know from my experience in college/Physics that a numerical/letter system provides a bit of a cushion for those extremely hard or misrepresented courses, ie, it's not a disaster if one gets a C or D, it only degrades your GPA a bit. With a mastery system, you MUST get 70% or some set level of achievement, and if the course has been grossly misrepresented as the article alleges, it could be darn near impossible for you to pass the class, simply because the mastery system is involved. If my college operated under such a system, I'd certainly pull out of any advanced physics courses that I felt I didn't have the base for. I've taken many science courses that I felt underrepresented what the base reqs. should be (e.g., 'Calculus I or equivalent', without making any mention of the extensive amount of physics knowledge that one must have). Then again, people aren't exactly lining up for hours to take some of the courses I've taken, so this issue rarely comes to the fore.
You sound disgruntled...
are you underpaid and bitchy about it?
I only wonder if you really understand what the real joke is? "Maybie" you will find out one of these days if you "arn't" spending so much time calling school a joke. If you are lucky you will learn enough to write a "passible" resume after you graduate from "colledge".
As long as people continue to perpetuate Cultural Marxism (Political Correctness), this crap is only going to get worse.
In the second year of the calc series, I had to sign up with a noted hardcase - only slot available.
/. interface, they want to express their feelings about /., ala Jon Katz. And you are expected to affirm their self worth as a human, you're not allowed to criticize, because who is to say anybody's feelings are ever wrong.
Out of 40, 1 A, 1 B, 2 C, 2 D, rest fail. I was macho, thought I would be a passer. Ha! I repeated next semester, concurrent with the next in series. Not fun. All you can do is tough it out if you want to graduate on time.
Today, too many kids are citizens of Ritalin Nation, and they're just coming in to higher ed. For 12 years, they've had private coaches, "special grading scales," gold stars just for showing up, and doubled testing times for everything.
On top of it, they don't want to get bogged down in day to day trivia. They want courses that will let them stand back and see the broader overall picture. Instead of programming the
And they want to be paid for this.
your piano has aftertouch? :-)
That seems to be the next step. Why even go to school at all or have tests? Being in college and at the same time dealing with college graduates who lack even the most basic understanding of what they are doing has taught me the diploma is only a way to get your foot in the door and nothing else. Especially in the computer industry , college programs are lacking far behind the real world and can't even come close to the experience provided from a real job.
Mean = average score
mode = most common score
median = score in the middle of sorted list
median of 0 possible w/o negatives if more than half of scores are 0.
Well said. A couple points though. Calc I does require a few prereqs: some knowledge of algebra, some knowledge of limits, and at least normal intelligence. The problem occurs, as you were saying, when students believe they can pass a class based on nothing more than an attendance record.
This is particularly annoying to me, as a former math instructor (calc, analysis. etc) because the students that complained were invariably the ones who didn't read the chapters, didn't ask questions, and needed the class only for some non-mathematics course of study.
Lord, mathematics is not difficult and nothing that a person of average intelligence cannot grasp by applying a modicum of effort and patience.
KL
30,5,0,0,0,0
as you can see, the median is also the mode.
sheesh.
didn't read your last line.
Actually SMU is located in Dallas. No I don't go there. Yes I am from Dallas. Leave me alone.
We don't actually offer the MCSE test - Microsloth makes the moronic test and offers it though Sylvan learning centers. We recently has a student who we thought never should have signed up for the course - she couldn't even figure out how to log in.
Believe it or not, she passed MS's exams - proving to me that the MSCE certification is meaningless. Just because you're certified doesn't mean you are competant.
In order to pass the test, you simply have to be familiar with MS's vague wordings used in the questions. If you can do that you can pass.
So if you don't study, you don't pass. If you study, you pass.
Strangely enough, many employers looks for MCSE certification when hiring NT administrators.
its just a computer science school the have Unix and C class and of course MCSE classes which they charge an arm and a leg and say in 5 months you can have your MCSE, just another place making BooKu bucks off they microshit hype, i believe they probably were mislead, and didnt know jack about computers, they should have just sacked up and retook the class and worked their ass off to pass it
among intellectuals . . . or was, last i checked.
we in the US are fucked up beyond all recognition in many, many ways, but at least we're capable of admitting our own flaws. hey, come to think of it, europeans aren't that different: they admit our flaws, too! ha ha ha.
nobody's perfect, we're all fucked up, tend to the log in your own eye and i'll tend to the log in mine.
:Windows NT is NOT easy to administer,
:and suprisingly enough, the usual fix
:for problems is to RE-INSTALL the OS
how is this surprising?
ever heard of Retry, Reboot, Reinstall?
i have it on good authority (mother of newborn, i think her first name was Rebecca) that the nipple is _not_ intuitive and must be learned as well.
this from watching her baby try to feed.
I thought SWBell sucked the most, but then I moved to Michigan and found the residents suffering through Ameritech.
"There is something inherently wrong with a class in which all the students fail."
Not necessarily. My organic chemistry class was graded on a curve: not the sort of distribution where the average grade was a C, but based on the last 20 years' worth of students who have taken the class. You are graded against people who have taken the class years ago.. and if the class as a whole doesn't perform in line with the 2 decade average, the teacher would have no problem failing everyone. There is nothign inherently wrong with this; in fact, it seems to me to be the most rational grading scheme.
Then again, this is the US, land of lawyers, irrationality, and microsoft. Combine them all and you breed students such as these.
I don't know what case of "
, people suing bartenders for being "overserved".
" you're talking about. Here in Michigan, a bartender got in legal (criminal, I think, not civil) trouble b/c he served 22 shots to a kid who just turned 21. The kid, of course, died later that night. Yeah, it's stupid to sue for idiocy, but 22 shots? Blame starts spilling out onto everyone around who could see what's happening. Moreover, I think it's a crime to serve alcohol to visibly inebriated persons, making the case a two-header.
Dude, maybe 7% of the people in this freakin' country are as smart as the average person that reads (and understands) /. If a class says all you have to do is point and click, then that should be it. It's really easy for we the super-nerds to look down on 'normal' people who don't give a shit about computers and just want 'MS certified' on their resume so they can get a better job... btw, SMU is in Dallas, not Houston.
No way - the class was a _Certification_ class. The general public must not think very highly of those in 'Information Technology' to believe you simply need to be able to 'point and click' and be considered Certified.
They should have weighed their abilities against what was presented to them in the course. They also should have approached the instructor as a group and brought this to his/her attention.
People are beginning to abuse the legal system more and more simply because frivilous lawsuits = easy money.
A big Fuck You to corrupt lawyers. (You know who you are.)
I think this is part of the problem. Students at the University level should be treated as adults. That means that if they aren't trying, and hence aren't earning passing marks, they should fail.
Unless there are extenuating circumstances, there's no reason for a professor to feel guilty about failing a student who simply isn't trying.
Of course my school doesn't have honors courses. We only have basic english, basic history and government, and math up to trig. For music, we have corus and band - they don't even teach you in any debth about your instrument, and not at all about reading music. You really have no choice because there is nothing to choose from.
......... as a mattttter of ffact,, it's hrd to tye on thesee kyboards...
As other posters have pointed out the infamous McDonald's coffee case was a valid lawsuit. It was funny how you only heard the (later reduced) fine played over and over as an example of the sort of frivolous lawsuit clogging our courts. The propaganda seems to have had the desired effect: making people assume that if you sue a corporation you're just looking to score some cash.
The interesting thing is most of the really stupid lawsuits are corporations vs. other corporations.
SMU is in Dallas. But, if you didn't know, please don't sue me.
I'm duel-inroling (highschool with some college classes) to get the boring college classes out of the way before I graduate highschool.
Highschool is easy enough anyway.
This has not been my experience at all. A lot of adults enrolled in these types of classes are sent there from their employer without having been to school for years. The students straight out of high school are the ones that have been studying and doing homework for years -- making it a lot more easy for them.
Is this why McDonalds now have these insanely stupid signs saying "Warning: Coffee served hot!" and such?
Good for people who doesnt understand the fundamental things in life, I guess...
Pauling also didn't graduate from highschool (refused to take a civics course).
His diploma was awarded to him after he won the Nobel Peace Pries.
Ehh..an NT administrator that remedies problems by reinstalling the OS and reapplying *all* service packs (the service packs are cumulative...) is, without a doubt, a totally incompetent idiot and should NOT be in that position.
And 12 hours?? Sheeesh, maybe the company should consider hiring *competent* admins the next time (or fire the old ones right away) instead of those morons you seem to have now.
Don't confuse the solution of stupid people with the correct solution.
randomly guessing will get you a 400!
You almost have to try to fail to get a 500!
FYI
Purdue University-West Lafayette here. CS department. I'd like to clear things up for my department.
I don't know about our other campus, but this semester so far, as a sophamore, I already wrote a MIPs assembler, simulator, loader, two types of ALUs, two types of multipliers, and will write a cache and i'm gona write a linker by the end of the semester- all in for one single 3 credit class. and juniors have to write compilers.
I know that School of TECHNOLOGY have a totally different schedule, they only do Visual BASIC and MS Access(??) but I don't think that description is anything close to CS deparment.
Of course, the industry wouldn't know the difference. it's sorta like the NBA.
But what you have described IS a part of Math! GRAPH THEORY!
CS students HAVE to be good in Math.
As a Pure Math/ CS double, i have to say that
"Computer Science is mathematics" is a wrong statement, computer science in more like a subset of mathematics.
but i totally agree otherwise. unfortunately, many many corporations don't know and don't care about the difference. As far as i know, not many companies use such talent. Only the top notch companies use Math people.
I think this post is bias, because SIU and U of I are both public schools in IL.
(now, you know which one to choose.)
He was NOT talking about low level programming. I'm not sure why you assume the link. you can learn assembler in 2 weeks. it's just a language.
Well, they still do that :)
:) i'm sure it's the same case in any other reputable schools' CS department. After all, SOMEONE has to write the compilers, or Operating Systems...
Our department (Purdue/CS) had about 440 freshman last fall. now... 170 including a lot of them failing and counting downwards. by junior year there will be about 75 people left standing.
the only difference is that they now teach JAVA instead of PASCAL in the first semester. (compiler hard to find?) and many students use emacs, not vi.
otherwise nothing has changed
( no need to flame my school, i'm not flaming any other schools.)
As someone new to tertiary teaching, and given the primary responsibility of setting projects for a first-year CS subject, it can be VERY difficult to judge what the students are realistically capable of.
In response the first project I set, I had an irate email from a student who informed me that my sample answers were wrong as I was using the wrong value of Pi, instead of the "correct value" - 22/7. Apparently, this was what he'd been taught in his high school. OTOH, another student was asking me for advice on how to commercialize the product he'd been working on at home - he'd been working with C++ for years now.
How do you arrange a programming course to suit the needs of both a student with an inadequate secondary education, and one with more large-scale programming experience than I do?
Hmm...
Ever read "Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynmann"?
Dr. Feynmann says bad things about Brazilian
science (but this was ~30 years ago, at one
college)...
Hmm...
I happen to have a M.Sc. from Europe and one from the U.S., and the same is true at the grad school level. Note that my U.S. M.Sc. is from a top-third university, but not one of the best, while the European degree is from a good one.
The worst thing I found about American universities is that you can literally buy yourself a degree, since they are not interested in getting rid of you as long as you're paying. (Mainly for undergrads, however. Grads tend to leave on their own if they want to.)
BTW My European university had a threshold for complaints at eighty percent; you could start filing complaints about the class/exam if more than eighty percent of people failed. Oh yes, and you can attempt an exam three times after each semester, to compensate for the harsh exam climate.
You don't have to have a course in pre-calc...I didn't.
Reading your error brought me great mental stress. You have acknowledged that you made the error and therefore must accept all consequences of your actions. I am suing you for $1,000,000 -- would you mind posting your name and mailing address so I can serve you with the papers?
The word is enrolling not inroling...you may want to sign up for a couple English classes before jumping ahead of the boring stuff :)
"If you can point and click you can pass this class" is different from "If you can point and click you will pass this class". If someone is too lazy to pay attention in class or read the book, it is not the fault of the University.
I think these students were taught a valuable lesson. You can't rely on someone else to do all the work for you, don't believe everything you read. The statement that the class was easy is likely the opinion of one of more people. Mathematics was easy to grasp for me, while it was hell for other people. If you haven't figured out something like this by university, then you are going to be cheated again and again. What are they going to do next? Sue a friend for recommending a particular car that turned out to be a lemon for them?
It will be a truly sad state of affairs if they somehow win their case. I hope they get counter sued for atorney's fees and maybe some extra for wasting the court's time.
Time to enter the real world...
It looks like the students interpreted the college's statement that the MSCE course had no prerequisite (true) with the concept that it is easy (false).
:) I don't think those Houston students have a leg to stand on vs. SMU, unless they can find a piece of paper where SMU told them they wouldn't have to study.
For years I taught CS-1 -- the first course for the BS in Computer Science. The college bulletin said "no prerequisite," although it in turn was a prerequisite for every other course in the department. Many of you readers here have taken CS-1 somewhere or other and can certify that you (usually) have to work your butt off to get a good grade, particularly if you start from ground zero.
Every semester, I'd start with my standard first-day lecture that Computer Science courses were not curved, that we had an absolute standard for performance, and that if we instead passed them when they didn't know the material then we were lying to them and stealing their money. OTOH, if they did pass all the courses and got their degree, then we guaranteed that piece of paper would get them a job in the profession.
One semester I failed eighteen of the twenty-two people who enrolled. (That is, they got grades of "D" or "F", with a "C" minimum required to take any other CS courses.) Amazingly, I had students with averages around 40 who didn't drop, showing that nobody b believed me.
Those eighteen could (a) take the course over -- from me again, because it was a small college and I'm the only one who taught it, (b) change schools, or (c) change majors. If they took the course again, they of course got charged tuition again.
BTW, all four who passed the first time wound up with BS degrees in CS, and all of them got jobs paying more than their instructor. I think two of the eighteen also graduated in CS; the others eventually opting for buttons (b) or (c).
Six graduates out of twenty-two freshmen was probably about average for our department. Sociology, of course, graduated everybody.
BTW, note that the SMU campus is not in Houston; it's in Dallas. This was some kind of an extension program, and it's very likely the infamous twelve were not "traditional" college students.
John Dierdorf, dierdorf@io.com
SATs are annoying in that you sometimes have only one chance to take them... One of my friends was taking it on the absolute last day that could be sent to the colleges he wanted. Unfortunately, he had bronchitis. So, he slept through the verbal sections. He did manage to pull off a 760 on the math sections...
Ignore the financial implications of a lawsuit...every one pay for their own lawyers. Instead, if a bogus lawsuit is thrown out of court, the lawyer who submitted the case gets disbarred.
Just wait a second there! Intro to EE is a very hard class that (often) goes into far more detail than a pure CS major is likely to need to know or use EVER. And lest you think I'm the only one, a brilliant grad CS student friend of mine also remembers his Intro to EE as a rather hellish and now-pointless experience. I often think that the time I'm wasting on this class could be better spent learning actual CS skills I could use.
maybe the students DID have the neccessary prerequisites BUT
1. Did they actually do the work?
2. Did they complete the tests successfully?
you HAVE TO DO THE WORK!
(I am the original poster of the "25 year" stuff)
You phrased that better than I did. I guess I did sound like an old goat there (I am over 40 but not ready to retire yet). I apologize for the misunderstanding.
The difference between you and some of these kids in college today is that you took the initiative to learn while still young. That experience will help you in the long run (and hopefully in the short run as well).
As a matter of fact there is an article in today's Arizona Republic business section (I'm in Phoenix) on this subject. Soon-to-be-grads expect to make at least $40,000 a year when the best they will do is around $30-35,000 in technical fields to start.
Regarding your comment on skills diminishing with age: That's not necessarily true. The concepts of programming are the same regardless of the language used. You have to know how to solve the problem. This is true both in programming and hardware engineering (my field). There are a lot of hardware engineers today that have trouble with grounding problems and RF (knowledge of both is required in todays computers with clock speeds in the hundreds of Megahertz). They just don't learn it. The older guys are better with this stuff, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Anyway, good luck. You sound like you have your act together already.
Grad students who complain that undergrads are lazy and underhanded will just have to get in line behind actresses who complain that people expect them to be attractive and charming.
If you really want to strike a blow for freedom, kill your advisor and make it look like an accident.
Do you really expect them (above or below) to respect you? "School rats: they aren't there to get drunk and laid. They aren't there to graduate and move on. They're just there."
that's nonsense, does not apply to my school, but i won't argue about it.
What makes me feel sad is that Computer Science people now talk like Engineerers wannabe. That, i CANNOT stand.
Unlike any other majors in any other schools, Engineerers are trained to be robots. They come out of school, with the exact thinking pattern as when they got into the engineering school. the only thing they know is that they get this piece of paper, so they deserve this much money per month. That's not what education is about.
unfortunately, somehow, CS people have a trend of merging into that stupidity.
...but do you have a supposedly knowledgable and trustworthy institution approuching you and promising you that if you pay them Too-Much-Money, they can show you how to "point and press" your way to a good salary as a professional pianist?
Woah... that sounds like a JUNIOR high school to me. Sucks to be you.
I'm stuck in high school as well, and the most advanced course that my school offers is Visual Basic. (And people wonder why *nix is not understood by many "computer buffs."
Suing our parents for passing down the Stupid Gene?
Do you teach at a university (4-year) or community college (2-year)? In Florida, there was this law that if you were enrolled in a community college (which taxes paid college for you) and continued to pass classes, you could continue to live on welfare without working. Plus alot of the male adults I tutored were enrolled in college just to impress women at pubs.
When I left Florida (yay!) and enrolled at Kutztown University in PA, I noticed the exact opposite. A lot of younger students took after the stereotypical frat drunk from early 90s B college movies, and the adults have their heads on straight.
Remember, it's not just people who are "stupid." In fact, I'd say most of what you're talking about is not really stupidity but rather foolishness. Many of the people here at my school are "intelligent" but have been brought up by parents who don't care enough about them to teach them how to make it in life. Heck, many parents just stick their kids in a day care center from the time they're 4 months old and never really teach them anything. No matter what our "scientific" (ha!) studies say, parents are the most important influence on a child's life.
First, the bartender served the customer in full knowledge of the potential consequences. Further, since the victim's judgment was likely impaired when he was served the fatal rounds, the blame may well have fallen with the barkeeper.
In other words, responsibility implies judgement,
and while the victim's judgement was impaired, the
barkeeper's should not have been.
Are you tired of pumping gasoline?
Do you spend your lunch money on lottery tickets every day yet still find yourself working for a living?
For a limited time only, XYZ Local College will be transforming ignorant, destitute, complete idiots like yourself into genuine purebred Certified Microsoft Professionals, guaranteed to make the the really big bucks.
Last year a mother of twelve on welfare who could not speak a word of English and had never seen a computer before, received this ad and decided to sell her kid's dogs, and gave up cigarettes for three days so she could have enough money to take this class and become a Certified Microsoft Professional. Today she owns a multimillion dollar consulting business and has lunch twice a week with Bill Gates.
This course is so effective, that within the first week of class you will probably receive several executive job offers from Fortune 100 companies.
A butcher in Oklahoma received this advertisement by mail but did not respond. Two days later he was hit by a sausage truck!
A plumber in Michigan received this ad but threw it away. He drowned in a septic tank less than one week later!
Don't let this happen to you! Now is your chance to become the millionare you've always dreamed of.
Never seen a computer? Not a problem! Many of our successful graduates still do not know what a computer is. Let XYZ College change your life too!
But hurry - class sizes are limited! Admission will be awarded on a first come, first serve basis, so sign up now and MAKE MONEY FAST!!!
I think there is a satellite campus in Houston.
The amount of money one makes is really a very stochastic (sorry for the college word) function. Consider that Microsoft programmers earn 50k while us serious scientific programmer types are dropped from companies like flies in february. When they do pay us they don't pay much. Yes I'm disgruntled! Actually I think there's just too much competition.
I love stupid people.
The american legal system is a joke!
Prosecutor: And you say, you were too stupid to pass the course?
Guy on the bench: That's correct. They said the prerequisites were "basic mobile function of one arm and at minimum, one finger." I definitely have one good arm and at least one good finger.
P: So you failed?
GotB: That's right. I just didn't get the whole "Operatin Syssem" thing. Every time I heard some computer-geeko mumbo jumbo, I cracked up..."RAM." "finger" "gawk" - I couldn't help it.
P: Your Honor - it's painfully obvious that Souvern Medothist is lacking and should be forced to shell out since "intelligence" wasn't on the list of requirements.
Judge: Great! Just sign the check on my kickback and we'll call it a day!
hehehehahaherhehahah!
./ lh
It seems to me that most schools arn't trying to teach, they are trying to get the students to "Do the required work to pass a class"
Too many classes are passible just because all the work is done, and arn't passible due to knowing the material.
Mabie this will get better as I start studying colledge courses, but EVERY high school course I've looked into has this problem.
And not just in technical fields, although they are the worst. Many corporations hire degrees, not employees. They don't care what a person knows as long as that person has a piece of paper signifying that they graduated from a 4-year college. These kids are not taught anything in school and are not properly trained once they get on the job, since their PHBs expect them to be geniuses upon hire and will not spend what it takes to train them (after all, that's what college is for!)
It's not all the corporations' fault. Many of these kids expect a job handed to them upon graduation and expect to be paid at least $50,000 a year to start despite not knowing squat! Why do they expect this? Because a few companies like Microsoft pay it. Of course, they expect 60-80 hour weeks for this kind of pay, but don't tell this to the kids.
Personally, no 22-year-old kid should be paid more than $25,000 a year if they have no experience, degree or not. Let them earn their pay. Give 'em the big bucks when they have proved themselves! An education is good, but it doesn't replace actually doing a job.
The article says that the students quit their jobs to take the 5 month class - it doesn't sound like they were in a normal degree program. While all schools has have a business/profit aspect to them, some schools and programs are more concerned with enrolling students and getting their tuition than the student's welfare. While it does make a funny headline (student sues school :-) Maybe the school or program isn't really all on the up and up.
Pre-requisites do NOT indicate performance in any particular class. For instance, Japanese I has
no pre-reqs, but Its sufficiently difficult enough that you can fail it unless you actually, God forbid, WORK HARD AT IT.
Calculus I has no prereqs, but 80% of high school graduates these days probably couldn't handle it, and thats a freshman course. The ONLY person responsible for LEARNING anything is the student. The teacher takes NO resposibility to that effect. Now, if the student asked questions relavant to the course material and the teacher was unable or unwilling to answer those questions, then I can understand their complaints, but I seriously doubt
that was the case.
In almost every course I have ever been in, the student is responsible for all material in the textbook and all material provided by lectures. This does not mean that the lectures will cover ANY of the material in the textbook, but the student is still responsible for all of it. None of the material in the textbook might be offered in lectures, but the student is responsible for all of it.
In a college level course, simply showing up to class every day does not assure you a passing grade, and in the end, I figure that an instructor who fails all his students PROBABLY knows what the hell he's doing. At least a certification from that class would actually MEAN something.
-Restil
That story sure is a good one... until you learn the annoying fact that McDonalds had received repeated complaints that their coffee was *far* too hot. And McDonalds freely admitted that they served their coffee something like 20F hotter than their competitors since they were targeting the people who didn't drink their coffee until they reached their offices. They just never bothered to tell the customers to *not* consume the coffee they were just sold....
20F might not sound like much, but it causes a huge difference. The time of contact required
for a severe burn dropped from minutes to seconds. This woman was harmed more than others because of her age. (The elderly burn more easily than younger adults.)
I was in the business of providing instructors for certification based classes, so I have some experience with this.
First of all, These classes start off with a basic list of suggessted requirements. They may have stated that all you need to do is point and click, but that does not imply that it would be USEFUL to have more experience. This is true with almost ANY subject. All they are saying is that a dedicated student should be able to pass the course.
However, most of these courses, just like colleges, have a certain timeframe by which you will be able to withdrawl with a full refund. In the classes we taught, which were typically 1 full week (about 40 hours of actual classroom time), the student could quit anytime before noontime of the second day with a full refund, so long as they stated that either A: they didn't meet the pre-reqs, or B: The course content does not meet up to their expectations.
I'm certain that any 5 month (or was it week, can't remember right now) curriculum would have at least some amount of time available for wussing out with a full refund. If you stay beyond that point, it is acceptance of the pre-requisites. Anyone making it 20% of the way through the class should have a pretty damned good idea if they can handle it.
The only potential complaint is that the final grade had no relation to their performance in the class. If the students would have passed the tests, but the instructor failed them anyways just out of spite or something, then I would understand the suit, but that's about the only execption I can find.
As for certification and money, this fits the description of ALL schools. A college degree is a certification, and all colleges charge money.
Also, I'm certain that nowhere the school said that the student WOULD get the certification if they signed up for the course. Pre-requisites have practically no bearing on class performance.
-Restil
Despite being posted on Excite and having a Reuters tag:
1. SMU, as previously noted, is in Dallas, not Houston.
2. A real news story would list the name of the course is, which Microsoft programs, and probably who the teacher was.
3. Since when do universities offer courses based on a specific corporation's software? (If it were a continuing education course, it would have said that.)
My guess? Unless this is incredibly incompetent journalism, someone's leg is being pulled.
- Lawrence Person
Evil Music available at: www.mp3.com/hiddenagenda
Let's assume for a second that the students win
their suit. Then what?
Will they be certified to work with MS software? No.
Will they find it easier to learn the material from another teacher? No. Who would accept a student who sued his prior teacher for making the class "too hard"?
Will they find it easier to find related employment? Hell no. When I'm evaluating a candidate I don't hold it against them if they failed a course (quite the contrary, I am concerned that anyone who *doesn't* occasionally fall flat on their face is demonstrating an unwillingless to seek their full potential). I don't even hold it against someone if they blame the occasional failure on outside factors. (A bad teacher, a family crisis, etc.) But someone who *sues* over a failure is another matter -- I am forced to ask myself if I will be next!
Finally, anyone who does decide to give these losers a second chance would be struck by their attitudes. (Or at least the attitude of their lawyer.) This course lasted *five months*; it's perfectly reasonable to have no prerequesite past basic familiarity with the Windows environment. If someone was already extremely familiar with all of the programs, why would they enroll in a five month certification program?!
I'm certinly no legal expert, but as I understand it, a class action lawsuit is basically a lawsuit where there are a bunch of plantifs. Anyone who wants can usually sign on. It's common in things like harassment suits from obese people who thought their employeer wasn't treating them fairly, and stuff like that.
The goal of COMPUTER SCIENCE is not and should not be to give people practice "handing real applications programming". Like the previous poster said, that's the type of thing that you should learn at a technical college, in some employer training program, or the way most of us do - from experience.
Many of the most brilliant Computer Scientists have never done "real applications programming". Computer Science is MATHEMATICS. People need to realize this. You should be going to a technical college if the main thing you want to learn is to code.
Blow it out yer ear, Water-boy. We get taught the same things here at Carleton for half the tuition price. ;)
I'm not surprised. Like I said, CS at Waterloo is overrated IMHO. Most of the reputation comes from the co-op program, the fact that so many top students come here, and the math component. But I'm of the opinion that there should be even more required math courses for CS majors though (they cut out Calc III as a core requirement, which I don't understand). The actual CS curriculum however, is probably not much better than most other Canadian universities, and I'm worried the increase in enrollment is going to do a lot of damage to the program.
I'm personally double majoring in CS and Pure Mathematics so as to augment the CS stuff with something more interesting and challenging.
Cobol and C programming? Are you sure that's a University, and not some technical college? What kind of a CS program would focus on specific technical skills (like C programming)? That's not Computer Science! And are you saying you didn't learn about data structures and algorithms, operating systems, computational complexity, the theory of computing, compiler design, artificial intelligence, etc.? Wow. This must be why CS at UW has such a good reputation - other schools are so terrible!
Recently more and more people have been suggesting to me that I go straight into grad school and get a masters in CS. Bachelor's degrees are worth about as much as a high school diploma was 20 years ago. Kinda sad that I have to spend an extra 2 years of my life in school. Damn good thing I enjoy my classes...:)
(URI still hasn't dumbed down their CS curriculum, thank god, that's what MIS is for *smirk*)
Were the prerequisites listed in the catalog? If not, I wouldn't waste my time whining about the counselor, I'd be looking for a professionally-run institution. If the prerequisites were listed, but you didn't take the time to check, that's your fault, not the counselor's.
Maybe you can learn a valuable lesson here: the school wants your money, the counselors are salesmen. If you can't be bothered to read for yourself, don't expect different results. Two hours spent reading through the catalog could have saved you the trouble.
Go, Salukis!
slashdot broke my sig
There needs to be a stigma attached to sucking at academics, otherwise it turns out to be ok to sit on welfare and do nothing but have barbecues in your driveway during the day, and lots of sex at night.
Unfortunately today the common chant all over the country (media especially) is that being offended (negative stigmas) is the #1 problem we have and must be stopped. As well, coddling stupidty is the chic thing now, to show you "care," which just happens to be the primary trait people want in others (take Clinton, for example, he doesn't stand for any principles, but he cares so it's all right). So I don't see much anything possible for a good 10 years or so.
One of my favorite stupid people stories is from a couple years back when like 80 or so high school seniors all get on a water slide and it collapses under the weight. I guess physics wasn't a required class there. Sure there were signs saying only one person allowed on the slide at a time, no horseplaying, people told them not to do it, etc. But dammit, it's the pool's fault that it collapsed, and they needed suing. A group of them even had the balls to go on NBC's dateline to say, "It's not our fault," and to get sympathy. Does anyone know what ever became of that lawsuit? If the kids win, the slide is constructed to hold 80-100 people (more likely put out of business, but anyway), then 200 people will jump on and another lawsuit is launched. And we go on forever, coddling stupidity, punishing normal people.
Anyway, that's my piece. We're in a sad state here in the US, and it won't get any better anytime soon.
Could it be said that only MS-type people would fall for this? If someone came up and said, "Hey, join this class, all you have to do it point and click," I'd be rather scepticle. But that's me, not these 12. :)
Personally I have to think that these are perhaps the most short-sighted students on the planet, and I'm not worried about it becoming a trend even if they somehow manage to win. Students like these are looking for one thing, a piece of paper and a good GPA so they can get a job.
Employers however are much more interested in honesty, trustworthiness and the all important factor of the likeliness of a candidate to sue them frivolously. Actions like this show that a person is likely to abuse any given system, show a lack of work ethic and any number of other negative qualities. I'd much rather find an F on an employee's record than a lawsuit regarding an F.
From the fortune file:
:))
"Never let your schooling interfere with your education."
I love that quote... wish i knew the guy who came up with it (anyone know em?
It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
I don't know the details of what they were trying to teach in the class, but if were a CS100 'this is the control panel' type class, and you failed, you deserve what you get, and whining (and suing) about it is useless. Now if they promoted a 3rd year database course as 'point and click', this could be a problem.
Aren't there prereq's to the hard classes? I know when I took my 3rd year database class I had to have 2nd year db and a host of other classes that showed that I was not an idiot and had the basis of knowledge needed for the class.
Now did this school not have this set up? Maybe it *was* a first year class that didn't need pre-reqs? Even so, suing is not an option IMHO.
On a diffirent exam, the AP Calculus test, there are guaranteed to be at least six problems that are unsolvable without a graphing calculator...
Although I haven't taken the SAT yet, if the PSAT (practice SAT) is any measure of what the SAT is like, a calculator would not be of use except for arithmatic and possibly to calculate trig functions. While both can be done by hand or mentally, it's faster to use a calculator to find an arcsin than to to start drawing special triangles to generate a unit circle. If the test is only to see how fast you can do arithmatic, and not also to see what you can do with the arithmatic, it should be in the format of the 'time-tests' that I was always horrible at in elementary school. Calculators _can_ be inappropriate for some tests - a calculator would not be approprite for a time-test, and the (somewhat rare) calculators with computer algebra systems would not be appropriate on tests solely of algebraic manipulation - but calcultors are entirely appropriate on a test of general math skill. Just because I'm slow to multiply and divide dosen't mean I can't integrate and derive.
A calculator is not a magic device that enables stupid people to pass tests. If you don't know what you're doing in the first place the calculator isn't going to be of much help.
This is exactly what is happening at my local community college. One of the instructors expected the students to spend time and work on projects. The students complained to the dept. head that the class was to hard. Course these were the students that were sitting in the back row talking about ??? durring class and when the test came around complaining that what was on the test was never discussed
Why is it that its easier to write a huge comment here, but I still can't write the first paragraph of that english st
So, while I think it's a bit pathetic that these guys couldn't manage to learn how to use MS software, it would be nice to force the ivory tower to come clean about course content. I don't think it's out of line to ask for a refund if the class is not as advertised; you're the customer, after all.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Not everyone takes college courses just so they can party for four/five years before they have to join the real world. I know several people who came back to school to learn skills to help them get ahead in life. I suspect that's what was up here; if you've never used a computer seriously before, even Word can be daunting (I've noticed that 99% of users never get over the fear that they'll somehow break their expensive computer).
The article never mentioned MSCE, by the way. That little detail seems to have appeared directly from your backside.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
If this happens too often (120-odd credits at 2-3-4 credit classes means that it'll probably happen more than once; it has for me) and you find yourself on the 'ol five year plan. I love college and everything, but I only know two people who are going to escape in the traditional four years. I think this might be a contributing factor.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
It was nore that the class was always cancelled. I'm all for getting the occassional surprise Tuesday off on occassion, but this class was cancelled a *lot*. I think we ended up having class maybe four out of ten times. I found myself thinking, "Wait a second, I'm *paying* for this!".
I passed the class and everything, but I learned absoluted zilch. I complained to the school, but their attitude was pretty much "you got your credits, what more do you want from us?"
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I think that was Mark Twain, in... Tom Sawyer? Huck Finn? One of 'em.
Let's just view this from a different perspective- just for fun I'm going to argue that the students were not only right but deserved to win. ;) ;)
In doing so, I'm going to make some assumptions without which my point becomes stupid
First, let's postulate this was MCSE training. It may not have been, but suppose it was?
It's well known that MCSE training is not free. In fact, it costs quite a lot- thousands of dollars? This is a serious expenditure.
It's also well known that MCSE training is not meaningful in terms of education. In fact it is primarily propaganda and an orientation to Microsoft systems that attempts to create workers who choose to tie workplaces hopelessly into MS ways of doing things. It's already been mentioned that MCSE doesn't cover the basics or give a working picture of networking etc: just points people at very MS-centric tricks and tools not available elsewhere. Therefore, what is being paid for is not actually education but a slip of paper giving you a high-paying job.
Since the students were not actually paying for education, but were paying thousands of dollars each to MS for a piece of paper, it is not justified to deprive them of that paper simply because they were not educated: nothing about the course seriously attempts to educate them, it only fills them with propaganda and confuses them about reality. So the choices are between them being not educated, and them being not educated plus reciting meaningless drivel that is arbitrary.
Since the course description did not assert that they were required to recite meaningless drivel, they cannot be held to that for their failure to recite the correct drivel: since attempts to learn how computers, NT, networking etc. really work could lead to incorrect answers (because the course expects certain sorts of answers- true or not!), inability to learn cannot be considered a penalty either, as that is not what is being tested.
If the students were properly informed that they would pass or fail on their ability to memorize foolishness and arbitrary claims, they may have had an easier time of it: there is no reason to assume the students did not attempt to learn the truths about NT and networking and system administration, as this would appear to be the point of the course.
Because of this miscommunication, it is appropriate for the students to sue and win at least the MCSE certification which they paid for in good faith. Their money is as good as anyone's, and their inability to learn does not make them worse admins than graduates who, in good faith, learned everything on the MCSE test and ONLY on the test. Both groups would be lousy admins but that is outside the scope of this argument.
Therefore, assuming this was over MCSE status from a very expensive course, this argument rules in favor of the students, grants them MCSE status in good standing as certified engineers, and requires Microsoft to add the lines 'Rote memorization in outright defiance of common sense is required' to the course description.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
When I was in senior high school, I got stuck with an incredibly lame physics teacher. My solution was to enroll for night courses at the local technical college.
I'm sorry dude, but you can't blame it all on parents. My parents didn't think much about education. It was *my* decision to pursue an education, not theirs.
I'm not a sociologist, so I'm not going to get up on a soapbox and rant.
But I will say this. My experience in life is that many ( not all, but many ) people who are poorly educated simply don't want to learn anything new unless they absolutely have to.
In this respect, there does seem to be a very distinct difference between people - those who enjoy learning during their entire lifetime and those who loose the interest in anything new once they hit puberty. It's not related to race or culture, or even your family life, but something that's very hard to define ( like a random genetic combination maybe? )
Just my 39 years of cynicism gang.
Posted by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters:
./'ers, but the apparent fact is that it *was* too difficult for the students they actually recruited. Probably the school could not get as much enrollment as they wanted by appealing to those who really did have the requisite background, so the advertised more widely.
I think a couple others have observed this, but based on the description given in the article, the suit does not seem at all illegitimate. Several things were purported in the article:
(1) The course was for certification.
(2) The school charged money for the course.
(3) The school made specific and false represenations about the prerequisites for successfully completing the course/certification.
If these features are not accurate, I take back my remarks of course. But assuming they are true, it seems like a straighforward case of false-advertising.
I'm sure the MS certification would not be overly difficult for most
It is also important that this was not part of a general curriculum (say a CS degree, or public high school). In those cases, one could argue that the school/dept. has a right to set the curriculum as difficult as they think necessary, etc. But this was an isolated continuing-ed course for non-fulltime students. The school claimed, "any one who can point-and-click, and who pays us $X, will get this certificate". That's false... the school should pay for the claim.
Yours, Lulu...
"We totally deny the allegations, and we're trying to identify the allegators." === --And when we find the allegators, we will summarily feed them to the Alligators. ;-P
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Hmmm.. if at first you don't succeed, drop it and take it next semester with an easier professor. :-)
Of course we're in school to get a piece of paper. Everyone knows computer science classes at most universities are a complete joke. The only reason to take them is to get the piece of paper to show your future employer to satisfy their HR department. I've almost never learned anything in a CIS class that I could apply in the real world besides basic C programming skills. Where the hell am I going to use the Cobol skills I'm being forced to learn for the piece of paper? I sure as hell don't want to sit behind a 3270 emulator my entire life and write cobol programs! ;-)
My MCSE was pretty easy, but it was for 3.51, didn't have any of those dynamic versions I've been hearing about recently, but I still think people would have a hard time coming in and breezing though the tests. No matter what you know, chances are you don't know how MS has redefined the terms, something I hate, but they do it.. Like on the IP test, redefining router to be gateway, and other such nonsense.
anyway,
-o
i wish UWaterloo was that protective of its underachievers.. :) I wouldn't be worried about failing courses then... hehe
-Stu
Moron. RTFA.
Only someone with a strong anti-American sentiment would have written such a comment.
If you read the article, this isn't about students getting a free ride. This is about honesty in representing a class.
Many people have already said, "Why didn't they just drop the class?" More than likely, the school was still going to get their money (probably past a drop-dead date when the class got hella tough; I've had this one happen before.)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Something needs to be done with the higher education system in this country, not the legal system, in this case.
This sounds like something I've learned is a fairly common practice--get counselors to talk students into taking a class, then, after a drop-dead date, make the class ultra-hard. Many students will repeat a course to get a better grade.
failing students==more revenue for university
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I think it's a bit unfair for us to call the students morons, considering we don't know how the course was handled at that particular school.
Yes, MCSE may be a joke, but maybe this particular instructor had more requirements.
I once took a course called "Advertising Copywriting," for example, and there was huge emphasis on design and layout of print ads. Imagine, if you will, having to go out and bankrupt yourself getting computer equipment for a class called Advertising Copywriting to get an A just because a) your university's computer labs suck and b) the professor decided he didn't just want to cover design, despite the fact that that was the focus of another required class.
My point is that the course might not have been as simple as y'all think it was.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Bless you. :O)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
What did I say about algebra? No idiot counselor would let you take Calc I without algebra, geometry, and a course in pre-cal. :^P
Yes, I had had *basic* biology. The class was being represented as a basic plant biology course, one for non-minors, which implies that knowledge gained in high school would probably be enough (or that the assumption was that I had gained the experience in classes prior to this one was enough.) It was not. Nor was it for 60% of the class (!)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
No, you're blinded by an anti-American sentiment.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Ah. I hate to point this out (again) but my point was that this case probably has more to do with the class being misrepresented.
As I have said in other posts, I have found that certain courses are mis-labeled, mis-described, and are filled with ill-advised students (ill-advised meaning an advisor has mistakenly placed a student without the proper prerequisite coursed under their belts). Then, after a "drop-dead date" (i.e. after a full refund is impossible) the course inexplicably becomes more difficult.
While, yes, the implication is that students are lazy, the other implication is that many universities are using dishonest, predatory techniques to fill classrooms and generate revenue.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
What sort of arrogance *are* you blinded by, then?
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Reuters is a news service. This could very well be on MSNBC too, for all I know. Or your local paper.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I suppose I've been wasting my time--silly me, dilligently going to class to learn, and now I find that I'm not learning anything. :^P
Thanks for the info. You'll save many potential college students thousands of dollars.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Maybe you can pick up the basics of a language in 1-3 weeks....
...but you won't know jack shit about handling real applications programming in any of them. That's a shitty way to run an educational program.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
It's funny you should mention the word minority.
At my university, we've had students try to use the excuse, "You're failing me because I'm black." (Substitute another minority group here.) In any case I've seen, it's not the person's minority group status that's the problem, it's that they couldn't be bothered to do the work or even pay attention.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Just what the subject line said.
:O) and I would *love* to sue the department that I'm in (which is, strangely enough, journalism; I switched over from CS. Calc killed me. :^( ) Not only to counselors give false information, but the *course catalogs*, in many cases, don't match what the actual content of the class is!
The article states that the students were told that, if they could point and click, they could handle the course. Which, of course, was a lie. The class's content has been misrepresented, and students have been tricked into *paying* for a class that was not what they thought they were signing up for.
I go to SIU (Southern Illinois University...yeah, it *is* a crappy U
This could be a landmark (and wonderful) case. This could force universities to give counselors (and course catalogs, for that matter) relevant, accurate information.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Come on.
The students were told the course would be so simple, all they'd have to do is "point and click."
I personally have had this happen to me. I once had a counselor talk me into taking a plant biology class because, as she said, "You need a biology credit and this class is *easy.*" Not only, as I found out later, did I need two other prerequisite courses (although I was never asked to drop the course), but, by the time I figured out just *how* far over my head this stuff was, I was at a point that, no matter whether or not I dropped the course, *the university was going to get my money.*
This seems to me to be rather a dishonest course of action on the part of the university, and, having talked to students from other universities, a fairly common practice: set students up to fail so they have to stick around for a couple more semesters.
I know what you're thinking: "Yeah, that's why you should make your own schedule." I was a transfer student. I was relatively unfamiliar with the university (other than it's reputation for CS in the state) and I wasn't given the option to choose my own classes since I transferred in.
What the article doesn't say is what percentage of the class failed. That would be nice to know.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
That makes the assumption that the class was taken at a college. At many schools which you shell out the equivalant of a 4yr college in 6 months, you have a choice, a)suck it up and work your ass off and b) quit without a refund. I have several friends going to school (tech. school, not college) to get their MCSE. Let me give you some figures for CLC....
1: Fees for just the Classes (which last a total of 8 months) - ~ $18,000
2: Books ~ $200-400 for each SECTION of the MCSE
3: The class teaches how to pass the exam, not how to do the job of an MCSE (something you don't find out till you've shelled over the money)
4: you're promised that after recieving your MCSE, job placement with the avg. starting salary being ~$40,000 for the first year
5: they don't tell you that you need to have past computer experience (i know this b/c my friend had no previous computer experience)
6: CLC does not give the MCSE exams, you have to shell out another $100 for the exam
(note on the exams: they may or may not be adaptive -- MS is not required to tell you and MS has the right to change the score required to pass at ANY time)
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
Thank you; you responded much more politely than I would have.
I would contend that a good memory, although no doubt useful, is nowhere near the most important trait for a programmer to have. Nor is it necessarily the ability to pick up a new language overnight.
The single most important trait for any employee is an ability to provide demonstrable value for an employer. In the case of a programmer, this means the ability to program - not to code, but to program. I draw the subtle distinction because I've seen too many people who think that they can program just because they can slap together code that they think will work, even if they themselves can't understand what they've written three months later.
The ability to plan out the development of a program is not synonymous with being able to code. I suppose we could now debate whether freshly minted college graduates are more or less able to do this than your average self-taught programmer without a degree, but regardless of how those two groups compare this skill is something that is in fact acquired by (sometimes painful) experience.
Finally, if there is any age bias in the computer industry, it is in the exact opposite direction - the industry discriminates against anyone over 40.
Actually, I did RTFA, contrary to your ill deduced assuption.
I agree, only someone with a stron anti-American sentiment would write such a comment. Why? Because I am not blinded by American arrogance, believing that that the American school system if far superior in comparison to others.
I think that you don't know what you are talking about. The American Education System is a joke, and virtually every US Citizen who isn't part of the American Education System (and quit a few who are) knows that.
Unfortunately, this sort of whiny "gimme gimme gimme" attitude is exactly what one can expect from the typical student here. Part of the problem is the senseless job prereq of a college degree in the US (i.e. if you don't have a college degree, you won't get a good job, no matter how much you know), but in the end, it boils down to laziness on the part of people brazenly cheated out of the $8000/year worth of taxes paid to support the high school system.
Jim Cape
http://www.jcinteractive.com
Jim Cape
http://www.jcinteractive.com
I was quoting to disagree with the "believe their education system is the best" part.
Jim Cape
http://www.jcinteractive.com
Jim Cape
http://www.jcinteractive.com
No kidding. In fact, it's almost as if our society is encouraging the production of stupid people.
This list could go on and on. While I probably agree that stupid people (IQ of 85-90 or less) should be sterilized to prevent the breeding of even more idiots, someone somewhere would label it as racist and illegal. Which is also why one cannot use intelligence tests as a basis of employment.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
If I remember correctly they give 200 points now for each section. What is pitiful is that many colleges also allow people in who are in the top 25-10% of their high school graduating class. I read in the paper a few months back about a girl who was #1 in her high school class getting a 500 on her SAT (scores combined).
This is all a result of years of just trying to teach for the lowest common denominator. No wonder so many people try to get their kids in private school or teach them at home.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
When I took psychology, there was a section in the text that was about measuring human characteristics. According to this, everything (height, weight, intelligence, shoe size, etc.) that can be measured for a population of humans, when graphed forms the shape of a bell. Normally, 2/3 of the population is within on standard deviation (+/-) of the mean. The remaining 1/3 are split with 1/6 below (mean - stddev) and 1/6 above (mean + stddev).
This prof may have been taking that along with experience teaching the course into account when grading:
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
When I was in college, all the CS majors had to take a intro to Electrical Engineering course. It was perceived to be a hard class and the instructor gave assignments everyday that had to be turned in by the next class. This was a shock to many of the CS students who where used to having assignments only once every two weeks or so. Of course they bitched to the CS department head and unfortunately after a year or so the requirement was dropped.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
IMHO, The C Programming Language by K & R is the best book on the subject. I've recommended it to people who were looking into learning the language. Much better than the Unleashed or Learn X in 21 Days type books.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
That sounds about like the comedian that jokes about product warnings (ie. Preparation H: do not take orally...hmm you know someone wrote them a letter...=)
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I wish I knew when & where I read it. I should have clipped it out. The sad thing is she's in a college someplace wondering why she's failing classes right and left.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Just showing up and putting your name on the test sheet will get you 400.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
If I remember correctly, the point of the article that I had read (I wish I would have saved it now) was how some of the admission exceptions that some colleges have are letting people in who are totally unqualified to be there in the first place. As a result, they end up taking a lot of remedial courses. This becomes an issue for state funded schools, where they spend money teaching classes that should have been covered by the high schools.
Besides, if a 500 on the SAT is the best that a person from the class can do, then the school is doing a pretty piss poor job. In this metro area, the illiteracy rate has been estimated between 20-25% and many of those people have high school diplomas!
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
It certainly wasn't any harder than Calc I or the Physics class that were prerequisites. I think what most people objected to where the daily assignments, which they weren't used to. I actually thought the class was easy, which was why I decided to add EE as a second major. The biggest problem with doing that was trying to fit the required classes for both majors into a schedule, especially when they were offered at the same time and junior year of EE was 34 credits of required classes.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
All lawyers must die.
Except for my girlfriend's father, agreed.
CmdrTaco is functionally illiterate(well...maybe just dyslexic).*
Why, because he allows Jon Katz to post here? I'm guessing you're one of those types who claims to defend free speech too.
There is no point in continuing the WIMP "ease of use" fallacy; the efforts of GNOME and KDE should be redirected towards voice recognition and control, and AI.
The fallacy is not in WIMP itself, which will be the easiest, most powerful, and most flexible interface we're going to have until natural-language voice-command takes over. The fallacy is in badly-designed WIMP, of which any Microsoft program tends to be a fine example (though if you really want an example of bad interface try XFig).
That's what most GUI programmers don't get. WIMP is not automatically easy to use. You have to do it right. M$ was never good at that; the only worse UI I've seen is DpIV (great idea, but poorly done). Gnome and KDE both are very good improvements, but both still inherit some bad-WIMP principles from Microsoft (but then, most OS's do). NeXT and MacOS get it very, very good most of the time, though examples of bad interface do exist on each. Is there any perfect UI out there? I have yet to see it on any platform. But there are those which come close. You can't say the whole barrel of fruit is bad just because the first lemon you picked out was bad.
A few comments here basically say that because the school said that the course was simple, just point and click, the case should immediately be awarded to the students. It's not that easy. The students 'allege' that the school made statements about the ease of the course. This still needs to be proven.
That said there are a lot of schools which do make statements like that. There is an entire industry comprised of 'schools' that take out late night TV adds which state point blank that if you take a simple course you'll make 50K per year.
Unfortunately people and corporations lie. If this didn't happen we'd need no courts, no patent law etc.
Absolutely! The situation was predicated by several unusual factors:
1. She did in fact put the coffee between her legs. Let's talk about this as a "fact" and ignore the debate about whether it was stupid or not.
2. She received severe burns, costing $12,000 in hospital expenses.
3. The insurance company was not pleased by this...and forced her to sue for damages (not everyone realizes that health insurance companies can do that sort of thing.)
4. You can't just sue a Fortune 500 company for $12000, you need to do it for a "real" some of money.
5. In the course of investigating the company, internal McDonald's memos came to light showing that the company knew that the coffee makers were making coffee that was way too hot, and that customers and employees would be injured. However, they calculated that the injuries and costs/lawsuits associated with them would be less than fixing the makers. Therefore, this was a strong instance of negligence.
6. McDonald's lost primarily on negligence, and the fines were punitive, not in compensation to the person.
7. The fines were lowered to $500,000 anyway (many cases like this end up being reduced anyway.)
8. As far as I know...she still has not received the money.
She got what she deserved.
So did McDonald's...and I have no memory of it being in a moving car.
The use of "riding" here is a rather unfortunate because, as you said, it is more likley to imply "moving." She did take the lid off, but, as I remember, the 20/20 documentary that they had on the case said that the burn occured at the drivethrough window. Unfortunately none of those articles are clear enough to direct us one way or another.
7 /1612238&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=th read&pid=1757#1965
Please also read my earlier comments concenring this
http://www.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/03/2
Mcse exams are nearly impossible to pass. They measure skill by how well you know mouse click on simulatoins rather then actual content. I flunked my iis exam because I was asked sql server questions and odbc questions that were not even covered on the course material. The course material is focusing less and less on actual course material and content because of cheaters getting the answers on the net. Mcse tests makes the cne tests look elementry. GO to www.cramsession.com and look at the NT enterprise and iis exams feedback and tell me all the people who called them impossible to pass are abunch of morons. Because NT has so much less conent to memorize compared to unix because of mouse clicks and menu's make ms put hard stuff in their exams. The fact that I have over ten tabs in the iis service manager in mmc and expected to know whats in all ten and if I click on the worng one, then the answer is wrong. Its rediculous. I have never taken the adaptive exam and I heard they are easier but the non-adaptive ones I have taken are tough. I had alot of trouble with networking essentials and I had no college degree so I had to memorize osi model and IBM"s calbing numbers (like your using an IBM type 4 calbe., Which one is that and how far can the signal go.). Networking essentials is rather easy if you have a cs degree but the other exams are really tough with or w/o a cs degree.
You must be real pridefull
"Never stick an electrical appliance down your pants." -Tim Allen
I don't know about you guys but the mcse tests I have taken are very hard comapred to other exams liek cne/cna. I admit they test on wording but if you don't know how to use global/local groups, the osi model, tcp/ip, or basic NT administration work, then its impossible to pass. I bet all you /.ers would fail if you have never studied for any of the mcse exams. Computer knowledge id not good enough to pass these tests. What gets me ticked is the course material only covers 75% of the test and the new adaptive tests reask you stuuff you don't know like the other 25%. I took the iis exam and was constantly reasked questions on sql server and type 800045 errors that weren't even covered in the couruse material. WHAT THE HELL DOES SQL SERVER HAVE TO DO WITH HOSTING A WEB PAGE! If your an iis admin and you had an odbc or sql server errors, you would call the database admin and say fix this and not fix it yourself and worsen the problem if you don't know what yoru doing?
"Never stick an electrical appliance down your pants." -Tim Allen
Those sutpid sutdents are jsut being slily. Tkaing hrad calsses is jsut smoething you hvae to ptu up wtih as a sutdent.
-rEic
PS - sorry, I couldn't resist making fun of the typo.
erm, "worse before it gets better" - of course
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
"No such things happens in Europe" - I might be tempted to add "yet" to that sentence, some say things happen in europe about 18 months after when they happen in the states and there does seem to be some truth to it. I certainly hope not - while I'm quite happy to be living in the US the current state of our legal system isn't one of our finest accomplishments.
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
"Is that really how it works?" - so say the brits I know, I've always thought this was a marvelous idea. Thanks for the compliment on my spam block I figured if you can figure out what that means I'll probably enjoy getting email from you ;-)
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
While I certainly can't condone the ethics of a bartender who would serve someone 22 shots I am still forced to ask: "Who bears the ultimate responsibility for your behavior?". The answer as I see it should be *you*. Noone held that 21-year old down and forced those 22 shots down his throat, he most likely requested and paid for them. On a related note, some professions are dangerous, such as being a policeman or paratrooper, should we step in and prevent people from choosing these horribly risky lines of work? Ultimately this all comes back to the same theme: "People don't know what is good for them, we need the law to step in and save them from themselves". Is this the sort of mentality you'd like to see become even more pervasive here in the US? I certainly prefer accountability and individualism, sad to see I'm resoundingly in the minority.
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
Erm, eh? SMU is in Dallas, not Houston. I would have to say I don't find this behavior surprising - look at recent events: woman suing mcdonalds over hot coffee, people suing bartenders for being "overserved". This is just continuing the trend of people being totally unwilling to accept the consequences of their actions and I fear it'll get better before it gets worse. What we need is to take a page from the british legal system, if I bring a lawsuit against you and can't prove my case - I pay your legal bills.
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
Yah, I've thought of that - what about this: if you have a situation where a person couldn't bear the financial burden if they were to lose (but did have a good case) an attorney could offer to shoulder the risk and in response collect a substantial percentage if successful. I realize this would force lawyers to evaluate the case *very* *carefully* (since the attorney himself/herself would be out the money if the case isn't proven) but I submit that could well be a benefit, rather than a liability.
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
that "... specifically Microsoft Windows and ..." should ofcourse be "... specifically Microsoft Word and ..."
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
if you sign up for a class you are supposed to know basically what the goal of the class is and what you are going to learn, which is in the official description of that class. the official description of the class in discussion here is probably something like "the goal of this class is to teach students the basic use of the Microsoft Windows '95 operating system and the Microsoft Office suite, specifically Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Excell." (don't pin me down on that one folks).
so, if you sign up for that class while all you know about it is that somebody said that "you can handl it if you can point and click" then YOU haven't done enough to find out exactly what the class was all about. considering the wording of the comment it's very probable that it was just a geste by a teacher to indicate that it entails really the very basics of how to use a computer.
what those students are doing is the same as, for example, suing the military because you didn't make it through basic training, which you took because a veteran told you that it's a piece of cake.
the whole point is that they should have known what the class was about when signed up, and they apparently didn't know what it was about.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
Your comment about morons is too true to laugh at. I fit the bill as a CS (psuedo science) veteran and some of the best people I have worked with came out of the EE camp.
To date myself here, DEC VMS has a nifty autogen tool that even an idiot could run to tune the OS. My experience taught me at a previous job that eventually the morons thought they were fully qualified system admins. It just seems to work out that way when you take a basically unqualified person and give them an easier way to reach the goal.
MS stuff is supposed to "easier" so easy you don't have to hire one of those expensive "System Administrators" to manage your system.
I work at a major computer server OEM. In our Information Services department we have 3 Unix administrators and 10 NT administrators.
Windows NT is NOT easy to administer, and suprisingly enough, the usual fix for problems is to RE-INSTALL the OS and all 4 service packs then restore from backup. This takes about 12 hours and needs to be done at least once every month for all 50 NT servers we have.
The Unix machines have average uptimes of about 90 days. ( They upgrade the kernals a lot here. ) However the doen time is usually only a few minutes.
Ken
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
My STAT400 class at UofM. The Prof didn't speek english very well (not the normal "not very well", worse then that), and had a hard time explaining anything. He was russian, and I think he learned his english in France. I'm fairly sure this was his first class in the USA. It didn't help that STAT400 was a hard class to begin with.
The university promised he wouldn't teach undergrads again. No free retake. No lawsuit. A free retake would have been fair, I don't think a lawsuit would have been justifyed. For that one would have to prove that the University knew (or should have known) that the guy couldn't teach. I doubt they did.
As for this lawsuit? I donno, if the University said in some offical capacity that anyone who can point n' click passes, and they knew that wasn't even close to true (from previous semesters), then they really did falsely reprsent themselves. After all if you signed up for (say) STAT400 because the pre-req was CALC2, but it really required DiffEq (which you didn't have) is it really your responsability to find previous students and check to see if the printed PreReq is correct?
Should it be legal to rip people off just because they are dumb? Careful with your answer Marylon vonSavant may be the one defining dumb next year...
Hell, I know English people with degrees in English Lit. who can't spell either.
And most importantly: after the case mcdonalds FIXED their coffee machines.
Numerous people complained before but they never fix them. It took a lawsuit to make them fix them.
I agree lawsuits generally suck, but you need to come up with some alternative to force corps to do the right thing if you want to get rid of them.
Congratulations on having a High School teacher that understands programming.
I must take you to task however for thinking that being taught to program in C and Pascal is somewhat inferior to C++
There is no perfect Language and, in particular, no perfect teaching language. When you go to University, make sure you
learn a wider range of languages than just C++. If they only teach you one language, you are missing out.
As pointed out in previous posts, the particular language skill is secondary to the process of transforming ideas and requirements
into machine instructions.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
...Plays a little melody!
It's more Fun To Compute.
**>>BELCH
One thing that needs to be brought up is that 40K in one place is different form 40K in another. For example: In Silicon Valley 2 bed, 2 bath apartments go for minimum 2K a month. (At least anywhere you woudl want to live.) So, you are guaranteeed to have a roommate, and still pay almost half your take home in rent.
In other places the same person might go for $800 a month, so with a roomamte that coes to only $400. In which case, 30K is OK.
So, don't jump to conclusions about what amount is reasonable.
If the skill set of the students was really point and click, then getting anything besides an f from a MCSE program would be nothing short of a miracle.
Besides the article doesnt say it was an MCSE program.
I started with nothing and I still have most of it.
That was mean. I know Ph.D.:s who can't spell correctly.
(No english is not my first language)
Agreed. I'm a Mac guy, but I still can't figure out why the hell Apple made tossing a disk icon into the trash a function to eject it.
:>
It kind of takes away from the office/desktop metaphor they were trying to build, no?
Then again, if you know anything about the development of the Mac during that last 6 months (which is where the majority of the Finder's UI came from), you know that there were times where noone slept for 50+ hours straight. This explains a few things.
Then again, Most GUIs out there were *conceived* during the time their creators were asleep - this makes me appreciate the effort.
Many X window managers, and to an even greater degree Windows, seem to have been slapped together with no regard to intuitiveness at all. Sad, really...
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
It is possible that the pre-requisites of the course were inadequately expressed, but even students who meet those pre-requisites are surely not expected to automatically pass the course?
When I was at university I expected many students for each course to fail, and indeed I failed six of my eight courses in my first-year!
Certainly I had completed the pre-requisites, but I didn't do the learning on that occasion and I failed the "exit conditions" needed to receive a passing grade.
While there is some onus on the school to be responsible for teaching, there is also onus on the students to be responsible for learning. In the case of 'adult' continuing education courses I would say that as 'responsible' adults, the students should take quite a lot of the responsibility for their failure.
Universities have student governments set up to deal with issues like this. If it _is_ such a problem at your university, get involved with the student government and make sure the change gets brought about.
At most Universities I've seen, this is a very effective form of self-regulation. The University cannot ignore an issue that the entire student government is pushing for.
The U.S. legal system is overburdened enough. It's silly for them to have to regulate bodies that are already regulated...should we have a law for _everything_? And could a law like this really affect private universities, or just public?
Woops, you may be right. The wording in the article is slightly ambiguous.
All 12 students failed a 1997 course which was supposed to certify them to work with Microsoft software programs.
Okay, you can all call them (and me) stupid now. But now I wonder what was the failure rate of the class?
This will be the absolutely last time I ever try to defend a bunch of Microsoft weenies.
Your comments about the state of education in America are painfully true. Overall SAT scores decline so they change the scoring curve to raise the average. Huh? This is education?
Profs that give out low scores are punished by low enrollment in their classes and by negative evaluations. If they lower their standards they get rewarded in today's educational environment.
My original post was not intended to be flame bait and your reply was not a flame but a good slap in the face. Thanks, I needed that.
Before making comments about the students being stupid, one should consider that the article states that ALL 12 students failed. This is not normal. Can anybody out there recall a class in which all the students failed?
In my Calculus II course, I got a 4 out of 40 on my 1st exam. I was extrememly depressed until the prof told us that the class median score was a zero. The mean score was a 4. By the end of course there were only 6 (out of 30) of us left. This is the worse I have ever seen.
There is something inherently wrong with a class in which all the students fail. I don't care about the point and click stuff that was mentioned. These students should never have been allowed to take this course in the first place.
It would certainly thin out the ranks of ambulance-chasers and the people who pay them. It'll never happen, though, considering that our government is run by lawyers.
*sigh*
ps - I like yer anti-spam system... One of the most creative that I've seen around here.
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
just dyslexic).*
of use" fallacy; the efforts of GNOME and KDE
should be redirected towards voice recognition
and control, and AI.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
No, because the heading for this story was
originally "Sutdents Sue over Difficult
Class". The Katz deconstruction is referenced
because that was where the "functionally
illiterate" dig at CmdrTaco was made. I, like
that author, am only half joking.
Now that you mention it, though, yes...I would
consider someone to be functionally illiterate
if they thought Katz to be an informative
or engaging writer.
It is not a matter of free speech. One must
have expressed an idea before it can be supressed.
As far as HCI goes:
<cliche>
"Only the nipple is intuitive.
Everything else must be learned."
</cliche>
Any debate about Windows vs. Mac WIMP
superiority is countered by four little words:Look
And Feel Lawsuit.The most ardent defenders of
"Intellectual Property" are usually those who have
engaged in the most raping and pillaging of the same.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Only in the US would a lawsuit such as this actually be admissible in court. If we take this trend to its logical extreme, having paid for a class will entitle you to a passed exam. When everybody can get a degree without actually knowing the subject matter, the value of education will disappear. Employers will no longer want to hire american graduates, and will instead hire people from Europe and Asia... So for us in Europe, this may not be such a bad thing.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
These 12 students apparently went into this course with no knowledge of what would be required of them. They most likely expected an easy `A' that would supposedly guarantee them some high paying job. It probably never actually crossed their minds what exactly such a job would entail, they just saw the money and went for it. If you're throwing that much of your money and life at a single class, perhaps you should check out what the class entails before plunging into it. It's common sense. They'd better hope their lawyers are smarter than they are.
logan
I know I've been out of schoool for 8 years now, but schools I know of let students drop a class at little or no penalty within the first few sessions.
You'd think that if someone signed up for a class that turned out to be different from what it sounded like, or with a really bad instructor, or broken equipment, it would occur to them to drop it and find something else to take.
I wasn't a CS major. I once signed up for an intro to AI class that supposedly required intro-level programming skills. It was clear the very first day that it was being taught with a much higher assumed background level. So I dropped it.
I should have stuck it through and sued when I got an F. The bastards raised tuition again the following year and the extra cash would have been nice.
Disclaimer: we clearly don't know all the facts here; we have a 200 word article which tells us little more than what the headline states.
...
Now that that's over with
The fact that some students found a class too difficult, and then complained about it is not surprising to me: I have heard of it and seen it happen many times throughout my life.
What _is_ disappointing to me that students would go to the (to me) extreme measure of bringing suit against a school over what (again, to me) is a misunderstanding or miscommunication. Surely there are more civil ways to handle these kinds of things, for instance (as one poster on this thread suggested) handle it through the student government -- this is one of the reasons student governments exist!
We can infer from what little information the article provides that the students at least talked with the administration about their complaints, and were told that they should take the class over again, for free, which seems fair.
I wonder what kind of damages they're suing for? In that you can divine their true motivations: is a suit their only honest recourse, or are they doing it because they think they'll get big money from the school if they win?
Whenever I hear the word 'lawsuit' these days, I immediately think the latter.
Under his scheme, 10 percent of the students would receive A's. 50 students works out to 5 A's. ! student would get an A+, 3 A's, 1 A-. The scores were sorted, and at the end of the semester he assigned the first student an A+, and so on down the line. This really frightened me at the time, I've gotten far more cynical than I was in my callow youth. The thought the exactly half of the students in the room would fail the course was appalling. My thought was that we could all flip a coin, the half remaining would get at least a D. This is unrealistic, of course, but it accurately portrays my reaction.
This fellow had a very low appreciation for his undergrads. He also seemed to enjoy the cutthroat competition: why help a fellow student improve their score ? They might do better than you and get the last 'B'. I failed his section, haiting it the whole time. I repeated the course with a different instructor and got a 'B', and enjoyed it. Go figure.
A more serious problem was that he was grading on subjective criteria, not absolute. His system allowed the same proportion of passing and failing grades for a class with no really bright people, as he would for a class of geniuses. He'll give A's to his best 5 students, where another instructor might not have thought they were all doing A work.
The sad thing is, based on my experience with other classes, his statistics aren't far off. He gets about the right proportion of grades for the right people most of the time. There's no allowance for a uncommon sample of students.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
What if they all failed because they were fools? Should the prof dumb down the course or inflate the grades just so a bunch of idiots can pass, regardless of whether they learned anything? This defeats the purpose of education.
Things like this don't happen in a vacuum. How many other students have ever taken the class? How did they do? Historically have others taking the class suffered these problems? If not, then the problem is more than likely stupidity or sheer laziness. Even if others *have* found it difficult it could still be due to their own denseness/sloth, and other times it's because the material is just hard.
I have no pity on these dolts. If they couldn't figure out that they were in over their heads early on, they got what they deserved (oh, and yes -- I have failed classes before, too. I got what I deserved).
This is just another symptom of the collapse of the educational system in the United States, which the educational establishment is frantically trying to conceal through dumbing down courses and inflating grades. The SAT is a useless as an historical benchmark anymore because a) it is much easier than it ever used to be, and b) on top of this students are now allowed to use calculators on the dumb thing! Sheesh! The stupid test is MULTIPLE CHOICE, for pete's sake!!! Why would you need a CALCULATOR???
Answer: either you were one of the rare few who literally had no hope on the test in the first place, or (far more likely) you have been failed by those "educators" who (in spite of teaching for the test) were incapable of helping you learn anything. I realize that today's SAT-takers aren't responsible for the fact they can now use calculators, but the fact that you *can* do so shows how pathetic the SAT has become.
Education here in the U.S. sucks rocks. Period. These dolts in Houston are proof positive. They somehow think SMU "owes" them something because they were unable to pass this course.
WRONG
(Note that I call them dolts because they have sued over this; I don't know if they were stupid or lazy or even just foolishly in over their heads, but they do betray a certain idiocy in thinking that a lawsuit is going to make things right).
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
This is a 500 *combined* score on a dumbed down SAT. This test is not rocket science. If (as the College Board claims) the SAT is a fair barometer of future collegiate performance (note that I distinguish this from actually obtaining an education in college), this girl is doomed (unless of course she had an off day and can improve her showing on a retest).
Finally, in any area of life besides education -- let's say the job world for the sake of argument -- this sort of performance would be worthy of nothing but termination.
"But I did my work better than anyone on my shift!"
"Yes, and your shift was the worst in the company, and your personal performance was below the worst of any other shift's worst performer. Get out of here."
It may be painful, and it certainly is unfortunate for those kids whose lousy performance may not even be entirely their fault, but I don't think we ought to be heaping too much praise on the best in a class consisting of educational disaster. Excellence matters.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
The other day I was asking for a reference for a school X from one of my tutors. We had good relations, I was good student, so I was sure I won't have any problems with that. Imagine, when she said:
"You know, recently in the UK we have had this situation. One guy asked his tutor for a reference, applied a university and didn't make it. And you know what? He sued HIS TUTOR for reference! The bottom line is that he didn't only sue, he won something about $100k."
Now that's insane! I can understand sueing your school when you fail subject (understand, but not support, as since if you can't do your CS class then get the fsck out of school), but can't understand guy who does that. Except he was pissed of his tutor.
Gee, few weeks ago I applied Harvard and Stanford and I bet I won't get accepted there (this time).
Now, I forgot who gave me these references....
AtW,
http://www.investigatio.com
alexc
Join Majestic-12 Distributed Search Engine
Seriously.....
One gotta be either a 'technology don't have' (Dilbert, I think that's correct) or a complete moron to fail MS cert. course, but whats more pathetic, is that they are actually going to court with this.
I wonder what will happen....judge will probably tell them to get a life, learn to live with fact that they are idiots, and switch to Linux? (Although, that would not be good. Who needs people in mailing lists asking questions like "Hi, I'm new to Linux so bear with me. How can I get on the internet?"
Andrew
The SATs are actually renormed every 15-20 years or so... (the mean is reset to 100) It turns out that each generation is smarter than the last... Based on SAT scores alone, the grandparents of a current high school student would likely be considered "borderline mentally retarded" if their scores from ca. 1949 were compared to today's standards... see Science vol 283, march19 issue, pp1832-1834; http://www.sciencemag.org
Yeah, but imagine what would happen if you had a college degree!
Last year, I was in a similar situation - left for college. No regrets and I am having a blast...
If you are good and if you have a degree (preferably CS), you can make more $$ than if you were good and did NOT have a degree (some places won't look at people w/o degrees). This is of course excepting people who start their own business (but they need to sell themselves to venture capitalists et al to start the company).
But, also remember to go to good college as well!
Later,
Justin
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
The students argument that the course was not represented for what it really was in the catalog/coursebook is not really valid. Ever hear of drop/add? That is exactly what its for. I have serious doubts that instuctor misrepresented the course in the sillabis. If so perhaps they should be taking this up with the instructor.
In my university, some first year CS teachers had to "ease up" some programming classes because there were too many complaints. It came to the point the the teacher gave the whole program as an assignment, and the student just had to provide two or three algorithm lines. I know, I was a corrector.
A student could also get 9/10 on an assignment even if the code did not compile but looked good anyway.
I told the teacher I was a corrector for that I thought this whole thing was ridiculous. He told me that he would get into bigger problems if he did not do that.
Good thing I finished school before this situation reached an embarrassing level.
M.
Is it just me, or did the article make it sound like all of the students who took the course fail? Where I taught, you'd have to be pretty sure of yourself to try that one.
Brant
Ok, I agree with the cost of living compensation (since I'm a 22 year old programmer living in the valley), but rent isn't quite that bad. I pay $1450 for a 2Br/2Ba in Santa Clara. I'm looking at house rental prices and it looks like about $2100-2400 for 3 bedroom houses. Admitidly a lot more than the $550 I was paying two summers ago in Portland for a 1br/1ba with my roomate.
No, I realize that this area has one of the highest in the nation, it's just that the original poster was making it out to be more than what it really is. While, it's way over-priced, it's not as bad as he was saying (that and wages do compensate for part of it :).
Maybe I should sue my college because there aren't enough women in my classes.
10Brett-T
Oh, bother.
That is the biggest challenge facing educational systems. It's also one thing American systems do not handle well. Students underprepared for the course will struggle to keep up, while overprepared students occasionally do poorly because they are bored.
One solution at the college level is to increase elective offerings to offer multiple difficulty levels, but that is usually cost-ineffective.
10Brett-T
Oh, bother.
Mean = average score
median = most common score
So it is possible to have a mean of 4 and a median of zero, without negaitve scores.
I'm a CS student at University of Illinois. Over here, you are generally expected to pick up new languages within 1-3 weeks, and are never explicitly taught one. CS courses are about theory, (data structures, algorithms, numerical methods, discrete mathematics, networking theory, etc..). In addition to this, we take all of the normal College of Engineering requirements, (phyics, calculus, etc...)
I am not at school to get a technical degree, I'm here for the B.S.E in Computer Science. I don't want my professors or classes wasting time on languages or "how to admin a machine". People need to realize the difference between a true Computer Science program, and a trade or technical program such as CIS.
You are missing the point, the emphasis is not on programming.
I remember when I took my intro to C programming class. After every lecture the professor would give us some reading/coding to do. And during every lab session others would complain -- "he [prof] isn't teaching us anything *^%!! how does he expect us to [insert simple C function]?!!". One student who asked me for help seemed surprised when I just asked him "did you read chapter 5 page xx?" Reading the text he assigned usually contained more than ample information relative to our labs. Unfortunately, at the end of the semester, many students gave the prof poor reviews due only to their lack of inititive.
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
You're right that the MCSE certification is not that hard, but implying it's automatic for non-morons is overstating things a bit.
The tests are primarly a test of your study skills, and how much you've studied (using practice tests and "brain dumps") - the reason is because the tests do not test your general knowledge of technology, not even general knowlege of MS technology. Instead, they highlight the bizarre NT "features" that Microsoft want highlight for marketing reasons.
For example, "WINS", one of the most basic elements of an NT network is barely mentioned, while there are question after question about "multi-link PPP with (proprietary) encryption and call-back" and "roaming user profiles".
(Considering that you aren't going to get very far admining NT without knowing at least the IPCONFIG command, implying that NT admin is all pointy-clicky is just plain false.)
So, you aren't going to get very far in an MCSE program without decent study and test taking skills, but that doesn't mean it's automatic for non-morons.
(Sometimes late at night, way up on the UHF dial, a community college broadcasts MCSE classes. It is pretty funny watching these people who can't figure out the "Printer Wizard", yet still want to be computer technicians. Fortunately the industry is brutal enough that these people will be disabused pretty quickly.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
That's exactly why it's easier to administer - it has the universal solution - reinstall!
Wow, this is truly depressing. To have education sink so low. Follow along if you will...
I've taken classes before, that claimed to be one thing, and turned out to be quite another. I've taken C++ programming and learned C and object oriented programming concepts - but not much actual C++. I then took Object Oriented Programming (easy, I already knew OOP from C++) and I learned Java/AWT instead.
I've taken a foreign language only to learn that the professor was working on his Doctorate, which required him to translate some obscure book in that language. Care to guess what my final was? Everyone had to translate a different chapter from this obscure book. Hmmm...
So, I've learned that personal interests of faculty often outweigh the course description - and few people do anything about it.
Also, I learned that many courses are accredited based primarily on what they claim to teach, no what they DO teach. So if the catalogue description looks good, and the syllabus clicks with the description, all's well. Too bad the session on the history of Operating Systems told me about the flavors of Windows. (Not knocking my education, for the most part it was good, and I made up for the gaps, but there were lapses.)
So my experience has been that either teachers slant the course to suit their interests (human failings), or the department will torque the description to make it's program look better, tougher and more prestigious..
But this is a first!! Making a course description such that the course apprears significantly easier than it is?? Why? Just to get people to enroll and spend their money??
Is this what education has become? An economy of scale business institution?? Get'em in the door, at any cost!! Get their cash!! Buy a B.S. degree, get 50% off on your Masters!!!
If academic institutions, and especially PUBLIC ones, have become 'for profit' business entities, and have begun to consider education a product, and a student a customer, then I am cutting up my alumnus card. Take me off your mailing list, I'm not doing BUSINESS with you! I'd rather eat an O'Reily each week, and feel that my education has enriched ME, not the corner QuickieMartU.
Yes, students are entitled to some respect by the educational system - we are paying for it after all.. But we are not paying for a blue-light special piece of parchment. We are there to learn, and we are (for the most part) eager to do so.
If a teacher's motivation is filling seats, rather than filling minds, we need a new method.
How would OSS translate into an educational system? It obviously works better in Software Engineering than the traditional business methods. Could we use it to rebuild the Ivory Tower?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
wow. while i college at Ohio State, a group of us rented a *very* nice 3 bedroom apartment for $600.00 per month. this was a 1450 square foot apartment that was exquisitely kept by the property owner. i guess i'm not so sad making what i make here... :) cheers! Peter
there's this odd trend going around in some companies these days that i've heard about that goes something like this: if you have your MCSE certification, you're *eligible* for a merit increase. if not, you're not. PERIOD. if this becomes the rule where i work, i'm outta there, the same day. it would not matter WHAT technical certification it was. certification has its place, it's simply rarely accurate at comprehensively gauging a person's subject-matter competence. (with some notable exceptions: Professional Engineer, and most recent cisco certified network engineer) cheers all! Peter
How many people who are in college expect to be able to pass a class by merely moving their arm. If figures of speech are now fair ground for a lawsuit by any person not intelligent enough to read the catalogue than we are in a tremendous amount of trouble. If you are in support of this, I hope you are the target of a pointless greedy lawsuit. That's all these types are.
I go to a really bad college, and I'm not graduating this term even though the counselor told me I was going to, and I'm not going to sue. It's my own fault. That's it. It's these people's fault that they failed. It is not the universities.
I'm afraid of America and American's. Lets kill all the lawyers while we still have a chance.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Now as much as I dislike most teachers, especially the ones who seem to get off on failing students, this is just stupid. So you failed a course, deal with it. "I had to do more than point and click. I had to think!" Is this what the US is coming to? You are too lazy to pass a course so you sue the teacher. Grow up. Does this mean that when you get fired because you don't do your job right you can sue your boss? How bout when you get arrested for shoplifting, you just sue the store. "They made the security system too hard to get around." I really hope the judge laughs at the students and tells them to get a clue. People in this country really need to start taking responsibility for their actions.
-matt
That's why a lot of places will hire kids and pay them good money w/o a degree. I'm still in highschool, yet I have a job where if I worked full time, I would make more than twice the average starting salary for someone getting out of college. The really frightening part is that if I worked full time, I would make more than my father does. Then again, having 14years of computer experience at the age of 18 should count for something.
-matt
It might actually be the students fault. American students have an AWFUL work ethic. They expect to take a course, show up, and get a B. If they actually have to do work, or open the book, or *gasp* think on their own, the teacher is awful and expects too much. At my highschool this happens a lot with one teacher. He expects students to do the work, and read the books he assigns. People don't do it and they fail. He doesn't believe in failing students so he gives them Ds. I've also seen people get As in his class. He just refuses to lower his standards to the students.
-matt
The only problem is what if you sue a huge company with a legitimate problem. Their legal fees will be huge, yours will be next to nothing for them. Now if you lose (as I'm sure we all know, winning a case doesn't depend on being right, it depends on how good your lawyer is) you are in a deep mess of trouble. I think SOMETHING needs to be done about the legal system in this country though. It's gotten completely out of hand. Basically people are stupid, and they don't want to accept the consequences of their actions.
-matt
I just had a horrible thought... This whole deal sounds alot like someone at the US Patent Office sent some of their rubber-stampers to school so that they'd "under"stand the IT patent apps they approve. This would explain much...
I AM, therefore I THINK!
I went to SMU, and (overbroad generalization coming up) most of the students there have the financial resources to get fantastic lawyers (it wasn't unheard of for daddy to build some knob a $500K+ house so he wouldn't have to live in the dorms but could still stay close to campus).
Still, I hope they get laughed out of court.
Just a note: Java is just as useful a
language as C (or C++, or Pascal) for
illustrating data structures.
Linked lists, Hashtables, Sparse Graphs, etc...
some are provided for you in the
standard API, but that's no reason to not
try to implement your own versions.
The reason that your class was so different
in Java versus in C was not the language you
used, but the style of teaching.
In my opinion, data structures and
algorithms should be taught and illustrated in
a manner that is not coupled to a specific
programming language...like in CLR. Pictures
are worth a thousand words, and Pseudocode
cashes in at about a hundred...
arvind rulez
Now wait here, I actually
applaud schools that acknowledge
students who manage to make it
to the top of their localized
heaps...
She got a 500 on the SAT? So WHAT?
She might be just really really bad
at test taking, but be great at untimed
problem solving. Or maybe she isn't
getting a proper education to prepare
her for the SAT at her high school.
Or maybe she was hungover when she
took the SAT.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that
she *is* an acheiver. You don't get to
the top of your high school class without
expending effort, whether it be in kissing
ass or in studying textbooks.
Either way, she is the top of her class,
and that shows some sort of determination.
So hopefully that determination can be used
in college for her to make up for how poor
her high school was (because she most likely
will be miles behinds her peers once she
gets to college).
arvind rulez
So.
What have we all learned here? At the risk (certanty) of pissing off the pro-education people (of which my father is one).
COLLEGE IS FOR SUCKS
Everything I know about computers I have taught myself, starting with TRS-80 BASIC back in 1980 when I was 10 years old.
Especially today, with the free flow if information on the internet, it is easy to teach yourself.
Then get a job. You say you need a college degree for this. Only if you have NO people skills. Or if you want to work at MS or some other big company. If you can talk someone into giving you a job, THEN you have EXPERIENCE. one you have experience, your next job is in the bag.
Granted, if you want to work at a big comapany and be a slave to the man, you DO need a college degree. But there are plenty of ways to make $$ in computers without having to work 9-5, wear a tie, answer to a boss who has no clue, etc...
To those of you who DO have college degrees in a computer-related field -- how much of what you learned in class do you actually USE? And how much of what you learned on your own do you use?
Anyway. I hated college, for many of the reason stated at length by previous posters. I dropped out, taught myself what I needed/wanted to know, and now I make a great living in the computer field, and things are looking better every day. I work my own hours, I take the clients that *I* want to take, and I wear jeans and sandals to the office.
There are so MANY jobs in the computer field, and so MANY people (most w/ degrees) that have NO CLUE what they are doing, that anyone who does have a clue, degree or not, can get hired.
--just my two cents.
maybe i could sue my college for "selling" me a BTEC GNVQ advanced, theres nothing advanced about it, just 2 wasted years.
I wish i was in the usa...
Scott Aaron Bamford (vpp) "We`re giving you the chance to skrew it up in a whole new and exciting way" sab@clara.net
on a computer course huh? maybe i should sue that the women that are in my classes aint like the ones in the course leaflett
Scott Aaron Bamford (vpp) "We`re giving you the chance to skrew it up in a whole new and exciting way" sab@clara.net
Uhm, no physics department of reasonable
quality and repute will claim that getting
a job in the field is easy, or that yo can
earn a lot of money there. All the people
I talked to in choosing a grad school made
sure I knew that the opposite was true.
The article did not say that all the students who took the class failed. It said that 12 students sued, who all failed. Was the class only 12 in size, or were there 30? At one time M$'s education requirements stipulated a maximum class size of 12, but that ended January 1, 1998. There now is no maximum allowed, and many education centers routinely allow 16-20 students per M$ class. Universitites, I imagine, might be able to pack more than that.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
OK, anyone want to take a stab at what the software was? If it was Microsoft Office©, then I have to say that "point and click" actually are reasonable prereqs. I'm a Novell Instructor, and I also teach HTML, so I know what kind of people we get in entry level classes. Some of them are doorknobs. But for MS Office? You could be a doorknob and still pull it off.
Now what about Visual Basic? Or NT Administration? Or IIS? Any of these classes require a more thorough understanding of computers than "point and click". But I have heard IS Managers ask some Education people, regarding NT training: "What is there to know? MS makes it point-and-click, don't they?" As I said: doorknobs.
But judging the students and their case is not advisable, nor possible even, from the scanty information we have here.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
My school was on the quarter system, and of the three months that a class would span, we had the first 3 weeks to decide if we wanted to drop the class, no questions asked. Maybe my mom got terminally ill or the class was too hard, or even if I didn't like my professor's beard. I could drop the class before the third week was over without any penalty.
Did the students have an opportunity to drop out early? That would make all the difference in the world.
If they weren't given a chance to quit without getting an F, I guess that gives the case credibility. The person who told them to quit their jobs and take this "point and click" class would be at fault, IMHO.
If they did have a chance to quit without penalty, if, after a week or two into the class, Joe Q. Student decided that this class was too hard and still stayed anyways, screw him. It's his fault for staying even after he found out that it wasn't "point and click."
What about the people who quit their jobs to take this class? I dunno.
I hate it when the media misrepresensts stories with titles like this. Makes it sound like some students at any normal school took a course and failed and want to sue.
It's a slighty different case when it's not a normal class but a certification class that prolly cost over a thousand dollars (often more) and they were assured it would be easy.
Now, I'm not saying they should win the case (or they should have sued at all), I agree that the school did the right thing, offering to take the course again. But get the facts straight.
This reminds me of the article spread through the media about the UltraHLE source... First everyone printed incorrect facts ("The authors released the full source code!") then they 'got mad' that someone was trying to play a trick when it was pointed out the it wasn't the author, it wasn't the full source, and he never claimed he was one of the authors or it was full source.
Blow it out yer ear, Water-boy. We get taught the same things here at Carleton for half the tuition price. ;)
:P
We might not spend as much time on our maths, but we still spend a lot of time on program design and algorithms. Heck, the assignment for this week's a fire department routing system, complete with graphical interface and "shortest route to fire" algorithms, even if you "close" some roads, etc..
Really, though, I think the big problem is what type of people these courses are teaching. There doesn't seem to really be any hardcore "computer low-level systems programming" programs here. You have to go, like, third and fourth year for that stuff.
It could be a while before they teach us what MOV and LEA and MUL do, but I don't mind. In the meantime, I'll be learning how to route traffic.
Fork
To a certain extent, the students who would rather not be in a class may be there not because their parents make them, but because the university makes them. I've suffered through my fair share of boring or uninteresting classes simply because the university requires that I have x amount of humanities, y amount of social sciences, etc. What most often happens is that I have to balance interest with what fits in my schedule. There've been a number of classes I would rather have taken to fill some of these requirements, but with the schedules of the other, more important required classes, I couldn't fit them in. In that case, I have to either find another course that *does* fit into the schedule, or wait a semester to take the class, possibly throwing off all plans of graduation, and still not guaranteeing me that I can take the class because other more important classes may conflict again.
The point is, there are some classes that students take because they're required by their school (perhaps a choice among classes, but still a requirment), and they may not be interested in these classes at all.
Golly Andy... That has to be the most vacuous, vapid and fatuous thing I've ever seen. And more adjectives describing airheadedness. Not because it's a mickeysoft course, but... but... Good grief!
Yes, SMU is based in Dallas, but it has a branch in Houston as well.... (I too am in Dallas)
If you're REALLY bored, you can read all about the classes in question by going to http://www.seas.smu.edu/netech/
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
What's REALLY scary about all this is just how easy MCSE tests are... My company offers a rather sizeable bonus to anyone who get's their MCSE (No matter what your job is, as long as it's technical in some respects)... So, I decided to get my MCSE... It took me all of 6 days from beginning to end, and I do not consider myself to me that much of an expert in MS products by any means.... Six days, six tests, $15,000 for me, so it was well worth it..... Anyway, I'm rambling badly, just wanted to comment how stupid these people must be is they've attended months of classes and still can't pass the MS tests.....
...The more people I meet (Or read about) the more I like my ferrets...
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
Just a comment on this, the only (As of the end of February, 99, when I took my MCSE tests) test that is of the simulation type (As you described) is IIS 4.0... All the other ones are of the simple question, multiple guess variety... It most likely helps that I've been in the IT industry for ~5 years now, but there really wasn't that much studying required... Anyone with a basic understanding of computers and networking should be able to study during their lunch break one day, and take the tests after work, paced at one a day..... Not trying to sound eliteist here, and I apologize if I'm coming off that way, but the Micros~1 tests are MUCH easier than the CNE tests are, from my own experience..... In fact, they were almost insultingly easy for the most part... If I had been taking the tests to try and get a different job with them, I would almost be angry that they are so easy (easy tests = more MCSE's = less value for those of us with said designation), but as I said in my original post, I just did it for the fat bonus my boss waved under my nose...
(And now to go get my LCP (Lotus Notes cert - a whopping 3 tests) for another $8000 =)
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
People, this goes around the world! But not only the students are morons. Sometime ago I have a "Real time programming" classes that the final program was a agenda. This is a social problem, students pretends to learn, teachers pretend to teach!!!
A brazilian post-graduate student.
Alexandre
Just to clear up a little of the confusion, there is in fact an SMU branch in Houston. It is a really small branch that seems to only teach technology and engineering courses. I was there in person this week. I actually got information about the training course in question (my employer is sending me to this training, I would rather not use MS development tools for obvious reasons) and their current prerequisites are at least 6 months of prior programming experience as well as some level of networking experience.
Also, many universities around here offer MS training or similar courses.
That having been said, I tend to agree that lawsuits are not the way to solve this sort of thing. If you're paying the $6k or so for this kind of training, you should try to get your money's worth and make sure that you get what you paid for. Students are really customers buying a service. If the service is really that bad, complain on the spot, you'll have much better luck getting a refund.
"We'll have that island chain on its knees in no time!"--Yank
Abuse of rights by irresponsible or unthinking individuals does not make the rights themselves inappropriate. Rather, it reflects on society's (referring to individuals) understanding of its rights in addition to our institutions' understanding of how to simultaneously uphold and regulate those rights in an impartial manner. All that said, I find myself whining about "stupid people" now and then as well.
Besides, I simply couldn't resist pointing out the misuse of the word "much" (twice) in a rant about "stupid people."
----------
Ignorance is not an reliable indicator of intelligence.
You were significantly luckier than I am. I'm in this Micro Apps for Business (read Office 97) class. We started off with round-the-class introductions -- what's your name, what prev. experience, etc...: "Hi, I'm Mike. I'm only here because I have to be. I've been typing my homework since 5th grade. I'm A+ certified [that took about a week to get], and I have a LAN at home with a Linux box connected to the cable modem acting as the router connecting all of us to the Net." By the end I realized I was way over everyone's head, so I shut up. However, this 'teacher' (keep in mind, she considers the hard drive an output device, like a printer or a monitor. and if I hear her say RAM memory one more time...) will not let me do anything but course-related material. So when she hands out the assignments and gives us two weeks, I hand them in that same day and slashdot on the sly the rest of the time.
As a favorite HS English teacher of mine said: "She is certified, but not qualified."
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
And the second biggest problem is the slowly-spreading impact of American culture on the rest of the world. American English is becoming the de facto standard for business. Germans are watching Friends...and enjoying it.
It reminds me of a certain discussion between Quark and Garak regarding root beer and the Federation.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
My city (50Kpeople) has had no murders and maybe 30 muggings in the past coupla years. However, I still will not walk around after midnight. This is probably because I am surrounded by two million in the metro area.
My city is safe. Clearwater (3 mi) is not. St. Pete (2 mi) is not. Tampa (7 mi, partially on a bridge) is definitely not.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
or
WIMP = Window, Icon, Mouse, Pull-Down Menu.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Could you find a cite for this? I wanna read it.
And if you think that is pathetic, you should see our state standard, the FCAT and before that the HSCT. You can find these @ firn.edu/doe. It's given to 11th graders, and if they fail, they can take it again. It's basically sentence completion and fractions. I missed one question on this test and I felt like an idiot.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
People mislocate USF all the time. The `south' in the name makes them think it's in Miami, not Tampa. And no, I don't know why they call it U South Florida. Tampa is west central FL.
A real news story would list the name of the course is, which Microsoft programs, and probably who the teacher was.
This is more like one of those newsbites that runs down the left or right side of the page. Not necessarily thorough, but provocative. Ratings, you know.
Since when do universities offer courses based on a specific corporation's software?
My micro apps for business class is specifically targeted at Office.
(If it were a continuing education course, it would have said that.)
Not necessarily. See the bit about the newsbite.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Ain't that the truth. Why do all the weirdos come here? Just watch America's Most Wanted for a couple of weeks...you'll notice that a lot of the fugitives fled to Florida.
(glad I moved).
You got out?!? HOW!?! This place is like the Hotel California. Crime is high, job market is a little soft, commuting sucks, pay is barely decent, no sense of history or knowledge of Florida pre-tourism or civic pride, but the weather is beautiful, so we stay.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
I've seen similar situations too. It seems that the students coming in to a class feel that they _deserve_ at least a C or B handed to them on a silver platter. Students should work for every point of that grade - earn it. I know I have. I've made some good grades, and some bad. And I have no one to blame for the bad grades except myself. Sure some of those were from bad professors, but that's not the point. _I_ know that I could have worked harder to get a better grade and I didn't. If a professor was particularly difficult, well, tough &^#$ - life isn't always a cakewalk, and that's just one more thing to learn in college.
Fortunately most of the whiners here get filtered out, i.e. they switch to another major that suits their grade expectations.
How many people were in the bar that day/night? And do you honestly expect the bartender to keep track of how many ounces of alchohol he has served to each one? Two words, Personal Responsibility. Do you believe in evolution? Then think of this as natural selection. This kid was stupid (or uneducated, sue the school or his parents) and won't reproduce now. This doesn't make the kids' death less tragic. But don't blame the barkeep for it.
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
hmm, you probably go to purdue calumet. if you dont, well that sounds exactly like cis at purdue calumet.
oh, it changes with college. except it usually changes to "let's give the student so much work he/she can't possibly pass the class"
cs @purdue is difficult. i know this, since i'm there (sort of. you see, i'm math with cs option right now. that's going to change :))
I'm utterly amazed that an university would offer such a class. A junior college or trade school, sure. Was it a night class, extension class?
When I was in university (back when the dinosaurs roamed), CS101 was actual programming in pascal. You know, quicksorts, recursion, linked lists, passing by reference... The next class switched to using C on the UNIX, and we were expected to know both by the time our first assignments were due. The only C book available or the original K&R. UNIX documentation consisted of the man pages. Classes would start with 500 students and finish with 100 at the end of the quarter. Subsequent classes were on advanced algorithms, assembly, compiler design, etc. There were no DOS classes (windows wasn't around yet). There was a BASIC class for the benefit of non-technical majors, but they still had to learn how to program.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
you dont have to be a complete moron to fail an ms course, but it helps. however, it takes an absolute MONOLITH of stupidity to think you can sue over it. WTF!!!? i see this kind of thing everyday...it's just another case of someone's insecurities kicking in becuase they don't know what the dialog box is telling them.
so you're stupid, boohoo. try "government employee" (preferable in the legal dept.) you should nail that one with flying colours...
Its really sad how so many people miss the point of a degree. I wish more people realised that you do a Degree for an education. If you want a training you go to TAFE (in australia - not sure what its called elsewhere).
Although in australia many of the old TAFE institutes are turning into universities. And thats the scary thing: That people who are not learning any theory about computers are getting degrees (from these upscalled training instritutes)
All the practical knowledge that they learn mean almost nothing - because computer languages, and computers themselves change almost every six-months (to a degree that needs relearning).
People should not be complaining that uni makes them learn some programming language that they wont use etc because its how you make the program not what you make it in.
Konstanty
I'm from holland so i don't know exactly how your education systems works, but I think that if you pay for each class you should get a few retakes of :) ), you pay the same amout. You get 3 exams for each course every year.
the exam for free...
In holland you pay per year, so if you follow 1 class or a thousand (as if you could find the time
Why is the world full of stupid people?
Anyone can tell you that if you fail a class, it's your own fault. We were taught that from Kindergarten.
If the microsoft propoganda is too hard for them to swallow, then perhaps they should go back to their jobs ("I shoot birds at the airport") in which they're more comfortable.
Sorry... PO'd this morning.
Yes, the trend continues, but it depresses me. As a graduate student, I teach Freshmen chemistry recitation & the unwillingness of students to roll up their sleeves and do a little work and perhaps(big shock) even learn!! something amazes me. John Q. Public wants the paper & the job. They'll schlep away mindlessly pointing & clicking 8-10 hours a day & then spend 5 hours at home drooling in front of the tube. And as long as they drive an SUV they'll think they have a good life.
Well here (Ireland) and as far as I know costs are accessed outside of winning etc. Some times you win and have to pay your own costs, other times the loser pays both. 'bout 2 years back our X-Prime Minister won a case against a British newspaper (in England), had to pay costs and was awarded a single penny!! [They called him a hick or something....]
tom.
-- Tom
Why must you include an age discriminatory slam in this comment? Too bad, because it discredits your entire message.
My simple reaction is pay them what they are worth. They can be 16, 18, 22, 30, 40, 50, etc. Doesn't matter, as long as they can still perform their job.
(As an aside, what's minimum wage as an annual salary?)
-- Shawn K. Quinn
http://adfu.blockstackers.com/servfu.pl?i,89
A stupid society is easier to control.
Hey, this guy has a point. I used to teach in a diploma course that was
meant to be aimed at programmers in industry wanting to formalise or upgrade
their skills. Instead the university was stuffing it full of anyone who
could pony up the dough, no matter how little understanding of or interest
in computing they had, even pulling in students from third-world countries
who completely lacked the prerequisites and were putting themselves into
life-long debt to pay the fees, all by assuring them that whatever pitiful
background they claimed would be sufficient for the course. Privately, the
administrators were quite frank about this being the university policy. (Of
course, the result was that standards were watered down and copying tacitly
encouraged until at least a majority of students passed.)
Suing because you failed a course is stupid. But suing because a university
misrepresented a course in order to maximise its profit from it has (IMHO)
its positive aspects.
William
I'm still in high school, but my AP Computer Science course teaches everything you mentioned there in C++. It's pretty sad that I'm getting a better education than some people do in college.
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
>I personally have had this happen to me. I once >had a counselor talk me into taking a plant >biology class because, as she said, "You need a >biology credit and this class is *easy.*"
,say, Calculus I and your professor tells you that you will now learn how to integrate and that will be easy. Later on you fail the course. If you didn't know algrebra in the first place, are you going to sue the school and say that it was dishonest???????? That you didn't know you needed algreba. Please
I think there are certain degrees of "easy". I mean, if you are in
c.
Hey, at least in failing the whole class its proven that they arent giving away the credits to unqualified people.
*COUGH* MCSE *COUGH*
:)
More high-quality graduates from Ottawa U.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
A better solution might possibly be to make the person/company with a losing claim pay their lawyer and pay the other company the same amount (with some predefined minimum, in case they got a discount lawyer). This way, you have a maximum risk of 2*n rather than some unknown (which most people would not be able to pay), and there is a penalty to you for a faulty suit based on your ability to pay it.
However, it is very feasible that lawyers can pick up this tab if they think the case will win, but this should be the individual's decision rather than specified by law.
-- RicOS/2
for what its worth...e ttech.htm
I think the URL for the class in question is here
http://richweb.seas.smu.edu/Schools/Houston/h_n
From what I can tell the description of the prereq 'entrance exam' is here http://richweb.seas.smu.edu/Schools/examinfo.htm
it says
"...designed to ensure that students starting this technical curriculum have the necessary prequesite skills and can navigate effectively in a DOS and Windows environment. The exam consists of 25 questions on DOS and 25 questions on Windows."
Sure sounds like making sure you can use your mouse type stuff.
I teach web development at an art school and I've run into much the same thing. Of course, many of the students are wonderful and try very hard, but every quarter there is a substantial minority of students who don't really want to be there. They want the good grade, and the want the degree or certificate, but they don't seem interested in being there or learning anything.
It's almost like high school -- as if they are only there because their parents require it. And maybe that IS why they are there. *sigh* I find it very odd -- they are all adults, and if they don't want to be there, why are they there at all? Why screw around when you're paying $600 for 3 credits?
I wonder what good having the degree or certificate is going to do them if they come out of school knowing as little as they can get away with, and if they go into the workplace with the same attitude of "I don't want to learn anything here, I just want to get the paycheck and go home."
I assign readings/exercises every single week and find that no one did them except for two or three people who do everything. Maybe next quarter I'll give a pop quiz that's completely based on the reading material and see what happens... but instead of everyone getting the point that they should start doing the readings, I think I'd show up the next week to find out that everyone dropped the class.
I just hope none of the students I've given failing grades to hear about this lawsuit.
//
There are a few things that the article doesn't give enough detail about, and without that detail you really can't make an informed decision on whether the students, the teacher, or the school are the villains of this story.
1. What percentage of the students in the class failed?
2. How *exactly* was the class presented to these students before they enrolled? Did someone just tell them "point-and-click" in a passing comment or did a catalog actually say that?
3. What did the syllabus say? Did the syllabus actually describe the class correctly?
4. Why did these students fail? Did they just not do the work? Or did they do the work incorrectly?
5. Has this instructor taught this class before or since, and were the results similar?
These are only a few questions that come to mind.
//
This is true enough. It's not so much the case in my situation, since I teach the intro to web development course and 90% of my students are in the Web Admin or Multimedia programs, so in theory this is a class they *should* be interested in. (g)
Admittedly if someone's just taking the class to fulfill a distribution requirement they might not want to be there, but my feeling is "Hey -- don't waste my time and yours. Find a way to make this class mean something to you, otherwise you are wasting 11 weeks (or however long) of your life -- and mine."
I had to take CSC101, Computer Applications, as a dist. requirement since it was the only class that fit my schedule and met the requirement. On the first day of class, the teacher stood up, holding a floppy disk, and said "This is a floppy disk. We STORE things on it." Groan. Obviously, I didn't need to be there, but I went up and spoke to the teacher (saying "Hey, I work in tech support, I really don't need what you're teaching here") and made arrangements to do some more interesting stuff for the assignments, and I got permission to play Solitaire, read books, or write papers for other classes during the lectures, so I was able to do something I enjoyed with my time there.
If it's a subject you don't already know, weren't interested in, and you need it for a requirement, then I guess you just have to think of it as something that will broaden your mind, which is at least worth something. And you might get to enjoy it after all (as I did with the dreaded Logic class I took).
At any rate, the adult way to deal with it is to do the best you possibly can in the class, even if it's not something you are much interested in. Screwing around and expecting to get a good grade anyway is the immature way of getting through life.
(Having said that, I admit that I do not always deal with things in the most mature way... grin.)
//
I suppose there could be some teachers who "get off on failing students." But in my experience, failing students is not fun. It's a painful, difficult decision. I don't want to give anyone a failing grade and I generally give every possible chance, every benefit of the doubt, to bring that grade up to passing.
Maybe I just haven't been doing it long enogh to get mean and cynical yet.
I just can't imagine a teacher gleefully failing anyone -- even the worst teachers I had in school weren't that evil. (Maybe I was lucky.)
If someone fails, you didn't get through to them. Even if that's because the student didn't make any effort, you still feel as if you've failed as well. No teacher enjoys that feeling.
Your other points are well-taken, though I personally would like to hear more details about this story. How, really, was the course advertised? What was the syllabus? From the article you can't tell whether these students were really misled or not.
//
My experience has been the opposite; my adult students tend to be the most serious and work the hardest, because they *know* the value of the money they are spending for the class and they know what happens to them if they don't learn the material and can't get a job.
It's the students fresh out of high school that tend to screw around and not do the work. The cost of the course is not "real" to many of them because their parents or financial aid are paying the bills, and if they fail they can go live with Mon and Dad for a while. So they goof off.
//
Funny...I've never heard of anything like this before. This has to be the most absurd thing I've ever heard of in my entire life.
Maybe I'm jaded, but filing suit because a class was TOO HARD? About HOW TO USE MICROSOFT APPLICATIONS? I'm too disgusted to even laugh. I'd like to show these 12 morons my 6.002 (Electronic Circuits for non-MIT types) final exam from last term.
I wish I would have known that the prerequisites must encompass EVERY skill I need in a class. Hell, my discrete math class assumes I know how to add, but I didn't see that in the prereqs...they must be misleading me! Where's my lawyer?!
I can't even think of some twisted way to justify this suit. What I suspect is that these 12 slackers all took the class assuming it would be an easy one, and in true slacker form did not keep up with the work and hence failed. Very sad.
They failed the class. Obviously the class was either too difficult for them or they were too lazy. I can't begin to imagine how a class on M$ products would be too difficult for the average (hell, even far below average) college student to comprehend, so the only logical explanation is that they were lazy and it got them in the end.
I really hope they lose and the college files a countersuit. I have no respect for these people or for their lawyer. I'm not sure which is worse--laziness or greed.
So they were told it was going to be easy. Does that automagically mean that the school is REQUIRED BY LAW to make the class easy? That doesn't make sense.
Whose definiton of easy are we going to use? Ours? Then the university deserves to win. The average non-computer literate person's? Then the students should win.
You simply can't sue for misrepresetation unless there was some legally binding representation of the class.
I don't care how much they paid for the certification class. $1000 or more is nothing...I'm paying $25,000 per YEAR on TUITION here. Should I sue to get my money back because the classes are misrepresented as easy and I have trouble? The fact is that I have trouble in classes that are "easy" here. How is this so? Come to MIT if you want proof that you are not as intelligent as you once thought you were :).
I refuse to believe that the great unwashed is really as stupid as they're pretending to be. I am tempted to think that with a decent upbringing, pretty much anybody can be taught to be a good student. However, having misguided parents makes you unaccustomed to semantic learning. To deal with that, schools have to provide 'worksheets' where you fill in the blank form the book. It's no wonder that the media says school sucks -- for Joe User Jr., filling out worksheets 7 periods a day really does blow goats! The escape is therefore watching stupid TV and playing football, and later on being stupid about raising children.
I'm in a required Practical Arts class called Electronics Technology. We spent the first half of the semester learning how to calculate resistance in circuits. It was all done in such a worksheet-stupid way that I find my brain shuts down in there. If that's what it's like all the time, then it's no suprise so many people are stupid.
The point is that it's useless to propose forced sterilization of stupid people, or pouring money into schools that can't deal with poorly conditioned kids.
Fundamentally, all solutions need to start with good parenting, which also seems to be in deficit. I don't know about you, but my parents made me feel bad when I didn't get good grades. And my dad taught me BASIC on a C64. I don't see how, given the proper influence, anybody could be unable to do a simple algebra problem.
There needs to be a stigma attached to sucking at academics, otherwise it turns out to be ok to sit on welfare and do nothing but have barbecues in your driveway during the day, and lots of sex at night.
-S
Just a note: Java is just as useful a
language as C (or C++, or Pascal) for
illustrating data structures.
Don't forget Python!
-S
She put coffee...between her legs
Maybe she was just cold...
-S
This is just another symptom of the collapse of the educational system in the United States, which the educational establishment is frantically trying to conceal through dumbing down courses and inflating grades. The SAT is a useless as an historical benchmark anymore because a) it is much easier than it ever used to be, and b) on top of this students are now allowed to use calculators on the dumb thing! Sheesh! The stupid test is MULTIPLE CHOICE, for pete's sake!!! Why would you need a CALCULATOR???
Not that it really mattered. For the sake of comparison let's take a look the college admission system in Taiwan (I am a Taiwanese) for example. Basically the whole admission process is centered on the JCEE (Joint College Entrance Examination), so high school graduates take this test on July each year, state their preferences, and then get admitted to different universities and majors by the combination of both.
The JCEE is tough, even by our standards. Sure, we also have multiple choices: you are given five options, one to five of them could be right, and no partial scores (or each wrong option incurs additional penalty so that the expected value is zero, can't remember which). Math includes theorem proving and calculations on elementary arithmetic, geometry, probability, and calculus. Physics includes mechanics, optics, electro-magnetics, and a little relativity and quantum physics. Chemistry includes basic chemical reaction principles, equilibrium, acids/bases reactions, electrochemistry, bonding, and chemical kinetics. All the calculations in phycics and chemistry (equations solving or whatsoever) requires 3-digit accuracy without the use of calculators.
Most students spend a whole year preparing for the exam. They need to be able to recite the order of reduction potentials and electronegavitity of elements, common logarithm values, and important constants in physics. They need to perform complicated symbolic and numeric calculations (you do know that equilibrium constants and atomic weights are not nice integers) fast and free of error. They need to know lots of things that you might not have heard of.
In comparison SAT is easy. I have taken SAT I (November '96) and SAT II (December '96) back in the high school days; nothing can possibly be easier than that. I made no preparations or whatsoever except for skimming through the sample tests provided upon registration. I still remembered the day I took SAT I, about how surprised I was to find the formula of rectangle area on the back of front cover, and how amazed I was to see other students (mostly from Taipei American School) busy typing on their big, Gameboy-like Casio fx-9800 calculators in math sections. Alas, I only used my fx-3600 once that day because I was too lazy to do two-digit multiplies. I even have the score report in my drawer: SAT I verbal 540, math 800, SAT II writing 550, math IIC 800, physics 800.
So what difference does it make? Nothing. Many people simply do not learn, although they have proved that they are capable of learning. They do not care whether they can learn something or not, being able to pass is good enough for them. Some people simply do not show up except for midterms and finals. Cutting classes has become so common that practically no teachers offer classes in early mornings these days. The situation is basically the same over here.
Whether the tests are simple or difficult really doesn't matter. The whole story is not about how much you have learned, it is about how much more do you still want to learn. You can force them to learn, but that will not be of much use in the long run. Without willingness to learn, they are doomed to fail one way or the other, and there is nothing we can do about it.
"That's how it is these days. You fail the class, you sue the school," Wright said.
Hah..It works with everything else, why not try it on schools.
Reminds me of when that lady sued McDonalds for burning herself with coffee. Apparently, the cup said "Hot" and she didn't believe it. Maybe if it had originally said "Extremely hot" she would have been a bit more cautious.
~Steve
--
"<r-xr-xr-x> Just try to edit me" -- www.ircnews.com
Sure I did..I read both.
I said she burned herself. What degree burn it was is irrelevant. the point is, she burned herself, yes? Ok..Secondly, what idiot does not pay attention to what they're getting into. This goes for both cases. [1] In the McD's suit, this lady gets a hot cup of coffee and sticks it inbetween her legs. Smart? I don't think so. Asking to get burned? Definately. [2] These kids took *something or someone's* word that this course was just a "point and click" course. Before every course I have ever signed up for, I have find someone else who has taken it and I get the lowdown. I don't take some catalog's word.
My point being (and this was also the point of my original post) this. God gave people brains. Why not use them?
~Steve
--
"<r-xr-xr-x> Just try to edit me" -- www.ircnews.com
Is this what the world is turning into??
Next thing you know, the only requirement for obtaining a Computer Science degree will be to know how to turn on a computer. This may seem unreasonable now, but considering that these people think that having a school challenge you, and heaven forbid use your brains instead of putting forth any tiny bit of effort to achieve passing this class, is justifiable for a lawsuit.
Only in the US...
chown -R us.
Actually, I did RTFA, contrary to your ill deduced assuption.
I agree, only someone with a stron anti-American sentiment would write such a comment. Why? Because I am not blinded by American arrogance, believing that that the American school system if far superior in comparison to others.
As stated before, I did read the article, and I agree, this is not about students getting a free ride, this is about students not researching classes before taking them.
I have had this happen to me before as well, but instead of complaining about it, I researched things I did not understand in order to comprehend what was being taught to me, therefore I feel no pity for them, or you.
chown -R us.
I'm wondering if you quoted me because you disagree with my statement, which would be rather odd, because you are stating the same as I did with minor variants to what I stated.
Anyways, I do say that I agree completely with your statement.
chown -R us.
Your assumption is only partially correct, I do admit that I do have deep feelings against Americans, or to be more correct, against people from the United States. The reason for this is very simple, we are arrogant, and our perception of the world is very inaccurate. We believe that other countries are inferior to us. Which in all actuality is quite false. This country would be a lot better if we were to study the ways other countries do things, and emulate them, adding in our own improvements.
As for the arrogance that is blinding me, quite frankly, I really don't know, but since you seem to have this "gift" of making assumptions about people, why don't you tell me?
chown -R us.
Is it just me or are others considering an all-out revolt against this kind of legal oppression?
Think about it... If enough people where to simultaneously up and say "screw you" to the legal system as it stands, what could the lawyers really do about it?
Sure, there'd be some hooplah and jailings (Cool... martyrs), but the ensuing chaos would have quite the cleansing effect (Assuming a sustained supporting stance by the populace), don't you think?
We can worry about the anarchy and lawlessness later =)
Back when I was in high school, there were 2 physics courses offered during my senior year: Honors Physics and AP Physics. When arranging schedules for that year, we were required to sign a form (along with our parents) if we chose AP Physics, acknowledging that it could be a very difficult course. Starting off the year, there were 2 AP Physics classes of about 30 people each.
A good 75% of the students failed the first test (which you could pass as long as you knew f=ma and a few other extremely basic equations). The majority of them had their parents complain to the school, and demanded that the teacher, Dan "The Man" O'Halloran, be fired. Thankfully, the school didn't fire this wonderful teacher, but they did allow any student who wished to drop the AP Physics class and take Honors Physics instead. This kind of policy breakage was unheard of in the school system. After the dust had settled, AP Physics was 1 class with 12 people. That's 48 people that I lost a tremendous amount of respect for.
I learned a lot about responsibility and determination during all of this. One of my best friends failed that first test, but refused to transfer to the Honors Physics class. He said, "I knew what I was getting into, I signed the form, I made a commitment. I don't back down on shit like that." Sure enough, with a lot of pushing and tutoring from myself and other friends, he managed a passing grade in the class overall.
If only more of us could have that kind of personal drive.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
A side=note: those interested in a "traditional" UK libel trial, with all sorts of bizarre twists and turns, could do worse than check out the McSpotlight site. It's a huge site, with not a lot of news for nerds on it, but it does have some clear explanations of the absolute worst-case legal situation (in terms of complication rather than possible penalties): big multinational sues "the little people" and the little people, discovering that you can't get Legal Aid (assistance with the costs for legal action) for libel and slander cases, opt to defend themselves against a barrage of lawyers -- and achieve at least a partial victory.
I should add that from ouside the US, America is seen as an incredibly litigious country. A common complaint here when reports of a particularly pathetic case turn up, is "It's getting as bad as America". It's nice to see that not everyone in the US thinks that the first recourse should be the courts. Although it's noticeable that the first reaction to a lot of MS stuff here, and to the UserFriendly tale, has been "Class action lawsuit!" (what on earth is that, anyway? It sounds - severe.) But anyway, it was reassuring to see people laughing this one - well, I was going to say laughing out of court, but maybe that's premature :)
The students also said that the equipment didnt work and that the instructors were unprepared. That is what they were paying for after all, working computers and instructors. I've had to go to the Dean before to complain about incompetant profs before, one of which was a department head. If more students did this, schools would weed out incompetant faculty and education would improve.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
I took a calc II class one term in which _no one_ passed. I was one of the last few to drop it, and the remaining students all got d' and f's. The instructor did not teach the way he tested (I mean technique, not material), and gave no partial credit. And having a pipe break and my dorm room flooded one term didn't help. And then there was the time my bedroom (err, storage) had grown so much mold from a leaky wall that the entire apartment was unfit to live in. And then there's the physics lab books that don't give enough instructions to please the TA's. Parking's a bitch, the dorms aren't wired, bitch, bitch bitch... I suppose it's all part of the college experience, which is encouraging me to make the world a less sucky place. Vote technocratic!
Recently many people failed our intro to computer Science class (as usual). No lawsuits yet, but many of them have been raising a fuss to deans. When we have people who are in school to get a piece of paper instead of an education this will continue
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.
Not every school has a decent CS department.
At my state-funded, land grant school where I study mechanical engineering, we had to take only one 3 credit programming course. I took it freshman year and had no idea what it would be about until the 1st day of class...when it turned out to be FORTRAN (guh). Out of 10 sections, 5 were C and 5 were fortran. There was really no way to choose which one you wanted ahead of time.
It was incredibly braindead. I think I went to class once. Got an A.
Now, at the senior level, whenever a project entails any kind of programming, the big cheese professors tend to look at programming skill as some kind of arcane science and seem mildly amazed when a student actually uses a computer for something besides excel & writing papers.
Is this sort of thing normal at other schools? ANY sort of technical major OUGHT to cover the basics at least, yet at this school you can get out the door with practically ZERO.
I got WAY more programming knowledge on my own (started out w/ basic on a Timex Sinclair) and through 4 years of high school pascal, than the lamea$$ sh1t my school thinks is appropriate for enginners. What gives?
Even if GNOME and KDE were abandoned and replaced with voice recognition there would still be people unable to use the system.
It's not the interface that's the problem, it's the people. The interface (CLI, GUI, VR) is a way to manipulate an abstraction to perform a task.
The problem is not that there people don't know how to manipulate the abstraction, the problem is that they have no clue what task(s) they want to perform.
Anyone who "fixes" NT by re-installing the OS on a regular basis isn't qualified for his job.
We typically see uptimes between 90-180 days for our NT servers and except for user error (never load an x86 driver on a Alpha box) don't re-install operating systems.
"I certainly prefer accountability and individualism, sad to see I'm resoundingly in the minority."
Don't let a few bad apples convince you that the whole freakin orchard is rotten. The only way that more people will accept personal accountability is if you do (yea, YOU). And only after you are tested. Of course, another way would be to test nuclear weapons on lawyer conventions, but heh, it ain't a perfect world, yet...
+&x
Wow, does this mean I can sue my Differential Equations teacher for all the mental anguish he caused me? Seriously though, I have had classes that were more than a little ridiculous in there expectations, but this really sounds like a bunch of mindless jerks who should be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes. I think the problem is probably mostly in the preparation these people get in primary and secondary education. Remember the US spends more per capita than any other industrialized nation, and gets just about the worst results.
If they found it so hard to get through the course that they had to _quit_their_jobs_, why didn't they drop the course? That's _far_ more sensible than blamin the school for _their_own_ failures. If they didn't have the sense to do such a simple thing, I doubt they could have had the sense to learn how to use those MS apps.
It's not all the corporations' fault. Many of these kids expect a job handed to them upon graduation and expect to be paid at least $50,000 a year to start despite not knowing squat! Why do they expect this? Because a few companies like Microsoft pay it. Of course, they expect 60-80 hour weeks for this kind of pay, but don't tell this to the kids.
Mind you, they also expect you to be able to code like a diva too. Degree not required - but it helps. (Especially when you need a visa, like me -the US is rather strict about granting visas to people without the shiny little piece of paper they can point at)
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Personally, no 22-year-old kid should be paid more than $25,000 a year if they have no experience, degree or not. Let them earn their pay. Give 'em the big bucks when they have proved themselves! An education is good, but it doesn't replace actually doing a job.
Oh yeah... forgot about this bit.
I guess that means I should be on about a $100,000 salary -- after all, I'm 23 and have 16 or 17 years coding experience. (Started in Z80 assembly language, BASIC and 6502...)
So let me rephrase that for you - no-one without the necessary experience and ability to do their job should earn tons of money. Age has nothing to do with it (it's just a bias factor - the older someone is, the higher the likelihood they've got the necessary skills and experience. However, the older they are, it is equally likely that in a field like this one, they have obsoleted their skillset. Single most important trait of a programmer is the ability to (a) learn fast, and (b) memorize index terms)
Coming soon - pyrogyra
This is rediculous. I mean, really, I was told this class was easy, and it wasn't, so now I'm going to sue you. I thought macroeconomics was going to be hard, and it was too easy, I was dissapointed...does that mean that I can sue them for not challenging me?
Brian
I'm taking the class over now ('cause I spent more like 29 hrs on each one) in java. I've put in a grand total of 6 hrs on the first three assignments. We just have to write a few algorithms, and they call it an assignment.
It's pathetic. Maybe that's a "feature" of java but that still doesn't teach what data structures are, and it barely teaches us how to use them.
Note about the first time I took the class.. had I taken the course from the other instructor teaching the class that semester I would've passed the class. We had the same assignments, the same exams, and the same homework. One graded on a standard curve, the other curved to the class. I'm I sueing? No... and I am an American...
Take your lumps you probably deserve it.
-ErR
- NYAR!
I would think that the requirements to begin the class would be "point and click," but by the end of the class the expectations would hopefully have rised and includeed being about to use a Windows computer and the Office suite. I would suppose that the only way to prove this would to use grades, that if in the first weeks of the class there were good grades, but the grades were falling while the class progressed, this would show they weren't trying to learn anything. I'm soure an expectation of any course if to have a student who will learn.
-- "Well, Hello, Mr. Fancy-pants. I've got news for you pal, you ain't in control but two things right now, Jack and s
Hmm,
If I went to the U.S. to get a degree in say, oh, physics, would I be able to sue the university in the end for misrepresenting themselves in offering me a future, where I would be able to obtain a real job?
Matt
What's so wrong with having lots of sex at night? You of all people should be ok with that...
:)
Enahs wrote:
> but you won't know jack shit about handling real applications programming in any of them.
And you don't know jack shit about car mechanics either. You don't need an academic degree to do some programming. Academics is about science, not trades. Edsgar Dijkstra said "Computer Science has as much to do with programming as astronomy has with telescope building."
-- Abigail
AC wrote:
> The ONLY person responsible for LEARNING anything is the student.
That's not the point the students are making. They were told they needed no prior knowledge.
I can give you a class in topology, tell you that all you need to know in advance is addition, charge you a large sum of money, and then fail you because the course assumed you know a lot more than addition. Would you think you were to person to blame?
-- Abigail
Hahahaha -- yeah, My CS 128,129, and 204 is too damned easy, I want my money back !
These jerkoffs are just trying to find a way to make a quick buck, and its up to them to find out what kind of classes they are getting into -- what do they f$#*ing expect ? Someobody to hold their hand through life ?
At the school where I go to, Math 100 and 101 which is Calc I and II generally 70% of the students fail or drop out. This happens most years even grading on a curve.
The 6 left out of 30 is a 20% survival rate which is a bit lower, but I'm talking about every Math 100 class as they right a common final so this effects 100's of people every year. I know people in CS who took this course three times before they got through.
These courses are weeder courses as is CSC 225 at my school. Math 100 is also something of a cash cow too.
Of course people know what there getting into with these classes. So how relevant this is well I'll have to see the "Score"
Muskie