The reason schools are willing to just sell degrees, is because a lot of employers only want to hire degreed people, even for jobs that by no reasonable standard would require the critical thinking skills that one would ostensibly learn at a university.
How many people do you know who are stupendously competent, but have little in the way of formal certifications? How many people do you know who have a list of letters after their name, but couldn't find their ass with a flashlight and a GPS?
I was with you, until you got to the part about getting money BACK from a University.
Heh. Let me know how that works out for you. : )
Seriously, I sympathize. If the system was properly designed with somebody whose job it was to make the class go actually paying attenition, stuff like that wouldn't happen.
It's inexcusible, and I hope you keep on going up the chain of command at the University until you get your money. Hell...find a pit-bull lawyer and sue 'em.
1) Yeah. You're right. When you don't know how to do something, ask somebody who does. That's step zero in how to learn stuff. If you are a master's degree student and are still not effective at working in a group, I urge you to get the help you need to become more effective. Ask your friends. Ask your teammates. Ask your professor. If you don't like the answers, ask different people.
Hell, ask me!
2) You have a very optimistic picture of the workplace. You most emphatically do NOT usually get to pick the people you're working with. You are often required to work with people you may not like, and you may think are incompetent.
The really tough one to get past is when they don't like you, and think you're incompetent.
(for "you", substitute any pronoun you wish. : )
However, working effectively on a team is more than just getting along well with people: It's about getting the job done, which really is the only thing anybody gives a fuck about.
Well, anybody I'd ever want to work for. Which is another nicely reflexive discussion point that parallels my above diatribe nicely.
If there's one thing that's come out of this discussion, it's that you will get out of your education what you put into it.
I wish the amount of effort and thought and bloodshed (literally) and/passion/ I put in to my (recently completed) aerospace engineering degree was linear with the number of job offers I have to sweep off my doorstep to get the mail, but unfortunately that's not the case.
But, now and for the rest of my life, I will know how to design and build an airplane. That, to me, is a wonderful and worthy thing. YMMV.
Now list the times you're supposed to double click, and the times you're supposed to single click, and the times you're supposed to right click.
Single right click, mind, you never double right click. Why? Go ahead and include that in your explanation.
It's "intuitive" to me because I've been working, intensively, with computers for a long time. For an individual for whom a computer is supposed to be a tool, not an end in itself, it's absurdly complicated.
You totally failed to understand the point of the exercise.
You don't do a group project so that you can get a bigger project done within the semester. You do a group project because you need to learn how to work in a group.
I used to hate group projects, as I was the only one who seemed to want to do any work. However, in my upper division classes, I worked on several group projects whose results were far more than the sum of what we'd have come up with individually.
If you can not (or will not) work with a team, you are not as effective as you could be. Period.
Gosh. Wonder if you're ever going to have to work with anybody you don't like in the future.
Do not underestimate the importance of playing well with others.
Look. Failure to understand office politics was a major factor in my layoff from a big computer game publisher. Because my social skills were not as refined as other peoples', I did not get to keep my job...And this was at about the geekiest workplace you will ever find.
I currently count my (much more highly developed) social skills as a prime attribute in my new incarnation as an aerospace engineer.
There exist other humans on Earth, whose learning styles may be different from yours.
Some people (myself included) perform much better when I can learn and collaborate with my peers, and with a mentor. I am absolutely confident that this makes me a far better engineer than somebody who may be academically more gifted than I am, but do not have my interpersonal skills.
Now, I can employ those interpersonal skills in person, or in writing (say, on the Internet), so this axis may well be orthogonal to the question of "do online degree programs suck?"
Like anything else: Good ones do not. Bad ones do. Shop accordingly.
If by "we" you include the carbon-based life form typing this missive, who has no prayer whatsoever of seeing one thin dime of his social security tax again, then I most emphatically disagree with you.
They promised, Scout's honor, to never never never use the GPS data for anything other than tax assessment.
"Whitty said there will be no privacy issues because the machines are being designed to store only the number of miles traveled, not the exact locations visited. "We're very confident we've resolved the privacy issue," he said"
And previously, they said that they were going to be recording timestamps on the mileage data, so they could reduce the tax rate during some time intervals.
Hmmm...let's see...how did that kinematics work?
Velocity=distance/time...
NO WAY! LAWMAKERS LIED TO US! I thought it was their Scout salute I could see from here. Now I think it's either their pinocchio nose, or the great big stiffy they're gonna get from the extra tax revenue.
Nobody's arguing that people who tow around proto-meat (that is, aminals I like to eat) don't need big trucks.
Those four people don't cause SUVs to be the most popular vehicle in America. (Yes, that's an exaggeration.)
It's the one person, sitting in a 5000lb Navigator, talking on his/her cell phone, and everybody like them that thinks that being up high is a good thing when they're driving at 80 miles per hour. Those people create the SUV phenomenon.
Unless they're going to start letting me eat their children. And if so, tell 'em to lay off the soccer...too stringy.
However, the combat load of a Harrier or JSF is about half that of American combat aircraft that operate off of full-deck carriers.
Perfect example is the comparison of the F-35B (STOVL version) with the F-35C (US Navy version). The -C variant carries 4000lb more payload and 1000lb more fuel than the -B variant the US Marines and the Royal Navy will use.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/a ir craft/jsf-specs.htm
Note that they cite the -C version as having a shorter wing; I don't believe this is correct. The US Navy specced a larger wing for better payload and more benign handling at low speed for carrier operations. I believe the -C is equipped with folding wing tips like the F/A-18, so that may be the dimension specified. They also spec a combat radius of "over 600 miles", which is not very specific. I think the Navy's version is going to be the longest range, although both Navy and Air Force get aerial refueling capabilities.
I think. : )
Jeep carriers, like the Brits and the Marines use, are formidable combat vessels. They are not nearly as powerful or flexible, nor do they have near the strike range, of a full-deck supercarrier.
Because Verizon is perfectly happy to maintain their monopoly.
Re:For the love of God, don't start the Wheel of T
on
A Good Summer Read?
·
· Score: 1
Depends on how you count. : ) His novels contain a lot of really good prose, so they have as much Gaiman goodness as several of his comic books.
Fortunately the books require no knowledge of one another, so I encourage you to get whatever is available.
I'm a library junkie too. I've been reading this article in one window, with another open to my library's electronic hold request page. Got much reading goodness now. : )
Slashdot Mirror
OK, so grading is basically random?
An unsurprising, but very unsettling, thought.
Glad I studied something with math in it. YOU KNOW when your math doesn't work right.
Wings fall off and shit.
The reason schools are willing to just sell degrees, is because a lot of employers only want to hire degreed people, even for jobs that by no reasonable standard would require the critical thinking skills that one would ostensibly learn at a university.
How many people do you know who are stupendously competent, but have little in the way of formal certifications? How many people do you know who have a list of letters after their name, but couldn't find their ass with a flashlight and a GPS?
Now, for extra credit, which one gets promoted?
Such is life, unfortunately.
I was with you, until you got to the part about getting money BACK from a University.
Heh. Let me know how that works out for you. : )
Seriously, I sympathize. If the system was properly designed with somebody whose job it was to make the class go actually paying attenition, stuff like that wouldn't happen.
It's inexcusible, and I hope you keep on going up the chain of command at the University until you get your money. Hell...find a pit-bull lawyer and sue 'em.
Or you might try the Governor. : )
Then an MBA is probably not a very attractive degree plan to you, is it?
"emmersed"
I had to read it three times, but that was funny. I think I'm moving slow this morning. : )
1) Yeah. You're right. When you don't know how to do something, ask somebody who does. That's step zero in how to learn stuff. If you are a master's degree student and are still not effective at working in a group, I urge you to get the help you need to become more effective. Ask your friends. Ask your teammates. Ask your professor. If you don't like the answers, ask different people.
/passion/ I put in to my (recently completed) aerospace engineering degree was linear with the number of job offers I have to sweep off my doorstep to get the mail, but unfortunately that's not the case.
Hell, ask me!
2) You have a very optimistic picture of the workplace. You most emphatically do NOT usually get to pick the people you're working with. You are often required to work with people you may not like, and you may think are incompetent.
The really tough one to get past is when they don't like you, and think you're incompetent.
(for "you", substitute any pronoun you wish. : )
However, working effectively on a team is more than just getting along well with people: It's about getting the job done, which really is the only thing anybody gives a fuck about.
Well, anybody I'd ever want to work for. Which is another nicely reflexive discussion point that parallels my above diatribe nicely.
If there's one thing that's come out of this discussion, it's that you will get out of your education what you put into it.
I wish the amount of effort and thought and bloodshed (literally) and
But, now and for the rest of my life, I will know how to design and build an airplane. That, to me, is a wonderful and worthy thing. YMMV.
Now list the times you're supposed to double click, and the times you're supposed to single click, and the times you're supposed to right click.
Single right click, mind, you never double right click. Why? Go ahead and include that in your explanation.
It's "intuitive" to me because I've been working, intensively, with computers for a long time. For an individual for whom a computer is supposed to be a tool, not an end in itself, it's absurdly complicated.
Which is why I like Macs so much. : )
What is the basis of your assertion of "dodginess"?
My favourite online university is CGNU.
Their golf club team is, I believe, undefeated.
GO DUMPLES!
You totally failed to understand the point of the exercise.
You don't do a group project so that you can get a bigger project done within the semester. You do a group project because you need to learn how to work in a group.
I used to hate group projects, as I was the only one who seemed to want to do any work. However, in my upper division classes, I worked on several group projects whose results were far more than the sum of what we'd have come up with individually.
If you can not (or will not) work with a team, you are not as effective as you could be. Period.
Gosh. Wonder if you're ever going to have to work with anybody you don't like in the future.
Do not underestimate the importance of playing well with others.
Look. Failure to understand office politics was a major factor in my layoff from a big computer game publisher. Because my social skills were not as refined as other peoples', I did not get to keep my job...And this was at about the geekiest workplace you will ever find.
I currently count my (much more highly developed) social skills as a prime attribute in my new incarnation as an aerospace engineer.
There exist other humans on Earth, whose learning styles may be different from yours.
Some people (myself included) perform much better when I can learn and collaborate with my peers, and with a mentor. I am absolutely confident that this makes me a far better engineer than somebody who may be academically more gifted than I am, but do not have my interpersonal skills.
Now, I can employ those interpersonal skills in person, or in writing (say, on the Internet), so this axis may well be orthogonal to the question of "do online degree programs suck?"
Like anything else: Good ones do not. Bad ones do. Shop accordingly.
Gosh, I liked, you know, asking questions. Maybe I'm stupid.
So why pay the teacher?
You find 'em, I'll vote for 'em.
Good luck. Let me know how that works out for you.
Well, ideally, you'd get to vote with your dollars, and patronize full-service gas stations, rather than have the "choice" made for you by the State.
But that pesky free enterprise system is so darn UNFAIR!
(Disclaimer: I don't believe that a free enterprise system has existed anywhere outside a black market in the last 100 years.)
If by "we" you include the carbon-based life form typing this missive, who has no prayer whatsoever of seeing one thin dime of his social security tax again, then I most emphatically disagree with you.
I don't get any of that stuff. Why should I cry for them?
What, you think you get to use The Man's hardware to "prove" your "innoncence"?
Pay your fine, Citizen, and be grateful We don't search your house. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, right?
(We're on the same side of this argument. I am just trying to be funny. Damn The Man! : )
They promised, Scout's honor, to never never never use the GPS data for anything other than tax assessment.
"Whitty said there will be no privacy issues because the machines are being designed to store only the number of miles traveled, not the exact locations visited. "We're very confident we've resolved the privacy issue," he said"
And previously, they said that they were going to be recording timestamps on the mileage data, so they could reduce the tax rate during some time intervals.
Hmmm...let's see...how did that kinematics work?
Velocity=distance/time...
NO WAY! LAWMAKERS LIED TO US! I thought it was their Scout salute I could see from here. Now I think it's either their pinocchio nose, or the great big stiffy they're gonna get from the extra tax revenue.
Guess where the stiffy goes?
Nobody's arguing that people who tow around proto-meat (that is, aminals I like to eat) don't need big trucks.
Those four people don't cause SUVs to be the most popular vehicle in America. (Yes, that's an exaggeration.)
It's the one person, sitting in a 5000lb Navigator, talking on his/her cell phone, and everybody like them that thinks that being up high is a good thing when they're driving at 80 miles per hour. Those people create the SUV phenomenon.
Unless they're going to start letting me eat their children. And if so, tell 'em to lay off the soccer...too stringy.
i'm going to hell.
Uh, the French sank one Rainbow Warrior, and it wouldn't surprise me if they did it again.
Exocet means not having to say you're sorry.
However, the combat load of a Harrier or JSF is about half that of American combat aircraft that operate off of full-deck carriers.
a ir craft/jsf-specs.htm
Perfect example is the comparison of the F-35B (STOVL version) with the F-35C (US Navy version). The -C variant carries 4000lb more payload and 1000lb more fuel than the -B variant the US Marines and the Royal Navy will use.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/
Note that they cite the -C version as having a shorter wing; I don't believe this is correct. The US Navy specced a larger wing for better payload and more benign handling at low speed for carrier operations. I believe the -C is equipped with folding wing tips like the F/A-18, so that may be the dimension specified. They also spec a combat radius of "over 600 miles", which is not very specific. I think the Navy's version is going to be the longest range, although both Navy and Air Force get aerial refueling capabilities.
I think. : )
Jeep carriers, like the Brits and the Marines use, are formidable combat vessels. They are not nearly as powerful or flexible, nor do they have near the strike range, of a full-deck supercarrier.
Because Verizon is perfectly happy to maintain their monopoly.
Depends on how you count. : ) His novels contain a lot of really good prose, so they have as much Gaiman goodness as several of his comic books.
Fortunately the books require no knowledge of one another, so I encourage you to get whatever is available.
I'm a library junkie too. I've been reading this article in one window, with another open to my library's electronic hold request page. Got much reading goodness now. : )