I clicked the link first, and then I read your summary which said basically the same... so you wasted 30 seconds of my life. I demand this be deducted of your life-saving ratio!
First of all I wouldn't be too sure of the KUL being the 'best' university in Belgium... it's probably the biggest and the most popular, and that's where most of your points go wrong. In my experience, a lot of people go to KUL because they can be real 'students' there. You know. Of the drinking kind:) Anyway, that aside... The point of going to university in Belgium is to get an academic knowledge, which is mainly based on being able to gain a lot of knowledge in a minimum amount of time. Besides, universities over here assume that students work for themselves, i.e. that they are mature enough to understand the importance of developing yourself instead of letting others do it for you.
The same goes for internships... you decide for yourself what you want to do. If you want to push buttons every day, and pass easily, you can. It's your responsibility, not that of anybody else.
I spose all I got from my time in university was a sense of responsibility and the capability to learn shit *fast*. That's worth much more to me (and to all companies I've applied for) then to have some hands-on experience. I'm 22, I know the basics of computer science, I know how to extend that knowledge, and there's 45 years for me to get some hands-on experience. I think I've got the most important shit covered first:)
I do agree with the author of the article. I can not imagine my mom switching away from her current windows environment to linux without any troubles. However, I can't imagine her finding a decent app to play video's with in windows either. My mom learned to work with windows, and that's all she can do... work with windows.
However, a friend of mine was a complete computer noob when he bought his computer. He needed it to do some text-editing and some spreadsheet stuff (and obviously the salesman had tricked him in buying a 1300-euro top notch pc). Man, could he edit text fast! Since he didn't know how to even start word (which was installed and had a large shortcut in the middle of his desktop), he called me. As most people here, I've helped a lot of people with the most stupid shit, like 'help, it asks me if I want to save my changes, what should I click'. Since other people I've learned a bit now have pc's full of spyware, prolly even viruses etc, I thought I'd help this one a bit better. I removed windows (after making sure he didn't want to play games), and installed slackware (same system I'm using so I could easily help him if he got in trouble). I explained the basics and I gave him most apps he needed for his work (admittedly, I installed all his hardware, but I do the same thing for my mom if her Windows needs yet another reinstall). I got a lot of weird looks when I was recompiling his kernel, but since he didn't know anything about computers he thought that was the way it should be.
Right now, he's been working with linux 2 years, can do a full reinstall of his system (although I have to help out sometimes with the kernel, he just installs some bloated thing with almost all drivers in it), he can even install stuff himself (by blindly following installation manuals obviously, but I don't think that's so different from what windows-users do when installing stuff). He's been in contact with windows a bit in the meanwhile, but when I asked his opinion he said something along the lines of 'it looks pretty hard to understand'. He didn't even think it was 'user friendly', and when I told him most people thought windows was more user friendly then linux he thought I was joking.
This guy really made me realize that windows *isn't* as userfriendly as anyone thinks. Instead, most people are familiar with windows and the windows way of working. When I went to high school, ppl taught me windows. When I first used Linux in university, I thought 'fuck this, I want windows, that's easier' too. How foolish I was...
It's obvious that people think windows is better, easier, and what else... they're used to it. If instead of windows schools started teaching Linux to children, in 15 years windows will be the user unfriendly OS.
Some schools in my neighborhood are going to do this, because they believe that teaching linux gives the 'poorer' kids a major disadvantage: they haven't got the money to buy a windows licence, nor the money to buy a pc capable of running windows. They usually have the money to pick up one of the free ubuntu-disks that you can get at school. And now the schools are trying to arrange something with some companies so they send their old pc's to school, where the school can redistribute them to pupils that haven't got a pc. I'm pretty certain that in a couple of years from now, when all those kids graduate, they won't just get a pc running nothing but windows... they'll install Ubuntu too.
Slashdot Mirror
Neophilia is wanting new things...
as opposed to Necrophilia, which is wanting things that aren't really 'fresh' anymore.
I clicked the link first, and then I read your summary which said basically the same... so you wasted 30 seconds of my life. I demand this be deducted of your life-saving ratio!
First of all I wouldn't be too sure of the KUL being the 'best' university in Belgium... it's probably the biggest and the most popular, and that's where most of your points go wrong. In my experience, a lot of people go to KUL because they can be real 'students' there. You know. Of the drinking kind :)
:)
Anyway, that aside... The point of going to university in Belgium is to get an academic knowledge, which is mainly based on being able to gain a lot of knowledge in a minimum amount of time. Besides, universities over here assume that students work for themselves, i.e. that they are mature enough to understand the importance of developing yourself instead of letting others do it for you.
The same goes for internships... you decide for yourself what you want to do. If you want to push buttons every day, and pass easily, you can. It's your responsibility, not that of anybody else.
I spose all I got from my time in university was a sense of responsibility and the capability to learn shit *fast*. That's worth much more to me (and to all companies I've applied for) then to have some hands-on experience. I'm 22, I know the basics of computer science, I know how to extend that knowledge, and there's 45 years for me to get some hands-on experience. I think I've got the most important shit covered first
I do agree with the author of the article. I can not imagine my mom switching away from her current windows environment to linux without any troubles. However, I can't imagine her finding a decent app to play video's with in windows either. My mom learned to work with windows, and that's all she can do... work with windows.
However, a friend of mine was a complete computer noob when he bought his computer. He needed it to do some text-editing and some spreadsheet stuff (and obviously the salesman had tricked him in buying a 1300-euro top notch pc). Man, could he edit text fast!
Since he didn't know how to even start word (which was installed and had a large shortcut in the middle of his desktop), he called me. As most people here, I've helped a lot of people with the most stupid shit, like 'help, it asks me if I want to save my changes, what should I click'. Since other people I've learned a bit now have pc's full of spyware, prolly even viruses etc, I thought I'd help this one a bit better. I removed windows (after making sure he didn't want to play games), and installed slackware (same system I'm using so I could easily help him if he got in trouble). I explained the basics and I gave him most apps he needed for his work (admittedly, I installed all his hardware, but I do the same thing for my mom if her Windows needs yet another reinstall). I got a lot of weird looks when I was recompiling his kernel, but since he didn't know anything about computers he thought that was the way it should be.
Right now, he's been working with linux 2 years, can do a full reinstall of his system (although I have to help out sometimes with the kernel, he just installs some bloated thing with almost all drivers in it), he can even install stuff himself (by blindly following installation manuals obviously, but I don't think that's so different from what windows-users do when installing stuff). He's been in contact with windows a bit in the meanwhile, but when I asked his opinion he said something along the lines of 'it looks pretty hard to understand'. He didn't even think it was 'user friendly', and when I told him most people thought windows was more user friendly then linux he thought I was joking.
This guy really made me realize that windows *isn't* as userfriendly as anyone thinks. Instead, most people are familiar with windows and the windows way of working. When I went to high school, ppl taught me windows. When I first used Linux in university, I thought 'fuck this, I want windows, that's easier' too. How foolish I was...
It's obvious that people think windows is better, easier, and what else... they're used to it. If instead of windows schools started teaching Linux to children, in 15 years windows will be the user unfriendly OS.
Some schools in my neighborhood are going to do this, because they believe that teaching linux gives the 'poorer' kids a major disadvantage: they haven't got the money to buy a windows licence, nor the money to buy a pc capable of running windows. They usually have the money to pick up one of the free ubuntu-disks that you can get at school. And now the schools are trying to arrange something with some companies so they send their old pc's to school, where the school can redistribute them to pupils that haven't got a pc.
I'm pretty certain that in a couple of years from now, when all those kids graduate, they won't just get a pc running nothing but windows... they'll install Ubuntu too.