For the college folks

[Chuck52]

Rob,

I think I agree with your argument; It's not the improved tools we use, it's the way we teach how to use the tools. However, I also think both you and I have an advantage over our younger colleagues. I, and I think you, had to learn how do our work without the goodies now available. In my own area, I am of the last generation that had to be able to program, or at least read other folks programs, to be sure the new fangled computers were doing what we thought they were doing. Earlier in this thread there were comments about how one has to take extraneous classes to get a four year degree. As I recall, I was able to substitute a class in FORTRAN for a class in a foreign language, probably because my degree was a BS rather that a BA.

In most fields, the programming is now in place, and you can pretty much trust that the formulas used are correct. I use packaged programs, though I do have the source codes for the important parts. It has been years since I had the need to read the code to be sure it was doing the calculation correctly. The students I teach my field to now use GUI's that take care even of the need to correctly modify input files for each calculation. While I, old man that I am, am constantly being taught Windows tricks I have managed not to learn over the years and get by without, very few of my students know what they are doing if they need to use a command prompt window. And its not just my area. Virtually all instruments these days are packaged black boxes controlled by Windows computers, and not amenable to tampering with by the user....which means that the user never really learns how they work. Our electronics guy knows far more about the non-electronic mechanisms of our instruments than any of the students because only he ever sees those parts.

So, yes, the students can do their actual work more easily and quickly. The instruments are easy to use and give them the answers they need to go to the next step in their research, but they are much more dependent on other people for their work. Before I retire I have to remember to show someone where the water chiller room is, because I'm not sure anyone else even knows that some of the instruments are water cooled.

Chuck

 

[Rob-D]

Great perspective Chuck.

Wow! FORTRAN, now that brings back memories!

Rob

 

[Transit]

I know where you come from Chuck. Back in my IBM 7074, 360 and 165 days we would Fat Finger simple routines, binary code directly into storage to test CPU and peripheral devices. You could see the droughts in storage wiggle as they stored the Zeros and Ones. Later on I got into writing diagnosis to test devices. That was the time you had to know HOW the thing works.
I do know the How and Why PCs work but can do little about it.

 

[Rob-D]

I know where you come from Chuck. Back in my IBM 7074, 360 and 165 days we would Fat Finger simple routines, binary code directly into storage to test CPU and peripheral devices. You could see the droughts in storage wiggle as they stored the Zeros and Ones. Later on I got into writing diagnosis to test devices. That was the time you had to know HOW the thing works.
I do know the How and Why PCs work but can do little about it.

You guys would have been right at home with me. I worked on the first government top secret computers back in the late 60's. You could watch an instruction go through the CPU as it shifted from register to register. It took up a whole room. Today my hand held calc does about 1000 times more problem solving in a fraction of the time.
Boy, you don't think about how the world has changed but when I was a kid we used to pick up the phone and get an operator who would plug us into the required party. That was 1952. I remember our first TV in 1949, we still had it in the early 60's.

Rob

 

[Transit]

You guys would have been right at home with me. I worked on the first government top secret computers back in the late 60's. You could watch an instruction go through the CPU as it shifted from register to register. It took up a whole room. Today my hand held calc does about 1000 times more problem solving in a fraction of the time.
Boy, you don't think about how the world has changed but when I was a kid we used to pick up the phone and get an operator who would plug us into the required party. That was 1952. I remember our first TV in 1949, we still had it in the early 60's.

Rob

Yes, put the CPU in single step mode and see the ALU micro instruction set manipulate the data. Some ALUs were parallel and some serial. Push the step button hundreds of times to see two numbers added.
Get a suntan from all the lights blinking, the more powerful the prossesor the more lights. The lights didnt do a thing unless the unit was in maintenance mode. All the lights amounted to is for selling the sizzle on his stake.

 

[user.69169]

I came across this on another site. First read it seemed pretty dang funny. Then I remembered I know a bunch of young gals & fellows in the same basement with this fellow. Not real sure what you call the writing style, but the content is dang accurate.

Way too many people buy educations there is no market for from what I see.

"Dear University Alumni Office,

I'm sorry to hear that the university's $750 million endowment has fallen in value to $500 million because of the recession and because your bank died. I'm also sorry to hear that you're dealing with declining enrollment due to the fact that middle-class families are no longer willing or able to bet their homes on a $45,000-a-year higher education for their children. I really am.

So, what I want to know is, why are you wasting money on glossy fundraising brochures full of meaningless synonyms for the word "Excellence"? And, why are you sending them to ME? Yes, I know that I got a master's degree at your fine institution, but that master's degree hasn't done jack s**t for me since I got it! I have been unemployed for the past TWO YEARS and I am now a professional resume-submitter, sending out dozens of resumes a month to employers, and the degree I received in your hallowed halls is at the TOP OF IT and it doesn't do a no-noing thing.

You know, maybe if you wanted a little bit of money from me (and these days you'd get about $3) maybe you should send me a fancy color brochure admitting your role in the bubble economics that got us all in to this mess.

For example, since 1987, higher education expenses have gone up 450 percent, while personal income in this country has gone up 87 percent, making tuition IMPOSSIBLE to afford without special financing. But, during this time, you were thriving because people could come up with the cash in two ways:

1. Get a home equity loan and use the inflated value of their house to pay for their kid to get drunk and/or raped at your school and then lose the house when the market crashed.
2. Get a federal loan.

HAD IT OCCURRED TO YOU THAT NEITHER OF THESE SOURCES OF MONEY ACTUALLY EXIST? THAT IT WAS BEING MANUFACTURED BECAUSE YOU MADE PEOPLE THINK THAT ONE OF YOUR DEGREES WAS NECESSARY TO CLIMB TO THE TOP OF THE BUBBLE?

Oh yes, federal loans. I've got $40,000 of those, which are in "forebearance" right now because I'm unemployed, meaning that the feds are paying the interest for a while, which is convenient for me, but not for our government which is now owned by China. You know, the idea behind federal loans was that it would allow more students to attend your university, not let you INFLATE your tuition to obscene levels! I mean, what the were you spending the $16,000 per semester on, anyway? I was in a public policy program, so that meant we got to sit in classrooms and listen to Professor God up at the front of the lecture hall glorify Himself and Creation as He saw it and talk about how much smarter he was than anyone else and how much he'd learned at MIT and the RAND Corporation.

Really, that's about all you did for us -- gave us a lecture hall, gave us an arrogant b**tard to listen to, and gave us a room full of computers we could use sometimes, and you gave us a degree that employers look at and say "This guy knows how to write reports. Amusing." And I will be paying for this privilege until I am 51 years old.

So I'm sorry that the economy's been rough on you. Maybe, if you wanted to save a little money, you could stop printing and sending brochures to my parents' house (oh yeah, that's where I live because I can't afford rent on ANYTHING). And, maybe I'll donate a little bit of money to you in 2030, when I get the loans for your imaginary education PAID OFF!

Sincerely yours,
Alumnus "

 

[Chuck52]

Whoooee there now (removed), for a feller who proudly claims as little edumercation as you, you surely seem upset about the price of all that there book larnin you didn't do!

The cost of higher education certainly has increased since I was able to pay my way by working night shifts as an orderly. Then I found out they would pay me to get a PhD, and all I had to do was teach slightly younger students some of what I had already learned. Of course they also figured I should do some other stuff to earn that degree, but as it turned out most of that was pretty much fun. So eventually I got that degree and then went off for what is called a postdoctoral position to learn more about what I was doing. If that sounds something like what MDs do, it is in a sense. Then after that, I got my first job as an Assistant Professor, and, surprise! I was paid less than I made as a postdoc, and considerably less than my wife could make as a Registered Nurse. Living the high life!

What does this little narrative have to do with the cute little story you found? The bottom line is that the pay scale of faculty does not correspond to the dramatic increase in the cost of higher education. Certainly, some faculty are paid very well, usually for good reason. None of the faculty makes anywhere near as much as the football or basketball coach, but the money for those positions comes from the American propensity for spending incredible amounts of money for entertainment.

So, what has caused the dramatic increase in the cost of higher education? I don't know; it's way beyond my pay scale to figure. One part I do know about is the decrease in support for state universities by state governments. The same folks also cap tuition increases, so all the costs can't be passed along to the students, and I see that as a good thing. It costs more to get good health care. It costs more to get decent mechanical work done. As is described in another thread, it costs more to build a house.

The idea that a college or university should somehow guarantee that their students will be employed, regardless of the degree selected by the student, is so ridiculous that I will refrain from commenting.

Chuk

 

[Redbug]

Copied from one of the other great forums I read...(Early-retirement.org)...Pretty well sums it up...

A friend recently attended a NASA Educator Workshop at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Alabama. One of the presenters was a lead engineer at the facility who had grown up in the region. He was in charge of hiring new engineers. His ideal "hires" were B/C engineering students who grew up on a farm! 4.0 students scared the heck out of him, and usually couldn't interact well with people as well as in problem-solving situations. He said the farm folks made the best engineers; bar none! The farm provided them with invaluable, practical, think-on-your-feet experiences that connected the world of how things actually work (behave) to the world of how things are supposed to work. Some of the school's best and brightest...struggle to follow assembly instructions for lab set up when another student could just look at the equipment and know how it needed to be set up. Just like there are various athletic talents, there are a wide variety of mental talents. Life isn't about "holding all the cards," it is about playing the cards you're dealt with.

 

[Rob-D]

Copied from one of the other great forums I read...(Early-retirement.org)...Pretty well sums it up...

A friend recently attended a NASA Educator Workshop at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Alabama. One of the presenters was a lead engineer at the facility who had grown up in the region. He was in charge of hiring new engineers. His ideal "hires" were B/C engineering students who grew up on a farm! 4.0 students scared the heck out of him, and usually couldn't interact well with people as well as in problem-solving situations. He said the farm folks made the best engineers; bar none! The farm provided them with invaluable, practical, think-on-your-feet experiences that connected the world of how things actually work (behave) to the world of how things are supposed to work. Some of the school's best and brightest...struggle to follow assembly instructions for lab set up when another student could just look at the equipment and know how it needed to be set up. Just like there are various athletic talents, there are a wide variety of mental talents. Life isn't about "holding all the cards," it is about playing the cards you're dealt with.

Really?

I had a 4.0 index and also prided myself on my ability to trouble shoot. Once again, it's called "critical thinking" and it's not isolated to farm boys, city boys or even boys.
Intelligence is the ability to resolve your problems constructively and it's not the privileged domain of any group, it's an aspect of the individual.
Geeze! He thinks a 'C' student farm boy makes the best engineer, where do they get these people?

"Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity.... I'm not sure about the universe."

Albert Einstein (not a farm boy, by the way, a patent clerk.)

Rob

 

[aczlan]

Really?
I had a 4.0 index and also prided myself on my ability to trouble shoot. Once again, it's called "critical thinking" and it's not isolated to farm boys, city boys or even boys.
Intelligence is the ability to resolve your problems constructively and it's not the privileged domain of any group, it's an aspect of the individual.
Geeze! He thinks a 'C' student farm boy makes the best engineer, where do they get these people?

IMO there are several traits which are often found in those who were raised on a farm, these are not exclusive of those who are from farms, but they are found more commonly among those who's parents taught them to work and think (such as is often the case with those who come from a farming background):
1. A good work ethic
2. Critical thinking
3. Experience with how things work
4. Honesty

While some have these traits naturally (no matter their background), others are "forced" by their upbringing to learn them.

These traits, along with some decent people skills will make anyone do better in their chosen field.

Aaron Z