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From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 )
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education
Message-ID: <7012@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 11 Nov 89 17:18:52 GMT
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From dar@nucleus.UUCP (Dario Alcocer):
> I think that the technical school and high schools are the ones in the
> position to train people for the job market.  

   Two major problems with this:

      1) Technical schools generally do not go above the associate's
         degree level; if they start going higher, they are thought
         of as universities (e.g., Institutes of Technology).

      2) If there were two segregated systems, one for researchers
         and another for practitioners, the current problems we 
         have with researchers being too loosely connected to
         industrial reality and practitioners failing to keep up
         with important research developments will become even 
         worse than they already are.

   Thus, exacerbating the existing lack of communication between
   researchers and practitioners by shifting the task of educating
   practitioners to a newly expanded technical school system is
   not exactly a proposal that I can get overly excited about.   
    
   The only reasonable solution is to provide at least two tracks 
   within the university system: a research track and a practitioner's 
   track.  If this were combined with several other mechanisms by which 
   meaningful dialogue would be facilitated between the two communities,
   then we would be well on our way to a much-improved system.


   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu