Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!kunivv1!ge
From: ge@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl (Ge' Weijers)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: CS education
Message-ID: <569@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl>
Date: 8 Dec 89 09:08:54 GMT
References: <16315@duke.cs.duke.edu> <7296@hubcap.clemson.edu> <489@cherry5.UUCP> <1325@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Lines: 29

nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) writes:

>In article <489@cherry5.UUCP>, murphyn@cell (Neal P. Murphy) writes:

>I think it can be put more succinctly in the context of CS. If a
>University were to "train" people, we'd have loads of graduates who
>knew about C and Unix but who were unable to look towards the future.

I'm afraid this happens anyway. At least in the Netherlands universities
'educate' (i.e. train) more and more people unable to invent new things.
Ingenuity is not a requirement these days. It is not needed to complete
secondary education, a good memory and reasonable intelligence is all
that is needed. This has been true since the dark ages. (Teaching
Latin has not changed for 1500 years. So much for progress.)

>   Universities should be educating people to have a broader knowledge
>and encompass (even, shock horror, *develop*) the ideas of the future,
>not work with the technology we're stuck with today.

What do you do with those admitted to your university, unable of creative
thought? Either you let them flunk, which lets your funding dry up, or
you let them graduate. I don't like it, but that's life. Only prestigious
or downright rich universities can be very selective. Bah.

Ge' Weijers
Ge' Weijers                                    Internet/UUCP: ge@cs.kun.nl
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science,   (uunet.uu.net!cs.kun.nl!ge)
University of Nijmegen, Toernooiveld 1         
6525 ED Nijmegen, the Netherlands              tel. +3180612483 (UTC-2)