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From: betsyp@apollo.HP.COM (Betsy Perry)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Re^2: CS education
Message-ID: <474a6994.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 7 Dec 89 22:22:00 GMT
References: <5866@ubc-cs.UUCP> <1989Dec5.155727.20983@aqdata.uucp>
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Reply-To: betsyp@apollo.HP.COM (Betsy Perry)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Apollo Division; Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 35

In article <1989Dec5.155727.20983@aqdata.uucp> sullivan@aqdata.uucp (Michael T. Sullivan) writes:
>From article <5866@ubc-cs.UUCP>, by manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis):
>> 
>> But that's what a university is supposed to be. We aren't supposed to be
>> training people for careers (even ones as software engineers); rather
>> we're supposed to be producing intelligent, educated people whose major
>> strengths are problem-solving and disciplined creativity. 
>
>Nonsense.  Doctors, lawyers, librarians, teachers, and musicians all
>got practical training in college.  Why don't CS students?  When my
>wife went to school to be a librarian she wasn't just taught why it is a
>good thing to catalog materials, she was taught how things were cataloged.
>She was actually given practical assignments that helped her later in her
>career.  

Let me be the 97,000th to point out that, with the possible exception of musicians
and teachers, the professions you list above get their professional education 
in graduate school.   (And musicans and teachers are both expected to 
continue their professional education throughout their lives).  They don't
give undergraduate law degrees.  There isn't enough time in a 4-year program
to cover law *and* everything else an educated adult needs to know in order to
practice law.  (Fess up;  I'll bet your wife's degree in Library Science
was a Master's, right?)

>
>And why is it Universities can't produce "intelligent, educated people whose
>major strengths are problem-solving and disciplined creativity" who are also
>better trained for careers, since careers are what most students want, anyway?
You can't produce an intelligent, educated graduate unless the graduate *wants*
to become an intelligent, educated person.  As you point out, most students
*want* pieces of paper which enable them to get jobs.  It's hard to educate
somebody who is in college only to get the diploma.
Betsy Perry                          betsyp@apollo.com
Apollo Division, Hewlett-Packard, Inc.
(her opinion doesn't matter, matter, matter, matter...)