Xref: utzoo misc.jobs.contract:469 comp.edu:3433 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucdavis!ucdavis.ucdavis.edu!windley From: windley@ucdavis.edu (Phil Windley) Newsgroups: misc.jobs.contract,comp.edu Subject: Re: Qualified? or Dreaming? Message-ID: Date: 30 Jul 90 13:07:23 GMT References: <1990Jul8.063302.4076@xavax.com> <2616@igloo.scum.com> <1990Jul11.233006.17884@nmt.edu> <1990Jul23.060010.20406@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us> <37714@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1990Jul24.140502.17990@cec1.wustl.edu> <279@saxony.pa.reuter.COM> Sender: usenet@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu Followup-To: misc.jobs.contract Organization: University of California at Davis Lines: 23 In-reply-to: dgil@pa.reuter.COM's message of 29 Jul 90 06:40:35 GMT In article <279@saxony.pa.reuter.COM> dgil@pa.reuter.COM (Dave Gillett) writes: Hear, hear! The CS grads I've known who "didn't work out" in professional employment had taken all the courses, but didn't seem to have abstracted the concepts, and so couldn't see how to apply them to the job at hand. Having taught introductory classes for freshmen for several years, I can testify that its much easier to NOT teach abstraction. I did and it cost me a lot of office hours. Most of the students were not at all comfortable with abstraction to any degree (these werer people who had, for the most part, tested out of at least one calculus class). Any time I got abstract, I had an office full of students wailing and crying about how this was "so hard!" I'll continue to teach abstraction because I think its one of the core principles of the field, but I can see why some introductory courses are simple "please program a blackjack game" kinds of programming classes. -- Phil Windley | windley@iris.ucdavis.edu Robotics Research Lab | ucbvax!ucdavis!iris!windley University of California, Davis |