Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site fortune.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!ihnp4!fortune!norskog
From: norskog@fortune.UUCP (Lance Norskog)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: The Great Educational Debate
Message-ID: <2998@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Apr-84 17:56:09 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.2998
Posted: Sun Apr  8 17:56:09 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Apr-84 19:01:25 EST
References: <381@hogpc.UUCP>
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 19

If I might carry the banner...

The purpose of higher education is not to teach you things, it is to teach
you how to think.  I don't know many people I have met from a certain
"learn-by-doing" school who have to have their arm twisted before they
will step back from a problem and think about it instead of just grabbing
a way to solve it from their (astonishingly extensive) bag of tricks.

About C & PASCAL, I did a lot of assignments in both, and I got them
done in 2/3's the time in PASCAL.  If the person you are interviewing
knows how to program, and to think, he can learn ANY rational
programming language in 3 days.  You'll get more of a feel for his
computational abilities by talking to him, and gauging how well he
speaks English, than by matching his professed languages to those of
your needs.

Lance C. Norskog
Fortune Systems, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA
{cbosgd,hpda,harpo,sri-unix,amd70,decvax!ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!norskog