Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site burl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!rcj From: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Universities, Class Structure Message-ID: <1119@burl.UUCP> Date: Sun, 9-Mar-86 12:54:08 EST Article-I.D.: burl.1119 Posted: Sun Mar 9 12:54:08 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Mar-86 00:25:35 EST References: <162@pyuxc.UUCP> <588@hoptoad.uucp> Reply-To: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC Lines: 63 Summary: In article <588@hoptoad.uucp> laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: >I cannot help but think that 14 years is a long time to wait for your >intellectual peers, and that some very good minds are being wasted >because university is not challenging enough for them. The notion that >``college is a minimum requirement in a field that will afford a >middle-class income'' is the problem. The two aims -- I am >going to university because of my personal commitment to thinking/research >and I am going to university so that I can get a middle class job are >incompatible. People with personal commitment to thinking and research >are rare, and people who want to be middle class are not. Yes, but there is so much more to life than this. In an article in another newsgroup, Laura mentioned the joy of the `aha!' experience solving mathematics and programming problems. I treasure the old `aha!' myself, and (as I'm sure Laura does) get it from many more things than my work. I started school when I was 5, skipped second grade, and had a chance to graduate high school a year early at 15. But I chose to stay the extra year in school to work some more, direct a play, act in a local theatre group, cultivate a girlfriend, etc. etc. It was WELL worth it. Then, I went to college on my own funds. The first semester I was a physics major for 3 weeks before I dropped my physics class, and spent the rest of the semester with only 13 semester hours partying my brains out and getting so bored with my calculus class that I ended up screwing it and getting a !C! I then buckled down, still partying, and finished my CS degree in four more semesters total, taking all summers and one fall off to work. Except for the last semester (25 semester hours of all nasty stuff) I managed to work 20-30 hours per week, do a LOT of partying, and GROW UP A LOT!!! I cannot begin to stress the latter, I don't think there are *many* people who can do heavy-duty work before about age 20 and not miss some of the finer points in life; often they end up severely depressed individuals by the time they are 30. One last thing (finally addressing something in Laura's article :-), I was amazed that I sort of awakened from a dream 4 months before graduation and realized that I had given no thought to a job whatsoever. At that point, however, I hit the interview circuit (and had a *BLAST*, BTW), and got very serious into the let's-get-a-job-we-can-love head. In interviewing potential job candidates here, we are MUCH more impressed with the people who have obviously taken the time to round out their lives with lots of external interests and still maintained a reasonable facsimile of performance in school. They make much better co-workers, are generally more innovative, MUCH easier to work with since they've taken a lot more time earlier in life to interact with people outside the academic world, and are more fun to party with to boot. One of the great successes of our group here is derived from the fact that we *live* together -- we party together, all go out to lunch together, go on ski trips together (this weekend, yeah!), take vacations together, etc. Our cohesive nature has helped us to make a lot of successful waves on our project and to turn out what is generally recognized as some damn good work. Bottom line: Spend time on your singles pursuits and worry about the job when it comes time to worry about the job; if for no other reason than you're going to find out that employers don't generally look nearly as much at your transcript as they look at *YOU*. -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj