Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!pacbell!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!itsgw!steinmetz!ge-dab!codas!abcom!rgsmeb
From: rgsmeb@abcom.ATT.COM (Michel Behna)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: What is CS? (Was re First languages)
Message-ID: <570@abcom.ATT.COM>
Date: 1 Apr 88 17:10:03 GMT
References: <10771@cgl.ucsf.EDU>
Organization: Who? What? Where? ...
Lines: 33

From article <10771@cgl.ucsf.EDU>, by seibel@cgl.ucsf.edu (George Seibel%Kollman):
> In article <3684@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> tlh@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas L. Hausmann) writes:
>>In article <364@abcom.ATT.COM>, rgsmeb@abcom.ATT.COM (Michel Behna) writes:
>>> From article <1522@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, by windley@iris.ucdavis.edu (Phil Windley):
> I'll side with Michel on this one.  The University seems to have cornered
> the market on prestige and lofty knowledge, but to put knowledge to work
> and do something practical with it is somehow unclean.  
[stuff deleted]
>  I notice some of the
> most successful scientists in my field are people who have technical
> skills as well as theoretical expertise.  

I think you've hit upon the problem here!

I also think that computers will become pervasive in our society that people
cannot afford to be computer illiterate. How many programmers got hired to
program an application that they have no understanding of and botched it up?

Universities are a practical way of acquiring knowledge, so where is the
idealism? What happened to the renaissance man?

Why don't we all go back to learning on our own? Isn't the scientific method
supposed to work for universities? Observe reality and then postulate your
hypothesis ( curriculum).

Aren't teachers supposed to impart me with knowledge that I need and want
instead of what they think they should teach?

I know that I could have used a couple of courses in typing. Programming
involves a lot of it! I would ceratinly feel more productive if I could
type better!

Amen!