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From: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Message-ID: <5606@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 19 Jan 89 18:48:00 GMT
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Reply-To: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
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In article <19214@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes:
>*Who* is aware of the problem?  Certainly managers in industry are painfully
>aware of it, especially on the written side.  University educators are
>vaguely aware of it.  But the *students* are not aware of it at all.  They
>would be shocked to know how much of ordinary work in the real world
>consists of communication  --  holding meetings, writing reports, 
>explaining things to others, dealing with users of the company's products,
>etc.  

Be careful when you're making broad, encompassing generalizations.  Maybe you
just know a lot of stupid students.  Maybe you've just never met any students
who've held full time jobs.  Maybe it's much easier to remember instances
in which you noticed that a recent graduate was shocked by the amount of
verbal communication in the business world.  Most students I know spend
their entire academic lives doing things like writing papers, reading
source material, writing exams, and trying to get themselves heard in small
classes.

                                              -Dan