Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!jarthur!aqdata!sullivan
From: sullivan@aqdata.uucp (Michael T. Sullivan)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Education
Message-ID: <1989Dec29.165931.20995@aqdata.uucp>
Date: 29 Dec 89 16:59:31 GMT
References: <848@mindlink.UUCP>
Organization: aQdata, Inc.  Western Region -- San Dimas, CA
Lines: 20

From article <848@mindlink.UUCP>, by a684@mindlink.UUCP (Nick Janow):
> 
> How do you retrain someone who has learned one specialty to the exclusion of
> all other knowledge?  If you have learned only the science necessary to be a
> COBOL programmer, how difficult will it be to learn biology?  You personally
> can consider switching because of your relatively general education.

I don't think anybody is asking that we super-specialize students.  I think
the arguments are for have schools produce, for example, software engineers
in addition to computer scientists.  Not COBOL or Unix/C programmers in
addition to computer programmers.  Not that one shouldn't learn Unix/C while
in school, though it should be a means and not an end.

Actually, I could consider switching to biology not because of my generalized
college education but because of my high school education.  That's where I
feel most generalization should be focused.
-- 
Michael Sullivan          uunet!jarthur.uucp!aqdata!sullivan
aQdata, Inc.
San Dimas, CA