[Techtalk] Linux in Higher Learning

[Jenny Bernard]

On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, the unseen wrote:
> students think that the only os out there is anything with MS in 
> front of it and the brain - numbed professors let this happen.  In 
> computer science departments where the focus is more technical or 
> liberal-arts, this happens less than where the focus is on business.

I totally hear you... although at the University of Richmond, a fairly
prestigious liberal arts school, it's not really that much better.  In one
of my classes last semester our professor got out the projector and
demonstrated how we should use IDE software on Windows to write our
programs (and got confused at a few points) and how to print out the
output from our program through this whole rigamaroll of copying and
pasting from a DOS window into notepad.  I used vim and piped my output
directly into a file. :)  The only class where we have talked mostly about
Unix/Linux is operating systems, since it is much easier to study the
kernel when it's open source!  We have our share of Unix-savvy professors
(who tend to be the more knowledgable ones) and the ones who have
developed such a dependency on Microsoft that they look at you strangely
when you want to get at your files in your room by ssh-ing into your
box.  There are maybe 3 or 4 people, myself included, in the major who
really have any experience running Linux.  It's a bit gratifying to have
my professor say, "I think they do that in Linux, don't they, Jenny?" but
also a bit disturbing since I'm the only one who might know and there are
a lot of things I _don't_ know.

> from the Charlie Brown cartoons?".  The point is the IT "professionals" 
> that are coming out of college today have been brainwashed by their 
> professors and the current media trends.  How can this be combatted? 
> How can we correct this? 

Unfortunately I don't have the time to start a Linux group on campus;  if
I did, I would.  Just talking about it helps... there are some students
that, when presented with the possibilities, they would probably choose to
use Unix/Linux.  Even clueless professors might just need a little push.  
I managed to completely convert one student in my class this year, but I
guess you have to go one person at a time.  It's a ripple effect. :)  
There are enough people annoyed with Windows to work with... I'm being
optimistic. :)

Jenny

-- 
--------------------
Jenny Bernard
UFA Box 3474, 28 Westhampton Way
University of Richmond, VA 23173
cell and voicemail/page: (804) 306-9157
jbernard at richmond.edu
jenny at whid.net