[prog] Who were your best CompSci teachers?
Andrea Landaker
qirien at icecavern.net
Tue Apr 8 09:05:53 EST 2003
> Teaching linked-lists and C in a University setting is like teaching
> algebra in this setting. Its simply not challenging as a higher education
> material.
Well, you have to learn it sometime. Are you going to exclude everyone who
didn't have a chance to learn programming in high school from getting a CS
degree? I had two years of computer science in high school, but I *still*
hadn't learned basic algorithms and things like that (probably because we had
no textbook and 3/4 of the people in the class just wanted to play Solitaire,
and I was busy learning things I knew how to learn, like HTML). A person
should be able to major in whatever they want in college, regardless of
previous experience or lack thereof.
However, I do agree that basic CS classes should be skippable if a student can
demonstrate competence in these areas already (such as by taking the final,
or submitting a programming project that demonstrates competency, or
something). I have also met many people that *think* they are competent in
these areas because they have been programming for a long time, but in
reality they know nothing about basic algorithms or making things efficient
or things like that (no one here; mostly people in classes or at work). This
is perhaps why many teachers are reluctant to allow students to skip these
classes -- it is difficult to tell the difference between students that think
they are competent and students that really are, without making up elaborate
tests and projects that take up everyone's time.
--
Andrea Landaker
http://www.icecavern.net/~qirien/
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