Actually, I'm of the mind that the vast majority of jobs in the US today require nothing more than general intelligence, common sense, and a basic generic skillset.
Nearly any task can be learned on the job, provided that a person is in the right mindset to learn. I could teach anyone an extensive amount of microbiology to anyone who came into my laboratory, as long as they're capable of learning and able to think critically.
Actually, I'm of the mind that the vast majority of jobs in the US today require nothing more than general intelligence, common sense, and a basic generic skillset.
Nearly any task can be learned on the job, provided that a person is in the right mindset to learn. I could teach anyone an extensive amount of microbiology to anyone who came into my laboratory, as long as they're capable of learning and able to think critically.
Please keep in mind that not everyone that is looking for a job is that quick and that bright. We have to educate the masses, not just the bright. Also, every moment you have to spend training is a moment away from your work.
Please keep in mind that not everyone that is looking for a job is that quick and that bright. We have to educate the masses, not just the bright. Also, every moment you have to spend training is a moment away from your work.
Wouldn't we be better off if a high school diploma meant that a person had demonstrated their ability to learn reasonably quickly?
Then, the diploma would mean something. Furthermore, people who couldn't attain one would (or should) be able to get the additional help they need, instead of being given the same useless piece of paper and pushed out into the real world to fail.
Remember: RIT never received proof that I even went to high school nor did they care. I don't even have my high school diploma. It was a 100% useless piece of paper: the mentally handicapped (literally) students at my high school received the exact same piece of paper.
Please keep in mind that not everyone that is looking for a job is that quick and that bright. We have to educate the masses, not just the bright. Also, every moment you have to spend training is a moment away from your work.
Wouldn't we be better off if a high school diploma meant that a person had demonstrated their ability to learn reasonably quickly
Every student has different strengths and weaknesses. Public K-12 should be about allowing them to excel in their strengths and bolstering their weaknesses, but not all students can learn everything "quickly". You look at the world as if it is filled with people at or near your skill level and interest. It isn't. High school educations do matter, whether you need the actual piece of paper or not, your K-12 education provided you with a multitude of abilities, skills, and a basic knowledge pool. You and Scott speak as if the education you received in K-12 was worthless, but it obviously provided you with some abilities. High school diplomas are worth less now than they were in the 1950s because technology and industry has advanced. Also, they weren't worth all that much back then. You still had to get an entry level job, go to a training program, intern, go to a trade school, or get into a mentorship program, go to college, etc. Blue collar jobs are in less demand now. White collar jobs took over as manufacturing moved over seas. That has "devalued" the high school diploma, not a lowering of standards.
You and Scott speak as if the education you received in K-12 was worthless,
I learned nothing, absolutely nothing, in fifth grade. I can state this as a fact. At no point was anything presented to me which I did not already know. In middle school, I was forced to attend the local high school to get any worthwhile learning in science, and spent almost all of my time in the rest of my classes idle. In high school, outside of the accelerated classes and music classes, I learned nothing I did not already know. The classes I was required to take that were not accelerated, such as basic freshman history, were 100% worthless and in many cases inaccurate to begin with. (I recall the teacher explaining that "Prussia" was another word for "Russia" at one point). I learned nothing from them that I did not already know.
High school diplomas are worthless because the requirements for getting one are so low. The whole thing has to be updated. What if you got a diploma upon reaching the age of eighteen noting what grade level you had achieved at that time? Couple that with an absolute ban on moving anyone to the next grade without demonstrating their ability to achieve that grade level's expectations? What if school was something everyone received until they turned 20, with the idea that you tried to get to the highest grade you could achieve?
If the job of schools is to prepare people for the working world of today. What you say is true. It used to be a blue collar, and now is white. The schools used to get people ready for blue collar work by creating people who are obedient and uncritical. Nowadays it still creates obedient and uncritical people, but instead of ending up in factories pulling levers, they end up in Wal-Mart being consumers.
If schools aren't preparing people for the world, they aren't doing their job. If the world 18 years form now is a world of white collar technological labor, that's what schools need to be preparing people for. The thing is, we've already failed. I don't imagine we would be in these troubled economic times if the schools of 18 years ago had properly prepared people for the world of today. The US used to be #1 in terms of everything. We even won the space race. Yet now South Korea is ahead of us in science and technology. It's because we kept educating people for the world of the past.
In ancient times, people couldn't read or write. Eventually, thanks to people like Martin Luther, the people were given the power to read. Yet, the elite still controlled people because only they had the power to write. Later on when people were finally beginning to write, the elite now had the power to publish, thanks to Guttenberg. The people were always one step behind. There was always one ability that people did not have, yet the elite did have that has allowed the top-down society to continue. Now, thanks to the web, the people finally have the power to publish. We are free now, right? No, no we are not. It is because the elite have the power to program.
A person who is prepared to live in the future needs to know computer programming just as someone today needs to know how to write. Not everyone needs to be a computer scientist, just as not everyone needs to be Shakespeare. But we need to educate the children now to program well enough that they will be able to manage when called upon to do so later in life. Someone who can merely use technology might be able to get by in the world of the future, but they will not be free. In a world with more microprocessors than people, being able to take ownership of technology is absolutely necessary, otherwise the technology will own you.
Sadly, learning English is necessary in today's world. It's not sad that there is one major language, taking over. That's a good thing. It's just sad that it's English. It could have been Chinese, but that's a discussion for another time. Anyway, the point is that learning English is necessary because it is spoken by so many people. By learning it you gain the ability to directly communicate with most of the world. Without it, you are effectively trapped in a relatively small circle of communication. Well, there are more computers than people now, and it's only going to get worse. People are just starting to carry phones which are effectively full-on computers. Soon enough we'll be wearing them, and merging with them. It's only a matter of time. Not understanding programming will cut you off from the world of the future. Everything from web sites, to video games, to iPhone apps are made with some amount of programming. Not being able to communicate through these mediums will be as crippling a disadvantage as not being able to write is now.
I agree with you that work in elementary, middle, and high school should not be highly specialized career specific knowledge. The right place for that is definitely in the institutes of higher learning. What I am saying is that computers and technology are integrated into every part of our lives. Just as reading, writing, and arithmetic are necessary for all paths in life, so is technology. Everyone from the CEO all the way down to the grocery checkout clerk has computers to deal with. Not having a very strong handle on technology will make you effectively a non-person in the relatively near future. Already we are seeing our senior citizens having great difficulty keeping up. The middle aged folk are next.
It's not just technology either. The biological and economic sciences are more and more invading the lives of everyone in this society, and more advanced knowledge in those areas will be required for each and every person who wants to "succeed."
The fundamental problem here is that the world is becoming a harder place. We need the future generations to be smarter than the current generations. However, there are not enough people in the current generation who are smart enough to educate the future generation. If you want to teach 100% of the kids programming, how do you do it when less than 5% of adults know it, and even less are teachers? Money can help, but it won't be enough.
I see a future that demands smarter and smarter people combined with an increasingly inadequately educated populace. At best we will skate by in our lifetimes. At worst, we will see a return of tyranny, possibly technological in nature.
First of all, Scott, you seem to be taking a skewed look at education, both past and present. I will respond more fully after work, but I have to say that your are taking a few points and blowing them out of proportion.
The schools used to get people ready for blue collar work by creating people who are obedient and uncritical.
Well, one of the doctrines of the Prussian system, upon which ours was largely based, was the idea that you indoctrinate obedience in your citizenry. I believe the relevant quote was "They must fashion the person in such a way that he cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will."
"They must fashion the person in such a way that he cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will."
The repulses me on so many levels. This is disgusting. It's horrible, nasty and wrong. It's worse than a blue peach. It's ugly and revolting, and makes me want to puke. my sinuses are piqued by the horrible smell emanating from this concept.
Words cannot described what I feel about this thinking. I live and breathe the complete anti-thesis of this idea. I'm pretty lucky I went to a school that focuses on independence of the students.
Well, one of the doctrines of the Prussian system, upon which ours was largely based, was the idea that you indoctrinate obedience in your citizenry. I believe the relevant quote was "They must fashion the person in such a way that he cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will."
Which was great in a simpler society that required few great thinkers and many mindless drones. As technology and knowledge displace labor, we now need as many great thinkers as possible, and as few mindless drones as possible.
Man, you guys derailed this thread quite epically. I wanted to talk about video-game making but noooooo, you had to go and start talking about serious business.
Yeah, hasn't this topic been discussed a twenty times in other threads already? Way to clutter up an otherwise useful conversation!
The topic of how to get into videogaming/programming/good colleges for tech, etc. has been brought up a million times as well. I submit that the thread itself was clutter.
Motion seconded, conversation contains too little of the original topic and there are people wanting to talk about the original topic. Please start a new thread before we have to start a "How should I prepare myself for a career in The Video Game industry (possibly software programming)): Second edition on account of the first one being hijacked." thread and break the server.
I'll just add a few things. From my experience of working at a game company, programmers do what game designers tell them too. Maybe you want to be a game designer and not a programmer. Most game programmers I know are really reserved and quite and do their job and go home. However, Game designer is a harder job to land. I would suggest you also ask this question on the forums that Emily posted and http://forums.indiegamer.com/. The people on these forums are actual game developers. If you want a simple tool to help you understand game programming you can try out GameMaker. This 2d engine has a drag and drop interface that lets you game design easily with out a hefty knowledge of programming. You'll learn a bit about how to think like a game programmer. At some point you'll hit a wall with gamemaker but it's a start.
I'm learning python right now, but I'm wondering if universities expect everyone to know C++? I was hoping I could learn all the concepts through an easy to use language, and then learn C++ syntax later.
I think back to the first week of CS1. The lecture was basically welcome to CS. You have to learn UNIX, but I'm not going to teach you in lecture. Also, here is object oriented programming. They never taught a hello world, or basics of procedural programming, or anything. People either knew it already, learned it on their own, or got hosed.
Are most universities like this? Or was this just a high expectations?
Are most universities like this? Or was this just a high expectations?
All the good ones are like that.
Is C++ a de facto standard in universities, or are other languages allowed? Do universities teach you programming concepts, or how to program in C++? Or is it instead that they teach you programming concepts using C++ as an example, and that you can give in results using a language that fits the criteria? I don't know anything about how universities differ from schools in terms of teaching, so I may be asking some very stupid questions here.
Edit:
In most RPGs, hit points are something wholly replenishable. In DF, if a character loses a limb, he's not getting that back!
TA: Hit points are depressing to me. It's sort of a reflex to just have HP/MP, like a game designer stopped doing their job.
While I think a lot of people who stick with that kind of system do it in order to simplify the game, it does seem to be unexamined by many who use it.
TA: You should really question all of the mechanics in the game from the bottom up. I dunno. It really doesn't seem like a conscious decision sometimes.
I have the programmer brain, I need to train my designer brain. I was creating a small RPG prototype in python, and I used HP/MP reflexively. I have the potential to be a good programmer, I can see it. But to be a designer, I have to try to view things differently. This quote certainly helps me see the difference between designer and programmer.
Every school teaches different a different language. Java and C++ are popular, but it's not that rare to see something else like Smalltalk or Scheme or C. Really, the key is just to learn the fundamental concepts of object oriented programming. If you really know that, then the syntax of the different languages really doesn't mean anything. You can just look that up in a book.
While at my university, I've been formally taught Python, Java, Assembly, C, and Smalltalk. I've been required to learn (on my own) LISP, Matlab, and C++. Often, once you get past your first year or two, professors will teach theory only and require you to teach yourself the languages to complete the programming projects. Honestly, if you have learn the concepts of programming rather than learning a specific language, you will be able to pick up any language in one or two weeks of work.
Yeah, but it's too bad that applications for CS majors are so low. Now schools seem to be dumbing it down to gain the interest of the less capable students.
Comments
Then, the diploma would mean something. Furthermore, people who couldn't attain one would (or should) be able to get the additional help they need, instead of being given the same useless piece of paper and pushed out into the real world to fail.
Remember: RIT never received proof that I even went to high school nor did they care. I don't even have my high school diploma. It was a 100% useless piece of paper: the mentally handicapped (literally) students at my high school received the exact same piece of paper.
High school educations do matter, whether you need the actual piece of paper or not, your K-12 education provided you with a multitude of abilities, skills, and a basic knowledge pool.
You and Scott speak as if the education you received in K-12 was worthless, but it obviously provided you with some abilities. High school diplomas are worth less now than they were in the 1950s because technology and industry has advanced. Also, they weren't worth all that much back then. You still had to get an entry level job, go to a training program, intern, go to a trade school, or get into a mentorship program, go to college, etc. Blue collar jobs are in less demand now. White collar jobs took over as manufacturing moved over seas. That has "devalued" the high school diploma, not a lowering of standards.
High school diplomas are worthless because the requirements for getting one are so low. The whole thing has to be updated. What if you got a diploma upon reaching the age of eighteen noting what grade level you had achieved at that time? Couple that with an absolute ban on moving anyone to the next grade without demonstrating their ability to achieve that grade level's expectations? What if school was something everyone received until they turned 20, with the idea that you tried to get to the highest grade you could achieve?
If schools aren't preparing people for the world, they aren't doing their job. If the world 18 years form now is a world of white collar technological labor, that's what schools need to be preparing people for. The thing is, we've already failed. I don't imagine we would be in these troubled economic times if the schools of 18 years ago had properly prepared people for the world of today. The US used to be #1 in terms of everything. We even won the space race. Yet now South Korea is ahead of us in science and technology. It's because we kept educating people for the world of the past.
In ancient times, people couldn't read or write. Eventually, thanks to people like Martin Luther, the people were given the power to read. Yet, the elite still controlled people because only they had the power to write. Later on when people were finally beginning to write, the elite now had the power to publish, thanks to Guttenberg. The people were always one step behind. There was always one ability that people did not have, yet the elite did have that has allowed the top-down society to continue. Now, thanks to the web, the people finally have the power to publish. We are free now, right? No, no we are not. It is because the elite have the power to program.
A person who is prepared to live in the future needs to know computer programming just as someone today needs to know how to write. Not everyone needs to be a computer scientist, just as not everyone needs to be Shakespeare. But we need to educate the children now to program well enough that they will be able to manage when called upon to do so later in life. Someone who can merely use technology might be able to get by in the world of the future, but they will not be free. In a world with more microprocessors than people, being able to take ownership of technology is absolutely necessary, otherwise the technology will own you.
Sadly, learning English is necessary in today's world. It's not sad that there is one major language, taking over. That's a good thing. It's just sad that it's English. It could have been Chinese, but that's a discussion for another time. Anyway, the point is that learning English is necessary because it is spoken by so many people. By learning it you gain the ability to directly communicate with most of the world. Without it, you are effectively trapped in a relatively small circle of communication. Well, there are more computers than people now, and it's only going to get worse. People are just starting to carry phones which are effectively full-on computers. Soon enough we'll be wearing them, and merging with them. It's only a matter of time. Not understanding programming will cut you off from the world of the future. Everything from web sites, to video games, to iPhone apps are made with some amount of programming. Not being able to communicate through these mediums will be as crippling a disadvantage as not being able to write is now.
I agree with you that work in elementary, middle, and high school should not be highly specialized career specific knowledge. The right place for that is definitely in the institutes of higher learning. What I am saying is that computers and technology are integrated into every part of our lives. Just as reading, writing, and arithmetic are necessary for all paths in life, so is technology. Everyone from the CEO all the way down to the grocery checkout clerk has computers to deal with. Not having a very strong handle on technology will make you effectively a non-person in the relatively near future. Already we are seeing our senior citizens having great difficulty keeping up. The middle aged folk are next.
It's not just technology either. The biological and economic sciences are more and more invading the lives of everyone in this society, and more advanced knowledge in those areas will be required for each and every person who wants to "succeed."
The fundamental problem here is that the world is becoming a harder place. We need the future generations to be smarter than the current generations. However, there are not enough people in the current generation who are smart enough to educate the future generation. If you want to teach 100% of the kids programming, how do you do it when less than 5% of adults know it, and even less are teachers? Money can help, but it won't be enough.
I see a future that demands smarter and smarter people combined with an increasingly inadequately educated populace. At best we will skate by in our lifetimes. At worst, we will see a return of tyranny, possibly technological in nature.
Words cannot described what I feel about this thinking. I live and breathe the complete anti-thesis of this idea. I'm pretty lucky I went to a school that focuses on independence of the students.
Edit: I have the programmer brain, I need to train my designer brain. I was creating a small RPG prototype in python, and I used HP/MP reflexively. I have the potential to be a good programmer, I can see it. But to be a designer, I have to try to view things differently. This quote certainly helps me see the difference between designer and programmer.