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Ask Slashdot: How To Fix an Outdated College Tech Curriculum? 128

Posted by msmash from the a-question-many-want-an-answer-to dept.
An anonymous reader writes: As a student, what's the best way to bring change to an outdated college tech curriculum?

The background on this is that I have 15 years of experience in the field and a very healthy amount of industry-recognized training and certifications. I'm merely finishing up my degree to flesh out my resume -- I haven't learned much from the program that I don't already know. However, the program would have benefited me greatly 15 years ago. It's a great program, except for a biometrics class that is absolutely behind the curve. The newest publication on the syllabus is from 2009. This is simply teaching the students outdated and often wrong information.

Additionally, a lot of the material seems like it was stretched to make a full semester class in biometrics in the first place -- most of the material, honestly, could be compressed to about two hours of lecture and still be delivered at a reasonable rate.

What's the best way for a student in my situation to get this fixed so the school stops wasting student's time with outdated and wrong information?
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Ask Slashdot: How To Fix an Outdated College Tech Curriculum? More

Ask Slashdot: How To Fix an Outdated College Tech Curriculum?

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  • This is not a new problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:27AM (#57599670)
    When I went to college 30 years ago it was clear undergrad studies were a good 10-20 years behind the times. The only up to date things were the textbooks, which got revised every 2-3 years so you couldn't buy used versions of them.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Octorian ( 14086 )

        Luckily that was still the time you where a wizzkid if you could start up a computer.

        Back then, I remember many people taking it as a point of social pride that they "didn't even know how to turn the computer on." Because this ignorance made them better than us geeks.

        Now, they're all on Facebook.

        • At one company I asked the IT guy a networking question since he was supposedly the expert, and he said "well, they really didn't teach that in any of my classes..." So he knew how to do things by following instructions but didn't know how to go beyond that.

      • Cobol is a very easy language to learn. In fact, ease of use was Grace's primary design goal. It was supposed to be a language that anyone could read or write.

        When I first had to change a Cobol program, I read the manual for less than an hour, and then started coding. I never had any significant problems.

        If your friend already had a programming background, there is no way he should need two years to learn Cobol.

      • Luckily that was still the time you where a wizzkid if you could start up a computer.
        Many IT managers where selected/apointed, because...
        They where the people who called and asked to change the private IP ranges, because they had mistyped...

        Where = "Where are all of my friends?"
        Were = "All my friends were out back."

        I love you!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rnturn ( 11092 )

          A good college program will include some non-tech classes where writing is the focus. When the papers come back all marked up in red, you learn to proofread. Even though you might be studying to enter a technical field, you'll be expected to be able to write. One can't help but wonder if the execrable state of technical documentation nowadays (printed as well as online) is due to a lack of these classes in the technical majors. I worked for a guy who encouraged us to do a lot of writing about our work and I

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • The purpose of a college degree is not to teach you a state of the art skill. The purpose is to teach the student how to learn new things, how to research new things, how to adapt to new things, and basically how to learn. If the college does not teach that then the graduates will be obsolete in a few years. If someone just wants to learn the state of the art it can be done more cheaply at a trade school.

  • Creating curriculum isn't something than can be (should be) done by just anybody. It is done by an educated educator, who knows how to create curricula. If you really want to change it, you should go to school to get a degree in education, then get a job at this institution, in this particular department, and then write a curriculum for the classes that you're assigned to.
  • Just get youor degree. The degree is the "goal". Worrying about it's relevance to today will not get you anywhere.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xpiotr ( 521809 )
      Agree. You learned the basics, and you learned to learn things quickly, because the world moves quickly.
      But you will always be happy to have the base.
      Example; notice that nested for loops (almost) always uses i, j, k
      It is because i to n where implicit integers in Fortran
      Everything is new and everything is old.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tihstae ( 86842 )

      Agree completely.

      The stated goal of the OP is to flesh out the resume not to learn anything.

      The goal of most students at the University is to get a degree so they can get a higher paying job than packing Amazon packages (1). So who cares what they teach you? Just pay the price for the degree and move on. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just pay for the degree without all the classes? Oh, they have that too! They are called online Universities. They just need to work on the speed at which they give you

      • Agree completely.

        The stated goal of the OP is to flesh out the resume not to learn anything.

        The goal of most students at the University is to get a degree so they can get a higher paying job than packing Amazon packages (1). So who cares what they teach you? Just pay the price for the degree and move on. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just pay for the degree without all the classes? Oh, they have that too! They are called online Universities. They just need to work on the speed at which they give you what you paid for. Why wait the year or year and a half that the online University makes you wait? Why can't they just hand over the degree when you hand over the money?

        (1) This assumes the student is not majoring in liberal arts in which case a job that requires you can ask "You want fries with that" is probably in this student's future.

        Sometimes the truth is brutal, is it not?

        After years of proclaiming that the larvae either had to have a degree, or that they were subhuman pieces of excrement, the students and parents bought into it.

        And ended up believing that any degree at any cost was worth it. And set out to prove it, ending up in debt to sometimes the tune of 100K, for a degree based on giving your opinion on something.

        In a work situation that is now based on lifetime learning, that degree is merely an early step, and people s

        • Grade 13 to 16, perhaps grade 17 to 21 with the same costs as HS +++ and trades track like germany!

          • Grade 13 to 16, perhaps grade 17 to 21 with the same costs as HS +++ and trades track like germany!

            I see nothing wrong with that.

            Of course, the "degree or you're a moron" sycophants will bitch and moan. But they need to lose their bigoted idea that only the intelligent can have degrees.

            Want to see intelligent? take a look at a Master Machinist. I've worked with a number of them, and they are like masters degree mathematicians that wear blue jeans and short sleeved shirts. And the intestinal fortitude to work on huge pieces of metal that can be easily destroyed, costing millions if a mistake is made

  • vote for someone to fix the loans & then the banks will force the colleges to due better as the banks will be the ones left holding the bag when someone with 60K of student loans goes chapter 11 or 7

  • Profession (Asimov) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vlakkies ( 107642 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:38AM (#57599744)

    Asimov's "Profession" is one of my favorites. I teach Computer Science at a 4 year university, and my goal is to teach skills that transcend a particular technology/language/API, while at the same time being relevant to current developments. As a student, you are pretty much out of luck, but as an instructor it takes a lot of effort to resolve the tension between timely and timeless content.

  • Universities Move Slowly (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Strangely enough, universities are slow to change. This is because every class must fit into a degree. They go through a proposal and review cycle, then have to be approved by advisory boards, administration, and finally the board of regents. They might even be included in a college accreditation process. Once they are in the course catalog, the course must be offered or a student might not get their degree. That means that old classes are like zombies hanging around.

    Community colleges change faster.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • As a student you're not going to accomplish anything. Imagine if every semester just one student went to the department head and said, "This is outdated, this is ridiculous, this is asinine, change it all. For I have been *in industry* and I know better than you." The department can't give in to you. If they did, then every semester they would be affecting short term changes based on the whim of the other students like you. There would be no stability. There would be no basis for education or fair evaluatio

    • I think you might be painting too bleak a picture. Yes, curriculum changes can take time. No, they don't take 6+ years all the time. I have successfully reworked an entire course in one year. I did it as an adjunct, meaning I was not part of the normal school process because adjuncts don't do things like curriculum updates. Please see my other comment below with some useful advice to the OP. You may find some of it illuminating.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Quarters ( 18322 )

        Was your change made at a state school? My experience as I've stated it is not exaggerated or embellished. I applaud you for making a change. But, as you've said, a single class change - as long as it fulfills the stated expectations of the curriculum - can be fairly fluid and easily accomplished. Affecting more impactful changes like, "Professional practices should not be a final semester senior year class. How can we move that to the sophomore year?" or "Students in this department need a high-level progr

        • Yes, this was at a public state university. The scope of my change was confined entirely to a single course, so it is a bit different from the more holistic changes you describe. I suppose if I were a tenured professor, I might be more involved to where I would try to make some of those more impactful changes.

  • Here is my process (Score:4, Informative)

    by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:53AM (#57599826)

    What's the best way for a student in my situation to get this fixed so the school stops wasting student's time with outdated and wrong information?

    I am not a student, but an adjunct faculty member. That said, as an adjunct I have very little official authority when it comes to curriculum matters, but I have managed to find success in updating woefully outdated curriculum. I will share some things based on my experience.

    First, I recommend you start by talking with the instructor(s) of the class(es) in question. Request a copy of the master syllabus. This is not the master copy of the syllabus handed out each term, but is actually a specially formatted and fairly detailed documented that describes precisely how the course will meet all of the educational objectives required by the school (and/or any accrediting body). Also get a copy of the course catalog description (you can probably get this yourself from your school catalog online). Also ask the instructor if they are willing to support your effort and advocate for the change before any school personnel or committees involved in the process (as a student you may not be permitted to appear before those personnel or committees to request a curriculum change). Find out if there are minor changes that you can make that satisfy your objective for updating the course without triggering a full academic revision of the course. There may processes in place for smaller changes that require lesser review and approval.

    Then, get to work. Update the master syllabus to reflect what you think would be a better course composition, sequence of topics, etc. Ensure that all required school objectives are still being met or exceeded. Provide supporting documentation. That might include attachments that describe academic developments in the field, analyses about emerging new topics that are shaping the field, etc. Throughout the process work closely with the instructor involved. If you are fortunate enough to be able to interact directly with the course director, then you will have fewer layers to go through. If not, the instructor you are working with will need to make a proposal to the course director, probably the department, and either an undergraduate or graduate committee that reviews and approves curriculum changes.

    You will need to ensure to get buy in from the instructor involved and/or the course director as appropriate before the matter will come before the right committee. Offer to be a TA for the updated course to help get things off to a good start. Offer to write up lecture notes and slides for the new material, offer to write sample homeworks, projects, quizzes, exams, etc., as appropriate for the subject matter.

    You will also need to patient. Keep in mind that for traditional semester schools, Spring registration is already underway (meaning your change would almost certainly not be considered for Spring) and Fall registration will probably open sometime in February or March. That means that if you want to get a course updated for the Fall of next year (which would be the earliest possible update if you started working on it today), you probably only have something like a month to get it all in order. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year's break, and Spring semester start up, you really don't have a big time window to get the job done, so you would have to hustle to have a chance.

    That said, be prepared to wait as well. The committees probably only meet every few months, so you may have to request a special review for something to make it in time for next Fall. That may or may not be feasible depending on your institution and its policies.

    I hear plenty of students complain about stuff like this, but I have not yet seen one actually try to tackle the problem rather than just complain about it. Best of luck.

  • Missing the Point of College (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KalvinB ( 205500 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:55AM (#57599838) Homepage

    The point of college is to learn how to learn.

    If you want to learn the latest buzzwords, go to a trade school.

    If you want to learn how things used to be done so you can some idea of where to begin learning how modern things build on the "old" stuff, then you go to college. There is very little "old" technology that doesn't continue to drive new technology. Syntax might change but concepts don't. You'd be surprised how old the math is for doing 3D graphics. The issue was that technology wasn't fast enough, not that the concepts weren't fully understood and implemented to some degree.

    If you don't see the relevance of "old" concepts in new technology then you're not college material. You're the type of person who just wants to be told what to do and follow directions.

    If you're "overqualified" for a degree in Computer Science, then you best option is to choose a different degree program like Math which is generic enough to get past most HR filters in tech companies.

    • Re:Missing the Point of College (Score:5, Informative)

      by Octorian ( 14086 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @11:04AM (#57599902) Homepage

      There is very little "old" technology that doesn't continue to drive new technology. Syntax might change but concepts don't. You'd be surprised how old the math is for doing 3D graphics.

      When I was in college, I was surprised at how often we read academic papers from the 50's and 60's. The theory and underpinnings really don't change as often as you'd think. Problems like this happen when a class tries to teach "the latest and greatest thing," rather than the fundamentals.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        This.

        When I was at UCSC back in the early '80s, we students wanted to learn practical stuff... like VAX assembler. Yeah.

        What I still use is the "timeless" stuff -- the "basics", for lack of a better word -- that had been around "forever".

        • I'd be happy if kids knew one version of assembler. VAX would be fine, even with octal. 6502 would be fine.

          Just not original 8086...don't want to break their spirit.

      • Yeah, that'd be my advice for anyone looking for a CS program. Find one that teaches the theory and underpinnings rather than that latest fads.

        I had a book on my reading list that my father had used in his degree thirty years earlier. You can always learn new languages later, and the core concepts rarely change.

  • Have a conversation with the different Professors on the curriculum committee. Make sure you have a good replacement suggestion for the bad course.

  • Don't take a degree in your field of work. You'll always be disappointed. I tried the same thing a few years ago after working in graphic arts for several years. The beginning Illustrator course was so mind-numbingly basic, they had a whole unit on turning on the computer. When I finally went back for my bachelors, I moved from marketing & graphic design to finance so I wouldn't waste years sitting in classes "learning" things I already knew.

    • Seconded. The one useful class I took was "communications". It made me better at PowerPoint. The rest was just for the line item on my resume.

  • A undergrad program should not be a tech school. This is problem with CS education in general. Very few schools are teaching CS - they are teaching programing. Programing is a moving target that changes all the time. It should be the focus. Ditto for lots of security topics; the focus should be on the principles and the why, less on the how.

    Since the OP talked about biometrics what should someone with an undergrad degree know about them -
    When to use biometrics?
    When not to use biometrics?
    speak to ethic

  • Fight as hard as you possibly can to fix this travesty. There is no reason you need to stand for this. Fight so hard that you don't have any time to study, do well, or participate in class in any kind of meaningful way. After you are removed from your degree program, then explain to all future employers the true reason you don't have a degree.

    This will, in fact, help those employers hire exactly the type of employee they want.

    A huge majority of ANY job (including the job I created for myself, with owning my

  • The one I work for has a Curriculum Committee for each course, and any instructor can suggest improvements (often relayed from the students). Most higher education institutions have a Program Chair or Division Chair that is responsible for the quality of the education in the area they are responsible for; find out who they are and email them or speak to them in person.

    Different schools also have different refresh rates, and different procedures when they do. For my school a Subject Matter Expert (SME) will

  • In the same boat as the OP, but worse. Worse because I teach as an adjunct (Linux admin stuff, SQL intro, etc) for the AS program that feeds our BAS due to my decades of technical background.

    Nothing on version control or unit testing. Nothing on Agile/Scrum/Kanban or other software dev management styles. One of my recent assignments was over how to to go a website and use the web app provided to build a "3d" lego avatar. One of my upcoming assignments is to document how I interact with the Internet for

  • Any formalised education is going to be outdated when it comes to a fast moving field like technology.

    By the time the curriculum has been devised, the course material/books printed and distributed etc, the information is going to be out of date. Even if something is up to date when taught, by the time the students finish their classes and enter the field the information will be dated.

    So a well written curriculum is going to teach more general concepts and how they could apply more generally.

  • Before you proceed, first ask yourself if the class fulfills its purpose. You have 15 years in the field - but most students have zero. Is the course out of date, or is it just covering the basics?

    If it really is 10 years out of date, then you have two avenues to try. First, if you have an otherwise ok impression of the instructor, that's the place to start. Let him/her know of your experience, and offer to write down a list of topics and material that you see as relevant.

    But honestly: I don't see this firs

  • Skip the classes, take the exam (Score:4, Interesting)

    by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @12:40PM (#57600584)

    If you need some kind of certification or piece of paper that says you know something, there are plenty of institutions that will let you take an exam, do those. In the end nobody cares where you got the rag, just that you have one if you're just starting out (and often we don't even care about that).

    If you have 15 years of experience, why still pound on about your education, just demonstrate that you have kept up with certifications and/or on-the-job education.

    Unless you want to break into upper management and need an MBA, there is not much reason to go into full-time school with 15y of experience, in some cases it may even demonstrate the reverse - that you needed an entry level class to get up to speed with current events, that's not a good signal.

  • Is the information in the textbooks being used outdated because it's incorrect? Or it is just too old for your tastes? "OMG! This calculus textbook is 9 years old! Why am I learning something that's clearly outdated?" Or is it outdated because it doesn't emphasize the latest technology du jour?

    I seem to recall that the information in most textbooks--at least the printed ones--was something like 4-5 years old when it got into the classrooms due to the writing/editing/printing/distribution process. In some f

  • I'm still programming and I think the education that I experienced would be great for anyone just starting out. It was extremely rigorous and challenging. We learned theory, practice and, most of all, how to solve problems. Maybe things have changed?
  • Every degree sets out to cover a syllabus which was set before year 1 begins. It's Rarely updated Mid-year, and never in meaningful ways end of year.
    My degree was in Electronics. The course and lecturers have their heads in the last millennium. They didn't teach me thermionic valves, but did teach much redundant crap. They all ran scared when I ran my project at 250Mhz, and had no facilities for building my board.
    Lecturers get lazy, and are reluctant to go learning new tech. Most of them wouldn't get a
  • As many posters have said, it doesn't matter that the curriculum is outdated. If you can get good grades it means you CAN study. Do you think study is now over? If you do then you are going nowhere. To keep relevant in a technical field you must study throughout your life. What (I hope) you've got now is a good foundation.

  • ... and don't forget to let the old administration know why.

  • I designed an entire curriculum for a university in South America and worked there for 15 years and here are some insights that came from that experience:

    1. A good curriculum is aspirational. It aspires to leave the structure so that good professors can come along and do a good job without the bureaucracy getting in the way. (Which is a .big problem in some Universities)

    2. Universities have a tendency to prefer PhDs and research over instruction. I believe this is a great mistake. While having some top notc

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