College Requires All CS Majors To Take An Improv Class (wsj.com) 353
Northeastern University requires all of its computer science majors to take improv -- a class in theatre and improvisation, taught by professors in the drama department. The Wall Street Journal says it "forces students to come out of their shells and exercise creative play" before they can get their diplomas. (Although when the class was made mandatory in 2016, "We saw a lot of hysterics and crying," says Carla E. Brodley, dean of the computer science department.)
So what happens to the computer science majors at Northeastern? The course requires public speaking, lecturing on such nontechnical topics as family recipes. Students also learn to speak gibberish -- 'butuga dubuka manala phuthusa,' for instance... One class had students stare into a classmate's eyes for 60 seconds. If someone laughed, you had to try again...
The class is a way to 'robot-proof' computer-science majors, helping them sharpen uniquely human skills, said Joseph E. Aoun, the university president. Empathy, creativity and teamwork help students exercise their competitive advantage over machines in the era of artificial intelligence, according to Mr. Aoun, who wrote a book about it... Other professionals agree that improv can teach the teamwork and communication required of working with others. Many software applications now are built in small teams, a collaboration of engineers, writers and designers.
So what happens to the computer science majors at Northeastern? The course requires public speaking, lecturing on such nontechnical topics as family recipes. Students also learn to speak gibberish -- 'butuga dubuka manala phuthusa,' for instance... One class had students stare into a classmate's eyes for 60 seconds. If someone laughed, you had to try again...
The class is a way to 'robot-proof' computer-science majors, helping them sharpen uniquely human skills, said Joseph E. Aoun, the university president. Empathy, creativity and teamwork help students exercise their competitive advantage over machines in the era of artificial intelligence, according to Mr. Aoun, who wrote a book about it... Other professionals agree that improv can teach the teamwork and communication required of working with others. Many software applications now are built in small teams, a collaboration of engineers, writers and designers.
Sounds like a nightmare. (Score:2, Insightful)
All throughout my school years, there were always these sick sadist "teachers" who forced me to participate in all kinds of stupid "games" and crap. I hated it all. I want nothing to do with disgusting humans for a very good reason, and the ones I *would* want something to do with are not going to participate in anything like this or ever speak to me.
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Oh good, ways to weed out horrible UI designers, and coders who go along with it. State your name for the record?
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Today's UIs are horrible.. They are also not typically designed by the programmers but by so-called UX 'designers.' More LCD designed-by-committee garbage.
Re: Sounds like a nightmare. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think instead of the current inefficient system, instead of colleges full of administrators, deans and the crazy cat lady with her "diversity" classes, we should instead simply have a certification board that administers a battery of really difficult final STEM exams, they might as well have been drafted in hell - and whoever passes those gets the title and honors. No matter if you spent the past six years preparing for these finals, or whether you merely skimmed through a bunch of textbooks the day befor
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The class is a way to 'robot-proof' computer-science majors, helping them sharpen uniquely human skills, said Joseph E. Aoun, the university president.
He's obviously the robot in the equation... I think he might be trying to replicate.
Re:Sounds like a nightmare. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It just means he's not the crazy outgoing extrovert you (and the other industry 'leadership' extroverts pushing this garbage) apparently expect everyone to be. Most good engineers aren't and never will be. Forcing it on them (esp the part about staring into someone's eyes) is borderline torture.
It's also interesting that drama students don't have to take Fundamentals of Algorithm Design.
Re:Sounds like a nightmare. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It just means he's not the crazy outgoing extrovert you
This is hardly "crazy outgoing extrovert" stuff. Extraversion goes to whole other levels.
Most good engineers aren't and never will be.
Engineering is a team sport. Very few things are small enough to be engineered by a single person. That means to be anything approaching useful engineer[*] then you need to be able to deal with people in some capacity and that means you need to be able to actually interact with people. I think it's laudable the college is teaching to the way the world actually is rather than teaching to the way people wish the world to be.
It's also interesting that drama students don't have to take Fundamentals of Algorithm Design.
Not really.
[*] I guess you can be a basement coder who sticks to small systems and other minor stuff and never talks to anyone.
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Engineering programs already mandate English and Comm 101 courses. That's plenty.
Not wanting to do acting/drama classes is not the same as not wanting or not having the ability to communicate well with others on engineering projects.
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I wouldn't mind the Improv requirement if there were non-drama-department classes that would fill it; for example, wouldn't Improv Cooking teach the same things?
Or Improv Electronics Repair, where you practice the communication methods used to comfort the client and reassure them, even before you've found the problem!
Or let the Communication Department teach a Bedside Manner class that would teach the same stuff.
Let the Improv classes be serious classes for people who want to work in the Entertainment Indus
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>No. It just means he's not the crazy outgoing extrovert you (and the other industry 'leadership' extroverts pushing this garbage) apparently expect everyone to be. Most good engineers aren't and never will be. Forcing it on them (esp the part about staring into someone's eyes) is borderline torture.
You can teach social skills, and public speaking skills, despite some people thinking it is impossible. Being comfortable in front of a group of people and not afraid of making a fool of yourself is one of th
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You can teach social skills, and public speaking skills, despite some people thinking it is impossible.
Do you have a citation for that? This just sounds like more of the same old outgoing extroverts thinking that everyone needs to be just like them and that there is something wrong with introverts for being the way they are. There is nothing wrong with being an introvert or a misanthrope. We don't need to be fixed. Maybe it is the extroverts that need to be fixed. Maybe if they didn't spend so much time socializing they could actually get stuff done. I have known a lot of extroverts who had problems achievin
I was in the medical field first... (Score:2)
Before I was a comp-sci major.
You don't want to tell me to "sharpen" ANYTHING.
Skip to the chase.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Teach them how to manipulate people.
Seriously, it's an extremely valuable skill. People can be hacked just like computer systems. Psychology.. works.
I guess that makes me sound like a sociopath.. but seriously, my life got a lot easier after I figured a few things out.
They have that (Score:2)
unpopular opinion... (Score:5, Insightful)
Liberal arts students go through their degree, and take no stem classes and the reaction is: "Oh god, getting through college without learning anything"
Forcing STEM students to do something outside of their comfort-zone and it's "Oh god, what a waste of time"
What ever happened to college being about producing well educated, well rounded citizens?
Vocational schools need to make a come back.
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Re:unpopular opinion... (Score:4, Insightful)
School vs University (Score:2)
University is for going into a subject in great depth so that
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Not true. Firstly it was lang OR lit, and secondly it wasn't every university.
I know this because I had a classmate in 6th form who was really good at maths and pretty good at chemistry and physics but resat O level English at every opportunity, all to no avail - couldn't get above a D. While it narrowed his choices somewhat he did get in at (IIRC) Read
Re: unpopular opinion... (Score:2)
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What? Communication skills (which is what improv teaches and builds) are not useful? You never communicate with others? And creative thinking - linking seemingly random "dots" together to create a new narrative, a new story - is not useful in STEM?
I attribute what I have achieved not to the fact I have multiple STEM degrees, but to the fact I am a good communicator, I am an engaging speaker, I can make links and associations most others can't (thus the dozens of patents), and know how to explore with a
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Liberal arts students go through their degree, and take no stem classes and the reaction is: "Oh god, getting through college without learning anything"
Forcing STEM students to do something outside of their comfort-zone and it's "Oh god, what a waste of time"
These two things are not contradictory.
because most point job need specialization (Score:2)
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Yeah. I find this to be one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time. I think anyone yipping over it around here is probably in DIRE need of this.
Aren't we the ones screeching and moaning about "stupid MBAs never lsitening to engineers"? Well, this would be a great start to build some socials skills and to learn how to make yourself heard without risking your job.
You got no time for that? Well, chances are you personally are NOT one of the 3% genious engineers that keep this world going so I highly doubt
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What ever happened to college being about producing well educated, well rounded citizens?
That's a great idea. Forcing them to all be well-rounded in the same way isn't a net gain, though.
I'll interview a NE CS grad if (Score:3)
they can hack into their school registrar's department and waive this course requirement for them.
Double points if they mention "Kobiyashi Maru"
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Your preference is someone so hell bent on not having social interaction that they go out of their way to not complete the task at hand and cheat instead without delivering an end product?
Before you hire that person you should probably make the rest of your team aware so they can quit without having to work with such a toxic co-worker.
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Yeah, you have a point there.
Hire the guy that hacks the system and sells waivers to their peers.
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You're making assumptions regarding his motives and discounting the benefits to an organisation of entrepreneurial spirit and business nous.
Simply transfer (Score:2, Insightful)
Why force introverts to do something they dont want or need to do. This wont bring people out of their shells, it will merely traumatize them.
Nothing about CompSci should require drama or public speaking.
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Well, the CompSci geekoids are delicate little snowflakes who should never be asked to do something they don't like.
Steriotypes (Score:2)
Sounds like this college is taking "nerd" stereotypes too seriously.
Most of my college mates where snow boarders, mountain climbers and liked lots of outdoorsy stuff.
Plenty had good social skills. I think CS departments need to focus on increasing their CS course offerings rather than adding silly additional requirements.
I'd like to see one college ranking that was based on what undergrads really need: plenty of course variety and course quality. All the usual stuff they base rankings are not that relevant
Stereotypes are OFTEN out of date! (Score:2)
Most people refer to THEIR past experience or education... These people are likely above 40 and going of college experience or their education on demographics from 20+ years ago! (also to an extrovert, they will see more people than there actually is.)
CS majors have increased at least 2x from a decade ago. Before that it was booming with normal people beginning to take over the majority after dot-com wave 20 years ago... Nerd majority has been GONE for a long time and probably wasn't above 60% in the 90s.
A
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Cue the nerds (Score:4, Funny)
Improve (Score:2)
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Yes, why ever learn how to communicate, how to connect seemingly random dots, how to respond to something on-the-fly? It's not like you will ever have to communicate with another person, try to show them why your idea is the better one, and why that hole you ignored really doesn't matter. Just look at the code, it's self-explanatory!
And why should we make them take business classes, who needs to know about economics or even balancing a checkbook? Why should they even have a clue about budgeting at all, a
These people didn't choose CS for the people ... (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:2)
This is nothing new. I had to take classes on art / art history, business relations, how to give presentations / lectures, and a whole lot of other bullshit that didn't pertain to the actual education I was going after.
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And it probably made you a better employee because of it. It may not have directly impacted your principal responsibilities at your job, but having basic communication skills, business foundations, cultural knowledge makes you a person who can actually relate to others, hopefully understand some of the other aspects of the business (not just your little world-o-code), and a potential for advancement. THAT'S the point.
Companies really do want more than just a code-monkey (if that's all they wanted, there's [upwork.com]
Backlash (Score:2)
I expect a lot of CS students will start transferring to different schools if possible asap.
I also expect the number of people applying for the CS program next semester to drop off a bit now that this is national news.
How many and how much is an unknown, but forcing someone to do something that goes against their core nature is not a great way to entice students to your school.
Consider the thing you hate to do most. Now ask yourself if would you go to a school that required you to do that thing when you co
Software developer who took an improv class (Score:5, Interesting)
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I am a developer in my 40s and I started improv classes 8 months ago here in Switzerland.
Why ? Did someone force you ?
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You missed the part about the "wife" and playing improv games with her?
I understood that this happened a few weeks after signing up for the classes, as indicated by the words "Then one night..."
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I am a developer in my 40s and I started improv classes 8 months ago here in Switzerland. [...] If I could of overcome these fears 20 years ago that might of had a profound impact on my life.
You're only in your 40s. You most likely have plenty of time for it to have a profound impact.
Sause for the goose (Score:2)
The class is a way to 'robot-proof' computer-science majors, helping them sharpen uniquely human skills
So do they require all arts students to take a computing course, helping them to sharpen their technical skills and understand the world they will be entering
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important for Comp-Sci students to learn empathy and compassion, because there is a distinct lack of that in today's tech world.
I think they should relax the requirements: you stare into each others eyes for 60 seconds and try not to be a raging dickhead. If one of you fails you restart. Even that would improve things.
36...
37...
38...
[one guy starts to sweat]
39...
40...
[guy goes red]
41...
42...
43...
[guy starts to shake]
44...
45...
46...
"Christ you're a fucking idiot for using virutal functions. Everybody knows
Where does the time come from? (Score:2)
When I did my computing degree, many a year ago, we ran 8 hour days of lectures. To keep myself going, I had a job in a bar that I worked most evenings (so it was cycle home, quick bite to eat and then out). Most of the rest of the time was doing coursework.
Part of the course included doing presentations to the class, so we were also 'trained' in public speaking (which is a very useful skill for the field).
So, the question comes, what extra time are you going to add to the curriculum of an already tired s
Fine, no problem (Score:2)
My two most useful courses (Score:3)
I often joke that the two most directly applicable course I took in college to my current career (infosec) were logic and rhetoric, and psychology. THe former to learn how to construct a coherent argument and the later to know which argument to use with which person.
Surprisingly neither COBOL nor Prolog figure strongly into my day to day.
Min
Part of the reason Americans are mentally ill (Score:2)
I suspect that treating introversion like a disease adds a lot to the public mental health problem. Sure, if someone is clearly autistic a lot of people would tell them how great they are and that it's perfectly fine, but if someone just prefers not to publicly speak or participate in group activities that's a problem and they must be taken outside their comfort zone to 'fix them'.
Instead of trying to fix those on the 'thinking spectrum', how about trying to be nice them them, to not look down at them, to n
So they can BS better? (Score:2)
Improv for better product release walkthroughs (Score:2)
Every developer dreads the release walkthrough, where your work is to perform for the first time under the pin-eyed gaze of customer representatives. No matter how carefully you prepare, something embarrassingly unexpected will go wrong. Apple's first iPhone with Face ID refused to unlock for Tim Cook on stage because during setup for the demo, too many backstage people had glanced at it.
Because the essence of improv is spontaneity, you could gain the ability to apply instant spin with humor to deflect atte
It's your "major", not your "only" course of study (Score:3)
Students don't have to abandon their field in order to learn something outside of a very narrow domain. The fact that people react so violently to being asked to do this is an indicator that they need it. Nobody's asking them to base their entire academic career on something completely alien to them.
They're only being asked to learn a little of the "other" while at uni. If a student *just* wants to learn a single subject they don't need a whole college or university to do that.
If I'm hiring somebody and they tell me they've graduated college I'm going to expect they know a little more about the world than just what's on the job description. My only complaint is that this sort of requirement should apply to *all* students, not just CS majors. Maybe they do require it, but I'll have to comment on the first few lines of the article as it's paywalled (Is /. shilling for wsj now?).
Where I went to school *everybody* had to take freshman physics; whether your major was in the school of science, engineering, architecture, whatever. And everybody had to complete a Humanities and Social Sciences core curriculum. So you have physics majors taking intro-level philosophy. Most of us seemed to survive it, and a lot of us learned some skills we'd have otherwise missed.
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Good! More needed! (Score:3)
Once you get out in the real world, you need to know how to communicate ideas, how to speak in front of a group, and how to think creatively as part of a team. Improv and theater will absolutely improve those kinds of skills. If you want to be the stereotypical Cheetos-eating loser in the back closet - ignore your ability to communicate, to present, to solve problems creatively in a group. Just don't come whining when you're passed over again and again for any raises or promotions.
A university degree used to mean someone skilled in many things, and highly skilled in one particular area (university - universal learning, exposure to many different fields). If you just want that one area, go to DeVry or some other place that focuses on building automatons, not well-rounded individuals.
Re:Seems like waste of time (Score:4, Insightful)
And money.
Of the student's money, maybe. I'm cynical so I suspect that this is an effort to support tenured professors of classes that are falling out of favor now that people are looking harder at the cost/benefit of "higher" education.
I get that it can help many people out and I'm all for them offering and promoting it, but requiring such classes seems a bit extreme and self-serving.
Re:Seems like waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)
I did a double major in Theatre and English Literature in university, and then went on to spend a couple of decades coding and working in tech.
I learned an immense amount of deeply technical matters in theatre. I had to learn basic engineering, the physics of sound and light, electronics and much, much more. I used to be able to calculate lighting power loads in my head.
And yes, we spent classes learning to communicate with only gibberish, or without speaking at all. We did silly trust exercises and re-learned basic movement, speech, vocalisation and other skills.
But the single most important thing I learned—a skill I still use every single day—is how to put my fucking ego and even my dignity aside and focus on joining my efforts with those of others in order to create something that is bigger than anyone's individual contribution.
The number of entitled, holier-than-thou shitheads who think they don't owe it to the world to actually live in it is way too high in tech. If your entire self-image can't survive a few hours a week actually learning to communicate, then I feel genuinely sorry for you.
I'm not sentimental, and most of the left's touchy-feely, sharing-caring emotional virtue signaling sends me to the exits quicker than fire in a match factory. But these particular exercises provide you with tangible, useful, reusable skills that you can apply to any collaborative project, and the people who pooh-pooh these things are the ones who are most lacking in them.
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But these particular exercises provide you with tangible, useful, reusable skills that you can apply to any collaborative project, and the people who pooh-pooh these things are the ones who are most lacking in them
I agree it's nice if you can do both, but there are still opportunities in life for brilliant engineers that can't do improv or talk gibberish. Would be a shame to fail the next Einstein because he sucks at poetry.
Re:Seems like waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Would be a shame to fail the next Einstein because he sucks at poetry
On the other hand, that poetry class might just make the next Einstein better able to express himself. So make him take the class, but don't fail him on the exam (if there even is one).
Re:Seems like waste of time (Score:4, Insightful)
Standard for college (Score:4, Informative)
A bachelors is already "forcing" you to take a ton of classes not related to your major, they're called GE. If a person doesn't see value in broad based education then they can go to a trade school.
Personally, I think a lot of techies in these forums would have benefited from more classes in the social sciences. The "data" provided in some people's posts completely baffles me sometimes. "I posted links to two anecdotes, this proves everything I want it to prove!". Sigh...
Re:Seems like waste of time (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, that poetry class might just make the next Einstein better able to express himself.
Einstein, as it turns out, was able to express himself brilliantly. His seminal papers are short, to the point, and amazingly easy to read if you have anywhere close to the relevant background.
If you think poetry will be useful to you, by all means do that. Hell, for all I know Einstein went through a poetry phase as an angsty teen. But it's a dick move to force extroversion exercises on introverts.
Re:Seems like waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Einstein also knew a fair amount of philosophy and he'd have been one of the first to tell you that the softer subjects matter.
Re:Seems like waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)
But these particular exercises provide you with tangible, useful, reusable skills that you can apply to any collaborative project, and the people who pooh-pooh these things are the ones who are most lacking in them
I agree it's nice if you can do both, but there are still opportunities in life for brilliant engineers that can't do improv or talk gibberish. Would be a shame to fail the next Einstein because he sucks at poetry.
Unfortunately, the number of people who think they are brilliant and thus deserve special treatment far exceeds the number of truly brilliant people.
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there are still opportunities in life for brilliant engineers that can't do improv or talk gibberish.
Only if you can completely avoid presentations to management, surely.
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Team work can be taught in many ways, a lot of which don't require learning gibberish.
I'd rather they force a year's military service than this bollocks.
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Yes, there are those that enjoy and are good at it but forcing people to participate doesn't make others "better". I never did and yet - I was lead dancer and chorus singer in a Gilbert and Sullivan co
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I learned an immense amount of deeply technical matters in theatre. I had to learn basic engineering, the physics of sound and light, electronics and much, much more. I used to be able to calculate lighting power loads in my head.
Wait, are you saying you learned to do basic addition in your head? It's shocking, shocking I say, that they make those poor theatre students learn all that technical crap...
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Wait, are you saying you learned to do basic addition in your head? It's shocking, shocking I say, that they make those poor theatre students learn all that technical crap...
I do so wish that was absurd hyperbole. These days, basic numeracy sadly puts you above the norm. It's an era of "math" classes that teach which buttons to push on a calculator.
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I learned an immense amount of deeply technical matters in theatre. I had to learn basic engineering, the physics of sound and light, electronics and much, much more. I used to be able to calculate lighting power loads in my head.
Basic AC/DC circuits are not 'deeply technical' matters to an electrical engineer. They're basic knowledge.
The number of entitled, holier-than-thou shitheads who think they don't owe it to the world to actually live in it is way too high in tech.
Just because they don't want to (or can't) memorize speeches or prance around on stage like fairies doesn't mean they "don't want to live in it." It's holier than thou shitheads like you (and this NEU wanker) who think everyone should prioritize sociability over everything else. Take your own advice and realize not everyone has your temperament and those differing temperaments come with different adva
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Re:Dump this school (Score:5, Insightful)
Most incoming freshmen don't know what they want to learn. The rest think they want to learn one thing because 1) they think it will make them money, even though the economy will probably change by the time they graduate or 2) because their parents told them to learn the one thing or 3) they picked something at random or some guidance counselor pointed them in a direction.
University is not a trade school. If you're going to university because you want a particular job, save your money. Or, open your mind a little bit. You'll live a happier, more fulfilled life. Get out of your comfort zone, snowflake. Take chances. This may be your last chance to really try stuff that's off the track. Take advantage of it.
Re:Dump this school (Score:5, Interesting)
University is not a trade school. If you're going to university because you want a particular job, save your money
I went to university to get a degree in CS. About 95% of my courses were all hard-core technical stuf: calculus, databases, computer architecture, electrical engineering (mostly digital), silicon, algorithms, theoretical CS, functional programming, physics, signals and filters, stochastics, linear algebra, software engineering, user interfaces, and so on... the rest was a bit of philosophy and business. None of the course work was geared towards a particular job, but yet, there was virtually nothing outside the core.
Yes, this is my comfort zone. I'm very happy to be a productive snowflake in my field of expertise.
Or, open your mind a little bit.
Shouldn't that apply to everybody then ? Let's see the reaction when we require art students to take a course in physics or calculus.
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Shouldn't that apply to everybody then ? Let's see the reaction when we require art students to take a course in physics or calculus.
Every US university I'm familiar with does require all students to pass a college algebra course, and there are always science requirements as well, with physics being one of the options.
Re:Dump this school (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, open your mind a little bit. You'll live a happier, more fulfilled life. Get out of your comfort zone, snowflake. Take chances. This may be your last chance to really try stuff that's off the track. Take advantage of it.
If your goal is to open minds and get people out of their comfort zone, then I suggest a two-years mandatory military service. Not only you will learn a lot about yourself, the world, and human nature in general, but you will also learn extremely useful skills, like discipline, responsibility and the ability to lead a group.
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I don't disagree, William. However, I would make that two-years mandatory national service and could include Peace Corps or Vista (Americorps) service. Maybe going to Alabama to teach Republican legislators how women's reproductive systems work. Plus, it should be paid mandatory service.
I have noticed that people who did a stint in the military or Peace Corps or Vista make for goo
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The University's job (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good information (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? This sounds interesting. College is all about being confronted with ideas and experiences that challenge you, frighten you, or that you might not be "naturally" good at. If the theater majors have to take some math and science, the CS people should take (a few) improv classes to learn to connect and empathize with an audience, to develop communications skills, organize thoughts on the fly, think creatively under pressure, etc. These are all skills and patterns that will be invaluable in a CS career, and in life in general, and would be likely to open up some doors for people who might otherwise never consider or risk trying it.
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If you want communication skills to aid team work, you take a Small Group Communication class not an acting class. Does the improv class go over how to ensure all team members have their chance to speak and participate? How to keep meetings on topic? How to run brainstorming sessions? How to deal with personality conflicts? Etc... The answers are no. Improv more teaches to you to make up stuff and lie to everyone, things you don't want in a SW development team. Presentations and problem-solving shou
Re:Good information (Score:5, Insightful)
Improv more teaches to you to make up stuff and lie to everyone, things you don't want in a SW development team. Presentations and problem-solving should be intertwined within the CS classes.
The assumptions and conclusions you draw from those assumptions make the need for such classes all the more imperative. This is nothing like what improv is about. Seriously, go sign up and see if it's about lying to everyone.
Well engineered projects make everyone's lives easier, creatively developed projects makes everyone's lives hell.
If you think creativity is spontaneous, look into the research about it.
These statements are astounding in their wrongness. Absolutely incredible.
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I have 2 mod points left, but somehow cannot give +1. Did I post here already? Either way +1 attempted.
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Well, creativity isn't exactly spontaneous...more accurately, the event is spontaneous, but its based on a huge background of study and information, and often the culmination of days, weeks, even months, of conscious effort at invention. So I guess it depends on what you mean by spontaneous.
One of the best documented examples has to do with the discovery of the structure of the benzene ring, but it's far from the only one. Thomas Edison is reputed to have said "Genius Is One Percent Inspiration, Ninety-Ni
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Why? This sounds interesting. College is all about being confronted with ideas and experiences that challenge you, frighten you
Woah! Trigger warning! I need to get to my safe space. Don't you know that ideas and experiences that challenge and frighten me are from literal NAZIS? We can't have that. Not on my campus.
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However, it might be possible to get those skills using classic instruction formats traditionally used in teaching CS anyway
In Germany, we tend to have (pro)seminars, where students prepare a talk on a topic (usually a book chapter in the proseminar for bachelor students, a research paper for the seminar for master students), and the other participants of the seminar also ask questions during / after the talk. I believe it is similar in the rest of the world.
So when at my university some regulation (I don't
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Your punctuation. Isn't exactly brilliant.
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The cordiality, caring and strait up joy you exude is an example for us all.
Please don't reproduce.
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Look you stupid asswipe, you may lack people skills, but not everyone does. My people skills are fine. Moron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Otherwise, there is just no reason for someone in the US to even bother.
You mean, other than the $250k total compensation that a bachelor degree can pull down right now in Silicon Valley? Or, even better, because you actually like programming.
Re: Who wants a CS major anyway? (Score:2)
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And the aggressively creative males who refuse or can't? Are they flunked out and not allowed to contribute to technology?
Just what the world needs, more aggressive males with high IQ, a grudge against the world, and nothing to lose.
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FIY the GP reads like it is agreeing with you. Imagine if you wrote that part yourself.
Correct. Thank you.
Wrong stereotyped demographic (Score:2)
It's EXTROVERTS and also likely people not fully in the career mindset... perhaps they worked as a manager or something for a while before they failed and went into education (not implying all failures are in education; I think most failures are in management positions.. that old expression: rising to the level of your incompetence.)
It's not women, even though people going this directions might tend to be women but think of the demographics where women were heavily discouraged in the past from going down pa
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Once again I fall victim to Poe's law. This is hilariously over the top but yet some people seem to be responding with agreement.
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The problem isn't the robotic IT techs. The problem is the over emotional users.
No the problem is IT techs who believe they are rational automatons but are in fact seething balls of emotion. I've found that the people who strongly believe themselves to be rational and beyond human emotions are usually the least so; they make snap emotional judgements but believe they reached it with hyper rational means and this means a huge amount of their personal identity is now tied up in every decision.
Dealing with peo