I don't know what to do.

[alexr_rwx]

Edutech makes me want to get out of school and into the workforce. This class. This class, oh my god, makes me want to claw my eyes out. I realized today that I spent four and a half hours sitting and listening to people talk about things that I either already knew or didn't find interesting in the slightest.

I'm perfectly capable of learning things by means of reading a book. Your research does nothing for me. Yes, in order to learn things, people should do Personally Meaningful Projects. Yes, learning is an active process. No, I don't care how you would classify a particular set of buzzwords, whether it counts as "Problem Based" or "Project Based" or "Cognitive Apprenticeship". These are not things in the real world. These are categories that people (such as yourself) made up.

It might not be school-in-general. It might just be edutech. I think I can see the value in taking a class on computability and algorithms and stuff, or about language design or AI. These are things I need to know, I think.

Janet, you make industry very tempting, though. (metasyntactic expletive)+

But I'm 23 years old, and I've spent the last 17 of those years in classrooms. Maybe it's time to not be in a classroom anymore.

Comments

[lindseykuper]

I feel you, man. I'm really glad nobody made me take a class like that. *twitch*

I like "the work force", but I miss Automata.

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

Formal models of computation make me happy too :) That looks like a verra entertaining class.

'metasyntactic expletive' <interrobang>

[sault.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I envision a conversation that occurs in jargon as a walk through a sea sponge.

You'll make it through the buzz-word-bound malarkey, yo.

Re: 'metasyntactic expletive' <interrobang>

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

Thank you :) I just needed to blow up for a minute. Sometimes you have to scream then calm down and figure out what to do...

Eh, whom'm I kidding? It's always better to curse the darkness than light candles! (Oh, poor, poor pitiful me.)

(also: in my mind, there's a difference between jargon and buzzwords... jargon is happy and communication-improving, whereas buzzwords obscure meaning and are useful only for fuzzy-thinking sorts)

[zip4096.livejournal.com]

Wow, Edutech sounds really, really obnoxious. What a waste of time for you, huh? :(

What's Janet do?

I wonder if you'd be happy in Mountain View, Alex! :) Granted, I'm not all that happy doing the data center thing, but software engineering is a completely different job: eg, 20% projects (http://www.eightypercent.net/Archive/2005/03/24.html) and tech talks from really cool people...

It's encouraging that you still think of real CS classes as having value, however! That's a good sign...

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

It's pretty obnoxious. I was probably just randomly mad, though... a better perspective on it all may be in order.

Janet does what I'm working on -- trying to figure out how to larn the young'uns an edumacation...

... maybe they'll get you in a more hackerful position soon :) And/or maybe I'll decide to take a break from school and go do something productive. Or maybe we'll all decide to go into the mulch business.

Dude, we could totally take people's yard trash, grind it up, and then sell it back to them. And we could do composting similarly. And rent out mulching equipment...

[elysianboarder.livejournal.com]

Isn't that what they did in Fight Club with people's fat?

Soapy goodness

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

The similarity occurred to me as I said it, yesh :)

It's a good business model, anyway... and probably best that people don't make the connection between the "yard trash" that we're getting rid of and the mulch that magically shows up in their yard soon thereafter...

[reality-calls.livejournal.com]

I'll be entering the workforce soon.  If you're thinking about starting a business, by all means give me a call!  I could be your first acolyte-- uh, employee, I mean!

      "Live from the People's Republic"

[reality-calls.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to let you know that I sympathize with you all the way.  I believe the arbitrary categorizations and meaningless drivel in general that I've been subjected to in my school experience is going to take years off of my life.  The private sector actually seems inviting nowadays.

      "Live from the People's Republic"