education

On 2025-02-24, Rich wrote:
D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

 >>> Not compared to git.  They did not get to see git.  They just hated
 >>> fossil to the point of almost giving up on the whole course altogether.
 >>> Very likely they knew that other courses would give them the same
 >>> credits and they could try it afresh on the next semester.

 >> Ahh, got it!  Yes, sadly this happens to me as well.  At the slightest
 >> hint of difficulty or effort, about 20% of the class riots, complains
 >> to the school that the teacher is evil, that the difficulty level
 >> should be lowered etc.

 > The result of 20+ years of "everyone gets a participation trophy, and
 > no winners are declared" parenting.....

Reminds me of our "technique of speech" (i. e., standard
pronunciation and the physiology of speech; little if anything
to do with, say, writing speeches) professor who just plain
declared "everyone gets a credit, those not interested - out!"
right at the start.

So, everyone's got a credit as their "participation trophy"; those
who were interested, got skills on top of that; and the professor
was spared the ire of the administration.  Who were the winners is,
I suppose, up to debate.

 >> They do not realize, that the only ones they are cheating by doing
 >> that are themselves.

 > They lack the wisdom that comes with age to recognize this fact.
 > Some of them will wise up early enough to be able to succeed.  The
 > rest will be set for "table waitress with master's degree" careers.

And this, in turn reminds me of the decades-old "two mathematicians
and a waitress" joke; see, e. g. (URI split for readability):

http://web.archive.org/web/20190622112330/
http://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/jokes1/joke-086.html

And of "My Contribution to Society" by Icicle (probably NSFW.)

But the thing is, I did a number of jobs; a lecturer, a remote
sensing specialist, a junior researcher, an engineer.  I can
imagine myself sweeping floors, though perhaps not for too long.
Being a table waiter is a job that I don't find in myself the
ability to do.  So one of the factors that pushed me through the
university was indeed the desire not to be forced to try (and
likely fail) doing waiter's job for a living.

Waiter's job isn't useless in my book, however, so I can admire
those who /can/ do it.

 >> One guy told me he had no idea and it was amazing the day he
 >> understood the terminal concept.  He went on to become a rock star!
 >> Those students are what makes it worth it for me.

 > And he was someone who *should* have been in that course.  Many of the
 > others were likely only present because they had been told the degree
 > was a magic paper towards a big salary (while omitting that they have
 > to know what the F they are doing for the magic paper to gain them the
 > big salary).

My impression so far has been that a lot of them were told that
the degree is a magic paper towards /any/ salary at all.