Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?

On Sun, 22 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

On Sun, 22 Dec 2024 11:50:00 +0100, D wrote:
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I shudder at the memory of differential equations and my
electromagnetism course. I quickly came to the conclusion that I found
math and physics boring. I was able to push through some of those
courses by sheer will power, but I realized, why should I spend 4 years
on something that I find is boring?

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Each discipline had courses that sorted the sheep from the goats. diff-e
and e-mag theory were two for the ee's. o-chem did in the potential
chemists. iirc thermodynamics weeded out the civil engineers.

This is the truth! In law in sweden, there is a course called "the wall" which has a similar purpose. I like this methodology, because it sends the message (at least I always interpreted in this way) that if you want to spend your life doing this, you have to fight for it and be motivated.
I do the same thing when I teach. I start hard, and lower the difficulty level after the first 3-4 weeks, to sort out the unmotivated ones.
Sadly I no longer have the first course, so this year, we did it in networking, and we'll see in january if we had the intended effect. I really hope all the people who threatened the school with leaving unless the school lowered the difficulty level of the exam left. That would be great! =)
Naturally we refused to lower the difficulty level, and in the end 37 out of 48 passed. Too many if you ask me. 30-35 I find is a good class size.

When I took diff-e a friend had a bet with the TA for the course on
whether I would pass. My attendance in class was spotty to say the least
and the TA said 'No way'.  He lost.

You are one tough cookie!

So after jumping through legal hoops, and proving to the university that
my idea was correct and theirs wrong, they let me pick my own courses as
long as the course difficulty level (A, B, C, D level) met some
pre-specified levels. So in the end the emphasis was on IT and
philosophy,
with a healthy dose of psychology, business, finance etc.

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That was the nice thing about the psychology department. There were a few
required courses but it was mostly a la carte.

I'm reading Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet right now, and a surprising amount of people in there came from a psychology background.
It seems the psychology education in the 60s where on to something! They created the best technological people in a generation, so a la carte seems to be very beneficial for innovation and following ones natural talents and interests.