Re: I want to study Computer Science, but can I avoid Microsoft ?

On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:53:29 GMT, Jean-David Beyer <jdbeyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2007-10-30, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:42:51 -0700, finbarr2008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Your suggestions and guidance would be appreciated.
--snip--
I read somewhere, Wisdom is what is left after you forget everything
you learned in school.

Or, to put it another way, "Even after time has eroded a lot of
specific facts and experiences from your memory, you'll still have
the lessons you learned by generalizing from those facts and
experiences."

... I know I learned very little that was useful
in school. What going to school does is show that you can put up with
bureaucracy, do tedious non-meaningful tasks, follow silly orders ...
In other words, just what an employer typically wants.

True, but true in a sort of "the glass is half-empty" way.

I think I'd argue that obtaining a degree through years of study at
a university (ignoring, e.g., honorary degrees) shows that you are
capable of surviving the experience of being tossed into an
unfamiliar environment, one full of a wide variety of distractions
and apparently incomprehensible rules and arbitrary restrictions.

It shows that you were able to develop -- in fairly short order --
the skills needed to cope with poorly-worded specifications (e.g.
"Write an essay"), limited feedback ("B+", or "looks okay"), and
harsh criticsm.

And it demonstrated that you have the persistence in the face of all
these obstacles to pick _a_ (not _the_) path through this morass
that satisfied your professors' and the university's definition of
"successful completion" in order to graduate.

Put in those terms, I'm still doing most of that today, as a
consultant. It's true that I haven't dealt with a single semigroup
since I left New College... I guess this must be "wisdom". <grin!>


--
For he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other science;
what is more, he cannot discover his own ignorance, or find its
proper remedy. -- Roger Bacon
--
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut minds pring dawt cahm (y'all)
.

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