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 What's the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?
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mirhagk




PostPosted: Mon May 13, 2013 8:40 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

But that's the whole issue 2goto1, I don't want knowledge, but that's what school focuses on. Memorization is WAY more of a focus than on discovering, learning or understanding.

At my old work, at least 90% of upper year university students failed Fizz Buzz. The university degree couldn't prepare them for basic logic, because they spent their entire time memorizing assignments that were repeated on the exam.

I wish university taught skills and how to think instead of just knowledge... but as it is university degrees don't say anything about the skill of a programmer.
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Tony




PostPosted: Mon May 13, 2013 9:13 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

You should have gone to UWaterloo, UofToronto, or any other well ranked University instead Wink
Latest from compsci.ca/blog: Tony's programming blog. DWITE - a programming contest.
crossley7




PostPosted: Mon May 13, 2013 10:36 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

I know at UW I haven't had ANY memorization to do in my CS courses first year and very little in my other math courses (about 8 proofs over the year for calc and need to understand and know enough theorems in lin alg second term)

I somehow doubt the fizz buzz statement and trust me when I say if you try memorize enough material for 5 courses, you won't be getting anywhere. To get places in uni you need to learn how to learn. Once again, it would help if you didn't make such broad sweeping statements.

And once again, a CS degree is not one that is designed to make you a code monkey the rest of your life. Generally you write code to test your algorithms but that would be about it.
2goto1




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 8:41 am   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

Give your school time or pick a different one. No credible university will focus on memorization more than discovering, learning, and understanding. You might disagree if you're a first year student, but things should get more cerebral with each subsequent year.

No matter your choice of university, you'll always get more out of what you do outside of classes than what you do within. Better schools have more robust extracurricular ecosystems that can help to provide more opportunities for students. And it's up to you to be proactive outside of class to maximize your learning benefit.
randint




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 10:32 am   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

crossley7, does that mean that a CO degree is equally as good as a CS degree in getting the theory I need?
crossley7




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 5:07 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

CO and CS have different focuses to my knowledge. There is a bit more math in CO and it focuses on the higher level obscure types of problems in mathematics and computers. CS ranges from hardware to software to algorithms. That being said, I don't want to broad sweeping statements about either as I have only taken first year CS courses and none related directly to CO yet.

That being said, the two compliment each other really well to my understanding.
mirhagk




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 5:32 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

Actually it's a well known fact that a lot of CS grads can't write a simple program.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmers-program.html

The 90% of interviewees can't do it doesn't mean 90% of students can't, because obviously worse students interview with more jobs, but it's still a lot higher than it should be (near 0%).

At my work we stressed that it didn't matter if it was pseudo-code, real code, flowcharts or anything, we just wanted the logic of Fizz Buzz, and most of them (it wasn't just McMaster students, we had quite a few from Waterloo as well).

This comic states the problem with a lot of schools at the high school level, and what I've experienced from first year (and heard from grads at other universities).

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2976#comic

It's not every teacher and school, but a lot seem to think that handing out bonus assignments, or allowing students to resubmit assignments after explaining the answer to them will magically make them better.

Even when the class doesn't require memorization, it can often allow students who memorize to pass. ie if your prof teaches everything that is on the exam, you can just memorize the process, without actually understanding and just do it. Many of my collegues, and "professional" developers are like this.

Graduate level schooling is awesome, and I can't wait until that, because that is promoting students to actually learn, discover and gain skills.
Panphobia




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 6:08 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

WAIT A SECOND! Did students really have trouble making that Fizz Buzz program, seems a bit trivial doesn't it?
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mirhagk




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 6:13 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

Yep, and according to Jeff Atwood so do many professionals claiming years of experience.
Kam




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 6:20 pm   Post subject: Re: What's the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

Come to UW.

The only memorization you need to do are most likely in math classes where you need to know theorems to help argument ideas in proofs. The other only time you may need to is in algorithms when you need to reduce that a problem is NP complete, but then again, i regard that as remembering what you understand more than memorization.
mirhagk




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 6:25 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

I wish I could come to waterloo, but HS english mark was only like 65% so they didn't accept me.
Panphobia




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 6:26 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

I don't like the idea of memorization, it requires too much effort. Is it not better to just understand the work you are given? In high school this is enough, but I am not sure about University, I am probably dead wrong right? MIRHAGK SAME, I got 61 in english, but 94+ in everything else, so I accepted to Guelph. Tbh my english mark is probably bad because I have very poor homework skills, I do zero work at home haha.
Nathan4102




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 6:46 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

How do you do 0 homework and get 94+ in math??? I'm doing an hour and a half of math homework a night to maintain my mark!
Panphobia




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 6:53 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

I really don't know how to say this without seeming arrogant, so I guess I am not really going to say anything but, I listen attentively in class, I try to understand the concepts and for now that seems to be enough.
Nathan4102




PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 6:57 pm   Post subject: RE:What\'s the cheapest and fastest way to get a university degree?

I used to be able to do that and get 90's, but since this grade, I can't get more then 85 without doing homework. What grade are you in?
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