2006.04.18
Wasted Money
17.04.04 - Mark
One of the annoying things that I'm finding in my college text books is the ridiculious language they use to motivate students to work. I'm not sure where to place it but it feels like the bastard offspring of magnetic poetry, ad libs, business memos, a touch of fiction and a decent helping of propaganda all wrapped up in a reality distortion field.
The standard format is something like:
(Fictional boss or company) wants you to help with (project related to subject being studied). He/she/they know that the concepts in this chapter/book will be essential in completing (end goal of class) To ensure that you understand these concepts (described as such) he/she/they would like you to complete these exercises. [list of "real world" tasks here]
I'll admit I don't have that much experiance in the work place, but I have some, and nearly every non-fictional employer I've had has known nothing about the skills I need for the job they want done. The few that do don't pitter patter around with tests of basic concepts, we both want to cut to the chase and get the job done. They pay less money and I put up with less crap, its a win win situation. Now if a non-fictional boss wants to pay me to jump though the silly hoops fine, I probably won't even complain that much, but I haven't seen it.
I'm not ranting about this busy work and the near eternity it takes to get to a functional level in these classes. As much as I hate the system I relize that they need to be able to track progress so they can get paid and the schools can get grants, but come on. Cut the bull and drop the dead weight. Students are going to get a lot more out of a class once we all stop pertending to do "real" work and get our noses to the grind stone with real real work. You still have your metrics and we aren't typing with our foreheads.
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