Why the Academic World is Out of Touch
As an IT professional undertaking postgrad studies, I’ve always found university academics to be frustrating , ignorant and grossly misinformed. I can’t speak for other disciplines, but I think it’s a fundamental problem with tertiary education in IT: undergrad students spend a fortune to be taught by people that are so completely removed from reality and current practice, that they have spend the first two years of professional employment unlearning the garbage that
they’ve been taught and trying to build an understanding what IT is *really* about.
The case in point:
I recently sat an end of semester exam for a subject called Database Management. One of the questions in the exam read (and I don’t quote this so as avoid breaking the examination rules)…
Fill in the blanks:
A database is a collection of ____________ ___________ data.
I can think of five completely valid ways of completing this sentence without even trying…
* A database is a collection of organised searchable data.
* A database is a collection of stored accessible data.
* A database is a collection of related factual data.
* A database is a collelction of schemas containing data.
* A database is a collection of persistant quantifiable data.
I could probably come up with 30 more answers given a few minutes to think. I’ve got no idea whether the answer I gave is going to be correct, largely because I suspect the lecturer is looking for a copy-paste reponse from the subject text - and that sucks arse. As an IT professional, I’ve been working with databases for close to 10 years. I’ve probably spent more time using databases than person teaching the subject. Yet, because I couldn’t recall a verbatum definition from a second-rate text book, I’m probably going to miss marks on this question. And that really shits me off.
Thinking about this further, I’ve formed two hypotheses as what is happening here:
(1) The lecturer setting the exam is so completely lazy that he/she simply copy-pasted a definition of “database” from the subject text and a expects reguritatated copy-pasted answer.
(2) The lecturer is so caught up in their own fucking semantic drivel the he/she genuinely thinks being able to quote a definition of “a database” from a book written by some equally inept moron, is going to be useful to me.
I’m yet to decide which so these I think is more true, but the clincher in all this being, that in subject called ‘Database Management’, I haven’t had been required to do anything with database - not even write a single line of SQL! I’m astounded trying to comprehend how anyone can truely define a database without ever using one. Though, ignorance being bliss and all, the lecturer doesn’t lose any sleep thinking about the poor quality graduates they’re unleashing on the industry every year.
In either case, it’s a poor reflection on the quality of the education I receiving - on which I’m spending some serious cash - thank fuck I can define “database” without a text book.
Recently
December 1st, 2006 at 1:46 am
What do you propose instead of a cut and paste answer for a cheap question? Perhaps a 500 word essay on what a database is, from where it has evolved and how it effects an Asian economy in developing countries?
I agree with you on the part where you say that (most, I know some that are not) academics (IT, that’s all I know) are so outdated that yours truly while being high as a kite could probably do a better job. Also true that an IT graduate spends about the same time post-graduation REALLY learning what the fuck is going on.
When I think back on my university days and lecturers saying “this is how it’s is in a real world” I smile and then want to stab them – liars!
On that note, this is a system we have, you turned out an alright geek, I think I have too… Do you have a better idea/approach (keeping in mind the limitations of your particular course)?
December 4th, 2006 at 1:57 am
I agree with most of what you’re saying - but I think asking for a definition of a database in a postgrad course (especially when the marker is probably only going to accept the copy/paste definition from the text) is totally useless.
Why not give a relational schema and ask the candidates to write a SQL standard query to extract some summary data? It’d be a far better measure of how comfortable the candidate is with actually using a database…
December 4th, 2006 at 2:07 am
Ye, definitely, definitely should include some SQL. Ye, definitely, definitely.
What kind of a DB subject is it if it has no damn SQL in it? Fuck! That is indeed a new low in IT education.
*shakes head
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May 7th, 2007 at 1:36 am
I completely agree with you Ben!!
I had an exam in second year of Computer Science in Monash for the subject called “Software Engineering Practice” or something similar. A few weeks before the exam, the lecturer handed out the “Sample Exam” paper, and said that lecturers and tutors will not answer any questions related to the sample exam paper, not even a yes or no. No one knows why, I was thinking that the actual exam must be very similar to this sample exam, but I immediately discard this thought because I thought it was a Monash Uni course, it can’t be that easy.
By the time we finished our “Actual Exam”, we finally understand what she meant by no questions answered - about 90% of questions in the “Actual Exam” is the same as “Sample Exam”, even the order of multiple question options are EXACTLY the same.
The exam paper was not set by our lecturer, but some very old guy who is kind of senior lecturer in Caulfield campus ( I study at Clayton campus).
Of course I did very well in the exam, since I studied the “SAMPLE exam” very well. But how could this kind of exam tell that a student has really learn something from Uni courses? And by the way, I didn’t actually learned a lot from the course, the assignment was total idiot, and the course was not well designed. Well, at least from my opinion.