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I feel the need to write something about CIS 308 and the experience that I’ve had with it over the past few months. The trouble is, I don’t really know how to say what I want without sounding arrogant, condescending, or resentful…. go figure.

A few months ago the undergrads in our CIS department received an email reading something like: “Lucky you! Everybody gets to take a new class that we added as a prereq for our senior project class. Enjoy!” After a unproductive discussion with the department head regarding this and another bonehead move the department made around the same time, I realized there was no way around forking over an extra $150 at the least and spending an extra 2 hours in class per week (+$150) at the worst.

I guess I’ve neglected to mention what the new class was up to this point. It’s a C/C++ language lab. That would make its sole purpose to teach us the syntax and very basic library of a new programming language. My first problem with this is that I’ve already used that language extensively in my Operating Systems class, yet that apparently is immaterial. My second (bigger) problem is that the idea of a language lab is beyond stupid. This would be akin to having a music major take a class to learn how the bass clef operates after they’ve already demonstrated mastery of the treble clef. Take everything, and move it up/down by X/Y half-steps — problem solved. But we’re going to spend 2 hours a week for 16 weeks on the bass clef. They’ll also get 8 projects and 2 exams on the bass clef. Sound stupid? I thought/think so. But hey, it rakes in an extra $150/head, so it’s not too bad from the department’s perspective.

Anyway… I enrolled in the class for this semester because I really hadn’t used C/C++ in over a year, and like any language that you don’t use (English, Spanish, Java, whatever), I’d forgotten much of it. Luckily, Julie rocks, and she gave us the opportunity to take the quiz-out exam and decide whether we wanted to keep that grade or suffer through a semester to get a better grade. That gave me two evenings to re-learn a semester’s worth of C/C++ syntax and library. Whee!

Long story, short: I took the exam, completed it first, and got the highest score without any practical C/C++ experience in a year. Oh how I love academia and the mediocrity it breeds.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 10:33 am and is filed under computers, rants, school. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.