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Story of terrible dev/CS instructor?
Week 253 Group Rant
AleCx04
3y

Inspired by the comment I posted on another rant.

My uni decided to be one of those progressive tech schools that start people with Python. Mind you, I had prepared myself with studying as much as I could with math and programming by automating things and similar stuff in our computer when I was at my previous job, so I had a better idea as to what i could expect.

Introduction to computer science and programming with Python or some shit like that was the name of the class, and the instructor was a fat short ugly woman with a horrible attitude AND a phd in math, not comp sci and barely any industrial knowledge of the field.

She gave us the "a lot of you will fail" speech, which to me is code for "I suck and have no clue what I am doing"

One assignment involved, as per the requirements the use of switch cases. Now, unless someo knew came about, Python does not have swio cases. Me and a couple of less newbie like students tried to point out that switch cases were non existent and that her switch case example was in Javascript, not python, curly braces and everything. She told us to make it work.

We thought that she meant using a function with a dictionary and we pass the key and shit, a simple way of emulating the switch case.

NOPE she took points and insisted that she meant the example. We continuously pointed out that her example was in JS and that at the time Python did not have switch cases. The nasty woman laughed out and said that she didn't expect anyone to finish the assignment with full points.

Out of 100 points everyone got a 70. No problem. Wrote a detailed letter to the dean. Dean replied and talked to her (copied her in the email because fuck you bitch) and my grade was pulled up to full mark.

Every other class I had with her she did not question me. Which was only another class on some other shit I can't remember.

Teachers are what make or break a degree program. What make or break the experience, going to college is putting too much faith on people. If you ask me, trade certification, rigorous training is the future of computer science, or any field really. Rather than spending 4+ years studying a whoooole lotta shit for someone to focus on one field and never leave it.

rant

wk253
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Comments
  • 3
    3y
    Thats insane.
    And acting as a gatekeeper???

    Fuck.
  • 8
    3y
    Most of those four years go to worthless core courses like egyptian pottery making or semi feministical analysis of modern penis poetry. These courses could’ve and should’ve been replaced with hands on software engineering classes.
  • 3
    3y
    Why would you teach python to comp sci people? My uni only teaches it to data scientists. I made it until the first semester of the msc before I had to learn, and had experience from many real programming languages by then. Disgusting language, and your teacher is equally disgusting. Especially the beginning of a comp sci programme is important, if you don't teach the noobs the basics well, how are they gonna build years of discrete maths, algorithms and more on top? I feel quality was steadily declining throughout my bsc because my university chose to focus on making just the first year good..
  • 3
    3y
    @d-fanelli that's very interesting. Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking? Here you can't have courses that are unrelated to your degree, the university wouldn't allow you to take them even if you wanted to, and certainly wouldn't force them on you.
  • 1
    3y
    @Elyz luckily I was taught good OOP principles with Java. It’s probably one of the best languages to start with. I might be wrong but python seems better for math and hacky stuff
  • 4
    3y
    @Elyz I wouldn't call it a disgusting language, even though I particularly don't like it. The class was particularly advanced in its contents even if the twat was not able to teach it properly, we made due and learned proper enough to see if people were good for the career path.

    That was about the only class that we had that ised python. Pretty much everything else was Jaca, CPP, C and R for a couple of statistical level classes.

    I don't give a shit about languages and or study focuses. All I care is about having the skills to make money. I call myself an engineer, because I am, but my lack of neckbeardedness towards the field makes me feel like a mercenary.
  • 1
    3y
    @Elyz USA southeastern New York State. But this country sucks when it comes to college bc they force you to take “core classes” which they say will make you smarter and more well rounded BUT it’s just a way for them to suck more money out of your veins. I’m an American at heart but I’m totally against scams like this
  • 2
    3y
    @Elyz why not? Python is an easy language to pick up, that doesn't mean you can't do super complex stuff in it. My uni teaches it as the first language here if you have no programming background and it works really well.

    Discrete maths, algorithms etc. can be taught just as well in python (though we do teach that in C/SML/etc. instead, only the intro course is python).
  • 1
    3y
    @Elyz you are just making Denmark sound amazing. Here they will squish out as much as they can out from your time with dumb bullshit.
  • 1
    3y
    @RememberMe That one I blamed it on dislike. That was precisely how my uni used it. Rather than teaching people about setting up compilers and shit, a python script here and there was enough to move quickly from an overview of computer arch, languages, algos and the impl of said algos (basic, but advanced for some) and I for one liked that.

    But I have a love hate relationship with Python
  • 1
    3y
    In the end, if you can write good software in python, your choice of language is perfectly fine. I’m not a language Nazi lol
  • 0
    3y
    @RememberMe I think it's a language that lets you jump a bunch of hoops which makes it bad for noobs. To each their own though, I have no doubt many enjoy learning it, but personally I think my general views on code and the quality of code I'd write would be lower if I had learned from a very flexible language at first. I was grateful (not in the moment but later on) for the rigid structures in my early programming classes.
  • 1
    3y
    @AleCx04 is now the time to tell you I also didn't pay a single krone out of pocket for my education? It's all tax-funded and I even get paid monthly by the government to study 😎
  • 1
    3y
    @Elyz It's fine :D I had a full scholarship, didn't even paid for books and in here that makes you sound waaaay more appealing to employers if you let them know. And I also got paid monthly for it :P this is something that should be the norm if you ask me, but oh well.
  • 2
    3y
    I had to rely on student loans. My grades were hit or miss..lots of A’s and lots of D’s and F’s. I had to pay the government back for the money they paid me to take courses I failed bc they were uselesss lol. Fucking bloodsucking rats. But I had a high GPA in grad school which focused on shit that applies to software engineering instead of analysis of Japanese origami penis art or Historical premise of Magna Carta and how it relates to Plato and his love for muscular minotaur penis up his toga courtesy of Zeus’s dildo.
  • 1
    3y
    @Elyz I agree with you about the basics. It should have been C or at least C++ (older standard).
  • 1
    3y
    @d-fanelli the sad bit is that most of us here could write better penis poetry than the whole lot of them combine.
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