Versatile software engineer with a background in .NET consulting and CMS development. Working on regaining my embedded development skills to get more involved with IoT opportunities.
I think the way that things were taught was off-putting too. When I had to learn C in university, it was a terrible experience. The updates to the language made in 1999 (C99 dialect) improved the language a ton, but we didn't learn about any of that. It almost felt like some of my professors considered it a rite of passage that since C was miserable when they learned it, it was going to be a miserable experience when you learned it too.
I'm fortunate enough that I knew as much as I did in high school because I ended up teaching my AP Computer Science class. The teacher had no experience with programming whatsoever and didn't know Java at all. He was basically learning the language with us. A few people tried really hard to learn it on their own and participate, but 2/3 of the class played Age of Empires or Starcraft against each other everyday and bombed the exam.
It saddens me that kids are in a position where they can't study topics that interest them. My school district was incredibly wealthy, and they couldn't bother to hire a single teacher with programming experience. It makes me fear for creative classes even more...if kids can't get the resources they need to discover if a STEM career is right for them, they probably won't get the chance to learn how to express themselves and develop their own sense of self. I can't help wonder if that's on purpose :(
All Around IT and Server Tech guy with an interest in getting back into programming. Well versed in HTML and CSS, do minor web development at work. Have dabbled in Javascript, Ruby, and Elixir.
Funny you should say that, I had AP Computer Science in high school with C++. I relied on everything from that class for my first courses at University. Then when I hit data structures and had a class with 100+ students and the teacher was unavailable, only teaching assistants available. We had no computers in the classroom, the tests were all handwritten code. They added a computer lab to the class about a decade after I left. We didn't use the issued book for the class because the book was littered with errors, but a custom written book that the teacher wrote that was on printouts stapled at the book shop.
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I think the way that things were taught was off-putting too. When I had to learn C in university, it was a terrible experience. The updates to the language made in 1999 (C99 dialect) improved the language a ton, but we didn't learn about any of that. It almost felt like some of my professors considered it a rite of passage that since C was miserable when they learned it, it was going to be a miserable experience when you learned it too.
I'm fortunate enough that I knew as much as I did in high school because I ended up teaching my AP Computer Science class. The teacher had no experience with programming whatsoever and didn't know Java at all. He was basically learning the language with us. A few people tried really hard to learn it on their own and participate, but 2/3 of the class played Age of Empires or Starcraft against each other everyday and bombed the exam.
It saddens me that kids are in a position where they can't study topics that interest them. My school district was incredibly wealthy, and they couldn't bother to hire a single teacher with programming experience. It makes me fear for creative classes even more...if kids can't get the resources they need to discover if a STEM career is right for them, they probably won't get the chance to learn how to express themselves and develop their own sense of self. I can't help wonder if that's on purpose :(
Funny you should say that, I had AP Computer Science in high school with C++. I relied on everything from that class for my first courses at University. Then when I hit data structures and had a class with 100+ students and the teacher was unavailable, only teaching assistants available. We had no computers in the classroom, the tests were all handwritten code. They added a computer lab to the class about a decade after I left. We didn't use the issued book for the class because the book was littered with errors, but a custom written book that the teacher wrote that was on printouts stapled at the book shop.