Much like the classic, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend our operating system to a friend?", it's not very likely that I would recommend any particular course to any particular individual. However, I attended a course this past semester that really opened my eyes to the need for transformation within the university classroom.
The True Value of University: My Unfiltered Thoughts
It seems that there has been a recent shift away from the blind investment into a university education. Whether it be attributable to the growing student loan crisis, or to the massive shift away from in-person university classes, one thing is for certain - people are beginning to doubt the value of such an investment. I, on the other hand, believe that there is plenty of value in a university education, but universities certainly are not entirely aware of (or willing to accept) the source of this value.
One incredibly important question worth asking here is the question of why undergraduate students attend a modern university. It seems clear as an undergraduate myself that most students attending a university hope to learn the skills which qualify them for a high-ranking or desirable position within some industry. University colleges and their respective departments, however, are led by academics who may not share this same point of view. Perhaps their ideal career looks much like their own; attending a Ph.D. program, becoming a tenured professor, and taking charge of an academic institution. Thus, there is often an inherent disconnect between the values of higher education, and those of the population it serves.
So What?
Well, my point of view is that larger universities, much like The Pennsylvania State University at which I am currently a rising senior, have developed substantial professional and academic communities over time which present their truest source of value for undergraduates... however, this is not enough. At the very least, the undergraduate classroom must begin to evolve such that the knowledge of the industry is integrated into the curriculum. Why do these massive universities seem to not make full use of their networks in the classroom?
What Does This Have to Do With IST 402?
During my experience in Bryan Ollendyke's IST 402 class, I was blown away by the level of industry awareness that my professor brought to the table. None of my other professors had such substantial understanding of the industry. None of my other professors invited industry professionals into the classroom to give guest lectures. None of my other professors had interesting technical projects to which they outwardly encourage students to contribute. There is such a massive demand for these kinds of opportunities for students, and yet paradoxically few classrooms provide them. If you're an IST student like myself, look no further than Bryan Ollendyke's IST 402 class for a truly valuable experience.
The course centers around the evolution of the modern web, and it covers topics such as introductory HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, before delving into more complex concepts such as (but not limited to) content management systems, web development frameworks, web components, and developer operations (DevOps). Throughout the course students are not required to submit tedious busy work assignments, rather, they are simply encouraged each week to learn as much as they can about a given technology, and then to communicate that technology in both written format (blog posts) and via the spoken word (producing videos talking about the topic). As a result, this course was able to cover a far broader scope of topics than one might encounter in a typical college course while remaining very manageable in terms of its workload. Also, being a highly self-motivated student, I found this format to be especially helpful to my learning.
My Final Project
At the end of the course, we were asked to choose between a few options for our final project. The option I went with was the one involving contributing to the LRNWebComponents open-source project. This involved developing dynamic and accessible web components using the web component standard, and participating in code reviews in order to receive feedback and to refactor the web components we developed. The web component I developed is called product-glance, and it is a simple visual element composed of an encircled icon, with a brief title and subtitle to the right of it. As a result, I earned the experience not only of developing my own software components, but also receiving feedback on the software components I developed from an experienced professional in the field. You can see my source files here within the LRNWebComponents Mono-Repository.
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