> "Rather, I was frustrated because the course consisted of lone work on exercises that seemed to have little application to the real world, the expectation tha

> "Rather, I was frustrated because the course consisted of lone work on exercises that seemed to have little application to the real world, the expectation that coursework required coding and debugging for hours after school threatened my ability to excel in other classes or in varsity sports" Just taking this at face value, I think she failed because she was afraid of failing. I've always learned better from having to struggle with something than having someone explain to me how to do it. Its that torturous process of trial and error that unconsciously guides someone towards a solution. Being able to do that on your own is ultimately the hallmark of a professional. That being said, I _am_ a man, and if what she is claiming is true (men learn more through lone-wolf trial/error, women learn better through collaborative team-work) then I can't say much about why trial/error is so important. Maybe its just more important to me and my context. I think she has a really interesting point about the importance of putting the 'person' into the equation. I really prefer to watch a tech-talk over a blog post because hearing someone talk about something in a informal language gives a lot of life to whatever they're talking about. Their body language and tone conveys a lot of information about the technology: are they holding 'religious' assumptions?; is it a hard-learned lesson to avoid some pitfall?; are they avoiding talking about negatives to try and sell something?.. Watching the Q&A portion of a talk can be especially enlightening. You really get to see whether they're full of shit or legitimate based on how they react to critical questions.