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> For example, it would be nice to have tests at university where I can google things, just like in the real world. One of the best professors I had at univers
by vntx 7y ago
> For example, it would be nice to have tests at university where I can google things, just like in the real world.
One of the best professors I had at university for a Linux course always said: “If you don’t know something, google it!”
He backed up his words by allowing googling on the actual coding part of his exams. You had to understand the underlying concepts but you never had to memorize syntax. One time, he had us write a small program in C that involved threading during a proctored timed exam. Everyone ran out of time for that part.
His course and exams were _rigorous_. You could never cram for his class and expect to pass and indeed I know of one student repeatedly failing his course.
This was one of the courses in university where I gained the bulk of my useful knowledge and practical skills I use to this day. I can count the courses that were of similar quality I took at university on one(1) hand. The rest of my degree involved hackable tests, apathetic professors and were massive time-wasters. I learned nothing from them, obviously.
The good professors made me realize how bad the rest of my degree was and how much of a racket higher education could be.
I look back at my undergrad days and wonder how much more I would have learned if I had not focused so much on grades. I’m still actively trying to unschool myself.
- jacques_chester 7y ago> He backed up his words by allowing googling on the actual coding part of his exams. You had to understand the underlying concepts but you never had to memorize syntax. ... His course and exams were _rigorous_. You could never cram for his class and expect to pass and indeed I know of one student repeatedly failing his course. When I studied law, all our exams were open book. Bring whatever you want. I brought casebooks and printouts of legislation and important cases. Others also brought headnotes and volumes of Halsbury's (a legal encyclopaedia). None of this helped if you didn't know the material well enough to identify the legal issues in each question. Which is why I failed Torts.
- vntx 7y ago> None of this helped if you didn’t know the material well enough to identify the legal issues in each question. My machine learning professor who was from CMU would allow us to put anything we wanted on both sides of one piece of printer paper to bring to exams. No amount of notes helped if you had no understanding of the algorithms and formulas. I almost failed that course too, but it was also one of the cornerstones of my university career. It made me realize how much I had been optimizing for the wrong thing: grades instead of understanding.