3 ms·

I would have thought it would be just the opposite. Going to school drives me bonkers. By the end of the quarter, I can't wait to stop being taught all this gar

by mark-t 19y ago

I would have thought it would be just the opposite. Going to school drives me bonkers. By the end of the quarter, I can't wait to stop being taught all this garbage and get back to my own studies/projects. I presume you're talking about people who feel the same way. What's so different about employment?

pg 19y ago
School tends to make you tame too, but in different ways. What you get in big companies that's missing in schools is politics. You can generally do a class project on anything you want. But to get something launched within a big company takes a superhuman effort. After a while, hackers lose their desire to.
nostrademons 19y ago
When you're at school, you have a time limit. No matter how soulsucking it is, you know that if you wait a semester, you'll have vacation all to yourself. And if you wait 4 years, you'll have a degree and can do whatever you want. Cognitive dissonance is bearable for short periods. It's excruciatingly mindwracking when it persists over an open-ended time period with no end in sight. If you're a technical employee at most software firms, you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you have to obey a technical decision that you know is wrong. Your options then are: 1. Don't, and get fired. 2. Convince yourself that the decision in question really is good. This explains many Java programmers, actually. 3. Accept that the decision sucks, but that you often have to go along with sucky decisions for the sake of the team. This is how good programmers un-learn independence. Many people face this dilemma early on in their school career, probably back when the teacher first assigns busywork (which is now in what, 3rd grade?). I'd estimate that 90-95% un-learn independence before graduating high school. A few people make it through high school and college as rebels and underachievers - they never quite buy into "This is pointless, but I have to do it anyway." Most will change their mind after getting a job - after all, most jobs really aren't that bad if you're not in a perpetual power struggle with your boss.
- whacked_new 19y ago
  Amen to this and the OP. Speaking of the time limit, it's already blatantly obvious that putting everyone on the same, fixed time track learning a subject with a fixed curriculum is out of date and suboptimal. But who's going to challenge generations of tradition, and the lucrative business called university education? That's why modern schools suck in so many ways.

by mark-t 19y ago

pg 19y ago

School tends to make you tame too, but in different ways. What you get in big companies that's missing in schools is politics. You can generally do a class project on anything you want. But to get something launched within a big company takes a superhuman effort. After a while, hackers lose their desire to.

nostrademons 19y ago

When you're at school, you have a time limit. No matter how soulsucking it is, you know that if you wait a semester, you'll have vacation all to yourself. And if you wait 4 years, you'll have a degree and can do whatever you want. Cognitive dissonance is bearable for short periods. It's excruciatingly mindwracking when it persists over an open-ended time period with no end in sight. If you're a technical employee at most software firms, you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you have to obey a technical decision that you know is wrong. Your options then are: 1. Don't, and get fired. 2. Convince yourself that the decision in question really is good. This explains many Java programmers, actually. 3. Accept that the decision sucks, but that you often have to go along with sucky decisions for the sake of the team. This is how good programmers un-learn independence. Many people face this dilemma early on in their school career, probably back when the teacher first assigns busywork (which is now in what, 3rd grade?). I'd estimate that 90-95% un-learn independence before graduating high school. A few people make it through high school and college as rebels and underachievers - they never quite buy into "This is pointless, but I have to do it anyway." Most will change their mind after getting a job - after all, most jobs really aren't that bad if you're not in a perpetual power struggle with your boss.

whacked_new 19y ago
Amen to this and the OP. Speaking of the time limit, it's already blatantly obvious that putting everyone on the same, fixed time track learning a subject with a fixed curriculum is out of date and suboptimal. But who's going to challenge generations of tradition, and the lucrative business called university education? That's why modern schools suck in so many ways.