Recent comments in /f/academia

actuallyaseal wrote

I believe that's suppose to be in the school's voice. I read that paragraph closer to this:

Every one of them has problems galore. They don't work right. One of them marked shit as incorrect if you use CTRL+a to select text. Not to mention they perpetuate incorrect information:

"The only programming paradigms are C and Object Oriented. C is an old outdated language, C++ is an "upgrade". Linux is for servers and networking gear, BSD doesn't exist, and Windows is good for everything. "Freeware" is unsafe."

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lachendekraehe wrote (edited )

I agree with everything else you said, but don't knock C. It's an older language for sure, but there's a reason why so much stuff is still written in it, especially stuff that needs super-low latency and/or direct hardware access, like operating systems and drivers. Knowing C can be quite a valuable skill (in both the personal and capitalist sense), even today.

Also, academia can have a hard time catching up in general to current info. Profs often don't bother to update courses very often, so there's some lag between contemporary advances and IT education. This is generally true of any academic subject, not just IT.

C++ is still shit though. There's plenty of other, even other OO languages, which are way better.

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EmberGrove wrote (edited )

Here is how it should be VS code -> NetBeans -> microsoft word -> kate -> notepad++ -> notepad -> nano -> nvim -> vim -> emacs -> nvi -> vi -> ex -> sed -> em -> ed -> cat + >> -> HES -> TECO -> NLS -> Colossal Typewriter program -> punch cards -> manually editing the wires and stuff -> slide rule calculators -> abacus -> chalk boards -> pen and paper -> stone tablets -> clay tablets -> wood engravings -> cave paintings -> counting fingers -> talking -> thoughts -> urine territory markings -> pheromones -> making trails -> neurons -> eating grass -> filter feeding -> hormones -> osmosis -> dna -> self replicating rna -> amino acids -> chemical reactions -> fission -> fusion -> editing the atoms -> quark by quark -> string by string -> editing the fabric of reality -> the big bang -> the void (incomplete and probably wrong)

edit adding more as I think of it

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MountainMan OP wrote

Reply to comment by Fool in school is not for learning by MountainMan

I get your point and I agree, I don't know the right word for what I mean.

The way it is, they're quite literally not involved in my learning process. They might say some shit on day 1, but they just point you in the direction of some online "simulator" and probably never speak to you again until a week or two before the course is over.

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train wrote

I don't buy some of the more vague assertions in this article that suggest academia is not really responsible for economic inequality.

Academia plays a key role in pushing the idea that society be based on meritocratic principles. Contrary to that meritocratic vission, success in academia as a student or as an educator is greatly determined by your class position. This reflects the contradictions that undergirds modern capitalism particularity in the technology sector.

For example, many genuinely believe Elon Musk became the wealthiest man alive through effort and talent alone. In reality his success is a consequence of his inherited wealth and narcissism. Academia and it's own ties to private enterprise are in part to blame for perpetuating these kinds of mythologies.

Of course, I agree with the article that education and information should be accessible to a broader public. However, contrary to what the article purports that is not what universities are doing. Instead, I see extension campuses handing out meaningless certificates as part of a profit driven learning model. Claiming that such efforts are part of some broader vision to increase access to education is a farce.

Ultimately, I agree you will not improve access by cutting funding to education. However, academia needs radical reform if it's ever to live up to it's own lofty vision of what educational institutions could be.

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An_Old_Big_Tree OP wrote

This is priceless! 🤣🤣🤣 Are you kidding me? Marxism is orthodoxy in anglophone human geography, the field the author is based in. Reactionary nonsense in response to the fact that the discipline is slowly starting to pluralize and shift away from Marxism with the infusion of greater appreciation for Indigenous, anti-racist, feminist, anarchist, decolonial, queer, environmentalist, poststructuralist, and situationist geographies.

Simon Springer

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squirrels wrote

Indeed they should be. This will single-handedly be the death blow of graduate education in the United States, which is already on life support. Universities would have to either eliminate graduate tuition (that'll happen when hell freezes over), only admit the independently wealthy, or only admit students from abroad. An insidiously ingenious way of dismantling graduate education.

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