What Scala?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gr452t$1h3s$1 at digitalmars.com...
>
> 90% of the classes I took I selected because they interested me and I 
> thought they were important. I made sure I understood front to back every 
> single homework problem, and every exam problem I got wrong. I also paid 
> for most of it out of a part time and summer job, and I'm sure that paying 
> the tuition bills influenced my attitude as well <g>. I wanted my money's 
> worth.
>

In all of the schools I've looked at, 90% of the classes were already chosen 
for you. The only choices you typically have are when you take a particular 
class (as in, during what semester, etc), a small handful of electives and a 
few "course A or course B and then either C or D", etc. Not really much of 
an issue of choice for the most part.

> Another factor was the attitude that Caltech had towards its students. It 
> treated them like adults. I had never experienced that before.

Compared to being a high school student, just about anything is far, far 
less patronizing. (Not that that excuses colleges that treat their students 
like meat.)

> Caltech does not proctor exams, does not have curfews, does not attempt to 
> control what goes on in the dorms, professors are not allowed to take 
> attendance, etc. Most of the students quickly responded to that and 
> behaved like responsible adults.
>

I've never heard of curfews at a college. For a school that actually charges 
the students tuition, that would just simply be absurd. "Here, I'll give you 
thousands of dollars so you can enforce a curfew on me", Yea right. I can't 
imagine that ever flying. And I'd count anyone who has bought into such a 
thing as having a clear mental deficiency.

Also, I've seen very, very little of dorm activity being controlled. 
Typically any restrictions are just fire hazard issues and other such 
sensible things. I've heard that Ohio State University "officially" has some 
restriction about opposite-gender overnight guests that doesn't really get 
enforced, but that's Ohio State, it barely counts as a real college anyway. 
It's more like a combination 
football-franchise-slash-babysitter-for-developmentally-stunted-twenty-year-olds.

>
> And then we had great events like Carl Sagan coming to dinner at our dorm, 
> guest lectures from folks like Richard Feynmann, and the people running 
> the JPL probes, etc. If all you got out of all that was a degree, too bad, 
> so sad <g>.

Well, when it comes to college, what you're paying for are the classes and 
the degree (and, of course, books/room/board). So I'm certainly going to 
measure it's worth with that in mind. Having a dinner with Carl Segan, as 
great as he was, is hardly worth $100,000, unless you're filthy stinking 
rich.