What Scala?

[Georg Wrede]

Walter Bright wrote:
> dsimcha wrote:
>> == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 at digitalmars.com)'s article
>>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>>> If there's one thing my
>>>> school experience taught me, it's that teachers are only interested in
>>>> focusing on the low-to-mid-range students.
>>> That wasn't my college experience at all (Caltech). I was a
>>> low-to-mid-range student there
>>
>> ...Which kind of proves the point that the way knowledge/learning in 
>> college is
>> measured is pretty flawed in that it doesn't predict who will be 
>> successful
>> afterword.  I just finished undergrad a couple years ago and I feel 
>> that the kinds
>> of multiple choice exams you get in huge lecture-based classes are 
>> good at testing
>> rote memorization and superficial understanding and the ability to get 
>> inside the
>> professor's head, where as what's important is the ability to take 
>> your knowledge
>> and apply it to something useful or use it to create more knowledge.
> 
> 
> Multiple choice exams were against the rules at Caltech (even though we 
> did have a few huge lecture-based classes).
> 
> I'll still hold forth, however, that you're going to get out of it what 
> you are willing to put into it. If you're only going to target getting a 
> degree, I wouldn't hire you. If you are in college to get the most out 
> of the experience (and there are huge opportunities for that in 
> college), your results will be far better.
> 
> 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.

Back here universities are free as in Beer. Students get a loan from the 
bank, guaranteed by the state. It used to work ok, but now an increasing 
number of students work both summer and semester, to finance their 
living. Helsinki is one expensive place to live in.

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

You make me cry. That's exactly the kind of place where I thought at 14 
I'd be when in university. And I still wish. :-(

As a child I read SciAm (from 12 on), and read about all this way cool 
stuff the folks at MIT and the other places do, and my goal was to go to 
America to study. Then some crap happened at home.