Portal On the Booklist At Wabash College 203
jamie passes along this quote from a post by Michael Abbott at The Brainy Gamer:
"This year, for the first time, a video game will appear on the syllabus of a course required for all students at Wabash College, where I teach. For me — and for a traditional liberal arts college founded in 1832 — this is a big deal. Alongside Gilgamesh, Aristotle's Politics, John Donne's poetry, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the Tao Te Ching, freshmen at Wabash will also encounter a video game called Portal. "
Coordination? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some people have never been exposed to WASD, but everyone knows how to read a book. Will people be expected to game to be culturally literate these days?
I'm not sure if that would be a bad thing, but it would be different.
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If console sales of the Orange Box are any indication, portal is completely playable on a gamepad. The Steam version of Portal has gamepad/360 controller support so I don't think there's any problem with the control interface.
Re:Coordination? (Score:4, Interesting)
As for cultural literacy...perhaps. You're expected to be able to engage with literature, academic text, cinema, the visual; performance; and oral arts, and so on at college - video games are just going to get added to the list. Entertainment has always been political and fundamentally positioned to reflect social and cultural attitudes, the more tools we develop to analyse what play means, the better.
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I always thought cheats were frowned upon in the academic world.
Re:Coordination? (Score:4, Insightful)
The class isn't testing your ability to play Portal. This would be a valid concern if grades depended on the time, step, or portal trials, but they clearly aren't. It would cheapen the experience, but there are already other ways of doing that for other sources.
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I'm tempted to enroll just so I can win a nice comfy settlement over their failure to accommodate my lack of post-Missile-Command gaming skillz, a result of reaching puberty in the late 1970s, and never looking back. And if that fails, my friend with cerebral palsy is sure to clean up... in court.
A little more seriously... surely they can't be assuming (as I'm sure most of the nerds here are) that anyone under the age of 25 has grown up with a controller in their hand. In my tech-support work, I've met a
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Many current students are as familiar with "books" and "literature" as they are with LP records or horseback riding. Should classes stop requiring actual literacy, beyond text messaging, to accommodate them?
I'm completely serious about that above claim, by the way. Many of my college classmates seem unable to find the apostrophe key, let alone spellcheck. Even using proper English is beyond them, in some cases. I considered putting an actual example up, but I decided not to subject you all to that level of
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With all due respect, then your classmates probably shouldn't be in college. I don't think kids are getting that much dumber. There have always been dumb or more often just unmotivated kids, but in the past fewer of them went to college. Some institutions have lowered the bar because undergraduate education is profitable for them.
As someone who teaches at a top institution, the kids I see there are coming in at least as prepared in all subjects as 20 years ago. Maybe some differences in independence and
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I will concede that I'm not attending a prestigious or even selective college, but literally half my class wouldn't have made it through my (prestigious and selective) high school.
Most of them aren't all that dumb or ignorant, but, once they start typing, the intelligence starts dropping. Of course, there's the one guy who turns everything into a "legalize-marijuana" argument, or the people who thought "A Modest Proposal" was serious, or the one who thinks a chain email counts as a reputable statistic, or t
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Portal was a pretty easy game by any standards. You don't really fight anything and most of the puzzles are pretty straight forward. Some of the portals require a quick turn of jump, but nothing a little practice couldn't quickly solve. The plot was humorous, but the gameplay was exceedingly simple considering the possibilities. There was a challenge mode to help balance that, I suppose.
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Yeah requiring manual dexterity introduces some new and interesting challenges. I wonder how they'll ensure every student is able to finish the games
I wonder if that is built into the lecture and guided discussion of the class. Keeping in mind that this is a general inquiry about contemporary ideas of identity and society, I think a discussion about everyone's differences may be appropriate.
Certainly, some of the players may have issues with the FPS aspect, but perhaps their problem-solving abilities are stellar, maybe the converse. I do think it is a necessary (and difficult) learning experience to discover that there are some things that some people
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There are baseline courses that require watching movies, listening to music live, playing games, or other forms of consuming culture.
And If you want to be broadly culturally literate, you do have to do everything. Having people play Portal seems akin to having them read good recent books. I don't know how many titles I'd put on that list, but Portal is definitely one of them. Portal seems like a good choice as it is A: short, B: more puzzle than twitch, C: incredibly rich, D: not a resource hog.
Re:Coordination? (Score:4, Insightful)
When you start out, you're confused about everything. Where am I? Who am I? Why am I here? How do I get through this maze? As you go along, you start to piece things together, you start to figure out a few tricks and it doesn't actually seem that hard. But as you go further and further, things get harder, more challenging, it's more and more difficult to find your way through the maze. The stakes are higher, and you start to suspect that things may be conspiring against you. Supposedly if you apply yourself and try hard, you'll get rewarded, but you start to wonder. Maybe they aren't being honest with you, maybe the whole thing is just a big lie... you just run around through a huge labyrinth, toyed with by forces more powerful than you, but never get what you were promised. And then you die. Is that it?
Man, it sure would have been fun to take a whole class studying video games. I can just picture the titles of the essays: "The Hero's Journey: Odysseus and the Master Chief", "Idealization of Society Perfected: Plato's _Republic_, Thomas More's _Utopia_, and Sim City", and "Envisioning the Underworld: Dante's Inferno and 'Doom III' "
Re:Coordination? (Score:4, Insightful)
I pitched the idea to my colleagues on the committee (decidedly not a collection of gamers), and they agreed to try Portal and read selections from Goffman's book. After plowing through some installation issues ("What does this Steam do? Will it expose me to viruses?"), we enjoyed the first meaningful discussion about a video game I've ever had with a group of colleagues across disciplines. They got it. They made the connections, and they enjoyed the game.
If non-gamer professors liked it, I am sure the students will be fine.
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"Everyone knows how to read a book" isn't quite accurate. Everyone knows how to read, maybe (I'll go ahead and assume literacy for college courses), but that's not the same as marathon reading, especially for a book that doesn't interest you.
Personally, I've had a longstanding difficulty reading academic texts, to the point where I could say "I don't know how to read academic texts;" specifically, I don't know how to memorize from texts, I don't know how to get through long tedious overly-verbose sections
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AOE (Score:2)
I use Dvorak, you insensitive clod!
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Should be <AOE if Slashdot didn't eat that.
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Not everyone has a computer, but I think it's fair to say that everyone who has a computer capable of the kinds of things needed for college these days, probably has a computer capable of playing Portal. Just crank the settings down.
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but I think it's fair to say that everyone who has a computer capable of the kinds of things needed for college these days, probably has a computer capable of playing Portal.
Good luck playing portal on a netbook with an atom processor and intel graphics. (which is just fine for college stuff btw)
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Not quite (Score:3, Informative)
So not quite as advertised, but certainly pretty cool nonetheless.
Steampowered.edu??? (Score:2)
if they thought a bit they could have had Steam set them up with a local server and a bunch of free keys for Portal
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I wonder what those issues were? it's not like portal is expensive. I would assume they already have computers.
You can assign a 100 dollar text book but not a 10 dollar game?
I wouldn't be surprised if valve gave them licenses. Portal 2 is coming, so getting more people interested in the series could only be good.
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Which Linux distros does it run on?
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I'm pretty sure there was an article recently about how very few incoming freshmen had Linux.
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Meh, modern textbooks almost always come with an online component (study guide, quizzes, multimedia resources, etc) that's provided via a one-time activation key. So it's really no different than a lot of modern games where the buy-new owner gets everything and the buy-used guy has to shell out for "extra" DLC content to get the complete experience.
Also, I really don't think many profs lose sleep at night worrying about licensing issues and students not being able to resell their crap.
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Oddly, I've never had a professor require the online, registration required, stuff. Granted a major part of my major didn't involve actual textbooks (philosophy, so around 50 little overpriced books as opposed to 5 giant overpriced books), but still never actually had to use the registration or CDROM, or whatnot. Professors are often pretty forgiving of budgets.
For my research methodology class (dual majored psychology) the professor learned that text cost around $250+, and was a new edition so there was
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As a person who only runs linux and oss software, I can guarantee you most professors worth their salt will let you use linux for development so long as at the end you use a uni computer to import your source files etc.
This is why I quite like having mono, since lots of the courses these days teach c#
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now i miss college even more (Score:5, Funny)
Cliff's Notes (Score:5, Funny)
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its already been done
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31uWFlBn-IM [youtube.com]
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shhhhh! You're ruining the part where playing a game *is* doing your homework. It also requires some problem solving skills which are quite useful in the language arts.
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I can't tell if this is a somewhat subtle troll, or someone with a VERY large stick in their posterior.
Sounds Easy (Score:5, Funny)
I bet that course is a total piece of cake
Re:Sounds Easy (Score:5, Funny)
I bet that course is a total piece of cake
That's a lie
Re:Sounds Easy (Score:5, Funny)
And you've killed your companion cube for it.
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It's a cross-disciplinary course required regardless of major. If it wasn't easy, there would be riots.
From the article:
convenient but useless (Score:4, Interesting)
Portal was short, and as the author states it's multi-platform and fairly cheap, which goes a long way toward making this kind of project feasible. But reading portal as a game of ideas is a real stretch. The comparison to Goffman's Presentation of Self is baffling when the game allows no genuine self-expression (it's completely linear) or self-portrayal (no dialogue options), the subjects of Goffman's book. It's a fun game with a single intriguing character, but it's as deep as a kiddie pool.
It would have made a lot more sense to start with interactive fiction- essentially, text-adventure games. IFArchive.org is a great place to start, and in no time you can find lots of innovative contest winners and other pieces expanding the genre. These are easy to play on any computer, they are of variable length and complexity, and they allow for an easier transition for students- the tools they use to analyze literature will be largely applicable.
All in all, this is a cool effort. But look into interactive fiction! It might surprise you how well the genre is suited to your project.
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I never understood the feelings for the companion cube. When I got to that part, I used the cube and threw it away when I was done. It seemed like a small and trivial part oftge game. The turrets on the other hand creeped me out and then were just funny.
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Cube Execution Officer?
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Well that's what you get from English majors over analyzing everything. They want to find meaning where there isn't.
Portal, of course, was never created to be some deep statement. It was a puzzle game using a neat game mechanic. The story was put in to be funny, and to help guide the player through the puzzles. You can hear the developers themselves comment on it, in game, if you wish. There isn't much to analyze because there isn't intended to be. It isn't some commentary on society, it is just a fun and g
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Re:convenient but useless (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no shame in reading into something and finding meaning where none was intended. That is how humans discover new ideas and relationships. Granted, sometimes the whole critical analysis thing can go really overboard and get tiresome to listen to, but if every creative effort had to explicitly include every possible interpretation of its meaning, and if its creator had to intentionally express it, we wouldn't have art or literature.
Sure, the design decisions that went into making Portal may have been superficial, or subconscious--but the result is a game that can be understood and enjoyed within a much larger context than what it was intended for. If it helps to serve as a vehicle for introspection and stimulate interest in philosophy and the humanities, then all the better.
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You can hear the developers themselves comment on it, in game, if you wish.
In fact, I suspect this is why the game was chosen. Once you beat it, you can play it again in commentary mode. It's very informative.
It might be useful to ask people to write down what they thought everything meant as it went along, and then to go back and play it in commentary mode. ;)
And, of course, the other reason it was chosen was that it is a) short, and b) easy.
There is no secrets, there is no obscure logic, the only tr
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Well that's what you get from English majors over analyzing everything. They want to find meaning where there isn't.
As a past philosophy major (we make English majors look downright practical): where is there any innate meaning that exists previous to analysis? Meaning is largely a cultural thing, and a deep a priori property of things (like, say, mass, or charge).
Portal, of course, was never created to be some deep statement.
A lot of things we take as "deep" weren't created as such. Often the m
Re:convenient but useless (Score:5, Insightful)
First, even if we posit that Portal has no depth, it's a class for freshman. Sometimes it's better to start people off with something simple so things are a bit more clear. For example, in a linear game with a strict narrative, everyone will have similar/comparable experiences with the game and so there will be common experiences to talk about.
However, I don't agree that Portal has no depth to talk about. Valve is a solid developer and their games have a lot of refinement and details. You might point at something like the lack of dialog with the main character and say, "obviously this is because Valve isn't taking the story seriously enough to bother to write dialog." On the other hand, they've claimed that they never game Gordon Freeman any lines because they wanted the player to be able to imagine himself in the role. When a game character speaks, he speaks with a voice that is not the player's. He says things the player wouldn't really say. But in the game, Freeman's (or Chell's) only response is the player's response.
In some ways, art isn't just in the brushstrokes a painter makes, but in the brushstrokes the painter does not make. As a writer, what you don't say can be just as important as what you do say. One of the things that I found amazing about Portal was how much of a story it has given that there's almost no exposition. You have a strange-sounding computerized voice prodding you through an obstacle course. Meanwhile you notice an empty observation room with an overturned chair. The voice makes some promise of cake when you complete the course, but then you find a small compartment "behind the scenes" of the course with writing scrawled on the wall, "The cake is a lie." You realize the AI is psychotic. You realized the AI is probably intending to kill you at some point. You realize that the AI has already killed others who have attempted the obstacle course before you, and has also killed the people who created these tests and created the AI. From very little explanation, an entire backstory emerges:
Aperture Science is company pushing forward with new and dangerous technologies in order to compete with Black Mesa. An AI charged with running a testing facility begins to take its role too seriously, killing anyone who gets in the way of scientific progress. Something has happened to the world outside (the events depicted in Half Life?), so no one comes in to reclaim the facility. Eventually everyone is dead, except for a lone test subject (which may be a clone created by the AI for the purpose of testing).
Now if you play the game again, pay attention to what it is that you're explicitly told. Think about how much you know and how much you can guess at, relative to how little you're told. I think you'll have to admit that Portal's narrative is brilliantly constructed.
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it's just a game where you follow arbitrary abstract rules to achieve certain goals
I'm struggling to think of anything that this sentence doesn't describe...
Other "smart" games? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Any other candidates for a course like this? I thought Braid had some pretty deep storytelling.
And I thought Braid's storytelling wasn't up to the par seen in my age 13 creative writing class.
Ooh, change... (Score:5, Informative)
"In addition to ye Greeke and Latin Classics and learned tomes of divinity and medicine, freshmen shall this year encounter Hamlet the work of a vulgar modern playwrite..."
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> Hamlet the work of a vulgar modern playwrite..."
I didn't know Francis Bacon was vulgar... ;-)
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Re:Ooh, change... (Score:5, Insightful)
At the time Shakespeare was writing, he was basically a commercial hacking ripping off such classical plots as seemed bloody enough to fill the house(and thus his theatre company's stomachs), adding some sex jokes, and running the play until he came up with something else. The only college students "studying" Shakespeare would have been the rowdy ones hanging out on the wrong side of the river with the theatres, the bear-pits, and the whores.
Because, as it happens, Shakespeare was so much better than his peers among the commercial hacks it is hardly even fair(Elizabethan revenge tragedies, for instance, are typically utter dreck) he has earned a place among Real Serious Literature.
My point was just that the canon of stuff considered worth studying changes all the time(even if you don't hang out with the too-cool-for-dead-white-guys culture critic types) and that the idea of adding a video game to the curriculum is really no more radical than adding a popular play, which has happened repeatedly(even the hardcore classicists who were sneering at Shakespeare were probably reading Aristophanes, who had higher cultural value pretty much because his fart jokes were in classical greek...)
Gilgamesh (Score:2)
Well I hope they lvl up the students before letting them encounter Gilgamesh (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Gilgamesh).
Also known as... (Score:2)
Americans with Disabilities Act? (Score:3, Insightful)
How will they deal with students who have physical disabilities? I'm thinking oh, paralysis, cerebral palsy, or anything else that leaves manual dexterity impaired. Or what about visually impaired or blind students? Remember this is a required course for all incoming students. Sounds like a half-baked idea from this distance, and yes, I did read the article.
Let's hope Wabash doesn't get into a heapload of trouble for not complying with the ADA, like losing any Federal grants they might have.
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Okay, for reference, people with disabilities have ... disabilities.
That means they can't do everything so where possible provisions are made to allow them to participate.
That said, they are disabled which means they can not do everything that people without disabilities can. The ADA doesn't require that provisions are made so that a paralyzed person can perform brain surgery or do construction work.
There are reasonable limits on what is expected. You don't have to make the web visible to a blind man beca
If you pass the course.... (Score:2)
.... Do you get a party followed by cake?
Intro Physics (Score:2)
I could think of many better games for discussing existentialist philosophy. But as a physics professor, I've toyed with the idea of using Portal to discuss conservation laws in Intro Physics. For instance:
Which of the following physical quantities are conserved by an object passing through a portal?
Speed
Momentum
Kinetic Energy
Total Energy
This is a travesty. (Score:4, Funny)
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I would have chosen HHGTG myself (text ver.)
I personally learned quite a bit from that game playing it when I was about 11.
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You mean, "I'm disappointed in you, Wabash College," right? Even according to the summary, this is noted as a first for Wabash, not for the United States of America. And wait, there's a bit more you missed, since you obviously didn't read the article....
It wasn't "the first game to be included in an academic curriculum," even for Wabash college. It's the first game proposed to be a requirement for ALL students at Wabash. And according to the article (as previous posters have noted) they're not really ready
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I dont't consider it such a bad choice. It had serious impact on culture in certain channels (just look at all the cake jokes), is a rather slowly-paced puzzle game most of the time, has something to say on lies and morality, is accessible due to the easy user interface (movement, jump, aim and the two portal keys), and most importantly is very short (It took me 6h, and I'm a very slow player looking at every corner). You woudn't want to require them playing through a game that takes a year to finish for un
Motion sickness (Score:2)
Many non-gamers get motion sick when playing an FPS, especially Portal. This sounds like a bad idea.
This is something you would boast about? (Score:2)
American Universities. Daycare for young "adults". Confirmed once again.
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books are proprietary as well. SO is the technology in the microwave and the school cafeteryia, and in the monitiors, and everywhere. quick, go hide under a rock before big proprietary gets you.
It's a game that had a cultural impact and runs on OSX and Windows.
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Besides, even if it didn't, you're going to encounter one of two situations:
a) The student's computer is either Windows or Mac, and Portal runs on both.
b) The student's computer is Linux, BSD, etc.. Any student sufficiently knowledgeable about a more complex (to install), niche operating system can easily get Windows/Mac running, or WINE in Linux, etc. etc.
It's a moot point either way.
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c) The student has either an XBox 360 [amazon.co.uk] or a PS3 [amazon.co.uk].
Welcome to real life (Score:5, Insightful)
If you go with the "You can't require any non-proprietary software," attitude you'll find you don't go very far. In the business world this is particularly true, they'll tell you precisely what you are going to use and you'll do so or get out. However university is the same way. I work at an engineering college they teach students on what is used in industry. Students use Cadence, Matlab, Solidworks, Office, and so on. We have labs, of course, since much of that software isn't licensed for use on non-university equipment. However you WILL use it to do your homework or you WILL fail. That is life. We aren't interested in philosophical debates about if information wants to be free, we are interested in teaching the tools companies want to help students get jobs.
Now I understand Portal is rather stupid as part of a curriculum, the whole thing sounds like what happens when you get a bunch of English majors together and they start overanalyzing everything. However it being proprietary is not a problem, not unusual.
If you go to university they will tell you what you have to get, and it often requires spending hundreds of dollars on particular books, using certain software packages and OSes and so on. That is life. You do what you like at home on your own time, but you don't get to tell your professor how to teach class, or your boss how to run a business.
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If you go with the "You can't require any non-proprietary software," attitude you'll find you don't go very far. In the business world this is particularly true, they'll tell you precisely what you are going to use and you'll do so or get out. However university is the same way. I work at an engineering college they teach students on what is used in industry. Students use Cadence, Matlab, Solidworks, Office, and so on. We have labs, of course, since much of that software isn't licensed for use on non-university equipment. However you WILL use it to do your homework or you WILL fail. That is life. We aren't interested in philosophical debates about if information wants to be free, we are interested in teaching the tools companies want to help students get jobs.
I'm fairly sure GP was opposed to requiring students to buy proprietary software, not use proprietary software supplied on the college's dime. You don't honestly expect your students to shell out for matlab, do you?
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I'm sure every school requires students to buy Windows or OS/X, and a bunch of books
Where do you live where this is the case? At my university, in the UK, every lecturer was required to provide the library with a list of all of the books and software required for the course. The software would be installed on lab machines and the books would be available from the library. It was entirely possible to graduate without buying a single book or owning a computer, although it would have involved spending a lot more time on campus.
the overall cost of education
Ah, this would be the USA then.
ITT Technical Institute or University of Phoenix? (Score:5, Insightful)
We aren't interested in philosophical debates about if information wants to be free, we are interested in teaching the tools companies want to help students get jobs.
Yeah, Education for the Future!
Actually, real colleges are EXACTLY the place where you want to have philosophical debates about EVERYTHING so you don't become one of those idiots who think the University system exists to service Industry instead of building developed minds capable of critical thinking...
Re:ITT Technical Institute or University of Phoeni (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't name my employer, for various reasons, but it is a Tier 1 research institution. We bring in some big research dollars and we grant PhDs. A diploma mill this is not.
If you want to have philosophical debates that's fine, then go take some philosophy courses, we have a pretty good philosophy department too. Though I'll warn you even there as an undergrad you are expected to learn what they choose to teach you. You will be reading philosophers who's opinions you don't agree with and if all you do is argue, your grades will be poor. You aren't expected to agree, but you are expected to understand and analyze their point of view, something that many who claim to want a "philosophical debate" seem to be bad at.
However the engineering college is for training engineers. In particular, undergraduate work is largely based around getting people jobs. Most people only come for undergraduate degrees and they want to be employable. That means teaching them the theory of whatever kind of engineering they've chosen, and teaching them skills on the tools they'll use in the real world. If you don't like it, well then too bad.
You want more self directed research? Fine, come get a masters degree and then a PhD. Then you get the freedom to work more on what you are interested in, then you get more choice in the tools you use. However undergraduate degrees are for laying basic theoretical groundwork. To do that you are going to have to use tools. You cannot teach someone how to use an oscilloscope without actually giving them one to use. You can't teach how to so a Spice circuit simulation without actually running simulation software. We choose to use the tools that industry wants. Why? Because it helps our students get jobs and that's what most of them are there for.
If you want a liberal arts degree, fine get one. The university offers a great many. However don't try and demand that all program should be that way. Some are very practical in their orientation of teaching, and research. Those are also some of the large ones. It brings in the big research dollars, and many people want to leave university with a degree with practical applications. Philosophy is fine but don't expect it to help you get a job, you'll need skills outside of that. Engineering will go a long way to getting you employed in the same field.
Oh and PS, I DID do liberal arts in university (an interdisciplinary degree in cognitive science) I'm just very aware of how useless that is. My skills, and work history, in computer support got me my job here, not what I learned in university. It was interesting and I don't regret it at all, but then I didn't need training for my career, I had it already.
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I won't name my employer, for various reasons, but it is a Tier 1 research institution. We bring in some big research dollars and we grant PhDs. A diploma mill this is not.
...
However the engineering college is for training engineers. In particular, undergraduate work is largely based around getting people jobs. Most people only come for undergraduate degrees and they want to be employable. That means teaching them the theory of whatever kind of engineering they've chosen, and teaching them skills on the tools they'll use in the real world. If you don't like it, well then too bad.
At Cambridge University Engineering Department, which is probably a Tier 0 research institution, almost all teaching is carried out on OpenSuSE workstations; the mandatory programming labs are taught using Emacs/GCC and Octave, rather than Visual Studio and MATLAB; and coursework is accepted on paper (I wrote much of mine longhand) or in PDF format, and LaTeX is encouraged. They even used to hand out live DVDs with the department's standard Linux setup on them, but that seems to have stopped nowadays.
This s
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If you go to university they will tell you what you have to get, and it often requires spending hundreds of dollars on particular books, using certain software packages and OSes and so on. That is life.
of the software packages you've mentioned, octave is 100% compatible with matlab, it was designed as a drop in replacement, have used it in maths classes extensively.
In regards to office, most reports are still handed in in dead tree format, and those that aren't they welcome pdfs just fine (LaTeX ftw)
Even in programming, I have a course that demands visual studio and c sharp coding, I use mono for the c# coding, and all is well.
You sir, just simply gave in.
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octave is 100% compatible with matlab
Not true. Check the Octave site - they list incompatibilities. That said, it's well over 95% compatible, and for a university course you're unlikely to have problems with them.
Sigh (Score:2)
For one I don't go to a university, I work at one. For two if you think that any place that dares actually use real tools to teach must not be a "real" university then it speaks extremely poorly to the quality of your education.
Let's try it with computer science since so many people here are (or at least think they are) programmers:
So you go to get a CS undergrad degree. This is going to involve learning fundamental computer and computer programming theories. The idea is to teach you how a computer works, a
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1) Using actual, real, computers and programming languages used out in industry. Have you write programs for Intel/AMD computers and use C++, C#, Java, Python, and so on. Basically, use tools that you'll actually use while teaching you the theory so you learn not only a useful theory, but useful practical knowledge as well.
2) Using artificial, "for education only" stuff. Create their own computer architecture that you run in an emulator, and create languages that are not actually used outside of the environment. Teach you the theory in an isolated setting, without real application. Have the tools you learn be useless outside the walls of the university.
Me? I vote #1. Much better to learn on tools that people will ask you to use than to learn on than to learn on something that isn't useful to your future.
Me, I vote #2. Tools change. Better to learn WHY things work the way they work than HOW to get a certain tool to accomplish something.
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I'd encourage universities to teach uncommon languages, but allow submissions for final-year projects in more mainstream ones. Good programmers know lots of languages, even if they only use one or two. A student is unlikely to get a job programming Pascal, but they may get one programming C. If you know Pascal, C is trivial to learn, but at the end you know two programming languages, and so you're likely to be a better programmer than someone who only knows C. Substitute Smalltalk for Pascal and Java fo
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Like those proprietary non free text books that they mandate for courses? Portal is cheap compared to those.
OH BTW, you need a proprietary printing press to print a book too...
Perhaps you want to suggest something else? Presumably you would have already...
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Last time I checked, the Source engine ran pretty well under Wine...
Sure enough, according to the AppDB, Portal has gotten a "platinum" rating in the last two entries [winehq.org]. (Platinum is the best rating: it means the application works "out of the box", more or less.)
That page suggests setting the DirectX mode to 8.0, so you won't be getting all the eyecandy... But then, you're playing it for a class, not the eyecandy.
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