Impressions of school.

[Fox 6]

So as I type im in school right now. Have a short break in class. So for all those who care im in a program called Graphic Communications Tech. Basically it was a program designed by the printing idustry in Vancouver to develop skilled workers for the printing industry in the future. It is the 3rd bigest industry in teh world (says my text) and growing.

So basically I train in computer graphics aswell as hands on methods such as binding and press operation. By the end of these 2 years i will have a goat load of skills to put into practice. We get to trian with brand new Macs and PCs and a bunch of software. Right now im in an image manipulation class, learning about colors ( sooooooooooooooooooo complicated.)


Here are the gripes. Since its industry based a lot of the instructors are strait form the industry. thats not bad but they are only available at nights. So Mon, Tues, and Thurs im here till 8:30 or 9:30 pm. I have 8 courses in this term and a workload to match. I have (probably) more than a dozen text books to get and read through. Since our building has to house printing presses we are located about 10 minutes (up hill) form the main BCIT campus (BCIT is regarded as the "premeire polytechnic institute in Canada".)

Well class is about to start again so woooooopeee!!

Feel free to share about or comment or ask questions.

[Jason1]

Sounds like interesting stuff. Im a senior at Illinois State University Majoring in Business Administration, which is more or less a general business degree. I really dont know what I want to do after graduation, I just want a decent paying job I dont hate. As I look back I probably should have been an Information Systems major because I like computers so much. All of my classes are very boring.

[KillerGremlin]

Let's see...after changing my major from Engineering I am now a happy student for the first time in a long time. I am taking both a Psychology and Sociology class and they are infinitely more interesting than Calculus ever was. I am also taking an elective English class that focuses on Literature and Cinema in modern popular culture. I also have a cultural diversity requirement that I am filling as well as a language requirement. So far so good.

[BreakABone]

Let's see...after changing my major from Engineering I am now a happy student for the first time in a long time. I am taking both a Psychology and Sociology class and they are infinitely more interesting than Calculus ever was. I am also taking an elective English class that focuses on Literature and Cinema in modern popular culture. I also have a cultural diversity requirement that I am filling as well as a language requirement. So far so good.

You are really beginning to scare me. :lol:
I also took an English class (or two) that dealt with Literature and cinema in pop culture.

One was shakespeare related. The other was more contempary (Spelling>)

[KillerGremlin]

You are really beginning to scare me. :lol:
I also took an English class (or two) that dealt with Literature and cinema in pop culture.

One was shakespeare related. The other was more contempary (Spelling>)

What is love?
Oh baby, don't hurt meeeee
Don't hurt me no more

It was probably destiny. I promise I will revive AIM one night when I'm not memorizing words in Espanol and I will give you the low-down on my psych stuff. I have a surprisingly busy schedule because I am playing catch-up with the new Major thing.

[Bond]

I'm majoring in Finance, Investment and Banking to prepare for corporate law.

So far this semester is a big pain. I have to apply to the business school. I'm taking two literature classes with an ungodly amount of reading. And Accounting is beating me senseless.

P.S. Eight courses is ridiculous, Fox!

[manasecret]

Here are the gripes. Since its industry based a lot of the instructors are strait form the industry. thats not bad but they are only available at nights.

Now that I'm a year out of electrical engineering undergrad, working in the real world for a year after graduating, I have a slight bit of perspective. (I do mean slight.)

The one thing I most wish I had had more of in my undergrad career was more instructors straight from the industry. One of my professors was from the industry, and he was easily the best professor we had. He expected perfection from us, and yelled at us a lot, cussed a lot, and told a LOT of dirty jokes, but he knew his shit. He asked a lot of questions from everyone in the class, never letting anyone trying to just sail through the class to slip by, and usually ridiculed you if you didn't know the answer.

He was a harsh professor, and that was mostly because he came from the energy industry -- he was not a career professor -- and the energy industry is mostly full of shit-talking good-'ol-boys who tell dirty jokes. This guy was a short, fat, Jewish guy from Canada, but he could hang. But if you weren't really interested in the class, you would hate him. Even if you were really interested in the class, it was easy to hate him sometimes because he expected so much. But he forced you to learn. And I wish now that all of my professors were that way.

Instead, most professors were happy to let you skate by. Industry professors rock.

Though I did have one instructor retired from the industry, and he was a fat slouch. But he was an instructor for our electrical engineering seminar classes. He wasn't really supposed to do much.

[gekko]

Eh, coming from an industry where you're given a lot of responsibility at a young age and failure is not tolerated and going back to a school filled with every stereotypical gamer you never believed existed, I have changed my perspective on instructors allowing the students to skate by. As I've watched students with worse work-ethic than I thought possible slip on by, I decided it's not the place for an academic institution to teach you work-ethic, or responsibility. The school exists to teach you the knowledge needed to get a job in that field, not the other traits. If you need someone to hold your hand, force you to do your homework before dinner, and ground you from video games when you have a test coming up, go back and talk to your parents. You can embrace your education or perform the minimum and squeeze by. As a new adult, it's their first major decision, and they get to live with their choice.

Slight change of topic, my classes absolutely rock this semester... except Physics, I hate Physics, in part because I hate Calculus. Point in, every other class I have this semester is awesome... even my two math classes. So, I'm quite happy about it. Anyway, I need to get going. I have class... Physics :(

[manasecret]

Eh, coming from an industry where you're given a lot of responsibility at a young age and failure is not tolerated and going back to a school filled with every stereotypical gamer you never believed existed, I have changed my perspective on instructors allowing the students to skate by. As I've watched students with worse work-ethic than I thought possible slip on by, I decided it's not the place for an academic institution to teach you work-ethic, or responsibility. The school exists to teach you the knowledge needed to get a job in that field, not the other traits. If you need someone to hold your hand, force you to do your homework before dinner, and ground you from video games when you have a test coming up, go back and talk to your parents. You can embrace your education or perform the minimum and squeeze by. As a new adult, it's their first major decision, and they get to live with their choice.

Yeah, I agree with that, the professors shouldn't have to hold your hand through college. You should figure out that, to do well in class, you're going to have to do go to class regularly and do your homework and study for exams. The students that figure it out make it, the ones that don't fail out or just barely eke by.

But I must not have been clear about this professor, because he was no hold-your-hand professor, make sure you're doing your homework professor, or anything like that. When I say he forced us to learn, he did that by ridiculing us so much in class every time you didn't know an answer or gave a wrong answer that your main motivation to learn was so that you didn't get ridiculed by him in front of the whole class over and over. And let me tell you, it is a FANTASTIC motivator. It helps when he's a literal sponge of the material with an answer to any question you have at the tip of his tongue, and an extremely personable guy, great when he wasn't focusing his power of stinging ridicule on you.

And, to me, the reason he was all of those things, was because he came from the industry and didn't spend his whole life as a professor. Not that I'm knocking life-long professors, I just think a lot of mine could have taken a tip or two from this guy.

[Fox 6]

My printing press instructor is by far the best industry based instructor I have. A quirky fellow he is.