Though I have attend the Career Fair at my University a total of six times now, every semester since my arrival, I am ever surprised at how awkward the entire event always tends to be.
You have fifty or so business men and women standing around in front of tables covered in shit displaying their lovely company logos. Wondering if this is a complete waste of their time, they stand around and talk to the often half hearted and nervous students about jobs that the students are likely unqualified for.
After about two hours of this half of them go to lunch, which is provided by the university. They talk to each other and laugh easily over the free food and drinks. Then they return to the floor and switch with their booth mate so that the other may leave and enjoy the free food. This is, I imagine, difficult for them because they have to watch their comrade walk away from the room full of awkward college students as they are left alone to defend the table from those who have come solely for the free loot.
When a student stops to talk to them, they ramble on about their company and ask what the student wants to do with their life . . . a question that most college students cannot answer because they honestly have never thought about it for any length of time.
At this point I'd like to move to the other side of the conversation.
Students are at the career fair for one of three reasons. Either they were guilted into it by a professor, are desperate to find a summer/post college job, or they have lost their last pen and need a new one but are unwilling to drive into town and buy one from Wal-Mart. Regardless of their reasons, these students are here.
Some of them are professionally dressed to the best of their ability, and some are wandering around in their grease-stained gym shorts and thread bear University hoodies looking lost and out of place. Collar and tie or no, the student will be stopped by numerous potential employers practically begging them to bring validity to their trip by being something other than a useless excuse for humanity. Unfortunately this seems to happen surprisingly little.
If a student wishes to speak to the representative, then they are nervous and incapable of looking good due to nervousness and the fact that they are surrounded by nervous people. If the student is simply after loot, then they have no answers to the recruiter's questions and make the lot of us look like fools. In any case, the entire event is a nervous laugh and a half.
Back to the reps. When you speak to them, they are sizing you up. Will she be a good employee? Does she seem confident? Why does she shift her weight between feet so often? They gesture randomly and seem desperate to find a way to give you something to look at other than them while they talk. But really, where else are you going to look . . . at the floor = shy(bad), at the ceiling = spacey (bad), off to the side = distracted/not listening (bad) so what's left?
This is a good way to find out how you deal with pressure, and a likely place for panic attacks for chlostrophobics and those who hate crowds. It makes college seem even more like a hill that you must climb before you can reach the sheer cliff of the working world. I just hope that there is some sort of climbing kit included with my diploma.
23 February 2007
Career Fairs
28 January 2007
MS Dos, Linux, and VMS
When my operating systems professor assigned a paper comparing the system calls of MS Dos, Linux, and VMS he called it a simple assignment. You know, simple, the same word that is used by mathematicians to describe the fundamental process of turning three pages of garbage into one line of information. Simple, like pulling the teeth of a tiger using rusty pliers and no sedative.
For those who do not know, Microsoft has not updated the Dos prompt since 2000. Linux is written by the sort of super nerds who will one day rule the world from their basement offices and game rooms. VMS is only refered to on the Internet in private rants about how damnably difficult it is to update legacy systems using this dinosaur of operating system prehistory.
So here I sit, much of my weekend squandered on this pointless assignment, muttering "simple" to myself and laughing in that crazed desperate way a person in a mental institution might laugh if not for all the sedatives. I cannot, however, simply (eh heh heh hee) say that this professor is the sole beacon of misunderstanding in this institution of monotony that I call college.
Reasons unknown to normal human beings have driven every professor I have to feel that all of those things that their professors taught them in college, all of the things they learned through experience, and all of the things they read about in their free time are simply the logical result of being awake. As though I, having never been taught and having never used a VMS machine before last week, would automatically know all of the commands and quarks of the system simply (hee hee hee *snort*) because I chose computer science as my major instead of English or History.
I was in grade school when the topics he expects me to already know were being studied by people who are his age now. If only I had been born fifty years ago, then I would be able to pass an operating systems class now.
Excuse me . . . I need to mop up the ooze that was once my brain, and I thought computers were cool . . . Wahahahaha . . . haha . . . heh . . . *hic* . . . *sob*.
For those who do not know, Microsoft has not updated the Dos prompt since 2000. Linux is written by the sort of super nerds who will one day rule the world from their basement offices and game rooms. VMS is only refered to on the Internet in private rants about how damnably difficult it is to update legacy systems using this dinosaur of operating system prehistory.
So here I sit, much of my weekend squandered on this pointless assignment, muttering "simple" to myself and laughing in that crazed desperate way a person in a mental institution might laugh if not for all the sedatives. I cannot, however, simply (eh heh heh hee) say that this professor is the sole beacon of misunderstanding in this institution of monotony that I call college.
Reasons unknown to normal human beings have driven every professor I have to feel that all of those things that their professors taught them in college, all of the things they learned through experience, and all of the things they read about in their free time are simply the logical result of being awake. As though I, having never been taught and having never used a VMS machine before last week, would automatically know all of the commands and quarks of the system simply (hee hee hee *snort*) because I chose computer science as my major instead of English or History.
I was in grade school when the topics he expects me to already know were being studied by people who are his age now. If only I had been born fifty years ago, then I would be able to pass an operating systems class now.
Excuse me . . . I need to mop up the ooze that was once my brain, and I thought computers were cool . . . Wahahahaha . . . haha . . . heh . . . *hic* . . . *sob*.
23 January 2007
Standardized Testing
Standardized Testing is for lazy people. If there were no lazy people, then a person's grade point average would be an accurate description of how well they are doing in school.
Standardized Testing is for rich white men. These tests are written by well educated, upper class, white, men. This means that the language they use, their sentence structure, their grammatical preferences, and any word association that is assumed comes from their way of thinking. It has been proven by many researchers that minorities, women, and the poor do much worse on these tests. For a time it was assumed that the faults of these groups in the area of standardized tests reflected their inferior intelligence. Minorities were assumed to be inferior and therefore deserved their place at the bottom. Women were assumed to be inferior and therefore deserved their place raising children at home. The poor were assumed to be inferior and thereby their poverty was easily explained as a consequence of their stupidity. All of these assumptions have been disproved as we have evolved as a society, but we still rely on standardized tests to tell us the academic value of students. Why?
Standardized Testing is racist, sexist, and elitist. There is no reason that we as a society need to continue to rely on these tests to determine the worth of our students. Let their work show their understanding. Let us finally take that step out of the age of rich white men and move into a world where everyone really does have an equal shot at success. If we allow our leaders (who are primarily rich white men) to dictate the means of testing in our schools, then the system will never change. They want their children to do better and look smarter. They do not care if it is a false representation. They do not care if the average person is left behind. If the playing field were leveled, then wealth would not be something that children born to poor parents could only dream of having. Cheating should not be the only choice that is offered to the children of poor citizens with little or no education. It should not be the only choice for children of immigrants or minorities. It should never be an easier choice than working hard and learning.
When we make learning about the numbers you get, it stops being about the education that causes personal groath. If all that is important is getting a 36 on the ACT, then no one will care to study things that will not appear on that test. How can we move forward if our manse of advancing young minds into the future has been corrupted by standardized testing to the point that the only reason to learn is to get a big number on a test.
Standardized Testing is for rich white men. These tests are written by well educated, upper class, white, men. This means that the language they use, their sentence structure, their grammatical preferences, and any word association that is assumed comes from their way of thinking. It has been proven by many researchers that minorities, women, and the poor do much worse on these tests. For a time it was assumed that the faults of these groups in the area of standardized tests reflected their inferior intelligence. Minorities were assumed to be inferior and therefore deserved their place at the bottom. Women were assumed to be inferior and therefore deserved their place raising children at home. The poor were assumed to be inferior and thereby their poverty was easily explained as a consequence of their stupidity. All of these assumptions have been disproved as we have evolved as a society, but we still rely on standardized tests to tell us the academic value of students. Why?
Standardized Testing is racist, sexist, and elitist. There is no reason that we as a society need to continue to rely on these tests to determine the worth of our students. Let their work show their understanding. Let us finally take that step out of the age of rich white men and move into a world where everyone really does have an equal shot at success. If we allow our leaders (who are primarily rich white men) to dictate the means of testing in our schools, then the system will never change. They want their children to do better and look smarter. They do not care if it is a false representation. They do not care if the average person is left behind. If the playing field were leveled, then wealth would not be something that children born to poor parents could only dream of having. Cheating should not be the only choice that is offered to the children of poor citizens with little or no education. It should not be the only choice for children of immigrants or minorities. It should never be an easier choice than working hard and learning.
When we make learning about the numbers you get, it stops being about the education that causes personal groath. If all that is important is getting a 36 on the ACT, then no one will care to study things that will not appear on that test. How can we move forward if our manse of advancing young minds into the future has been corrupted by standardized testing to the point that the only reason to learn is to get a big number on a test.
Student Teaching
Everyone has had a teacher who seemed misplaced in a classroom. Honestly, who hasn't asked the question "what possessed that person to teach". This is the instructor who is irritable and seems to hate children, high schoolers, college students, enter pupil here. Sometimes they seem lazy and disassociated, making you assume they could never have survived in a work environment.
I have developed a different theory about those educators who hate or ignore their students. They are sick. Sick of stupid questions asked by students too lazy to look up the answer on the course web site or in the book, sick of being asked the same question over and over and over again, sick of showing up to study sessions and lab hours and having no one show up. It is a thankless job, being a teacher.
If you or someone close to you has considered, may consider, or is considering teaching as a vocation, I strongly recommend student teaching first. I do not feel that it is the profession for me, as I am writing this after spending 75 minutes of a 2hr study session reviewing the course notes and waiting for anyone in the class to show up. No one has, and I have the feeling that no one will.
I have developed a different theory about those educators who hate or ignore their students. They are sick. Sick of stupid questions asked by students too lazy to look up the answer on the course web site or in the book, sick of being asked the same question over and over and over again, sick of showing up to study sessions and lab hours and having no one show up. It is a thankless job, being a teacher.
If you or someone close to you has considered, may consider, or is considering teaching as a vocation, I strongly recommend student teaching first. I do not feel that it is the profession for me, as I am writing this after spending 75 minutes of a 2hr study session reviewing the course notes and waiting for anyone in the class to show up. No one has, and I have the feeling that no one will.
21 January 2007
Pets
Anyone who has a small animal knows that nothing is ever safe enough. I currently have a 12 week old kitten living in my small apartment. An apartment which, prior to kitten inspection, I thought to be devoid of anything interesting.
Before he arrived, I cleaned everything. To any normal being the apartment seemed devoid of dust, crumbs, and tiny bits of stuff for a baby to swallow. It was not. So far he has found dust dragons under, in and around everything in my apartment. He has discovered that carpet is made of tiny peaces, and he now knows that the best way to find crumbs is to attack me whilst I eat popcorn, chips, . . . enter carbohydrate based product here . . . etc.
With all of this, I still cannot seem to stay angry with him. Really, he's brilliant. Without any encouragement from anyone, he knew that the way out of trouble was to snuggle, look up at me with those huge eyes of his, and purr like mad. I become pudding, completely incapable of finding my spine and telling the little shit to go to his kennel.
I wonder if having an actual child is worse, or better. Human children, after all, cannot claw the carpet or your legs, but they have thumbs which brings an entirely new dimension to the chaos.
Before he arrived, I cleaned everything. To any normal being the apartment seemed devoid of dust, crumbs, and tiny bits of stuff for a baby to swallow. It was not. So far he has found dust dragons under, in and around everything in my apartment. He has discovered that carpet is made of tiny peaces, and he now knows that the best way to find crumbs is to attack me whilst I eat popcorn, chips, . . . enter carbohydrate based product here . . . etc.
With all of this, I still cannot seem to stay angry with him. Really, he's brilliant. Without any encouragement from anyone, he knew that the way out of trouble was to snuggle, look up at me with those huge eyes of his, and purr like mad. I become pudding, completely incapable of finding my spine and telling the little shit to go to his kennel.
I wonder if having an actual child is worse, or better. Human children, after all, cannot claw the carpet or your legs, but they have thumbs which brings an entirely new dimension to the chaos.
19 January 2007
Prologue
It has been nearly three years since I started college. In that time I have made two or three friends and adopted a kitten.
I must admit that the most outstanding discovery that I have made while here is that most people in college are not intelligent, nor are many of them actually interested in learning. There was a time when the concept of higher education was not simply an obstacle that one had to pass in order to do well in life. Education used to matter to people. Once upon a time there were many people who valued knowledge above all other things, now we attend classes so that an employer will exploit us for a higher salary.
Oddly enough, I actually enjoy learning. I love my classes and the study of advanced subjects. What has driven me to begin my blog is the fact that so few people actually feel the pull towards self improvement anymore. America was once a land of opportunity and promise, where a person could advance by working hard and improving themselves. People worked hard and plied hard. They knew who they were and where they wanted to be. They had goals and dreams. I would love to see a return to that mentality.
I must admit that the most outstanding discovery that I have made while here is that most people in college are not intelligent, nor are many of them actually interested in learning. There was a time when the concept of higher education was not simply an obstacle that one had to pass in order to do well in life. Education used to matter to people. Once upon a time there were many people who valued knowledge above all other things, now we attend classes so that an employer will exploit us for a higher salary.
Oddly enough, I actually enjoy learning. I love my classes and the study of advanced subjects. What has driven me to begin my blog is the fact that so few people actually feel the pull towards self improvement anymore. America was once a land of opportunity and promise, where a person could advance by working hard and improving themselves. People worked hard and plied hard. They knew who they were and where they wanted to be. They had goals and dreams. I would love to see a return to that mentality.
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