As usual the results of the last poll,
26 % chose Yes
73 % chose No.
Now the cause of the choice for the title of this posting!
As you are aware, I 'teach' Programming Methodology, and since i had already informed the students about the fact that they might be having a test in the lab in week one, i decided to give them the test yesterday...
I took a question from a past exam paper off a colleague and gave that question as a test. It must be understood that the question was one of three give in a three hour test. The students were give two hours to complete that very first question, and out of 15 (the remaining 15 bunked), only four managed to finish it on time. The others ...well no comments.... I was even shocked by the attitude of some students who were chilling out in the lab probably present only because of the shade and air-conditioning in the lab...because obviously, they were not working - or even pretending to work.
The situation is alarming. I know that some students are working hard, but are they working hard enough. I believe that if a Computer Science students is having problems with Programming Methodology- he will have major difficulties in Year 2 whereby 75 % of the modules do involve programming in one way or the other.
Being quite cross at the outcome of my test, i was talking about it to the Florist of the faculty... and he wisely pointed out that the students nowadays are not what they used to be. Now most of them are over-pampered brats, who have been spoon-fed throughout their life, they come to uni because its is fashionable to do so, or their parents forced them to do so!
We have reached a point where students come to lecture halls without having read or prepared to topic, some do not even bother to print the slides... Computer Science is one of the most challenging fields where only there categories of people belong (the 3 categories not being mutually exclusive)
a. hard-workers
b. people who are passionate
c. people who are good at it (smart-workers)
Its not a field in which you study just to work at one of the Cyber-Towers.
Furthermore, yesterday was marked by Avinash's posting on his blog mentioning that he is founding a new religion and quitting his job at UoM... Well...what a big loss...best of luck founder of Avism!!!
Well since part of your blog was about religion. i might add my bit to it.
People try to mix culture and religion and this is wrong...the culture of a person include (but is not restricted to) the traditions a person follows as a result of his origin.
For instance, a mauritian, irrespective of his religion, celebrates Christmas.
An indian (from India, obviously), irrespective of his religion celebrates Divali.
For instance the culture of all Hindus in Mauritius includes the celebration of Divali. However can the same be said of all Hindus in India?
Now as i said sometimes the culture of a person can also include things done traditionally in the country of origin of that person (or his ancestor). e.g. many Hindus in Mauritius celebrate Sankranti (Le festival de la moisson), coz farmers in India pay homage to the Sun God for a good harvest... however when they indentured labourers came to Mauritius, though the situation was different, coz the harvest was not their own, they still celebrated..so culture has got an element of 'habit' i.e if your ancestor were doing it somewhere, you can perpetrate that where you are and this gets termed as your culture.
Culture can be expressed in language, dressing habit,moral and social values, music, art, cooking, means of interaction...
Now you would have realised the 'culture' is a mixture of several things. Religion however can be thought of as being more complex! However to me religion can be summed up using set-notation.
Since all religions preach one thing (Love & tolerance), they have one thing is common.
They only differ in the names they give to God/Prophets.
In my humble opinion, different religions are different sets (mathematically speaking) holding one or more names for God (as their elements).
Now some of these sets are conjoint and some others are disjoint.
Some of the fights and wars in the world are because of these different names, but didn't Shakespeare say (in Romeo and Juliet) :
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."
I wonder if i could change it to:
"What's in a name? That which we call God, by any other name would preach love and tolerance.".
I know its does not sound as good as Shakespeare..but thats a start!
