• (cs) in reply to doc0tis
    doc0tis:
    I agree completely.

    But in the prof's defense. There have been times that I have struggled for 10-20 minutes trying to get Powerpoint to display on a projector.

    Having said that, the vast majority of the time it's super easy to get ppt running properly

    --doc0tis

    +1 that getting projectors to work is not necessarily a measure of technical competence. In 2004 I was sitting in on a lecture when the professor couldn't get the projector to work. It was at MIT. The professor was an astronaut.

    Naturally, within a minute the projector and laptop were surrounded by altruistic students who didn't have much better luck. After a while the professor mused, "Where's that AV guy we all had in high school? Oh, he was us."

    --RA

  • Christopher Mercer (unregistered) in reply to quamaretto

    Actually at my University we have a B.A. in Political Science teaching in the Political Science department. He is tenured and been here for years. I have taken classes with him, and many other only to learn that he's actually the sharpest knife in the drawer. In some cases you don't need the rubber stamp of a Masters or Ph.D to be intelligent enough to teach at the College or University level.

    Mind you, a true University education is about having your learning guided, not taught. Figure that out and you will have far more success in life.

  • Jer (unregistered)
    The education is theoretical around here and dull to death, but this all benefits in understanding why you must do what you do and thus we make less WTF-s at our first job than most. At least none of my proffesors shined about being connected to france, they were serious scientsits at their field... None of them had a degree in CS tho, math of all kinds, physics in heaps, a few general lectures, but no CS.

    All true, but it would be nice to a) be taught by people who had participated in at least one real life software project and b) have a curriculum that looks like CS (during my first semester only 2 subjects out of 7 had sth to do with computers and it'll be 3/7 during the second).

    Mind you, a true University education is about having your learning guided, not taught. Figure that out and you will have far more success in life.
    Figuring things out on your own is important (especially in CS) but still, most efficient education is done by people who can tell their ass from their elbow.
  • SadButTrue (unregistered) in reply to FunnyCuzItsTrue
    FunnyCuzItsTrue:
    Ok, I had to chime in here...I graduated from NU in 2000 with a CS degree, and I know EXACTLY who that professor is. This story is 100% believable!
    Ditto, 2001, though I never sat through a class with him. I always saw him more like a mascot than a professor anyway.

    As to the tenure, I'm guessing he got that for being one of those that started up the CS department there at NU, having been a math prof prior.

  • Jaded (unregistered) in reply to Disgruntled DBA
    Disgruntled DBA:
    Marcin:
    Well, if this was a time when the internet hadn't reached many homes, it might indeed have been something that a prospective student might not have seen. More pertinently, you guys are just jaded. Seriously, how many people in human history have yearned to be connected to France?

    The Germans, the English, the Romans....

    These guys didn't want to be connected to France, they just wanted to own that real estate...

  • Patarut (unregistered) in reply to Jaded
    Bob:
    Disgruntled DBA:
    Marcin:
    Well, if this was a time when the internet hadn't reached many homes, it might indeed have been something that a prospective student might not have seen. More pertinently, you guys are just jaded. Seriously, how many people in human history have yearned to be connected to France?

    The Germans, the English, the Romans....

    These guys didn't want to be connected to France, they just wanted to own that real estate...

    Yeah, they know what is good for them...

  • (cs)
    "As Josh was leaving, the professor came running after them. 'Wait, I want to show you something! I have a lot of confidence in our systems here and I want to show you guys something really impressive!'”
    Is the professor seeing double above or is it just bad grammar. The rest of the article implies Josh is alone.
  • (cs) in reply to NEU Student
    NEU Student:
    He still teaches... I've had other professors comment on his alcoholism too.
    The Philosopher's Drinking Song

    Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable. Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table. David Hume could out consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.

    There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raisin' of the wrist. Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

    John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shandy was particularly ill. Plato, they say, could stick it away, 'alf a crate of whiskey every day! Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, and Hobbes was fond of his Dram. And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am."

    Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed; A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.

      -- Monty Python
  • mnature (unregistered) in reply to triso

    If the professor was that impressed with France, you might want to tell him to go to the movies. They have talkies now . . .

  • NUStudent (unregistered)

    I had him for 2 courses as well at NU. Graduated 04 and I can say that eventhough he taught buzzed (not drunk!) his way was much better than many other CS profs at NU. At least I aced all the exams in his class than the first time I took the same course with the "other guy". If you call him a Lame Prof. then what do you call a prof who spends the first 15 mins setting up his mac book on to a projector only to show us how to use hotkeys to enlarge a jpg for another 15 mins and then 5 mins to watch him use safari to search for page and brin and then talk about page rank for 10 mins and last 5 mins to pass out a handout on page and brin.

  • Rob Sirloin (unregistered) in reply to NUStudent

    The Moral of the story is:

    Don't go to Northeastern. Some of the departments are decent, but overall, the whole damn thing is overpriced and full of BS bureaucracy. So unless you get in for free, stay far, far away.

    Captcha: burned - Yes, that's quite fitting. I was burned by NEU.

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