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Admin
wow, the update was early today! and this is classic, i can't believe they let this person teach this course... were they a grad student or something?!?!?!
Admin
My guess: The school needed someone to teach the course, asked around, and this English/History/[choose your libral arts] teacher, with her 1337 email and web-browsing skillz volunteered because honestly, how hard could it be?
Admin
nice, reminds me of early this semester when they spent a whole lab hour explaining to people how to use notepad in a 200 level programming course for Com Sci Majors.
Admin
Gabrielle was not a student in the Web Development course. She taught it.
Ok, you had me until that line. While I never went to uni with students *this* dumb, I saw my share of those who got into Comp Sci because it was good because it was "in demand". Those that made it past first year never made it past second year.
I've seen my share of dumb profs who said stupid things or couldn't teach worth beans. My favourite was the network prof who gave us an example with the IP address 333.333.333.333.
But in a university, a prof teaches courses in their degree at least. A comp sci course is taught by comp sci profs, even if it's a course that they're not an expert in.
How did a second year comp sci course get someone who couldn't turn on a *computer*? Or understand the basic concepts of HTML???
Sometimes I can believe that people are *that* dumb, but this one is really making me reach for that believability-o-meter. Unless Gabrielle was high on crack or took a really good bonk on the noggin, there's no way someone *that* inept would be teaching a class. No bloody way.
Admin
The problems start when you have to pass the year's worth with such person.
Don't you ever dare to know more than you're supposed to.
I remember being punished for being a smartass at a calculus exam.
Boobies!
Admin
The really sad part is people actually, honestly, complain if we go "get vim, run vimtutor, use vim" in cs201 anymore. Apparently hand holding is required.
Admin
I honestly wouldn't discount this. I know it's not as bad, but I had a Novell teacher in HS that didn't quite know what he was talking about unless it came directly from the book. He tried not to let on that he didn't know anything. If you asked him how something worked, his response would be "why don't you go try it out and tell me what happens?"
Admin
People wondered why I changed my major from Computer Science to Fine Art... after this, I'm sure it's perfectly clear to everyone. I had "teachers" about like that. I could put up with it for about 5 seconds.
Admin
I've come to learn how these articles work themselves out. Start out small, sprinkle a few WTFs in there like not being able to turn on the computer. Up the bar a little with her refusal to properly use <HTML> </HTML> tags. Wait for it.... waaaaaait for it....
"Gabrielle was not a student in the Web Development course. She taught it."
And there it is, the moneyshot. Well done sir, well done.
Admin
Reminds me of my IT-250 course (web development). As a CS major I took the IT minor for the fun of it. As a CS major we could take any IT course as we pleased, in any order without worrying about prerequisites. Anyways, my IT-200 teacher was a student in IT-250. She remembered me, hated me for being more clever than her in that class and gave me a B- in her class in spite. Because I finished the homework before she finished lecturing, I was surfing the net and she got all pissy.
Admin
Heh. Web development as part of a CS degree? Is this WTFU or is this Playskool U?
Seriously. In my world, HTML is something that graphic designers do, and when they get done with it, I attack their prettiness with my Geek fu and make it walk, talk, and infect your computer with awesomeness.
Admin
Totally believable! At my last university, this was the "norm". We got so tired of complaining about instructors, that we kinda gave up and just went with the flow in order to complete our degrees. One teacher actually got through 5 weeks before he realized that he was teaching the wrong material (not even remotely related to the actual course). Nobody said anything to him once about it since we were just relaxing and getting an "A" for showing up. Unfortunately many people dropped out of school and went on to "real life" without their degree because of this university. And those of us who graduated, ended up being more dumberer for having gone to class.
Admin
I got out of CS the first time because of a teaching language called "Scheme" which was the default language for the first 6 or so required classes. I transferred to a different school later, but never went back to CS, until years later.
In those later years, I had a 400 level class called "Principles of Programming Languages" which was 8 programming assignments in 8 different programming languages, with two midterms and a final. I struggled with the rest (mostly because I had 2 other 400 level programming courses at the same time) except for assignment #6, which was all Scheme, all the time, which I crushed...People said I was crazy for hoarding old text books, but WHO HAD THE LAST LAUGH?!?
Admin
I agree 100%. Often, TDWTF makes me chuckle...occasionally, I'll forward them to my geek-speaking friends to share the misery. This one hit me so hard, I let out an audible groan. In this case, it was all about the delivery.
Oh, and this is MY first post. :-P
Admin
Granted, not at the collegiate level, but I had a teacher who was this bad in high school. He was the Computer Science teacher / Wrestling coach, and he taught us that the primary difference between C and C++ was that in C++ you could use the "++" operator as an iterator. Unfortunately, I am not making this up. We also got through the whole year without touching objects or classes (which probably isn't surprising, given his lack of knowledge).
What a random captcha.
Admin
how painful! you can always tell when a professor type is unexperienced in the day to day world of programming. too bad they don't require professional experience before a teacher/professor is hired for say 10+ years?
Admin
Admin
Well, I'm actually an English teacher, and my webdev skills, while admittedly limited, are better than that of our web design teacher, who has her students use Geocities to make websites.
:shudder:
Admin
I recently spoke with a local university about doing some continuing education teaching. I learned why the educational institutions are so far behind - if there is no text book they won't teach it making it hard to adopt new technology, and they are essentially controlled by the union. The unions controlled when jobs were posted and essentially who gets them (based on a seniority system). Those of us who want to throw our hat into the ring and share our experiences are essentially given a huge hurdle to jump over. If you're working a full time gig and have some spare time to teach occasionally you're pretty much deterred from it. It's such a shame, because class room teaching gives you an opportunity to connect with people in a way that virtual classrooms, blog posts, and web casts cannot.
Admin
Admin
I visited my old school ('Gymnasium') in Germany a few years ago, to say hi to a few of the old teachers. I bumped into my physics teacher who had since also taken on the role of teaching the newly instated IT courses. I remember him saying that "this WWW thing" was something he wasn't too sure about and he'd rather watch for a little while to see how it panned out, and if it really was useful at all. That was in 2002 when I was already earning a few bob doing the web pages for my university's institute of robotics...
Admin
I know we are all used to working/programming professionally and lament the lack of programming experience in college, but if you really believe that then I don't think you understand the science part of Computer Science. Yeah most people who major in CS go on to become software engineers but the course work itself is highly theoretical.
What you're suggesting is that quantum physicist should work for 10+ years as accountants...it's just absurd. I've had several professors in college who were pretty bad programmers, but they understood and taught the theory very well. When your in a class that involves very little programming in the first place (say, theory of computation), does the professor need to be an ubercoder?
Admin
Very True. Sheesh when I took CS the 2nd year coursework was advanced data structures and algorithms. FIRST year you learned assembly language and by the end of that semester you had built an entire simple interrupt-driven system.
My hypothesis is that someone lacking a clue decided that a COMPUTER science curriculum MUST cover web development, and the CS profs (and anyone else with programming experience) were so disgusted with the idea that they refused to teach it, so they had to drag in someone 'leet from outside.
Probably the same people involved as the ones who wrote the CNet article putting Paris Hilton in the list of Top 10 girl geeks.
Admin
That reminds me of a professor I had in college. He was teacher Introduction to Information Systems, which is definitely not a programming course but still a course where you'd think the prof was somewhat tech savvy. He came in every day, did his little powerpoint lecture, and all was well. Until one day when his TA was absent and he went in and had to start his lecture by himself.
First, it took him forever to log in. His sheet was telling him his login was "first initial + last name." He couldn't grasp it. He tried first_initial, first initial, FIRSTINITIAL.... etc etc until someone explained it to him. Then he finally got to Windows and put in his lecture CD.
Then he opened "CD Player" and clicked "Play"
It was painful. It was a huge lecture hall and I almost felt bad for the guy.
Admin
You don't get out of your basement/cubicle/prison cell much do you?
Admin
...and those who can't teach Introduction to Web Development at WTFU ... get promoted to Managment.
Admin
Honestly, this sounds about par for the course for a Community College / Junior College instructor. I had a couple of real boneheads in the comp sci department -- and this was at a *silicon valley* JC -- supposedly one of the best in the country, at that.
You'd think they'd be able to find someone technically competent to teach at a school literally 8 minutes down the road from Apple HQ.
Admin
This is NOT a WTF. The <html> element is implied in a html document. IE is correct in rendering pages with no html element as if they had one, Firefox does the same. It may not be the best form, but its 100% valid.
The same is true of the <head> element, the <body> element is even implied in certain situations.
Valid HTML Document:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"><title>foo</title>
<p>foo</p>
Seems the professor isn't the only one who doesn't understand HTML...
Captcha: error
Admin
#1 Universities don't pay enough for assistant teachers. I'm guessing she was not a full time prof.
#2 They'll hire almost anyone when prof's are overloaded with classes.
That's like every 4th CS teacher I've had.
- shizzle ? is this captcha with snoop dog?!
Admin
I've had to teach a few CS classes, since the instructors seemed incapable. The sad thing is that was at a Junior College, (almost like an extension to High School). There were some great teachers there, and there were some terrible ones...
If you ever take CS classes at DVC, take them from Paul Leu, Robert Burns, and/or Helen Kow.
By any means possible, avoid Khaja and Locke. They're nice people, but they can't teach CS worth S.
Admin
How did a second year comp sci course get someone who couldn't turn on a *computer*? Or understand the basic concepts of HTML???
I doubt things are much different today than they were when I worked at a large public university. Back then, 1st and 2nd year CS classes were taught by instructors, not professors. They primarily taught 4th year classes, but some of them were willing to teach 3rd year classes. Really, most of them just wanted to teach grad students and work towards tenure. There was a big stink when they were told they'd have to spend a semester every so often teaching 1st year classes.
there's no way someone *that* inept would be teaching a class. No bloody way.
The year I was appointed to the faculty, I taught a 4th year, or maybe it was graduate level, independent study course on X programming because the prof (my boss) was over-extended. I was all of 18 or 19 at the time, had never programmed in X and wasn't the greatest C programmer in the world. He knew I'd figure it out (and I did), but it could have gone horribly wrong, too. And this was at a good school. I can easily imagine a lesser school having someone like Gabrielle teach a web class. She was probably someone's sister/niece/daughter/grandaughter/girlfriend/loveslave and there is no way there'd be a prof willing to teach it.
Admin
I used to work as both a lecturer and as tech support at a pretty decent CS university, and honestly there were some staff there who made two short planks look like a computer (NB. they definitely were in the minority, but it was a significant minority). Typically they start our as students who cheat their way through an undergrad degree (or shag the tutors for passing grades) and get hooked on the lazy academic lifestyle. Rather than work for a living earning serious money in exchange for stress, they come back for a postgrad degree, take a decade to get through a PhD and wind up with a vague understanding of one very narrow field of CS and absolutely no idea about any others. The universities themselves don't help because they are all about bringing in money from research, and that's the direction they push the staff. Teaching undergraduates is generally treated as an annoyance they have to do to satisfy government requirements to keep all the lurks and perks associated with being a university... and as such is a task generally reserved for the newest and/or most incompetent staff, and/or post-grads who get press-ganged into it. Seriously, I've had a senior lecturer in Networking ask me what SSH and VNC are and how to use them. That's inexcusable.
Admin
Show me in the SGML spec where it says the root element is implied. I'm sure you're wrong, and to be a valid SGML document, it needs a root <html> element.
Admin
As is having a database tables where all columns are of type 'text'. It's just shit style.
Admin
My high school statistics teacher (more like a facilitator) was also a hs football coach at a different school. He'd scribble something on the board and turn around "Does that look right, Jon?". And to think that half the class dropped out because they found it too hard.
Admin
WTFU doesn't happen to be ITT, does it?
/* taught there for a few years. Not all of the teachers were as expert as Gabrielle.... */
Admin
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.3
But seriously, couldn't turn on a computer?
Admin
Nope. According to the W3C spec, a page MUST have an HTML, HEAD, and BODY element. See: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html
Admin
Universities do have things called "electives". These are not required, but merely a chance to learn something you want, but are not forced to. Plus I would be more inclined to think it was for an MIS class instead of a CS class.
But yea it was probably a grad student who was forced to do it at the last minute when another prof was busy.
Admin
Heh ... I was beginning to wonder when someone would point that out.
I wouldn't necessarily be too hard on someone who has trouble switching a computer on, either. Several designers of computer cabinets seem to have studied at WTFU. I remember one with a large round silver switch that wouldn't do anything. After getting down on my knees I found that the "silver switch" was a decorative logo (which was a bit loose and did actually move when I pressed it) while the power switch was much smaller, the same dark colour as the cabinet, and near enough invisible. Idiotic design.
Admin
That is awesome. I've seen a couple of professors like that but none that bad.
I wonder how much she makes a year? Way too much probably...
Admin
forgot to mention this part earlier...
colleges do tend to take profs with other areas of expertise and stick them with random lower level courses. for example: my web services professor, while very knowledgeable in areas such as cognitive science and AI, ended up having to ask me how to comment in html, among other things...
Admin
Urgh, that's as bad as today's WTF. How could all have been well before that day? Must have sounded like my grandma reading the sheets aloud !?
Admin
Right now, I am a TA in a programming course for meteorologists, and the professor was telling me about past TAs of his in this course. One of them was so confident in their skills that he kept on correcting students who didn't put 'exit;' at the end of each Perl subroutine. He claimed that it was required so that the execution could 'exit' the function instead of going on to the next subroutine.
I don't think he ever saw the relationship between what he said and the fact that students' programs were ending early.
Admin
Oh dear. Here we go again. The element is required, but the tags are not. In other words the element is implicit, as already stated. See http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.3. Try it in a validator.
Admin
Admin
While the "Instructor" was obviously under qualified, I fail to see why you would need an Intro to Web Dev. course, any CS student that is serious about CS either already knows it, or can learn it quickly. I can understand a high level Web Dev. course, covering exploits, web based encryption schemes, etc... but for a CS student an intro Web Dev. course is rather pointless.
Note: This stigma of Web Dev comes from my studies, and my 400 level Web Dev course that basically had us design a web page for a non-profit organization. (We spent the entire semester on it, could of been done in 2 weeks)
Tanta
Admin
Actually I'd bet on it being a prof who was forced to do it when the grad student called in sick...
Admin
For my OS Theory class, they couldn't find anyone to teach it. So the first night, the CS Chair came in and explained that to us. The second night, we got our professor...
He wasn't a CS professor. He had nothing to do with computers. They pulled him from the FINANCE department. Yes, he taught Finance classes. Every night we voted on what he should teach us because he had no idea what was going on with the material. He tried to read ahead but when you don't understand it...
I transfered out into the OS class with the real professor. I heard from some of the poor souls that stayed in the first one, that the rest of the semester was one big WTF.
I also heard this past semester that he was currently in jail for fraud :)
Admin
OH MY GOD. What school was this. I HAVE to know!
After Tuesday's post I felt really inclined to go back to school. I'm starting to think now that the actual school matters far more than I had previously thought. I REALLY want to know what school this is. I don't want to go to a school where I'll find a class like this. I don't like wasting time. This is an abomination to the education system. I've seen odd professors, this isn't one of them. We have a couple of scientists who also teach and would be deemed odd, but they know what they're doing at least. This "professor", however, should go back to teaching kindergartners how to tie their shoes... Of course she might actually tell them that to just "swoop and pull" instead of "loop swoop and pull" because the "loop" isn't actually a part of "the knot".