Poor Basics: Who is to Blame?

Posted by Jonathan Ng | Filed under Personal

It’s my 3rd year in college. It’s called “Advanced Diploma” in TAR College, and boy, the schedule is really much more packed than in Diploma. It’s not that the stuff we learn are tougher, just that we’re required to cover a lot of stuff in such a short period of time.

One of the module’s I’m taking is basically ASP.Net. Classes on it are super boring, as the lecturer goes at a really slow pace. Today, she covered control structures (if-else, switch) - stuff that we learned in the very first semester of college (2 years ago). She gave us a question that more or less required us to convert if-else to swtich:

if (num >= 1 && num < 3) {
	Response.Write("option 1");
else if (num > 4) {
	Response.Write(”option 2″);
}

Shockingly, one of my classmates answered:

switch (num) {
	case (num >= 1 && num < 3):
		Response.Write("option 1");
	case (num > 4):
		Response.Write(”option 2″);
}


It’s not like the syntax is slightly wrong, but he got the whole switch concept wrong. I also noticed some of my classmates suffering from the same problem: absolutely poor basics.

So who is to blame? The lecturers? Partly. You could argue that their teaching style doesn’t encourage much participation from the student. Or perhaps the lecturer did not make the concepts clear enough. The student? Most probably. Many learn programming by memorizing. To do this, use this code. To do that, use that code. No, not the API, but blocks and sequences of codes. I understand that it’s not easy to absorb a lot in lectures. Unfortunately, students would rely in the brief notes given out by lecturers. They don’t bother to read text books, and simply memorize whatever’s in the notes. Is that the cause for their poor basics in programming?

Permalink | June 22nd, 2006

6 Responses to “Poor Basics: Who is to Blame?”

  1. Ling Ling Says:
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:16 pm

    Yeah…I kind of agree with you. Some of our college students have the same problem: memorize all. It won’t work. I should say: Use BRAIN!!! Some of them would just think programming is something that could be memorized. They just don’t understand that we need to understand the concept of the language before actually writing the codes. So, no concept no coding.

    So, it’s not surprise to see graduates that have CGPA>3.5 are just bookworms. (Sorry if I hurt some of you)

  2. Jonathan Ng Says:
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:31 pm

    Don’t worry, you didn’t hurt me… I got 3.4 only.. haha!

    Like Jeffrey said, the funny part is that they still managed to graduate! I think these are the peeps that end up switching to business/sales..

  3. Jeffrey04 Says:
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:45 pm

    We cannot just blame the students for not understanding. There are a lot of factors that made this possible as well.

    firstly….. our lecturer do not “encourage” us to buy the textbook by giving the “full” set of notes. As you guys know, the notes provided are insufficient because the lecturers can’t include too many examples or other extra notes (Except Maths subjects). I dun understand why the students can afford to spend their money at CC/mamak but not on the textbooks.

    secondly…… all the units are emphasizing that if you do not memorize this and that, then you are gonna fail. This is also why students memorize so well (our psychology lecturer mentioned this once), because by memorizing is already enuf for them to score well in examinations.

    thirdly…. I do not think some of the students wanted to enroll in this course (I used to have coursemates facing such situation), instead it was their parents who wanted them to enroll this course……. When they dun like this course, of course they wouldnt care whether they do well, does this make any sense?! i dunno.

    lastly… probably they are just too lazy….. not that they dun know that programming cant be memorized, but memorizing is always easier to think isn’t it?!

    to Ling Ling:
    those ppl who get CGPA 3.5 and just brainless bookworms should have a very low probability for it to occur….. although scoring is easy but getting CGPA that high is not easy… you can see the number of ppl having that CGPA in our course…. do you think they have no brain? i dun think so… dun judge a book by its cover…

  4. Ling Ling Says:
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:57 pm

    Erm…bookworms != no brain. It’s just that maybe they would lack of some thinking skills especially critical thinking skills. Anyway, if you wish to score good in exam in our college, memorizing will give you a way though. Maybe I should say: it’s not surprise to see some graduates are bookworms.

  5. ivan Says:
    June 22nd, 2006 at 10:37 pm

    hey! i was in tarc. currently in utar. from what i see, there’s a vast difference between the lecturers in both places. tarc seems to be lacking in zeal. then again, it depends on who’s the lecturer. im just generalizing. i hate programming though

  6. ???? » Blog Archive » ??toptop???…… Says:
    June 24th, 2006 at 4:55 pm

    [...] ?????????????????????????Advanced Diploma????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????…… [...]

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