My college professor doesn't know his stuff...

[MacFan782040]

So I've had this class for 2 days already, and I can just tell he has no clue what he's talking about. The class is Business Info Systems...basically Excell and Access. However, for the first couple weeks we're learing basics about computers. He even told us he's not "tech-savvy"...but telling us the wrong things if just ludicris. Here's what he's said so far:

1. Said the "R" in CD-R stood for "write". Doesn't it stand for recordable?

2. Listed a USB flash drive under optical drives b/c he said it "also uses a laser"

3. Said "if your hard drive fails, you can boot up in "safe-mode" which launches DOS and bypasses the Hard Drive." Isn't DOS on the HD????

4. Said "nobody in the class" has a Core 2 Duo processor because it's so new. And he said that Core 2 Duo tops out at 2.0MHz

5. Said a Quad-processor machine would cost about $10,000.

6. And finally...here's the kicker he said today. He said about 10 years ago, the University would have to buy a copy of MS Office for each computer, which cost a lot. (ie: $300 per workstation on all campus computers)

He said with the implement of the campus-wide network, they only had to purchace ONE copy of MS Office and install it on the main server, which would remotely launch them to all the workstations. The thing is, he said "instead of it costing thousands of dollars, it only cost $300 for every computer". Nothing was said about licensing, about how 1 $300 copy cannot be used for thousands of computers!

I can't really believe this guy. I'm sure he's great at Excell and Access, but don't try to teach computers! :rolleyes:

[Luis]

Wow, really, he is as tech-savvy as my grandma (no offence to her).

What is the world coming to?!

[CanadaRAM]

Ooooh I see a term paper coming up. "Common misconceptions about information technology and the propagation of popular errors in the University Environment."

Keep taking accurate notes...

[TimJim]

old people...what can you do?

[mad jew]

Put them in homes?

[MacFan782040]

The sad thing is...i don't know whether I should write down the wrong information because that is what the tests will be on....or write down the false stuff.

[Luis]

Talk to him! Either way, if he marks you wrong on an exam you can always defend your answers and prove him wrong.

[flopticalcube]

Tenure can be a bad thing sometimes.

[CanadaRAM]

Tenure can be a bad thing sometimes.

Tenuritis - an inflammation of the connective tissue in the brain...

[EvilDoc]

The funny thing is thats not that last Professor you will meet that wont know his/her stuff. Ive ran into a couple that spout nothing the BS... ;)

[siurpeeman]

i had a calc professor who didn't know his trig. students had to correct him repeatedly for mistaken values. it was frustrating and a bit hard to take him seriously.

[Chundles]

and.... did anybody get up to refute his claims? Anybody at all? Maybe there's your answer. I know a bunch of my profs would spout crap hoping that somebody had the brains/balls to prove them wrong.

[lag1090]

So I've had this class for 2 days already, and I can just tell he has no clue what he's talking about. The class is Business Info Systems...basically Excell and Access. However, for the first couple weeks we're learing basics about computers. He even told us he's not "tech-savvy"...but telling us the wrong things if just ludicris. Here's what he's said so far:

1. Said the "R" in CD-R stood for "write". Doesn't it stand for recordable?

2. Listed a USB flash drive under optical drives b/c he said it "also uses a laser"

3. Said "if your hard drive fails, you can boot up in "safe-mode" which launches DOS and bypasses the Hard Drive." Isn't DOS on the HD????

4. Said "nobody in the class" has a Core 2 Duo processor because it's so new. And he said that Core 2 Duo tops out at 2.0MHz

5. Said a Quad-processor machine would cost about $10,000.

6. And finally...here's the kicker he said today. He said about 10 years ago, the University would have to buy a copy of MS Office for each computer, which cost a lot. (ie: $300 per workstation on all campus computers)

He said with the implement of the campus-wide network, they only had to purchace ONE copy of MS Office and install it on the main server, which would remotely launch them to all the workstations. The thing is, he said "instead of it costing thousands of dollars, it only cost $300 for every computer". Nothing was said about licensing, about how 1 $300 copy cannot be used for thousands of computers!

I can't really believe this guy. I'm sure he's great at Excell and Access, but don't try to teach computers! :rolleyes:

Here's what I think of the six points:

1) This is understandable. The "r" does stand for "recordable," but the two terms are pretty much interchangeable.

2) He has no idea what flash storage is.

3) He must've been thinking of the BIOS, not safe mode. Safe mode would not function if the drive physically failed. Otherwise, he's thinking of the many times copies of Windows have randomly died from bad drivers and whatnot.

4) This guy needs a refresher course on CPUs, that's for sure. I wasn't even around for the days when 2Mhz was considered fast.

5) From this and the previous point, I guess he doesn't follow CPUs too closely.

6) I don't really expect him to understand software licensing. Perhaps MS gave the school a slightly greater volume discount since there was less physical media involved? I'm not even so sure about that, but you definitely can't run one licensed copy for a whole lab. At least not under the terms of the license, anyway.

I would personally try to educate him. It'll end up in one of two ways: he'll hate you for telling him things he knows nothing about, or he'll like the fact that you actually know something.

By the way, what school are you attending? I'm just curious as to the general area where the prof. would be from, and what school would hire such a prof.

[Sun Baked]

I don't know a Quad Xeon/4 socket machine would be killer.

Think of running OS X on 16 cores. :eek:

Sort of sucks that there have been no 4 CPU machines since the Daystar days and the BeBox.

[tomoisyourgod]

The sad thing is...i don't know whether I should write down the wrong information because that is what the tests will be on....or write down the false stuff.

Put the right stuff down in tests...

when I was in college we were taught and instructed to use Paintshop Pro, for my assignment I used Photoshop. I got a distinction.

Electronic copies of all our assignments had to be handed in .doc formats for all the assignments, I handed in PDF formats - there was no quarrels.

So just do with what you think is right, you know the facts your given are out of date and/or wrong...

[Father Jack]

IMO the Prof should take a refresher course .... :(

[tobefirst]

Just don't go trying to correct him while calling it (i.e. writing it as) "Excell." (;

[MisterMe]

So I've had this class for 2 days already, and I can just tell he has no clue what he's talking about. ...If you are attending university, then I presume that you have completed all the lower levels. Is this the first time that you have encountered an instructor who doesn't know what he is talking about? Consider yourself lucky.

[Grimace]

If you are afraid of rebuke, you could open an anonymous hotmail/yahoo account and send him polite corrections to each point. CC the dept chair too. It is silly for you or others to waste so much money.

[jackc]

Wow, I hope you're joking! I think the anonymous email might be a good idea before you flunk for knowing the right answers.

[Roric]

I had a professor once that would purposely say wrong stuff, just to see if anyone was paying attention and had the guts to speak up. It was her way to keep the class awake and involved.

One of the best classes I ever had because she made you THINK about what was going on. Well, that and she handed out bite size chocolate bars to whoever corrected her. Left that class many a time with a sugar buzz going on. I would crash an hour or two later, but it was good while it lasted. :)

[Jasonbot]

Sounds almost as bad as my IT teacher that I currently have. She teaches us about Ring Topology networking :p

[mad jew]

Everyone knows that college professors and uni lecturers are people who weren't good enough to get real jobs in their professions anyway.

[flopticalcube]

Everyone knows that college professors and uni lecturers are people who weren't good enough to get real jobs in their professions anyway.

Ouch! "Those who can't do, teach."

[mcarnes]

Everyone knows that college professors and uni lecturers are people who weren't good enough to get real jobs in their professions anyway.

Not necessarily true for fields like Philosophy, English, and such. But certainly true for CS.

[mkrishnan]

1) This is understandable. The "r" does stand for "recordable," but the two terms are pretty much interchangeable.

2) He has no idea what flash storage is.

1) Write doesn't even begin with an R!!!! :D

2) Well, if there's a flash, there's light. Lasers are light. Quid erat demonstrandum. :p

Seriously... all of these comments sound like they're from the blooper reel... but what gets me is that they're so irrelevant to the topic at hand. This isn't like a calculus professor who cannot do trig. This is like a calculus professor telling you that chocolate is made from cayenne peppers....

[mad jew]

Ouch! "Those who can't do, teach."


Not necessarily true for fields like Philosophy, English, and such. But certainly true for CS.


Yeah, sorry. It was a reference to a bad TV show down here. :o


Some of the smartest people I know are academics.

[lag1090]

1) Write doesn't even begin with an R!!!! :D

You have to understand that the man is pretty much like every non-tech person when it comes to understanding things. Even as a tech person, "recordable" and "writable" are pretty much synonymous, regardless of what letter the word begins with. I think he was just trying to explain in terms which he and probably most of the class could understand.

Not that I'm defending him or anything, but cut him a break on that. It would be fairly unreasonable of you not to.

[mkrishnan]

Not that I'm defending him or anything, but cut him a break on that. It would be fairly unreasonable of you not to.

I was just being flippant, sorry. The second part (about the lack of necessity to even address these topics in the first place) I meant in earnest. The third part was also flippant. Chocolate is not made from cayenne peppers.

[flopticalcube]

Chocolate is not made from cayenne peppers.

mmmmmmm chocolate-covered cayenne peppers mmmmmmm

[MisterMe]

Not necessarily true for fields like Philosophy, English, and such. But certainly true for CS.College professor is a job like any other. You have people who are good; you have people who are bad; and you have people who are mediocre. That is true of attorneys, lawn care specialists, auto mechanics, and carpenters. Remember that you are the customer or client and should get the best service available for the money you spend. However, it is up to you to make that happen. Smart consumers research the businesses that they patronize. My experience is that the best students research their professors for the best available. Poor to mediocre students enroll in whichever class fits their schedule.

[Rodimus Prime]

If this is a class that the infomatoin is required on. Question the prof.

I have noticed it is always underclassmen who are affraid to speak up. The upperclassmen in college we question our profs all the time. Now normally we are wrong but we question them and ask for justifaction. Most of the time they are very find giving it.

Now I have been in classes where a few of us where upperclassmen the rest just in their 2nd year of college. The 6 or 7 of us who where upperclassmen in there did give the professor a hard time and question him on most facts. Now he dished it back out to us. Now if one of the underclassmen tried the same stunt he wouldn't take it.

I will say prof do be come cooler most of the time after you pass you 2nd year.
As for you prof question him. It more than likely will earn you his respect because you had the guts to do it. Just make sure you do it professionally.

[luminosity]

Everyone knows that college professors and uni lecturers are people who weren't good enough to get real jobs in their professions anyway.

That's not true. There are a great many professors who are at the top of their fields and contribute with either important research or with their teaching (or, very occasionally, both at the same time). Academia suits some people, just as other work suits other folks.

Those who can do, teach.

[Father Jack]

Fortunately not all Prof's and Uni lecturers are crap, but they are human and as such some are good and some are ...... well Crap .. :o

[bousozoku]

That's good but not unremarkable. The first Java instructor I had talked about the "run everywhere" bit of Java but always talked about Windows, as if no other computers existed.

Another one was teaching BASIC, probably for 20 years, and handed out an example as a kind of template for the final programming project. The only problem was that the example didn't work. I got a call from someone in the class and I took a quick look and it had an obvious flaw. I e-mailed the instructor and he said something like "oh, you can't use that for the final" and ignored the fact that he was misleading students.

Warm bodies. We just need warm bodies to fill the seats.

[p0intblank]

Wow, your professor sounds totally out there when it comes to understanding computers. You should've seen my professor tonight trying to use Windows. o_O I've actually found a good amount of my professors in college to have trouble using the computers.

And yes, Windows did crash in class tonight. I was laughing on the inside and saying "Get a Mac." :)

[CalBoy]

Not necessarily true for fields like Philosophy, English, and such. But certainly true for CS.

I always thought the running joke was English instructors/teachers were failed authors? Isn't that why they spend all of their time analyzing real authors?:p

[sushi]

6. And finally...here's the kicker he said today. He said about 10 years ago, the University would have to buy a copy of MS Office for each computer, which cost a lot. (ie: $300 per workstation on all campus computers)
I found this comment interesting.

FWIW, in the early 90's, the government would purchase individual software packages. When your organization was inspected, you would have to produce original boxes with the discs (floppy mostly, but some CD) and the user manuals for each installation.

In our case, at that time we had:
- WordPerfect
- Lotus 1-2-3
- Harvard Graphics
- dBase III+
- DOS 6.22/DOS V, then Windows 3.11, then Windows 95

Some computers were set up with Japanese versions and others with English versions of the software.

Around Windows 98, we moved over to Licensing the OS and applications. But prior to that, we had to purchase individual copies of the OS and applications for each computer and we were audited once per year.

Also, if memory serves, when Adobe Acrobat 4 was introduced, we wanted to use it for our office. So we had to go through the formal requisition process for each copy we wanted to install. Now, many years later, we have an Adobe Acrobat license.

I don't know about the education market at that time, but I would assume (yes, I know that is dangerous) that the government and education markets were handled the same way.

So maybe your professor is correct but his timing is wrong. Maybe about 15 years ago they had to purchase individual copies of the OS and applications.

I am sure glad that we have gone to the licensing model. So much nicer, easy to implement and cheaper.

As for the rest the garbage he spouted, you will find that at the college level. Some instructors want you to challenge them. Others do not. Tread carefully until you know for sure. Otherwise it might affect your grade. One way to do this is in private after class. Just ask for a clarification of something such as the C2D running at 2MHz. He might have simply misspoke meaning to say C2D at 2GHz. Then again he might not know.

A friend of mine that has since retired, was one of the most knowledgeable computer types I knew. He started out when you had to hand wire the instructions and data on boards that you then loaded into the computer. We used to have fun discussions about many things. He even played games. But his favorite topic was the OS and like to dissect it and try weird things. Real hacker type stuff.

When he retired about 4 years ago, he was in great physical shape. He had been an airborne ranger and was here in occupational Japan. He was 77 years old.

Now why do I tell you this story. Well, he had one quirk that use to frustrate me. He used the term bits for both bits and bytes. The numbers were always correct, but the terms were off. It would go something like this. The xyz processor has a 32 bit data path, so it can transfer 4 bits per memory fetch. I would say 4 bytes correct? And he would reply. Yes, 4 bits. After a while I got used to his quirk. He was such a wealth of information and fun to talk with.

[mad jew]

That's not true. There are a great many professors who are at the top of their fields and contribute with either important research or with their teaching (or, very occasionally, both at the same time). Academia suits some people, just as other work suits other folks.

Those who can do, teach.


It was a bad reference to an Aussie TV show mate. Ignore me. It's for the best. :p