Trading Floor

Discussion: 9 Comments

• Posted by Josie M Pussycat on January 8, 2010 2:05 PM

  I’m a computer science graduate student and I think that more computer scientists are needed. In order to be good at software development, students need to be encouraged to reach advanced levels of reading, math and computer-education. I don’t mean learning how to use applications created by someone else, but education in software concepts and application that teach children how computers work and how they can use them to solve problems, or even create their own “Word” or “Facebook.”

  I started learning computer programming in elementary school, and starting early really helped in my current career. At any rate this is the type of field where practical experience is very valuable, and where repetition can help to solidify concepts. A lot of my contemporaries were hobby programmers in elementary, middle or high school as well and I think that formed the basis for their desire for a career in computers.

  Nevertheless, I think that all students should have the opportunity to learn computer programming. They may even enjoy creating i-phone applications etc, and while having fun, they can prepare to help our country in the future.

  In one of my classes, we discussed the ENORMOUS AND GROWING need for qualified software developers. Software systems run much of our infrastructure (Aviation, The electrical grid, Nuclear Power Plants, Social Security System etc.) and these systems need ever more fixes and improvements as they age.

  In my experience, I think that it takes a long time to become proficient in the skills needed to be a qualified and effective software developer, and we should start preparing our students early.

  Sadly, the government doesn’t seem to be making a big push in this direction. Apparently it is difficult enough to get students in schools to learn the basics, but I wonder why? Why import software developers from overseas instead of teaching the students here? Right now some of our critical systems are aging and need to be redesigned, and then maintained, but I don’t see the government making an effort to train kids to be qualified to work on these systems.

  Computer science can be difficult, but all children with normal brain development have the capacity to learn the skills needed to be proficient, useful and effective in our field. Doing “job” training at an advanced age will not work for our field. We need to start training children from all walks of life to fill the ever-increasing need for computer scientists, software designers and programmers.

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• Posted by don meinshausen on January 12, 2010 5:08 AM

  “If you work, study or teach on campus, we want to hear about your experiences.”

  Success is found in the marketplace. Therefore, you won’t discover what today’s students need to learn in order to succeed on a campus. Lately, I have become interested in the emerging concepts of “lifesytle engineering”. Success is ultimately found in setting appropriate priorities and goals and then acquiring the disciplines necessary to maintain and attain them.

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• Posted by Emerson Garver on January 12, 2010 5:31 PM

  Show students how to think, e.g. in a chemistry laboratory use the the technique “Practice in Thinking” to develope experiments to answer questions. Teach students to learn how to ask questions as well as answer them on tests. And teach integrety, if possible. Then they will better find their niche.

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• Posted by Justin Howard on January 14, 2010 12:00 AM

  Social sciences seem to be taking the back seat in a large portion of university curriculums. There’s so much emphasis on what the future will hold, the university is over saturating the market with graduates who will have a 1 in 3 chance of actually getting work.

  It feeds the demand now because of the economic change and because of the demand for cleaner energy. The thing is that industry is taking fatal steps that destroy things that these people were never taught to understand in the first place. Relationships with people is so valuable and we’ve lost that in our physical and manufacture culture.

  The colleges needs to stop chucking out lawyers and technical engineers at cookie cutter rates, and start making more efforts to make sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers. The world isn’t going to function on one device of profit margins, there needs to be a whole machine of different people to get the whole thing to work.

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• Posted by Ken Farger on January 14, 2010 7:17 AM

  Having just heard a lecture by Helena Norberg Hodge discussing “the economics of happiness” my thoughts are the scholarship of America needs to take heed to her message. Contemporary scholars are failing us by ignoring the fundamental components of a healthy sustainable world and economy, such as the social ,spiritual and community assets. When Wall St. dictates markets to the point that the production and delivery of goods and services are driven solely with the profit motive dictating the operations (with a bonus system that has tainted the landscape),this cannot be sustainable in the long term. Greed has become rampant, ethics have been kicked in the corner and the wealth of our nation has been tipped to the elite due to the current business models. Look at how Congress operates today. The next generation of business leaders should be taught to reverse the current course to one of sound balanced sustainable growth with a more fair and balanced distribution of wealth with the emphasis or priority being the integrity of the goods or services. Tomorrows leaders need to take our country back from the corporatacracy that is working on a hostile take over of Capitol Hill. The CocaColonization or McDonaldization of the world has rewarded few but more importantly it has sullied our reputation on the world market. We do have a “global economy” today but why aren’t we perfecting the best community economy in America. Finally Banks and Wall Street should be facilitating business’ to help them grow, not dictating and running them to generate short term income for the Bankers and the casino economy they promote.

  Ken N. Farger

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• Posted by Abe on February 10, 2010 7:23 PM

  As a graduating medical student with undergraduate training in biochemistry and experience teaching chemistry as a TA, I believe the most important thing that students need to learn is self-reliance. If one develops that goal as the center of their learning, then skills such as reasoning and analysis arise from the way they approach studying. This is best explained by considering my pre-clinical vs. clinical training.

  Through the years, more and more of my education before entering the hospital seemed to be conducive to just searching the internet for one fact or other. This divided the class into people who wanted to understand the reasoning behind what they were being told compared to those who accepted the answers at face value because it was a “fact”. Of course, the information regurgitation-based exams allowed either way to work just as well. However, in the clinic this is not how questions are posed. Patients don’t come in with straight-forward conditions, and some level of reasoning about how to help them out is in order. Those students who had developed this abilities and applied them to medicine in the prior years were significantly better prepared to learn in the hospital. Similarly, in any other field, the apple grove of the classroom is not like the jungle of the “real world”. Thus, failure to independently gather information and process it in multiple situations while still comfortably in the tidy grove of lectures leaves a person at a severe disadvantage when thrown to the tigers expecting high performance without excuse.

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• Posted by Cooper Zale on March 4, 2010 8:15 AM

  I think they need to have access to more self-directed and diverse learning environments so they can develop more agency to pursue their own interests and talents rather than be directed by the state to learn what the state thinks kids should learn. We should have fewer educational content standards in favor of standards focused on learning skills rather than learning content. We also need to provide our youth and their families many educational paths rather than our current mostly one-size-fits-all public schools.

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• Posted by Cooper Zale on March 4, 2010 8:18 AM

  As a parent with two now young adult children, who spent part of their school years in public schools, I think they need to have access to more self-directed and diverse learning environments so they can develop more agency to pursue their own interests and talents rather than be directed by the state to learn what the state thinks kids should learn. We should have fewer educational content standards in favor of standards focused on learning skills rather than learning content. We also need to provide our youth and their families many educational paths rather than our current mostly one-size-fits-all public schools.

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• Posted by Natacha Idvanoff on March 7, 2010 3:17 AM

  Raising children is like running a marathon…I’m a single parent and have two great boys. From the feedback I get from my friends in different countries and my own experience is that there is high focus on “academical” performances in order for schools,collèges and universities to respond to the success stats&numbers that have to be achieved every year,here in my country the education curriculum is ever on the increase and the students level of success is not so promising,and the collèges environement is struggling with lack of fundings ,teachers,resources,heavy bureaucracy,levels of unrest and sometimes violence in most schools & collèges,Youth is not “lead” and behind each school and collège “big” mission statement in reality it’s barely managed as a commodity…And confusion is there!it’s all about numbers and less about individuals and values,quantity over quality. What I think lacks terribly in the system is a sense of leadership,and also emotional fitness for the students…and teachers…

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