Re: Class Ideas Needed

timtroyr@ionet.net (Tim Robinson) wrote: >I'm looking for ideas for classes at the Junior College I teach at. I teach >part-time evenings and the management is superb enough to allow new ideas even >from adjunct instructors. I gear my classes toward professionals rather than >full-time students since evening classes are usually taken by pros and the >approach seems to be well appreciated. If you are a computer professional -- >or manage people who would benefit from computer classes -- could you take >just a moment to answer a few questions? Please e-mail responses since I'm >already feeling guilty about taking up bandwidth in the assorted newsgroups >I've posted this to. You are forgiven q:^) >1. Do you take, or encourage employees to take, computer courses? No. I shouldn't have to encourage them. >2. Do you prefer semester length classes, or do you prefer to take a class in >3-5 eight hour days? The former. >3. Do you consider a local Junior College when you consider a place for >training? Errr, this may be a locale-specific question. If you mean a night school or some such device, I have no particular prejudice except that it's not really on to make someone learn something at night after doing a day's work on something else. >3a. If not, do you instead prefer 4-year colleges? Yes. >3b. Do you prefer professional seminars? (I.e, the type your company >sometimes sends you cross-country to attend.) No. These are mostly disgusting money-raking PR jobs and they should be mostly banned. I amn't sure whether to feel sorry for the people who introduce and lead such courses or whether to shoot them as ignoramuses; it may vary on a point-to-point basis but on the whole I don't think we'd lose out if I shot them all. >4. What practical courses do you think you should attend for your job... or >would encourage your employees to attend for their current job? (List as many >as you think practical.) Wouldn't dream of suggesting it. Wouldn't have employed an employee who can only learn something from being sent on a day-course. If you can learn a language from a day-long training course for $1000 then you can learn it from the official specification, a $40 book, and a couple of days of paid leave by the pool. >5. What dream courses would you like to take? (That is, there is $$$ left in >the training budget, so go take a course... any course.) Would give people a year off to do a Masters degree. Ditto me. OK, personally I'd go do a doctorate. >6. Finally, here are courses I've taught (or can teach immediately off the >top of my head). Which course(s) would you prefer to take, or would encourage >your employees to take? > C for programmers > C for people who never programmed > C++ for programmers > C++ for C programmers > Windows programming in C > Windows programming in C++ > Data structures in C > Data structures in C++ > Writing HTML > Programming for Winsock applications Comparative Programming. Compiler Design. Operating Systems. Anything non-language-specific but which mentions one or two generic languages on the way. I'd rather have someone who understands _why_ C works than someone who understands how it works. Spoiler addendum: I amn't in charge of training policy at my company. But were I...