Tuesday, September 5, 2006
How To Get Kicked Out of CSE Class
I mentioned before that I was kicked out of a class this summer quarter, but was allowed to complete the course by email. Now that I have safely received my final mark for both this project (D-) and the class (B), here is that story.
The Setting
I am an undergraduate senior of Computer Science and Engineering at Ohio State University. CSE ### is required by major emphasis, Software Systems. From the OSU Course Bulletin, CSE ### is:
Principles of design, implementation, validation, and management of computer software.
This class has a reputation for being particularly miserable. My old roommate, also a CSE major, changed his major emphasis to Hardware and Computer Engineering, in part, to avoid this class. Yes, it is a 2 hour lecture that started at 8:30 AM, summer quarter. Yes, it is a senior-level Engineering class that grades attendance. Yes, the course description entices an endless procession of acronym-stuffed powerpoint slides.
But I wouldn’t delay my graduation to avoid one silly class. So I enrolled.
Fortunately, on the first day of class, the professor seemed to be legitimately interested in teaching. He liked to press us for our personal response to the material. But, the class was full of stereotypical computer students. Nobody would engage the professor with the sincerity that I felt appropriate. So, I made a commitment to myself to honestly contribute to class discussion. Oops.
The Assignment
In CSE 757 were three mini-projects designed to “simulate realistic workplace scenarios.” No, we didn’t sip coffee in cubicles as we tried to remember precisely when we chose to sell our lives in hourly lots. No, we learned about “teamwork.” What says “we’re better than a vocational school” better than euphemistic business-speak?
The first two projects were uneventful –nothing beyond the usual “my teammates don’t know how to program and are helpless beyond the pre-configured CSE lab computers.”
However, the third project was a user specification document for an imaginary software contractor, Buckeye Analysts. The premise: The CEO of Buckeye Analysts, Mr. Archie, has a company cafeteria. He wants to replace it with a computer system. Guess what? He has trusted you (and 4 other identical teams) to design it! Oh sweet!
Copy of Project 3
Oh, haha! Archie Griffin was a football star from OSU! Because that’s totally relevant to anything I could care about!
The Crime
Initially, I am totally stoked. I mean, not only do I not have to write another goddamn hypothetical student database, but the scenario company is totally named after our university football team, The Buckeyes! Haha! Man, naming everything in Ohio “Buckeye Whatever” never gets old.
So I think to myself: Wow, What an easy assignment! I’ll just have imaginary office assistant, Doris Buckeye, email the company announcing that cafeteria will close in two weeks and that employees are free to bring their own lunches. Everyone will get an extra fifteen minutes for lunch, and Doris will order a party sub for everyone to share. Everybody wins.
In the meantime, I won’t have to dick around writing bullshit documentation for imaginary software that automates BigMacs for fatties. I am probably busy, you know, writing imaginary software for imaginary customers. Wasting time and money on an in-house, bloatware Java app to manage an unpopular, money-hemorrhaging cafeteria would be stupid.
Problem solved. Duh.
But Big Man Mr. Archie —being the sort who would try to run a software company in a Midwest rustbelt town known best for fast food— he would have none of this. Why, he demanded a real software enterprise solution. With Frameworks! And Formal Documentation! Why, ordering lunch at Buckeye would be the envy of Bell Labs.
So, I wasn’t too enthusiastic about this project. So, I expressed my dissatisfaction with a little Dilbert on the project wiki. No big deal, I could easily change it later when we finished the project. This is actually the “toned down” version from after I had already given myself a day to “cool off.”
The project wiki plus a little Dilbert
From the wiki:
[a picture of Dilbert] this is you. Thank you for selling your irreplaceable time to the company, it is worth far less than your work.
BLT means Buckeye Lunch Transaction system
[a picture of Dogbert] Hello and thank you for choosing Dogbert Consulting. For the fixed price of twice the yearly salary of one of your employee engineers, we outsource your software engineering by paying (or stealing) the work of our own underpaid engineers.
Here are the exciting BLT enterprise solutions we have prepared. If you have doubts, we will unleash such a torrent of meaningless buzz-word technobiz until you submit. Otherwise, you’d have to admit that you don’t know what we’re talking about. And you won’t do _that_, that would make you look stupid!
(each name is a link to another team’s project)
Enterprise BLT, Corporate EditionThe BLT Intergrated Development Suite v2008
The BLT Ajax Soap System
SynergBLT, the Luncation Solutionization
The Response
My teammate didn’t think this was so funny. He sends our team of 3 this email and CC’s the professor.
From: Teammate Rxxx
Drew: Please remove the comment after the dilbert cartoon and also the comments about Dogbert Consulting. We aren’t Dogbert Consulting we work for Buckeye Analyst and we don’t need any comments about how we make stuff up. This does not have anything to do with the project. Please work on the assignment as given. I asked you to work on the context diagram and I sent you an outline. I understand if you are not done with diagram yet, but DO NOT waste time working on things that are not a part of the assignment. Why are there links to other group’s work on the wiki? It’s fine if you to use that for reference, but don’t put that on our wiki. We are supposed to be doing our own work and not linking to other people’s. BLT is a good acronym and funny, that’s fine. Thank you for doing the intro part, but please focus on what is required for this project that’s due in 3 hours.Sxxx: You you were going to work on this “all night” and I have yet to see any additions from you. Please contribute something or let me know you are working on this so I don’t have to do all of this myself.
I am going to be working on this for the next 1 1/2 hours trying to finish the functional requirements and the quality requirements as well as some use cases, please try to work on the rest of it NOW.
Rxxx
Later, R sees that work is being posted on the project wiki, so he apologizes in another email for being stressed. I respond with this email —also CC’d to professor:
From: Me
That’s ok, just chill out. It’s just a silly make-believe assignment for some class.-Drew
I didn’t think much of that email when I sent it, but it must have upset the professor because he sends me this a few hours later:
From: The Professor
DrewI certainly agree with you that this project is “make-believe”; however, I want you to know that it was not intended to be “silly”.
You clearly have a right to your view, but it would have been better to convey your feelings directly to me (not in this indirect way), and to do it earlier.
Given the nature of your feelings, I suggest:
1) we arrange a meeting with the Deparment Chair (or whoever he would desgnate
to discuss your concernsor
2) you withdraw from the class (I will sign it Tuesday).
Please respond ASAP with your preference.
The Professor
Withdraw from the class? With only a few weeks left in the class? Now, I am really pissed. But, I’m also a little afraid. This was more trouble than I expected. So, I did what I always do when I get really mad. I poured that rage into my work. That has always saved me in the past.
I redo the week-long project myself in a few hours. The result is pretty decent —at least, much better than the crap that the other student teams had hacked together.
Sample of the final project that I redid myself.
Another sample. See? I did the work. This was what the assignment asked for, in case you thought this seems a little sparse.
I send this one-liner to the professor after my submission:
From: Me
I choose [URL to the final project]-Drew
This did not impress the professor.
From: The Professor
Apparently you think your response answers my questions.It does not.
On Monday at 8am, I will pursue this matter in accordance with Departmental and University guidelines. Until then you are invited to offer clarification of your concerns about the course and the criticism of the current project.
[the professor]
The Email
Very well, I will offer clarification of “my concerns about the course.” Thank you for your invitation. Here is a copy for the world to enjoy. As mentioned below, I did actually miss my mother’s birthday to complete this assignment (and write these emails.) Take from this what you will.
From: Me
My implicit response was that I did the assignment and that I don’t have anything else to say.—
What would I say to the Department chair? “Hey Mr Director, I’m sick and tired of school. I’m tired of working really hard on hard contrived problems, just so my hard work is scribbled on and crumpled up and thrown in the trash. Mr. Director, I’m tired of chasing points. I’ve been doing this for 22 years. It’s not making me very happy.
Mr Director, it frustrates me that I need a degree. But it’s like when your car breaks down. You can sit there and wallow in the unfairness. Or you can start walking. Me? I’m going walk, but sometimes I’m going to get pissed. Sorry.
Mr. Director, I’m scared shitless every time I look to see what time it is. I’ve done the math. Tick tock Mr. Director.
And so, Mr. Director, you may think that would change the way I choose to spend my time. Maybe. Or maybe, instead of visiting my mother on her birthday and seeing my family whom I haven’t seen all summer, I instead worked alone in my dark apartment on a school project. And maybe that didn’t make me feel very good about myself, Mr. Director. Actually, it didn’t.
So I hope when Mr. Archie returns from his business vacation in Las Vegas that my personal sacrifices at least helped the company. Yah, I suppose it’s unfair that because I sell my time to do things I don’t like, Mr. Archie and the stockholders get to own my work. I guess that’s what happens when you go to work as a junior Java programmer at a midwest software contractor. That’s what my 3 year (and one quarter) CSE degree prepared me for. But I knew that going in, right? After all, whips make dogs but gifts make slaves.
Oh wait.
You know what’s funny, Mr. Director? All those Dilbert comics. Walk around Hitchcock [engineering]. Around Dreese [EE and CS]. Wow, a strip is on every other door! They sure must be hilarious. You know what, Mr. Director? Maybe I’ve decided that Dilbert comics aren’t so funny anymore.
Oh well.
I guess, statistically, historically, I otherwise would have been a serf. I’d rather be an engineer than a serf. Yes.
So, Mr. Director, please placate me, a single student in your university of 50,000. Thank you for your understanding.”
—
As for dropping your class? In the 9th week? And after I’ve already done most of the work and I need the class for my software spec engineering degree so that I can graduate this fall?
—
So is your assignment silly? It’s no more or less “silly” than memorizing anthropology vocabulary or solving physics problem sets. Whatever you call hard work at nothing, I suppose.
Actually, I was wrong. You’re assignment is less silly. Maybe it was just a little too realistic. My mistake.
—
So you want to send me to the Principal’s office? What will they tell me that I need to know?
Mr. Yates! Please uphold your scholarly pursuits with the utmost dignity and respect.
Mr. Yates! Please do not draw penises on the chalkboard.
Mr. Yates! Please dispose of all liquids before boarding. Thank you for your continued patronage at American Airlines.I would, of course, prefer not to have to arbitrary disciplinary charges trumped up against me for, of all things, posting a dilbert comic on a wiki.
And so, let me tell you what I’m going to do:
1) shut up
2) do my workIn fact, I’ll do more than that. This Monday or Tuesday, you will see me, and I won’t be wearing a gray tshirt, khaki shorts, and glasses. I’ll get a hair cut, bleach my teeth, hit the gym, and put on my “creative, young business type” clothes.
And you will say something like “and you certainly have a right to your opinion” and “your conduct was unprofessional and uncalled for,” and I will emphatically agree. I will drop my voice tone and shrug, look down at the right time, flash the teeth at the right time, and it will be as if it was just some minor adolescent bump. Why, I was just a little stressed. With school. And all. And I was just a little upset that I missed my mother’s birthday. It’s ok. No, really. I mean, I’ll see her at the end of the quarter. It’s no big deal. And she understands. It’s no big deal. It’s cool.
I mean, that’s ok, I’ll just chill out. It’s just a silly make-believe assignment for some class. Right?
-Drew
The Aftermath
I am caught in my own catharsis. I suppose, in retrospect, that I did expect to meet with the director and to explain away my emails as my professor clenched a wad of printed copies. I certainly didn’t expect this:
From: The Professor
Mr. YatesPLEASE - ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF THIS EMAIL BEFORE MIDNIGHT MONDAY AUGUST 14
ALONG WITH YOUR RESPONSE - SEE BELOW.I have read the emails you sent on Friday and Saturday and am sharing with you my candid reaction. In your mail, and at other times this summer, you have made clear your disenchantment with CSE 757 and my teaching of it. I take seriously your feedback and will fold it into that received from other students. In the future, I would encourage you to constructively share concerns and give feedback to faculty about courses. Each student has personal needs and preferences with respect to learning. While it is not always possible to arrange learning that optimally serves all students, if faculty are not aware of what works for students, then it is difficult to accomodate them. I suggest you approach this in a straightforward way, asking for time to discuss your concerns directly with a faculty. Generally this works better and has a better chance of positive impact than the less direct approaches you elected to use this summer to voice your displeasure.
Please know that I respect that you have opinion about 757 and support your academic freedom to express your opinion. My problem is with your unwillingness to speak directly about your concerns and your choice to undermine the teaching of this course with other students. I never saw the Dilbert cartoon you mention, nor would I expect that I would have had any problem with it. Finally, it is important you know that I have no intent of “trumping up charges” against you for what you have done to date.
However, I am VERY uncomfortable with both the tone and content of your communication, and feel it best that we have no further face-to-face contact for the rest of the quarter. I am asking that you agree to the following:
1. You will attend no more classes of CS&E 757
you will be marked as present so this does not negatively impact you class participation marks
2. You will not approach me on campus or elsewhere
in the classroom, in my office, etc.
3. You will contact me only through email
or through a pre-arranged phone conversation, or via a pre-arranged meeting that would be attended by other members of the CS&E Department
4. You will be given a homework assignment this week via email
and will submit electronically as directed
5. You will be given a take-home exam for your final
It will be prepared by me, sent to you by email, with a clear deadline and directions for electronic submittal of your exam
6. Your final will be read by another CS&E faculty member (your name will not be revealed to them)
To ensure my grading is done fairly without prejudice
7. Two members of the CS&E Department will monitor this situation (they WILL know your identity)
They will be copied on all email and will be given progress reports
8. The above faculty members are available to you upon request
Should you have any concern about the fairness of this plan as proposed or executed.
I hope that you will quickly agree to this plan if it satisfies both your expressed need to receive credit for this course and your implied need of not being subjected to a course presentation that you find not to your liking.
————————————————————————————
Please acknowledge this mail and simply reply either with:- a clear statement of your agreement to all the points above
- an indication of any points with which you do not agree
(along with suggested changes)I ask that you reply by midnight today (Monday, August 14)
————————————————————————————-Mr Yates, you are very bright, and clearly have the ability to master the content of CS&E 757. In the exercise of your academic freedom, you must also respect the rights and feelings of others who also enjoy rights as members of the Ohio State Community. By giving you this opportunity to finish CS&E 757, neither I, nor the CS&E Department condone your behavior.
If the pressures you express in your recent email are overwhelming, I strongly encourage you contact the OSU Counseling and Consultation Service at 614-###-#### or http://www.###.ohio-state.edu/
[The Professor]
So what do I do when I don’t know what? Bold! Boldness, Drew, and push your inches into miles!
From: Me
I accept and appreciate your offer. I’m sorry if my email was mistaken to be menacing, it was not meant to be. It was merely my opinion of the self-depreciation culture of engineering –energized with personal experience. For that I am not sorry. While frameworks and user-specs are important, the dismissal of issues like “why are there no American girls in computer science engineering” suggest such rot that I cannot help but notice.-Drew
A few more snippy emails were exchanged. I later sent a few emails trying to neutralize/suck-up because, honestly, I have no grudge against this professor. I doubt they had much effect. This was big red bold note on my take-home final:
WARNING
The exam tests your knowledge of software engineering related to the teaching of 757 this summer. While you may offer your opinion in the answers, please be sure to give the rationale behind your thinking. Your answers should respond to the questions. There should be NO explicit reference or even an indirect hint of your recent behavior, the response to it, the faculty or staff of the CS&E Department or OSU, other students in the course, etc. I am confident you understand what is appropriate and what is not. Should I find any reference anything in your exam that in my opinion is unrelated to the question being asked, I will stop grading your exam, and record a zero for your final. Before submitting your exam, please read it carefully to ensure there is no possibility of misinterpreting your words in this regard — there will be NO opportunity for you to later say “I really didn’t mean it that way”
Again, I got a D- for Mini Project 3 and a B for the course.
EDIT: Comments Response
Some of you people don’t seem to get it.
So now you won’t hire me? OH SHIT! Why, I had always hoped my whole life that I could go quietly do your (highly skilled) bitch work for an hourly pittance. And now, all is lost! Lamentations! Gnashing of the teeth!
Didn’t you see my latest post?
Technology people should stand up for themselves. Not only because all people are ultimately responsible for their own happiness, but because the entire programming discipline is bogged down with your cowardice. Windows? Java? “Agile Methodologies?” Bullshit.
Look, you’ve got this fantastic machine where you can make and do nearly anything FOR FREE. I’m writing this right now and thousands of people are coming to read it. This is like the craziest sci-fi nonsense come true.
And the best we can do for ourselves is THIS?? Oh, dum de dum, I had better hunker down and not offend anyone cause I’ll have to go get a job and slog through life like everyone else. I sure do hope I get an extra hour off tonight so that I’ll have time to masturbate to hentai porn alone in my apartment!
That is such mindcrushing bullshit. I can barely contain myself. Look, thanks to computers, you can do whatever the fuck you want, and at least make a living doing it, if not create something real that people care about.
And it’s RIGHT THERE. You are on a computer right NOW. Thanks to Professor Google and Dr. Wikipedia, you can find most whatever knowledge you need NOW for FREE. And what’s holding you back?
Nothing.
Nothing but your own cowardice.
So eat me.
By the way, I’m not writing to you if you’re over 40. I’m writing to the young college / just out of college guys. I know I’m being abrasive, and it’s on purpose. If you want tactful, go read Paul Graham’s essays. They’re very good, and they’re subtle enough that you probably won’t notice if you’re offended. I’ll be tactful when I’m 40, too. Until then, I’ll leave the sweater vest in the closest (not that Paul Graham wears a sweater vest).
So there’s the challenge. Do something you like, and do it right now. You won’t starve, and you won’t die, so what do you have to lose?
And if you get in trouble at school, what’s the worst that can happen? You fail? You drop out? I’ll tell you what. I’ll do both for you. So there you go. Get started.
Ed Tate said,
September 30, 2006 @ 8:37 am
You sir, have made my day.
mike said,
September 30, 2006 @ 9:00 am
I commend your professor for handling your situation in the manner in which it was handled.
I have a small consulting firm that I work very hard at running - I need positive staff and team builders - not someone who wines because they are asked to perform tasks they think not worthy of them. Professionals are hired not only on their ability they are also hired on their attitude. I will tell you, and I assume you know this, trained Computer Scientist (like me) are a dime a dozen. You need to differentiate yourself - character matters. Character is what matters most to me and my small organization. It is the glue that holds it together. Simply put I would not hire you.
Please quit wining and start appreciating your opportunities.
I did not go to The Ohio State - although with professors like you have (had) I wish I did.
Regards
Dave said,
September 30, 2006 @ 9:18 am
I went to Ohio State years ago for compsci, saw quite a bit of similar bizarre behavior from professors, and now look at the course listing and graduate research and cry. It’s so off-track. I was given an unfair D+ for one class at the end, and I just sucked it up and ignored that. I correctly assessed the brevity of the professor’s importance and the irrelevance of his perspective to the jobs I would do. Just keep your mouth shut and get the degree (assuming you need it for a job). Be sure to read a lot on your own to learn real stuff. Realize that you will better at thinking and use that to your advantage. Be The Thinker at your job. Others may have more People Skills or whatever. Fine. Be aware that you will find many similarities to the mindwarped professor if you work inside an IT department of a “business” company, like insurance, banking, retail, etc. You (and I) are better suited to either pure software development (create products for sale to other companies) or maybe even straight software research (as in IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Google Labs, etc.). As long as you accept that your professor is a common occurrence in the world, you can learn how to avoid them as much as possible and how to survive with them when you must. Good luck and thanks for the article.
Penguin Pete said,
September 30, 2006 @ 9:20 am
Congratulations! You have attained enlightenment far beyond the course material. You have had a taste of what the real corporate business world is like. (and you thought Dilbert before! Oh, ho ho ho!) The only thing to do now is, pick any random cubicle slave position, invest like mad and save up like your sanity depended on it. Do your time (as little as ten years, if you skate fast), then get out, cash in the invests, and “retire” to consult and freelance as a career. From home. In your jammies. Be sure to post a madcap blog making all the fun you want to of the technology business when you do.
canoe said,
September 30, 2006 @ 9:34 am
I regret that you did not stick to your rights, and cram them down the ‘Professor’s throat.
You should have also of done something about your ‘teammate’.
Your professor acted beyond his scope of power and responsibilities. You should have stood up for yourself.
julie said,
September 30, 2006 @ 9:45 am
don’t forget that your professor is a person too, and that this must have been extremely stressful for them. my spouse is a faculty member that does their best to provide what students want, but there is such variablity on that that it is impossible to meet that standard for everyone. of course, your class really was kind of silly and useless, and that is a drag. but i agree with the professor that the appropriate method of feedback would have been to just set an appointment and talk to them directly. email is so hard to read that your sarcasm might not translate that way to the reader.
you also come off as a huge whiner.
Joey said,
September 30, 2006 @ 9:55 am
You are my new hero. Great ideas here. as a fellow senior computer science student at UW, I think I know where you are coming from. And where ARE the American Girls?!
Joe said,
September 30, 2006 @ 9:59 am
If I were in charge of recruiting developers for a software project (oh, i am) you are the last person I would hire. I recommend you take this post down for the sake of your career. Someone important might see it.
watch tv said,
September 30, 2006 @ 10:21 am
wow, that’s crazy all because you edited a wiki (probably not the smartest idea), but still
Someone else said,
September 30, 2006 @ 10:43 am
Someone important may indeed see your post. You might want to leave it up. Higher ed teaches critical analysis. You’ve demonstrated that along with the ability to communicate well in written form.
Others are right, you will be absolutely miserable in the real world, but your ability to see a problem will also allow you to see the solution. Don’t stop short.
Whining? Maybe. But great fun to read and it should have been handled by the professor in a better way too.
double said,
September 30, 2006 @ 10:54 am
Made my day, laugh-out-loud funny.
If I was hiring I would invite you to apply, and you’d probably get the job. So leave this post up, for the sake of your career.
Some times people loose site of the important things in life, dev-heads worse than most. You have to enjoy the work you do, otherwise what is the point? I do and I’m damn good at it, I don’t compromise my ethics or personality and because of it I work with people who I like to work with, doing fun and exciting stuff.
Justin V. said,
September 30, 2006 @ 10:56 am
Drew,
Your professor is an idiot. That is why he is teaching CMPS bullshit 733 instead of “data structures for geniuses”. They give the bullshit jobs to the shitty faculty, it is the same everywhere. His immediate response to any challenge being to hide behind the bureaucracy is very telling. Any professor whom I have respected would have simply replied something like “it’s just a class, learn the material and do the work, there is other stuff that is fun but this is a requirement so get over it”.
Now, you did instigate the situation, but I think the prof. is just unable to take any sort of criticism because he is a relative failure and probably isn’t respected among his peers. Anyway, if your contempt for the world is well placed I suggest you don’t waste your time looking for a job, and just start looking for customers.
Chris said,
September 30, 2006 @ 10:57 am
This is a life lesson. Do this in the workplace and you’d be fired. Your prof is just holding you to these standards to save you the trouble of getting whacked in the real world.
These are legitimate choices he offered. Don’t like your assignment? Quit. Or maybe, constructively review it with your customer or superior. But don’t mock it and don’t show them up, or you’re history.
Ian said,
September 30, 2006 @ 10:58 am
I am over 40 and you most certainly are writing for me! Ha! I love it.
I chose to go underground and silently do what I need to while pretending to have sold out to the man. Cowardly? Maybe. But it works for me.
Good luck.
Satan said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:08 am
Hi. I have had this problem with people all the time. It often goes like this. Some self proclaimed authority, often a project manager, assigns me some task. I am an engineer so I am the one the actually does the work here. In some cases the assignment as such doesn’t apply or is simply stupid. Now when I start complaining about the assignment I often get the “where is your team sprit, shut up and do you job” lecture. Interesting enough I am right, I never complain about stuff just to be an asshole.
So the real wisdom here is: fight back or fuck off, if you find yourself in the humiliating situation that someone demands of you that you should do stupid stuff and be happy about it then well, you either give them a pice of your mind or quit.
Life is too short to accept stupidity.
/Satan
John Hascall said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:13 am
I, on the other hand, would take hire him in a nanosecond over the usual crop of remember-regurgitate-rinse-repeat drones that consititutes the majority of most graduating classes…
Satan said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:15 am
Chris you said something like this: “But don’t mock it and don’t show them up, or you’re history.”
What’s your point? That we should simply accept what people tell us and just “love” it? If you are stupid enough to assign people stuff that you haven’t though through you will be mocked, sorry, but no one likes an idiot that can’t think for himself. Plus your company will not last long if you think it’s ok alienate the engineers like that. Chris you are an idiot.
If you mission is to get new golf clubs; get a clue, we won’t help you.
Satan said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:21 am
John Hascall, I agree with you. I rather hire someone capable of critical thinking and live with thier unwillingness to fit in. These people more often do some actual work.
Chris said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:23 am
Satan,
Get a job. If it’s one you like, great. If it’s one you whine about, quit. Or, as I said, respectifully point out where you think it’s lacking and offer a solution. But do NOT mock your boss, customers, or peers.
Nobody wants a whiner. If Drew did this in the real world, he’d be history. And a good prof readies his minds-full-of-mush undergrads for the real world.
Mark said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:27 am
“You know what, Mr. Director? Maybe I’ve decided that Dilbert comics aren’t so funny anymore.
Oh well.”
Another one enlightened, cool.
Ryan said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:33 am
Amen, and amen! I’m not even a CSE major, and I know exactly what you’re talking about! It’s really refreshing to see some true critical and creative thinkers out in the world, the ones who aren’t satisfied with the stifled, repressed, overprocessed American corporate lifestyle. While I agree with a few of the commenters (is that even a word?) that your sarcasm may not have been the wisest move, your professor certainly could have handled it in a more mature, professional and *gasp* calm manner. It sounded to me like he was writing you emails with his teeth clenched and punshing his fingers through the keyboard.
AF-Geek said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:39 am
I’d hire you. I’m Project Lead on an Air Force-wide system, and I need people who know when to wave the bullshit flag!
Satan said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:41 am
Chris,
Get a clue, I have a job alrigh, I also have a bunch of managers who spend more time on the golf court than in office. Explain to me where this respect should come from? I don’t doubt that you are the best manager in the world but you might also happend to work in a sound company, not everyeone does that, ok?
As I said, I’d rather hire Drew and live with this obnoxious habbits than someone like you who belives that the obidience of engineers is more important than the ability to deliver quality software. I have a lot of customers that really don’t give a fuck about what I call them as long as a I deliver stuff. The problem is that you can’t just ask anyone to do it. 90% of your engineerng stock are idiots, sorry, you need Drew and people like me, and we ain’t cheap. We really don’t care about money, we want you off the golf court Chris, back in the office. We want to see some honest work, not just a demonstration of attitude. Honest work is what made us first class programmers, nothing less, you can’t talk yourself through six semesters of math, doesn’t work like that. We expect no less from you.
I hope you find it in your heart to understand this.
TimeTraveller said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:41 am
The prof’s an idiot…until one day your the prof trying deliver your goods to a bunch of goofs who with all of 22 years of life experience — 15% of which is learning how to walk and not crap in their diapers — who demand that your material meet their criteria for relevance. I understand. I’ve been on both sides.
You screwed up and sort of accepted that. Congratulations. The first of many compromises that it takes to turn an intellegent smartass into a useful member of society.
Remember how it felt when your the guy who has the power to create or destroy and some little nobody doesn’t like the way you comb your hair.
Marco Lee said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:41 am
Drew,
One of the things I’ve learned is that having a brain is good, but using it scares mosts people who are above you in work or school, they don’t like being asked questions because it threatens their work abilities, which most of them don’t have.
Kudos on passing the stupid class.
rsm said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:59 am
I’m the IT director for a university. I’d probably hire you. If the story was presented without parts left out, the professor was playing yet another of his power games that PhDs without practical real world experience are likely to do in their own insecurity about scrutiny of their authority. Ask a PhD what he has DONE and he’ll point to his degree, projects and papers published. Ask an innovator and he’ll (she’ll) point to websites and applications that are still being used years later.
Work for me and I expect you to screw something up and then tell me about it so we don’t have others make the same mistake. But if you hide and play it safe, no innovation is possible and I don’t have time or resources for maintaining the status quo in a field that is constantly changing. That is a waste of time. Pointing out things we are doing that are a waste of time is also saving me money and resources.
Now if only you’d figure out how to program this page so the fonts don’t keep getting bigger with each entry… at least in my browser
Matt Andrews said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:01 pm
Man, it must be _something_ to upset a teacher enough that he never wants to have physical contact with you again. That’s such a mainstay of nerdship; having the ability (and indeed, expressing it as a preference) to communicate solely electronically.
Anyway, as small as this started out, you let it get bigger and should’ve just shut up, right or not. Seriously, it was hardly worth this kind of hassle. Yes, I agree with your points, yes, there are bigger issues than faux problems and stupid IT teaching (believe me, I know). But seriously man, why didn’t you just think “okay, this is lame, but I’ll just STFU and play nice till the class is over”? Much less hassle.
Doctor said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:05 pm
I don’t directly hire people, but I do my part in interviewing and my opinion is respected.
If, big if, you met other requirements, this article would make me want to hire you, and other guys would agree. OK, you are a bit immature, but that’s what students are and that will go away. But what’s important is that you are capable of discerning necessary and unnecessary projects, of implementing stuff when you don’t like it but have to, and of thinking beyond what’s immediately in front of you. These capacities are *required* to do good software.
Those guys that would not hire you, you would not want to work for them anyway.
And dropping out of college - don’t be an idiot. You never know what tomorrow will be like. Get the degree and forget about it if you want to.
VulturEMaN said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:07 pm
I love you
I do, however, recommend using a deadly gravy-filled waterballoon on your professor asap. And a relatively lethal blowdart on your ‘teammate’.
Honestly, is America becoming one of those places where jokes cannot be tolerated unless they are documented and filed under politically correct (which, btw, requires 2-3 weeks for shipping).
Bah.
Take everything that you have to the Dean. This is nearly a breach of your academic/constitutional rights. Fight with what you have: Boxing gloves with horseshoes in them. Cause you have one hell of a case here.
If this is truly the method that the college requires to document/communicate with students, then I believe it is beyond flawed.
-VulturEMaN at gmail dot com
me said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:12 pm
You’re either a visionary or a Unabomber in the making.
I am one of those 40ish dopes who sold out to the Man, and I work in IT. We look at guys like you trying to get jobs all the time - you spent four years in CSci classes writing compilers and making VAX machines talk to each other, then you went to work for a startup (sometimes starting one with a group of your friends, which 9/10 times ends very, very badly) making a really bitchin’ Photoshop plugin or some extra-groovy social mashup software.
If we wanted a compiler or a C++ library to do socket calls or some ironic cubicle art you da man but you don’t know anything about working with customers, creating specifications (and you’re 100% right, a BS cafeteria system doesn’t mean anything, but the practice of being able to conceptualize and define clear requirements and see them through means -everything-) . But finally it sells out, or blows out, or you hook up with some boca chica and squeeze out a pup and it’s time to Get Serious (i.e., get health insurance and a 401K).
So now we’re looking at your resume, and you don’t know how to do much besides fart around in Eclipse while listening to your iPod and dropping ironic blog-turds on Wordpress about how soul-sucking it is to collect 50-75K/year working for the Man while there are people out there working their asses off 16 hours/day and feeding entire families on 1/3 of that. We have to re-educate you about how things are done in a way that other people can actually make money off of them while suffering your endless whining about how suboptimal the legacy code base is and “why didn’t they use Ruby? Huh? Ruby is cool, I did a site for this local taco shop in Ruby and godaddy and it was f***in’ awesome! Just give me access to prod!”
Well we don’t run a taco shop, we run a web app with 100,000 customers spread out across 11 servers in 6 different time zones, we have to be up 24/7 and no you can’t have root or production access because we’re a professional IT shop. Write comments that mean something to someone who comes along six months later and tries to figure out what the hell you were doing, write log entries and don’t fix everything in the g****** debugger because we don’t run prod in a f*cking debugger, we use logs for monitoring, and buy some better headphones because nobody likes your IM tones and we don’t really want to listen to your music every day, and if you do all that? The guy in India knows the API, he works his ass off and he costs 10% of what you do.
IT staff are the prison bitches of the business world. We do the cleaning and the dirty work and make the sausage. So STFU, you don’t like it get out or start your own company and get into the soul-crushing business yourself.
Resenting any “system” is hardly new, or novel, or emotionally compelling. At least Martin Luther made a list and put it on a wall. The question is what you do about it - make your own way with something better/different, turn into a Wally, or rent a cabin in the woods somewhere and start buying pipes and fertilizer. It’s up to you.
BILLY said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:19 pm
WHY IS THE TEXT SO FREAKING HUGE!!!
Joe said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:33 pm
Calm down Billy, Joe’s here
me said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:41 pm
Oh, I forgot to mention - that professor is a pedantic ass. You’re a little snarky but if I were teaching the class I would have have written a version of the previous rant to you about how doing well on boring assignments, especially boring ones, is a critical part of being able to function in any field and if you didn’t have any pre-law friends I’d suggest removing the copyrighted content ASAP.
But to imply feeling personally threatened by your Breakfast Club-esque email was childish. You messed with his sense of authority gained through acquistion of tenure, which was threatening, so he had to nip it in the bud by scaring you with a threat to the Permanent Record.
This is a preview of some (thankfully few) of the people you will meet in any professional setting. Blowing off some steam by telling this guy to get bent was cathartic, I’m sure and if you had it to do over again I would suggest you do so.
Anonymous said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:44 pm
Make sure you leave feedback for the professor at rateyourprofessor.com. You also should use his real name in this story, someone like that doesn’t belong in academia. Get his ass kicked out before he gets tenure!
matt said,
September 30, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
Dude - don’t worry about it. If you can’t do, teach.
thekief said,
September 30, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
Have fun being passed over in the workplace by less proficient engineers because of the hated “office politics”. I can’t believe how many CS grads like you I see, those who don’t realize that software is no longer an individual’s persuit, but something created as part of a team or group of teams. You think your professor was a jerk, well your boss would have canned you. Whining is one of the worst things to have during development, people who think they’re above the process need to be identified and terminated. Oh and your scope document was weak at best, maybe you need to revisit why you plan out use cases before starting development and really put some thought into it next time. Do you really think you want IT in charge of changing the menus and managing acocunts? The worst part of your rambling rant is that you still seem to miss why this type of assignment is important for CS majors to grasp. You’re one of the engineers interviewers try and filter out early in the hiring process.
Chris said,
September 30, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
I have been on both sides of this..an engineering degree from a top tech school, years in the trenches at Fortune 500 companies, and now I’m in “management”. And I can tell you, creative engineers are a time a dozen. I need people who can work with other people, not whiney bitches making stupid jokes. Anyone who assumes they’re the smartest person in the room because they think they can code or design better than everyone else, especially if they are fresh out of school or god forbid still in school, need to be bitchslapped. Hard. Please, again demonstrate how you know more than a PhD or a guy in business with 20-30 years experience.
Dope.
Anon said,
September 30, 2006 @ 1:50 pm
I am currently studying computer science in my first year. I am no expert, bu just hang in there, do the work, regardless. If there are any probs, don’t go crazy and do what you want, meet the criteria and just pass the unit, if not make it up in the exam.
John said,
September 30, 2006 @ 1:59 pm
Of course most everything you said about the project was true, but have you ever watched a situation comedy on television where some guy makes a really insulting remark out loud to someone, and then says “Oh my god. I just said that out loud, didn’t I?” You’re that guy.
That guy’s usually smarter than anybody in the room, but sometimes he forgets what that means. It means you see things a little differently than all the other guys in the room. All the stuff you think is just so obvious, boring, repetitive, and stupid isn’t - to all the other guys in the room. To them it’s serious business and they invest every bit of it with whatever meaning they’re told to. They don’t think beyond what they’re told.
And you’re wrong about being too engineer. Engineers are some of the worst at just swallowing the pablum that’s fed to them. They tend to be very linear thinkers. Give em an employee rule book and they read it and follow it to the letter. And they expect everybody else to as well. Basically their whole career is founded on their highly developed ability to follow directions.
Paradoxically, the really brilliant ones are more likely to be like you - and they drive everyone else crazy. Usually everybody wishes they didn’t need them so they could fire them and just have a nice, normal little business.
But they’re the guys who can figure out right away what’s been puzzling a whole team for months. They know the directions but as soon as they figure them out they either start trying to figure out a different way to do it, or how to use the existing directions to do something else entirely unrelated
But you’d better get used to playing the game. Because until you can figure a way out of it, you’re going to have bosses, clients, and co-workers; 95% of whom take it all just as literally and seriously as your professor and your dickhead classmate (how old was that guy anyway? 45?).
Now your professor was obviously a strongly conventional type number I engineer, and not very secure in his role as an instructor - which caused him to twist your typical late adolescent whining about homework being “silly” into an attempt to indict his class and him as insignificant and useless.
People who think like you threaten him, because you mock and ridicule things that he holds damned near sacred. Not only that, from his perspective you’re so unpredictable you’re crazy, and very well could be dangerous.
Usually guys in his position aren’t quite so insecure, and they’ve seen enough of the world to understand that guys like you can be very valuable to them.
Read that post from the guy with the small consulting firm with a bunch of “dime a dozen” type I engineers working for him. If you’re lucky enough to find someplace where you don’t have to do “dime a dozen” work you still need to remember that even if you’re a superstar you still have to get along with others who you may not like a whole lot. That’s what all this “team” stuff is all about.
So learn to do a little acting, for your own good. It’s not so hard once you get the hang of it. Now that you’re not a kid you’ve got to play by the rules, at least on the outside, some of the time.
The Jesus said,
September 30, 2006 @ 3:04 pm
If you want to get anywhere in life, you need to be able to strategize around people. In the workplace, stupid assholes will impede your progress at every turn…it is when you learn to make allies, form alliances and, most importantly, how and when to keep your fucking mouth shut that you will really be ’smart.’
Your team mate sounds like a total tool…what kind of douchebag takes a project like this that seriously? Especially to the point where he CC’s a copy of the reprimand to the professor. Unless you did something ELSE to him / suggested to them that you yourself were a jerk I can’t agree with that. I think someone like him would be far less likely to succeed at a company…
I would like to point out that your professor says “in your mail and at other points this summer” - suggesting that you were being an asshole to him directly in class. I think you are holding out on us…what else did you say to the professor? I think you need to learn a few more lessons about shutting the fuck up before you will be ready to work anywhere.
drewyates said,
September 30, 2006 @ 3:16 pm
To: “The Jesus”
You’re right. There is one more incident involving an assignment. I’ll post it tomorrow.
Jim said,
September 30, 2006 @ 3:35 pm
Wonderful stuff. I’m 40 but you can speak for me too. The professor is an idiot. Who the heck cares if a student considers the assignment silly as long as he completes the work? The professor took your comment about the work being silly, and basically made a huge problem for everyone out of it.
I hope the dean realizes that the professor needs a good bitch slapping. Actually, from the immediate way that you were removed from class and yet able to complete the course, I’m guessing that the dean has seen problems with that professor before. The dean may have had you removed from the class just because he knew the professor was no longer capable of interacting with you without problems.
I gotta say, your emails might be a little questionable, but they shouldn’t have evoked the response they did unless the professor was a flake.
Your teammate that cc’d the prof is an ass, btw.
I had a teacher like that in college too. MOST teachers, on hearing that a student thought an assignment was silly, would laugh and agree. In fact, some of them LIKE to make assignments to be at least partly silly.
anonymous said,
September 30, 2006 @ 3:55 pm
You are a spoiled brat and an ass.
You are extremely lucky to have been so mollycoddled by the educational system.
You’re in for a big surprise when your cocky little ass gets out in the real world.
someone said,
September 30, 2006 @ 4:06 pm
I was referred here via a link on reddit, and the time I spent reading this is time I will be begging to have back at the end of my life. Do you write these manifestos everytime you get into a disagreement with someone? Yes, your professor seems like a tool, but so do you. I would hate to have to work with either of you.
dave said,
September 30, 2006 @ 4:32 pm
YOU ARE THE MAN!
I went to Colorado State University as a Comp Sci student and graduated…big fuckin deal.
I recommend you get some experience writing software for a small company where you can be exposed to many different parts of the development process and mingle in sales, marketing and support.
Then fuck it all and start your own company.
Or just start your own company right away, but the couple years of experience you get could be valuable.
Either way - I hated college too and if you work for a big company it’s going to be the same way.
Work for a small company or start your own. You’ll be happier and I can tell because I can see myself in your actions.
Izaak said,
September 30, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
That is scary as hell, shocking and frightening that people above call you a “cocky little ass”. Your professor is a scared peice of shit; and frankly he sounds like a contributor to the state of the market our profession. However in “the real world” there are definatly instances when it’s time to measure the effort in placating these douches vs. the pain they will create.
Good luck, human
Scott said,
September 30, 2006 @ 5:09 pm
==============
mike said,
I have a small consulting firm that I work very hard at running - I need positive staff and team builders - not someone who wines because they are asked to perform tasks they think not worthy of them.
==============
Scott said,
You have to be sh*tting me - you run a small consulting firm and you cant even spell WHINE?
Yah right!
anonymous said,
September 30, 2006 @ 5:56 pm
Your professor sounds like a cunt.
Drew's Biggest Fan! said,
September 30, 2006 @ 6:03 pm
Drew, you are such a REBEL, I am in total SHOCK and AWE at what you did!! I just know you are going to be like, really FAMOUS and like, really SUCCESSFUL one day!!! I would like to suck your cock and then swallow your cum, because you are THE BEST!!!!!!
sorry said,
September 30, 2006 @ 6:05 pm
Child, you are in for a world of pain. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Not Scott said,
September 30, 2006 @ 6:05 pm
“You have to be sh*tting me - you run a small consulting firm and you cant even spell WHINE?”
Wow, I guess that guy’s business is doomed to failure, all because he can’t spell one word. Are you really that much of a dumbass, Scott?
Not Scott said,
September 30, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
Scott said,
“You have to be sh*tting me - you run a small consulting firm and you cant even spell WHINE?”
Wow. You mean the guy’s business is doomed to fail all because he can’t spell one word? Are you really that much of a dumbass, Scott?
Wise up, moron.
NotScott said,
September 30, 2006 @ 6:16 pm
Scott, do you really think that guy’s consulting business is doomed to fail just because he can’t spell one word? Shut the f*ck up and wise up, dumbass!
Drew said,
September 30, 2006 @ 8:48 pm
Bravo Sir,
I lived your decision to a certain degree this past summer. Right out of school, I was working for a large, multi-national american business. The work was stupid, unsatisfying, and unfit for a person graduating with a CS degree at a respectible school. And I was unshy about admitting this after some time. Partly due to the fact that I COULD have easily continued working at this company, doing what i loathed daily, seeking career advancement in a direction I could couldn’t care less about. Many people do that daily, because they are afraid.
So, I quit. I gave up a hell of a lot of ‘benefits’ most of which I would never use, and thus not appreciate in any useful way. And, I took a job based on the simple Idea that I was more than just a worker. As far as I am concerned, all projects are stupid, unless they are your own brainchild. ‘Work’ is usually effort minus imagination. People with loads of imagination should not work, per se.
I enjoy my new job. Not because it’s so imaginative, or satisfying in every sense of the word. Mostly because it’s not a detriment to my career growth.
That professor… a strange reaction indeed. I had my gripes with projects, and so did others. They snuck in their complaints, in subtle ways, and I ususally didn’t bother. After a year at my first job, I saw what that does to people. A whole crew of angry engineers with no creative juices left, hobbling through each day like the next will be somehow better. It’s pathetic.
Grabbed From Reddit.
Good luck, and consider adjusting the font rule for your comment section. The newest ones are unreadable : )
A fellow Drew
Jeff said,
September 30, 2006 @ 8:53 pm
Drew, you have learned things that took me 10 years to finally ‘get’.
The real world is worse than you can possibly imagine.
The one bit of advice I can give is…if you get in a job you don’t like, just quit. Don’t worry about “i haven’t been there a year”.
Life is too short. Don’t take crap from employers…and there is plenty to be taken.
Holden Karau said,
September 30, 2006 @ 9:31 pm
Thanks
Alex said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:06 pm
I would recommend that you learn to stop negatively quantifying the field you are preparing to enter. Not only does it fester and make others stagnant in development, but it actually tends to lead to personal burnout over a shorter period of time than if you thought positively about what you are going to be doing with your future. if you can not learn this, it would be best for you (and those around you) if you found a different field that held your interest in a more positive manner.
True perhaps that your time is invaluable, and the code written has some tangible value, but until you can utilize your own time productively enough to prove the true value of your time, none of this will really matter. Perhaps you were born with a silver spoon, expecting everything to be done for you and everything to be enjoyable. I can understand that somewhat. However, I’ll tell you firsthand that some professors are real assholes and if you didn’t have at least a couple of them, you would not be ready for the real world - where one disparaging remark about a boss can lose your job out in the field. While I do not hold any real preferance for kissing up, keeping quiet or at least to yourself sometimes has it’s place. If you want to do everything on your own from the ground up, then drop out of college, start your own company and be the next Microsoft or Apple. However, if you’d like an easier task that requires a little more “fall in line” and program what the boss says, then perhaps you should consider at least not letting the asshole that is your professor know all the disparaging things you think about the program and the field. In other words, develop a little social finesse and don’t make computer science an excuse to remain a social “premie”.
CEO said,
September 30, 2006 @ 11:52 pm
As a rule, the people who think they are smarter than everyone else, more “imaginative” than everyone else, are really lazy shits who overestimate their importance. They’re just worthless little turds. Like the author of this blog.
Lou said,
October 1, 2006 @ 12:31 am
I have worked with many engineers like you. You are brilliant but you are an arrogant asshole. Developers like you are a dime a dozen, and it’s a shame because it’s such a waste of your talents.
Why would you enroll in college and then bitch about “another goddamn hypothetical student database”? What type of assignments did you expect, building production systems for NASA?
The professor gave you an important piece of advice: “you must also respect the rights and feelings of others”. You need to grok that. If you do, you will most likely be successful and make a lot of money in this industry. If you don’t, you will be just another unemployed and dysfunctional geek.
Mike said,
October 1, 2006 @ 5:28 am
Man, that was awesome.
I worked for 4 years for a big company doing average Java stuff, before going to University and jumping into the CSE program. While most of the undergraduate courses are simply achingly slow, boring, or filled with idiots, my “software engineering” course was the most painful. You summed it up in a way I never could.
Everyone else in my class was a carbon copy of your teammates, so I had nobody to commiserate (or fight the prof) with.
Well, I’ve got to grit my teeth and go take it again, because the grade I got the first time was too low for grad school, and I’m saving this so I’ll be better prepared. After school, I guess I’ll be forced to start a company myself, and do the soul-crushing myself, so I can work with a bunch of “brilliant but arrogant assholes” and never, ever, have to touch another completely worthless hundred-page flowchart-laden “requirements document.” Thanks so much for the inspiring post and the updates.
Justin said,
October 1, 2006 @ 3:39 pm
College projects are contrived. Big deal. If you want the degree, do the projects. Stop wasting your time trying to prove useless points. Use the extra time to “create something real that people care about.”
Good work on seeking out other information to read/study. Continue to do this, cut out the bullshit, and you’ll be fine.
Robert A. said,
October 2, 2006 @ 11:32 am
Get out of the computer field now, you are wasting your time. Too many people are busy being so smart, that they don’t realize how dumb they really are. The most important part of making in this business is making good decisions, and you sir seem to have a problem making good decisions.
It’s just a shame that some bad seeds sneak through the process.
It was also real clever how you left your instructor’s name in this post. I have let your instructor know of your defamation, and I hope you are still enrolled, so he can take disciplinary action against you.
drewyates said,
October 2, 2006 @ 12:47 pm
“I have let your instructor know of your defamation, and I hope you are still enrolled, so he can take disciplinary action against you.”
AHAHHHA HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
OH. Oh God. I hope that they they do. You, sir, have no idea.
Oh, by the way. Thanks for the advice. I’m sure I can trust the sort of person who would read a stranger’s personal blog, tattle about it to the authorities half a dozen states away, and then brag about it on that same stranger’s personal blog.
Dumbass.
Some Guy said,
October 8, 2006 @ 4:35 am
Dude,
While you may not have liked the project, the class, or the teacher, you should realize that the professional way to handle these situations is to be more polite and direct about the issues you have.
Your emails did not sound professional. They don’t exhibit skill at dealing with bad situations. This is a problem because life is full of bad situations: crappy teachers, crappy bosses, crappy projects, and more. If you persevere through the crap that you encounter, if you can’t find a way around it, you will ultimately win.
The world of computing is small, everyone knows everyone. If you are an ass, it will get around, and you will be known as someone who is not worth having around when things go to crap.
Good luck. This probably doesn’t mean anything to you at this stage of your life.
Dr. Phil said,
October 11, 2006 @ 9:31 pm
Drew,
Your comments (above) tell me you are still a product of your midwestern culture and you have not begun to understand how to function in the culture you wish to become a part of.
Phil
formerly said,
October 23, 2006 @ 2:19 pm
I recognize a lot of your situation and the responses to it from my own past. I agree with most of the comments above. I think most of what each says is good advice.
While taking it all may seem contradictory, I think if you do, you’ll come to the same answer I came to (and have been trying to keep coming to ever since). You need to find the world that suits who and what you are, and make the most of it, and it is not the one you are in now.
While, as your professor says, you may be bright and talented at this field, surely you can find something else to do better, and without dealing with all the crap. Maybe that is some sort of software consulting, while you spend the rest of your life “underground.” Maybe it is being a performance artist or an activist, someone people expect, even want to rock their boat. Maybe it is carpentry or cooking, some craft where people will recognize, appreciate and foster your own, idiosyncratic work instead of directing your boring, unfulfilling labour to their profit. Maybe it is creating some simple but profound software or poetry or invention that changes a lot of lives, in your one-room apartment while you starve, and never really being rewarded; or maybe its mentoring troubled children, being a rewarding part of their lives and community as they develop.
I would take this incident and the comments above as a wake-up call: this is what you’re going to have to deal with here. Let that sink in. Why did you pick this field? Do you want to spend your time fighting with these particular dragons? Can you think of better causes to martyr yourself to? Is it worth the money, esteem, or whatever you think you’re going to get out of this (or any, for that matter) career?
From what you’ve written and said about your experience, you have gifts you don’t know about, perhaps because you don’t know where they are useful. Some of them could probably be put to uses you would find much, much more important and pleasurable than the taste of the future you’ve just had.
Pick another horse now, or ride the one you’re on for a few years to get what you thought it was worth out of it first, but get off it you will, I predict. Maybe you even like getting yourself in these exact sorts of situations. Find what is so important to you that you would go through this same situtation again and again to do it, or a situation where you are happy to be, and you will have found your niche.
Ex-CSE major said,
December 1, 2006 @ 10:03 pm
Hmmm… where to begin?
First off, I know where your American girls are. The few that may have started in your field, such as myself, were driven out by know-it-alls like you. College is a learning experience. Part of that learning experience involves people not knowing what they are doing, and therefore they learn by example. It’s one of the most effective tools of learning.
I’m now a marketing and MIS major, and every single marketing class I’ve taken has involved taking a company and formulating a silly little marketing plan where we end up inventing half the stuff that goes in the reports. But you know what? I’m actually involved in a real advertising campaign right now with another class, and all those silly little marketing plans that I’ve done before is exactly what I’m doing now- only this time I get to see the results of my efforts.
Yeah, your professor did overreact to the “silly” part, but you overreacted to your professor’s responses. I’m sure that those “few more snippy emails” said more than you want to admit, which is why you purposely did not post them here. And for your teammate, he didn’t need to CC the professor in all of this, but neither did you. Your teammate probably just wanted documentation to show the professor that he told you right off the bat that you needed to contribute. He might have been nervous that you weren’t going to pull your own weight. Oh well. Everyone has been in one of those groups before if they’ve ever done any group work. No one wants to be the overachiever, but the fact is that someone always has to fill that roll or nothing gets done.
So what’s the point to me adding my own 2 cents? The fact is, I want to someday work with programmers as the person who hands out the stupid diagrams for the programmers to code from. Yes, I want to be a systems analyst. Would I care to work with someone who is brilliant but pessimistic to a fault? Not on your life. I don’t disagree with telling people that they have something wrong, but it must be done tactfully. There are certainly nicer ways to tell someone constructive criticism. I think you should learn that skill very soon. Maybe you don’t want to work for a big company and get involved with their politics. No big deal. There are plenty of smaller companies that may hire you, even if they find this post. But if you think that the hypothetical problems you are given in class are stupid, maybe you should rethink your profession. Just because you are good at something does not mean that it is the profession for you. You should also be passionate about it.
As for the contact with the professor, that was a huge mistake. Your professors usually have close ties with other people in the field, and not that the professor will bad mouth you necessarily, but he’s certainly not going to help you either. You could have lost the job opportunity with that small company that you may have had your dream job with, or you may have lost nothing at all. Who knows. Whichever your fortune happens to be, I hope for your sake that you can learn to be a little more constructive in your criticism rather than just downright mean.
Kelly said,
December 2, 2006 @ 1:15 am
I wonder how much growth was achieved through this ordeal? What were lessons you learned from the situation? Anything you would’ve done differently, now that you have some hindsight?
Drew Yates » Into The Mind Of Software Middle Management said,
December 2, 2006 @ 1:19 am
[…] On a Comment on How To Get Kicked Out of CSE Class […]
drewyates said,
December 2, 2006 @ 1:34 am
I would have skipped college and moved immediately to Silicon Valley like how I was advised to do (more or less) by the guy who owned the dot-com company that employed me in high school
I didn’t take his advice because I thought that I “had to get a degree.”
I also learned that the classical management style is to isolate and bansih the seditious.
scott said,
December 2, 2006 @ 5:59 pm
your teammate and prof. seem mostly concerned with covering their own asses (respectively).
to suggest you drop his class (after having already done the work), merely for calling an assignment silly, speaks a great deal about your prof. and where his motivation lies: ego and self preservation above all.
fredbeene said,
December 4, 2006 @ 10:11 am
Surely you learned something worthwhile with actual coursework during your (hard earned) free education????
You still would have had to learn certain subject matter on your own.
Perhaps you could have compressed education from 4 years to 2 years on your own. But then you would never have had such hands on experience with what bs people and stuff that has, in part, sculpted who u are today - ????
drewyates said,
December 4, 2006 @ 11:14 am
@ fredbeene
that’s like claiming that the bay of Lisbon had been formed expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in (yes yes, I know, I now have to go kick my own ass. brb)
Dina said,
February 22, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
Drew,
You say you don’t want to “sell your time.”
So, what then… you want to give it away?
Like you gave it away through this entire story, with the back-and-forth emails, and the swirling aftermath on the blog here?
Okay, you had to untangle a few gnarls here. Wisdom gained. But don’t let this particular life lesson repeat itself too many times. Turn the page!
If you really want control over your own time, then you have to stifle the urge to over-process all the information and then try to regurgitate it all through your personal filter in the hope of being understood.
You’ll be trying in vain. You’re too fucking honest. Don’t let your high intelligence be your curse.
Everyone and everything that you encounter is going to twist, blur, dilute or obscure what you know to be true. When you struggle against that, you will find yourself choking on controversy. And that will sap you of the strength you need, to do what you want to do. Or, maybe it won’t sap you but it will overstimulate and flood your engine… until you burn out.
Dorky college professors have their office doors, email, and lawyer-esque rules and regulations to hide behind. So do Silicon Valley execs (but they have real lawyers). You’re just going to meet a million more people exactly like this douche. Everyone has an agenda and a backside poised above them. The agenda is fueled by greed. The greed is based in fear.
I guess if you want to live a purely autonomous life, you could always become a transient. But that would mean you’d have to give up your computer. So I hope that you choose to play the games even though they’re so dreadfully cliche.
My wish for you is that, for the most part, you are able to make your own choices in life, and then feel at peace with whatever you decided. And, you should forgive the people who try to love you but don’t know how.
Thank you for the “mental vacation” here on this blog. As it turns out, I’m really glad I got your spam. I’m going to go slink off to a corner and weep for humanity now. Bye bye.
somebody said,
July 14, 2007 @ 5:58 pm
WOW. that teacher was overreacting. it reminds me of the time i almost got suspended because i said in your face to a teacher
E said,
August 22, 2007 @ 12:01 pm
It’s funny that all these people are assuming that [removed] doesn’t have real work experience (you left his name in one of the copy/paste jobs). The guy worked for something like 15 years at Bell Labs, and then did some consulting I think. He only started teaching in something like 2001 (quick Google search showed that).
All that said, I’ve been in classes with you before. You ARE a douche-bag, at least in class, so it’s understandable that he doesn’t like you.
He also overreacted WAY too much, and thought way too much of his class (like most people with power).
He overreacted first. You both overreacted quickly though, and he was the first one to present a real (although slightly over-the-top) solution.
Interesting drama though.
drewyates said,
August 22, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
E:
> It’s funny that all these people are assuming that [the professor] doesn’t have real work experience
I don’t think that at all. I think that the professor was so experienced that he successfully simulated the software engineer’s career experience in the classroom. Isn’t that the problem?
As for me being a douche —I hated school and resented all my classes. Justification aside, what else would you expect?
E said,
September 7, 2007 @ 7:15 am
I wasn’t trying to say you were the one claiming he had no experience, but rather many of the other commenters.
And I expect nothing else. I completely understand your feelings on the class, and on classes at the university in general.
Phillip said,
March 20, 2008 @ 9:13 am
Wow, what until you get to grad school.
Drew Yates » How To Get Kicked Out of Corporate Computer Class said,
March 26, 2008 @ 9:01 pm
[…] This is a rewrite of How To Get Kicked Out of CSE Class […]