eric@gang.UUCP (Eric Kiebler) (05/02/84)
[Without chemicals, Monsanto itself would not be possible]
Perhaps a better title for this newsgroup would be net.university,
as it employs a word whose root is quite relevant: "universe".
How many people reading this newsgroup had even the faintest idea of what
they should do at college (not what they wanted to do)? How many people
changed their idea of what they wanted to do? Every May at commencement
there are herds of graduates (and ex-graduates) that have no idea what
to do next.
When I started school, my goal was to know everything there was to know
about Computer Science -- Everything! Ambition is a powerful thing,
especially when it is blind. What I learned when I finished (if anyone
working at a university is ever finished) is that 99% of the people in
the field can't know it all, because they simply don't have the combination
of intellectual machinery and blind-ambition. Having been out a while now,
I see that 90% of what I learned in school was crap, and that the classes
which have best prepared me for the "Real World" were those that taught
ideas and not details, and those that developed skills.
What does this all mean? Well, we are different people and I can't
say that my beliefs and experiences apply to the masses. I'll do it
anyway, though :-)
If you (Robert) got a great job with shitty grades, then you either:
1) Have skills whose value transcends your academic performance
2) Have particular, detailed skills which are currently in
short supply and are considered valuable
3) Blew the interviewer
If you have the transcendental skills :-), then chances are they
were enhanced by college life and work. If you have detail-oriented
skills, then they are a good-foot-in-the-door to longer-term career-
oriented pursuits. If you lied to the interviewer, then you'll get
what you deserve, sooner or later.
I worked very hard in school because I didn't have the intellectual machinery
that many of my peers did. I also got wild quite a bit because I had the
people-skills that few of my peers did. It's a good (un)balance.
Conclusion: College is an amplifier, and your hand is/was on the
gain control. You can change the bass and treble response, but it is
the gain that is important. Having a job is just like that, except that
in most cases the people skills are just as, if not more important, than
the academic skills. If you are the brightest guy in the world, and
everybody thinks you are an asshole, you won't work happily there.
--
from the gang down at... 38.37.45 N 90.12.22 W
..!ihnp4!afinitc!{gang|wucs!gang}!eric
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
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