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Friday, September 24, 2010

Sometimes Academics Lose Sight Of What People Want/Need.


For some people, once they grab hold of some sector of academia they want to study it to death and know the ins and outs to the nth order.  Often, these are they who become the professors.

However, sometimes we forget that some just want someone to show them how to use this knowledge to "program video games".

Image from Abstruse Goose.

6 comments:

  1. Love this! Sometimes I feel like this, like in my Intermediate Dynamics class. Here we are discussing osculating circles and I'm thinking "man I just wanna fly RC airplanes."

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  2. The problem is that schools don't allow people to do their own experimentation and derive stuff on their own, but rather students have to take the professer's word for everything (assuming they even have the ability to follow and understand abstract theories without seeing, touching, and using the applications, which I am sure nobody does however). For instance, an abstract equation like integral of Pdv equals E, well, just give the students a piston pump and pressure sensor bike tire pump on a zeroed bathroom scale and a ruler or a hydraulic jack and a lever and bowling balls or something and I'm sure they will figure stuff out a lot quicker by actually experimenting with the stuff. You see, it is something tangeable they can hold in their hands and take measurements with that they will learn the art of innovation from.

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  3. jmb275,

    Man, I want to fly RC airplanes too!

    Quantum_Flux,

    I agree that more hands on stuff would be good. The best though is when a teacher says "Just trust me as the proof of this is beyond this course. :)"

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  4. "Man, I want to fly RC airplanes too!"

    That's it, I'm doing a post about my obsession with flying RC airplanes and helicopters. In fact, gonna go fly my new RC micro-helicopter right now. I call it stress relief.

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  5. jmb275 ,

    That would be an awesome post, especially if there are cool pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ditto, I might post my rc airplane as well.

    ReplyDelete

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