A Student Returns to College After Thirty Years
I love to read articles like this. It restores my faith in the possibility of meaningful employment at the end of this run. In all of that data lie answers to questions that haven’t been asked, yet.
“It’s not enough to just find a place to put the data,” says Hoffman. “IT has to understand the data and find the business context.”
Here’s to the asking…….
Those few who read this site know what I’m trying to achieve. Most don’t know how I got to this point. Cocktails mutterings, explanations to acquaintances, and other vague comments aside, I embarked on this long, strange trip because of one person. The weird thing is that I didn’t know him until recently, and but for a couple of extreme coincidences, our paths might never have crossed. And yet, here I am, a middle-aged man chasing a dream…..a quixotic pursuit for sure.
My friend and his wife are among the few who are peering intently into the near future, looking at a world awash in data, information, and the myriad methods that are being created to deal with this fundamental shift in our existence. They are excited, hungry, and impatient. They have lit the fire in me, as well.
Today, in a post she writes about the changing that is occurring all around us, and says:
All over the world, people are trying things and talking about problems and solutions and possibilities in almost any arena you can name: medicine, technology, politics, business, media, art … you get the picture. The vast amounts of information on Teh Interwebs let me check in with Effect Measure Seth Godin and TED and BoingBoing and many other sites that show intelligence, understanding and, most importantly, movement. and
Things are happening. Companies are removing restrictive coding from music files. Candidates are finding new ways to fund campaigns. Whether you would vote for Obama or not, the method employed by his campaign to raise money is brilliant, innovative and new. People are exploring technology frontiers in creative ways (check out this and this and this, if you don’t believe me.)
The big challenge for right now, for anyone who wants something better, is to keep exploring, keep learning, keep moving along. To be open to changing our minds as we get new information. We are no longer envisioning a new world, we’re paving the road to get there.
…keep exploring, keep learning, keep moving along. To be open to changing our minds as we get new information…….
Thanks for putting the inspiration into words.
From the Wall Street Journal comes this news:
The number of students enrolling in computer-science programs dropped when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. You might expect enrollment to shoot back up now that the “Web 2.0” renaissance is minting a new round of techie millionaires.
You’d be wrong: The number of students receiving undergraduate computer-science degrees is the lowest it’s been for the last 10 years, according to the Computing Research Association. (It could be longer; that’s as far back as the data released by the CRA goes.)
The CRA’s survey measured undergraduate enrollment and graduation rates at the 190 U.S. universities that offer doctoral-level computer-science programs. The number of new students enrolling in computers-science programs at these schools today is only half of what it was in 2000 — 15,958 then compared to 7,915 now. Not surprisingly, the number of graduates these programs churn out dropped 43% between 2004 and 2007, from around 14,000 then to 8,021 last year…….
Meanwhile businesses keep trying to hire more tech workers. So where are they going to come from? Most likely they’ll come from overseas. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will testify before Congress next week, where he’s expected to argue that more highly skilled foreign workers should be let into the U.S. Expect him to cite the shrinking enrollment in computer-science program as one of the reasons.
My professors have noted that the enrollment in the department has dropped rather significantly in the past few years……and they attribute some of the drop to the perceived difficulty of the work. Well, it’s hard all right, but the potential salaries for youngsters straight out of school is amazing.
Might not be so bad for an old geezer with the right skill-set, either……..
In the perambulation of this life, at various points I may have heard the word ‘educator’ used as a pejorative………as in “the educators have gained control of the process”, implying whatever negative connotation, you, dear reader, may apply to the process of teaching.
I cannot support that usage any longer.
My institution of higher learning is closed for spring break this week. Students have scattered to the four corners of partydom, wreaking havoc on whatever hot spot can be affordably reached; professors are doing whatever professors do when not in class (most likely devising incredibly demanding assignments to drop on the unsuspecting, hungover kids the first day after the ‘vacation’).
At least that would be the assumption. But I know what one professor is doing over the break, at least for a few days. He’s coming into his office, a 30 minute commute, to spend several hours helping a dunce (me) attempt to understand the finer points of writing programs. I didn’t ask for this special tutorial; he offered the time if I would be interested in some extra teaching.
Why? I don’t have anything to offer, other than interest and enthusiasm. I’m never going to give the school a million dollars (at least not under current circumstances), I’m not an influential person in any sense of the word, and, frankly, I’m not some rising academic star.
Perhaps he is imbued with a strong sense of purpose, and perhaps he senses that I want to learn, but am struggling. So, he does what he wants to do…………he teaches, whenever and wherever possible.
He is, for me, an existential example of his profession….a teacher, a professor, an educator.
Thank you.
…frustrated, and depressed? I didn’t think so, because I try to maintain a positive outlook on life. To steal a phrase from our military heroes, I try to embrace the suck.
And right now, things really suck.
Based on recent test scores, things I think I know, I don’t; and things I know I don’t know, I really don’t know. The easy nonchalance of the first week of this semester regarding the Java programming language has been replaced with a fear and loathing that must approximate that a a lowly peasant living in plague- infested Bucharest in 1348; I just know it’s gonna get me……….
The sad thing is that I think my study habits have actually improved over the last 12 months.
But the fugue has persisted for about a week now, and as the weekend draws nigh all my thoughts are focused on surviving the latest impossible programming assignment, database queries that don’t return any results, and further adventures in the labyrinth of statistical hypotheses.
Spring Break cannot get here soon enough!
Mobile post sent by Agricola using Utterz. Replies. mp3
See, that’s a question that comes up a lot. My wife is the originator of most of the questions, followed closely by her parents and then by my father. Then there’s the party question: “What do you do?”.
Initially, in place to trying to explain my somewhat questionable fancy for numbers, data, and analysis of same, I responded to inquiries with a deluge of techno-speak. The hope was that I would intimidate the un-initiated and cower them into refusing to ask tough follow-up questions. Plus, I couldn’t seem to construct a response that adequately explains my primary aptitude…….extreme curiousity.
But a new day has dawned. In its own inevitable way, data from the WWW has come to the rescue and supplied me with the key to happiness, a ready response to the pesky question, and a job that will be the envy of my peers. Here is the dream job. A slice:
The model was developed using SAS software and information provided by Rivals.com, and relies primarily on historical data. It was built on a database
that captured characteristics of the choices of 3,395 recruits between 2002 and 2004. A large amount of player and team data was gathered for the task. The researchers then developed a special form of a statistical model known as a probit to try and capture the decision making process of recruits.
Yes, friends, assembling data, building a database, and then using statistical analysis to arrive at information not previously known. The work that will carry me, happily, into the sunset. And to do it in football recruiting!
I wonder if they have an online job application form?
In one of our final programming classes last semester, while waiting for Prof. X, a strange face wandered into the classroom. It belonged to a younger middle-aged guy who looked confused, and, since I sat in the back, he asked me a few questions. Turned out that he was planning a return to college for the Spring semester, and hope to major in Discovery Informatics. Quelle surprise! A fellow traveller……..why should I consider my story so unique?
We chatted after the class, exchanged contact info, and went our separate ways. With exams looming, I quickly forgot about the encounter and focused slaying the Dominion of Darkness (Calculus).
Lo and behold, who should I spy upon arrival in my campus hideaway, aka the computer science lab, the other day……..none other than the New Guy. Looking somewhat apprehensive, not quite sure how to act or where to sit, listening to the banter but not yet able to participate, his presence instantly transported me back in time, to those days, just a year ago, when I walked in his shoes.
We re-acquainted ourselves and I sat down to start working. In a minute, sure enough, he leaned over and asked a question. I responded, there was another question, and then we moved closer together and began to discuss his first attempt at writing code in Python. With the wisdom of my one semester on the subject, I was able to help him with some basic setup issues and even suggested an alternative to his initial logic. Then he asked about algebra…..
In an instant, I realized how far I have come in this adventure. I can write basic code. I can explain/help with Algebra. My latest programming assignment was submitted yesterday, TWO days ahead of the deadline…..a first for me. I’m in more classes than ever, and the load is not (yet) unmanageable.
I think I’m turning into a fully realized, actuated student.
Genetic algorithms are a subject somewhat beyond my ken. But it doesn’t take a geneticist or a computer scientist to comprehend the implications of the process. The possibilities are explosively revolutionary.
From our fellow bloggers at Q and O, a glimpse of what the future might portend. A slice to entice:
One of the consequences of growing computing power is the feasibility of generating improvements through what you might think of as a massive trial-and-error approach. Random variations are introduced into designs, and the results are measured against some metric to see which ones do best. Those best variations are then “cross-bred” with other good variations to see what comes out.
The result can sometimes be dramatic improvement over anything a human designer can come up with. For example:
At the University of Sydney, in Australia, Steve Manos used an evolutionary algorithm to come up with novel patterns in a type of optical fibre that has air holes shot through its length. Normally, these holes are arranged in a hexagonal pattern, but the algorithm generated a bizarre flower-like pattern of holes that no human would have thought of trying. It doubled the fibre’s bandwidth.
When I think about the application of this technology, plus the real genetic manipulation going on in biology, and the availability of information on all kinds of innovative ideas from search engines, I think there’s a lot of possible cross-reinforcement. Innovation has been accelerating throughout my entire lifetime, and it shows no signs of stopping that acceleration. The very pace of innovation picks up every year…
What if someone uses genetic algorithms to improve the genetic algorithms themselves? Will genetic algorigthms thus become more efficient and flexible? Will our lives someday be managed by a device that uses genetic algorithms to find the best way to satisfy our desires?
Read the whole thing, and follow the links. Amazing stuff.
Cross posted at Agricola.
It’s time for this faineant to get his studyin’ butt in gear.
Via the wonderful Dictionary.com Word of the Day.
The Gates of Academe 
Recent Comments