Bug goes to college (again)
Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:58 pm
Yes indeedy, that time has come, and with it, I shall bring you stories.
----
Well, after much hemming, hawing, and general ranty-ness at the job market in this town, Mrs. Bug and I came to the decision that further education would be conducive to my job-search efforts.
There's really only one choice in local colleges for Rochester, but it's a pretty good one. RCTC, which is linked to a couple of four-year state universities. I went and checked out their curriculum, and after some digging around, found a couple of two-year degrees that would possibly suit me.
The first was their 'Help Desk Specialist' degree. This seemed like just the thing for me--I've been doing helpdesk duties for years! Then I looked at the class descriptions. 'Help Desk I' through 'Help Desk IV', 12 total credits for those plus a smattering of other classes. Undaunted, I checked the descriptions....
AUUUGH! It's totally infested with TLA's! (three-letter acronyms for those of you not in the business) We're talking TQM ("Total Quality Management"), TPS (I have no idea), and a number of other TLA's straight out of Office Space. I fully expected Lumbergh to leap out of my screen and bean me with his coffee cup. Worst of all, there was heavy talk of 'teamwork' and 'team-building' and a host of other feel-good buzzword crap.
I thought back to my time as a phone jockey, as well as the rest of my face-to-face support work. Teamwork my ass, it's me and the customer, and maybe my boss if things get wierd. There's no mention of sociology, demographics, psychology, elocution, logic, deductive reasoning, writing or any of the other non-technical skills that have proven to be amazingly helpful in my tenure as a support guy. I have visions of myself in these classes, visions where I hear one too many TLA's and proceed to stand up and lecture the class on how the real world works until I'm hauled off by campus security. Then it comes to mind that these classes are very likely the type that teach people to be that most dreaded Help Desk person.... The Flip-Book Technician.
The local Charter branch is full of flip-bookers, and I routinely chew them up and spit them out when I call in. No way I'm gonna let myself spend money to get brainwashed like that.
Right, scratch that one. Next! 'Midrange Computer Operator'. This is happily minus the Help Desk I-IV, and concentrates more on the technical aspects of things: DBA, SQL, AS/400, Cisco, IIS, etc. Plus it's got a general education component that'll let me throw in some psychology and sociology. SOLD!
---
First things first, I gotta get signed up. This part is pretty easy. I go in, I fill out some paperwork, pays 'em twenty bucks, and get an appointment to come back for placement testing.
Next week, I come in for the placement test. I'm a bit nervous about the math component, as it's been ages since I've filled out anything more complex than your average Newtonian physics formula: F=ma, or K = .5mv^2 and such.
The testing is, to my surprise, totally computerized. Even the writing test is so. Impressive. I blow through the reading comprehension like a sabot round fired at a wandering sheep. Problem! Nine students plus myself suddenly have total lockups. Test instructor has us restart the program and log back in. Those other students get back on with it. Me, on the other hand, I'm faced with another cryptic message. Instructor comes over and basically goes 'dubya-tee-eff, mate?'
As it turns out, I've exercised my 'technician's syndrome' and totally hosed the software. To be more precise, I've somehow corrupted the session ID for my record, which is used to get test questions from the remote offcampus server that manages this software. Whoops. The instructor's baffled. Me and the IT guy are hunching over the monitor and batting ideas back and forth (which is how we came up with the above conclusion). A quick call to the test software's support desk gives us a workaround. Yay!
Testing complete! The writing section was pretty cool--they provided a short essay which we had to edit by clicking a particular sentence and then choosing froma list of corrections, all of which showed up in real-time. The math section, as expected, did me in pretty good. Two or three polynomial equations on a Cartesian graph (minus said graph for reference, I should add) and my brain melted. And here I was expecting the quadratic equation. Phooey.
I take my test results and then go get an appointment to come back next week to see a counselor.
---
Next week (today, in other words), I go in to the campus enrollment office. I see a group of prospective students hanging about and wonder what's up. Surely they're not all here for counseling? I bypass 'em and hit the office, checking in with the secretary, telling her about my appointment.
Much to my surprise, those other students are here for counseling. Apparently, the days of one-on-one enrollment counseling are over at this particular campus. We're all given folders, handbooks, and our placement scores and herded back up to the same computer lab as last week.
To my horror, I now realize that we (that is, the 25+ people in this lab) are going to be handled by one counselor. Alarm bells start going off in my head, and I immediately beeline for the front of the room, just in case this guy's never taught a class in his life and mumbles or something.
Well, this guy (Jim by name) doesn't mumble, but he definitely hasn't taught classes before, or if he did, he took lessons from Ben Stein and failed miserably on his tests.
First off, he's got a big ceiling-mounted projector all fired up. This in itself doesn't worry me, as it's a common teaching tool. My 'incoming PowerPoint' radar is pinging pretty hard, though.
Second, on our desks are some paperwork to fill out (normal) and 'class notes'. However, these are not actual helpful notes that a sane professor might provide in a lecture class. No, these are fill-in-the-blank notes. In order to make use of them, you have to copy down keywords to go in the blanks.
The 'incoming PowerPoint' radar is now about ready to dent its own alarm bells, it's going off so hard.
Instructions come from Jim. He's got decent projection, but lousy inflection. He sounds cheerful, but not interested in his work. I quickly adjust my brain's listening procedures so that I do not fall asleep. Alas, some students were not able to do so, as evidenced by the quiet thumps of heads hitting desks.
Filling out the paperwork is fairly easy. Problem is, Jim hasn't looked at this paperwork in some time, and is so referring to fields that are not named what he thinks they are. A question or two to him fixes that. Problem two: Jim, after telling us what the last field we're to fill out should be, almost immediately launches into his PowerPoint presentation.
Mind you, everyone's still filling out what he told them to.
Me, I barely get to my 'class notes' sheet in time. Looking back, what I should have done was hold it up and use it as a visual shield instead of actually filling it out.
You see, Jim is one of those guys that really, really loves PowerPoint. Just by looking, you can tell he's spent days working on it, and actually had some artistic folks look it over to ensure that it's not too gaudy. It's slick, it's very nice: good colors, subtle transitions, good font-size and -type for projections.
As expected, every word in every slide that's bold just happens to fit in a particular blank on the 'class notes'. This makes it easy to match things up and write down the correct word. It also makes it easy to wonder why he didn't just give us the full text in the first place.
What makes it hard is that Jim is going through the slides at speeds approaching c, for sutiably small values of c. No more has he finished reciting the words on the slide than he goes on to the next one, heedless of the furious scratching of pens and the frustrated looks of students simultaneously listening to every word and hoping that he might somehow spontaneously combust.
Finally, we are done with the slides. Hand aching, pen smoking, I set the class notes down and prepare for what's next. Now we are taken through the college intranet--creating our accounts, setting passwords, going through electronic class registration, and so on. It's a nice system.
As expected, Jim is still cruising along somewhere around Warp Five. To further complicate matters, all of the navigational links are in eight-point type, and when Jim helpfully puts his white mouse cursor on tiny light blue text on a light grey background on a huge projection screen, tell us to 'click here!', and then proceeds to leave everyone in the dust, it's easy to simply disconnect and wander about the interface on your own, much to Jim's annoyance.
Better yet, we are given approximately four seconds of Jim-time to think up entirely new passwords for our accounts before he proceeds to have Mr. Data send the Enterprise on to the next star system.
So, needless to say, I did not find Jim to be an able instructor. Thankfully, a little poking around and some prodding of the help-staff was enough to get things all in line for me.
Now comes the part where we actually sign up for classes. This is all using that interface, which is, despite our bad introduction to it, pretty slick. That paperwork we were to fill out now comes into play.
The idea is that we have our classes ready to go, then Jim comes around, checks our choices, writes 'em down in the 'office use only' part of the paperwork, and then signs off on it. Easy.
One thing: There's a 'by signing here, I agree to Terms and Policies X', with a link. Having purchased cars, appliances, houses, and other large-ticket items, I know that it's always an excellent idea to read the legalese when cold hard cash is involved. I type in the URL. Bang, 404 not found. I double-check the URL. 404. Crap.
Jim comes around, as he's been signing these things like crazy. He looks over my stuff, pronounces is good, and signs off on his line. I politely mention that the policy link is broken, and if he had a copy of it i could read before signing.
"You don't need that. Just sign here, right this minute."
Verbatim quote. Now this is where I got angry. My first urge was something that would have been very gratifying, yet have resulted in a felony or two. Second urge: "Now listen here, you balding car salesman wanna-be, stop being unprofessional and get me the fine print." Third urge: "This ain't my parents' money I'm spending, bub."
I went to my Zen place. Remember in Phantom Menace where Obi-Wan, Qui-Gonn, and Darth Maul are fighting? There's one bit where all three are separated by timed forcefields. Obi-Wan looks frustrated. Maul is pacing like a cat. Qui-Gonn, however, closes down his lightsaber, sits down crosslegged, and meditates for a few seconds while the forcefield goes through its cycle. That image of Qui-Gonn is my Zen place.
All of this took only a second or two, and after coming back from Zen, I summoned my best Worf voice and said: "No. I will not be pressured into signing something I've not read." You could have heard a pin drop.
Jim then proceeds to get all huffy and tell one of the staff that he has a 'customer' that 'will not be pressured', then zips off somewhere. Me, I'm thanking all those pushy appliance and car salesmen I've had to deal with in the past for instructing me in dealing with buffoons.
I get some guy that comes over, and he's vastly more helpful. Yes, the paperwork has the wrong link. Sure, here's a list of college policy, and you want to read this one. I read, am satisfied the money isn't going to go poof on me, and call Jim back over. Sign the paper and poof, it is done.
Well, not totally. He should have told me where to go next, but didn't. I had to overhear things. Took a note or two and went off to get books, pay for the classes, and get my photo ID all set up. Those three processes were quite painless.
---
So, aside from one puffed up, balding, PowerPoint wielding ex-salesman who's a very prominent self-promoter ("I have a master's degree in counseling!" Huh, didn't know you needed one, bub.), the entire day's experience was pretty good. I know now who NOT to use when it comes time to seek counsel in future semesters, and I know now that the library, front desk, financial, and bookstore staff are all a bunch of nice people who are genuinely helpful.
Here's to hoping I have good professors. I'm already getting my money's worth, too, as today's episode was a fine introduction to 'Dealing With B.S. 101'
----
Well, after much hemming, hawing, and general ranty-ness at the job market in this town, Mrs. Bug and I came to the decision that further education would be conducive to my job-search efforts.
There's really only one choice in local colleges for Rochester, but it's a pretty good one. RCTC, which is linked to a couple of four-year state universities. I went and checked out their curriculum, and after some digging around, found a couple of two-year degrees that would possibly suit me.
The first was their 'Help Desk Specialist' degree. This seemed like just the thing for me--I've been doing helpdesk duties for years! Then I looked at the class descriptions. 'Help Desk I' through 'Help Desk IV', 12 total credits for those plus a smattering of other classes. Undaunted, I checked the descriptions....
AUUUGH! It's totally infested with TLA's! (three-letter acronyms for those of you not in the business) We're talking TQM ("Total Quality Management"), TPS (I have no idea), and a number of other TLA's straight out of Office Space. I fully expected Lumbergh to leap out of my screen and bean me with his coffee cup. Worst of all, there was heavy talk of 'teamwork' and 'team-building' and a host of other feel-good buzzword crap.
I thought back to my time as a phone jockey, as well as the rest of my face-to-face support work. Teamwork my ass, it's me and the customer, and maybe my boss if things get wierd. There's no mention of sociology, demographics, psychology, elocution, logic, deductive reasoning, writing or any of the other non-technical skills that have proven to be amazingly helpful in my tenure as a support guy. I have visions of myself in these classes, visions where I hear one too many TLA's and proceed to stand up and lecture the class on how the real world works until I'm hauled off by campus security. Then it comes to mind that these classes are very likely the type that teach people to be that most dreaded Help Desk person.... The Flip-Book Technician.
The local Charter branch is full of flip-bookers, and I routinely chew them up and spit them out when I call in. No way I'm gonna let myself spend money to get brainwashed like that.
Right, scratch that one. Next! 'Midrange Computer Operator'. This is happily minus the Help Desk I-IV, and concentrates more on the technical aspects of things: DBA, SQL, AS/400, Cisco, IIS, etc. Plus it's got a general education component that'll let me throw in some psychology and sociology. SOLD!
---
First things first, I gotta get signed up. This part is pretty easy. I go in, I fill out some paperwork, pays 'em twenty bucks, and get an appointment to come back for placement testing.
Next week, I come in for the placement test. I'm a bit nervous about the math component, as it's been ages since I've filled out anything more complex than your average Newtonian physics formula: F=ma, or K = .5mv^2 and such.
The testing is, to my surprise, totally computerized. Even the writing test is so. Impressive. I blow through the reading comprehension like a sabot round fired at a wandering sheep. Problem! Nine students plus myself suddenly have total lockups. Test instructor has us restart the program and log back in. Those other students get back on with it. Me, on the other hand, I'm faced with another cryptic message. Instructor comes over and basically goes 'dubya-tee-eff, mate?'
As it turns out, I've exercised my 'technician's syndrome' and totally hosed the software. To be more precise, I've somehow corrupted the session ID for my record, which is used to get test questions from the remote offcampus server that manages this software. Whoops. The instructor's baffled. Me and the IT guy are hunching over the monitor and batting ideas back and forth (which is how we came up with the above conclusion). A quick call to the test software's support desk gives us a workaround. Yay!
Testing complete! The writing section was pretty cool--they provided a short essay which we had to edit by clicking a particular sentence and then choosing froma list of corrections, all of which showed up in real-time. The math section, as expected, did me in pretty good. Two or three polynomial equations on a Cartesian graph (minus said graph for reference, I should add) and my brain melted. And here I was expecting the quadratic equation. Phooey.
I take my test results and then go get an appointment to come back next week to see a counselor.
---
Next week (today, in other words), I go in to the campus enrollment office. I see a group of prospective students hanging about and wonder what's up. Surely they're not all here for counseling? I bypass 'em and hit the office, checking in with the secretary, telling her about my appointment.
Much to my surprise, those other students are here for counseling. Apparently, the days of one-on-one enrollment counseling are over at this particular campus. We're all given folders, handbooks, and our placement scores and herded back up to the same computer lab as last week.
To my horror, I now realize that we (that is, the 25+ people in this lab) are going to be handled by one counselor. Alarm bells start going off in my head, and I immediately beeline for the front of the room, just in case this guy's never taught a class in his life and mumbles or something.
Well, this guy (Jim by name) doesn't mumble, but he definitely hasn't taught classes before, or if he did, he took lessons from Ben Stein and failed miserably on his tests.
First off, he's got a big ceiling-mounted projector all fired up. This in itself doesn't worry me, as it's a common teaching tool. My 'incoming PowerPoint' radar is pinging pretty hard, though.
Second, on our desks are some paperwork to fill out (normal) and 'class notes'. However, these are not actual helpful notes that a sane professor might provide in a lecture class. No, these are fill-in-the-blank notes. In order to make use of them, you have to copy down keywords to go in the blanks.
The 'incoming PowerPoint' radar is now about ready to dent its own alarm bells, it's going off so hard.
Instructions come from Jim. He's got decent projection, but lousy inflection. He sounds cheerful, but not interested in his work. I quickly adjust my brain's listening procedures so that I do not fall asleep. Alas, some students were not able to do so, as evidenced by the quiet thumps of heads hitting desks.
Filling out the paperwork is fairly easy. Problem is, Jim hasn't looked at this paperwork in some time, and is so referring to fields that are not named what he thinks they are. A question or two to him fixes that. Problem two: Jim, after telling us what the last field we're to fill out should be, almost immediately launches into his PowerPoint presentation.
Mind you, everyone's still filling out what he told them to.
Me, I barely get to my 'class notes' sheet in time. Looking back, what I should have done was hold it up and use it as a visual shield instead of actually filling it out.
You see, Jim is one of those guys that really, really loves PowerPoint. Just by looking, you can tell he's spent days working on it, and actually had some artistic folks look it over to ensure that it's not too gaudy. It's slick, it's very nice: good colors, subtle transitions, good font-size and -type for projections.
As expected, every word in every slide that's bold just happens to fit in a particular blank on the 'class notes'. This makes it easy to match things up and write down the correct word. It also makes it easy to wonder why he didn't just give us the full text in the first place.
What makes it hard is that Jim is going through the slides at speeds approaching c, for sutiably small values of c. No more has he finished reciting the words on the slide than he goes on to the next one, heedless of the furious scratching of pens and the frustrated looks of students simultaneously listening to every word and hoping that he might somehow spontaneously combust.
Finally, we are done with the slides. Hand aching, pen smoking, I set the class notes down and prepare for what's next. Now we are taken through the college intranet--creating our accounts, setting passwords, going through electronic class registration, and so on. It's a nice system.
As expected, Jim is still cruising along somewhere around Warp Five. To further complicate matters, all of the navigational links are in eight-point type, and when Jim helpfully puts his white mouse cursor on tiny light blue text on a light grey background on a huge projection screen, tell us to 'click here!', and then proceeds to leave everyone in the dust, it's easy to simply disconnect and wander about the interface on your own, much to Jim's annoyance.
Better yet, we are given approximately four seconds of Jim-time to think up entirely new passwords for our accounts before he proceeds to have Mr. Data send the Enterprise on to the next star system.
So, needless to say, I did not find Jim to be an able instructor. Thankfully, a little poking around and some prodding of the help-staff was enough to get things all in line for me.
Now comes the part where we actually sign up for classes. This is all using that interface, which is, despite our bad introduction to it, pretty slick. That paperwork we were to fill out now comes into play.
The idea is that we have our classes ready to go, then Jim comes around, checks our choices, writes 'em down in the 'office use only' part of the paperwork, and then signs off on it. Easy.
One thing: There's a 'by signing here, I agree to Terms and Policies X', with a link. Having purchased cars, appliances, houses, and other large-ticket items, I know that it's always an excellent idea to read the legalese when cold hard cash is involved. I type in the URL. Bang, 404 not found. I double-check the URL. 404. Crap.
Jim comes around, as he's been signing these things like crazy. He looks over my stuff, pronounces is good, and signs off on his line. I politely mention that the policy link is broken, and if he had a copy of it i could read before signing.
"You don't need that. Just sign here, right this minute."
Verbatim quote. Now this is where I got angry. My first urge was something that would have been very gratifying, yet have resulted in a felony or two. Second urge: "Now listen here, you balding car salesman wanna-be, stop being unprofessional and get me the fine print." Third urge: "This ain't my parents' money I'm spending, bub."
I went to my Zen place. Remember in Phantom Menace where Obi-Wan, Qui-Gonn, and Darth Maul are fighting? There's one bit where all three are separated by timed forcefields. Obi-Wan looks frustrated. Maul is pacing like a cat. Qui-Gonn, however, closes down his lightsaber, sits down crosslegged, and meditates for a few seconds while the forcefield goes through its cycle. That image of Qui-Gonn is my Zen place.
All of this took only a second or two, and after coming back from Zen, I summoned my best Worf voice and said: "No. I will not be pressured into signing something I've not read." You could have heard a pin drop.
Jim then proceeds to get all huffy and tell one of the staff that he has a 'customer' that 'will not be pressured', then zips off somewhere. Me, I'm thanking all those pushy appliance and car salesmen I've had to deal with in the past for instructing me in dealing with buffoons.
I get some guy that comes over, and he's vastly more helpful. Yes, the paperwork has the wrong link. Sure, here's a list of college policy, and you want to read this one. I read, am satisfied the money isn't going to go poof on me, and call Jim back over. Sign the paper and poof, it is done.
Well, not totally. He should have told me where to go next, but didn't. I had to overhear things. Took a note or two and went off to get books, pay for the classes, and get my photo ID all set up. Those three processes were quite painless.
---
So, aside from one puffed up, balding, PowerPoint wielding ex-salesman who's a very prominent self-promoter ("I have a master's degree in counseling!" Huh, didn't know you needed one, bub.), the entire day's experience was pretty good. I know now who NOT to use when it comes time to seek counsel in future semesters, and I know now that the library, front desk, financial, and bookstore staff are all a bunch of nice people who are genuinely helpful.
Here's to hoping I have good professors. I'm already getting my money's worth, too, as today's episode was a fine introduction to 'Dealing With B.S. 101'
