On 30/11/10 08:18, Vitaliy wrote: > If you insist on getting a degree, find a school that offers real, > old-fashioned learning in a room with other students and a live professor= .. Don't I know it. I'm finishing off an MEng in computer software=20 engineering, and in the past four years it's gone from 'pretty OK' to 'a=20 little rough', and finally (this year) to 'almost unbearable'. Here are a few gems: * The "open access" computer lab has now been redesignated as a teaching=20 room. Meaning there's nowhere for Comp Sci students to do assignment=20 work. The computers in the library are locked down tighter than Fort Knox. * The same comp lab has been "upgraded". All new PCs, shiny new=20 multi-GHz quadcore monsters, running... Windows 7. And the University=20 Monitoring package, which hogs 100% CPU. Unfortunately, 44 PCs running=20 flat-out in a lab that was only meant to run 30 PCs, plus 44 bodies on=20 those PCs... kinda puts a strain on the air conditioning. I've clocked=20 the room temperature at 30-odd Celsius in the early morning. It's gotten=20 so bad, Facilities have turned the heaters off and padlocked the valves=20 shut! * All of the taught modules for the MEng year are repeats of foundation=20 level modules from the BSc Software Development course. The BSc is a=20 prerequisite for the MEng. Hence, no new material. * Two courses have been merged: M.Sc. Information Systems and M.Eng.=20 Software Engineering. So we have a database/information systems course=20 mashed in with a software engineering course. Brillant! [sic] * For bonus points: the percentage of students involved in plagiarism=20 disputes and "academic crime" on the MSc course has consistently above=20 90% for several years. In the MEng, it's been almost zero SINCE THE=20 COURSE STARTED. * We have a new Head of Department who arrived from a small college in=20 Oldham and just doesn't give a crap about anything other than "does the=20 Vice-Chancellor like me enough to keep paying me?" Several (very good)=20 lecturers have either left or transferred to other departments... I had=20 a request for a Copyright Release turned down because he "knew I wasn't=20 going to do anything useful with the code." * Computing Services outsourced the university email system -- prior to=20 this, a survey was sent out: "do we go with Hotmail or Google?". 89% of=20 students were in favour of Google (the results were posted openly). Head=20 of Computing is a big M$ fanboy, so he put the brakes on that plan and=20 handed the contract to M$. Big surprise, none of the email system works=20 -- you can't connect from off-campus, staff email addresses aren't=20 visible, and -- bonus -- you can't email staff using the new system=20 (emails are rejected by the University mail server). Even "real" brick-and-mortar universities aren't all they're cracked up=20 to me. If I could hop in a DeLorean, go back five years and give myself=20 one piece of advice, it would be: "Don't even think of putting that university on your UCAS form. Apply=20 to Leeds and York instead." Sorry if this sounded like a rant, but... it is. Natch. --=20 Phil. piclist@philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .