[nfbcs] LaTeX [was "Re: Computer science mentors?"]

[Steve Jacobson]

John makes some very good points here.  I would add that much of what he
says applies to one's employment as well.  Learning how to pick up skills
independently is something that will be of use on the job as well.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of John Heim via
nfbcs
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:06 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: John Heim <john at johnheim.com>; Bryan Schulz <b.schulz at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] LaTeX [was "Re: Computer science mentors?"]

But this is the point I've been trying to make. I don't know about 
linux/unix specifically but it doesn't surprise me that you might be 
expected to pick that up on your own. The basic problem is that there 
are only so many chairs in every classroom. Every year, every decent 
university in the country gets way more applications than they can take. 
The competition for admission can be harsh. At one time, you had to have 
a 3.2 high school GPA to get into the University Of Wisconsin. Well, you 
could get past that based on many other factors. But 3.2 was the basic 
cut off point. This is the state university of Wisconsin and that was 
considered to be a huge problem.

No university likes turning students away. So they do their best to get 
each student through in 4 years. If a student takes 5 years to get his 
degree, that means there is no room for some other student. The result 
is a trend toward asking students to learn more and more on their own. 
Also driving this trend are foreign students who often are much more 
willing to put in long hours than their American counterparts. Yet 
another factor is the move away from "grade inflation". During the 
Vietnam war,professors would bend over backward to avoid failing a 
student for fear it would make him eligible for the draft. The methods 
they used to avoid that lasted for decades past the war and are only now 
fading away. The net result of all of these things is greater 
competition and ever increasing demands on students.

College has always been a big step for most people. Like I said in 
another message, for many people it is the first time in their lives 
when they have been expected to get their own butt out of bed in the 
morning. But now you can add to that an increasing trend toward 
expecting students to take the initiative on what they are learning 
outside of class and the level of competition at most schools and it can 
be brutal.

But this isn't all bad. Learning to show initiative makes you a happier, 
healthier person.  Learning to show initiative is a valuable skill for 
anybody but especially for a disabled person. In your life, there is 
never going to be any better advocate for you than you. Nobody else is 
going to understand your needs more than you. Nobody is going to care 
more about your needs than you.




On 03/29/2018 10:12 PM, Bryan Schulz via nfbcs wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> That's odd that you need to know unix for other classes and they don't
offer
> an intro to unix class.
> Bryan
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Mike Gorse via nfbcs
> Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2018 8:39 PM
> To: Jack Heim via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Mike Gorse <mike at straddlethebox.org>
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] LaTeX [was "Re: Computer science mentors?"]
> 
> I agree that there are probably going to be things that students will be
> expected to pick up on their own. For instance, my college didn't, say,
have
> a class to teach Unix, but knowing it was required for various classes.
> Professors may have given basic guidance as needed, and everyone was in
the
> same boat, in terms of needing to learn it if they didn't know it already.
I
> probably could have got my BS degree without ever learning LaTeX, using MS
> Word to write papers, except that I had accessibility-related reasons for
at
> least needing to be able to read it and also rarely used Windows.
> 
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Jack Heim via nfbcs wrote:
> 
>> Just to be clear, I didn't say all students are expected to know
>> latex. Lots of students have no need for latex. My point was that I
>> think it is probably typical for students who need to use latex to be
>> expected to pick  it up on their own.  But even that might be different
in
> other schools.
> 
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