Has the Internet Changed College? 91
gosand asks: "When I began college in 1988, it was the first time I was able to interact with a large group of very different people. This helped me to see the world in different aspects, and helped to make me who I am today. During my college days I formed/reformed many of my opinions on things, although refining them has been a continual process. I often wonder how my experience might have been different if the internet, as it exists today, would have been around then. Sure, there was gopher, ftp, and BBSs, but only a relatively few people knew about them and used them. There wasn't online gaming to lure you away from your studies for hours at a time. If you wanted music, you went to the used CD store or joined Columbia House and BMG 5 times under different names. You had to actually communicate with people in person instead of email, and you had to go to the library and do your research from books. You only had a computer if you were in CS, and sometimes not even CS students had them. I am not suggesting that one way is better than the other, just noting the differences. Have computers and the internet made college life any easier in some respects? Have they made it harder? How has the internet affected your opinions on things during these formative years? These may seem like easy questions, but I have a feeling that there are a wide range of opinions out there."
pr0n (Score:5, Funny)
Re:pr0n (Score:1)
Has the internet changed college? (Score:1)
mudding (Score:2, Interesting)
in any case, its nothing like sitting and playing Diablo for days on end...
Re:mudding (Score:1)
Re:mudding (Score:1)
Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Next topic!
Has it gotten easier? In some respects maybe. Has it gotten more effective? Very likely in that more people who go to school to learn something like programming have access to actual computers to work out their problems on and aren't forced to work purely in theory.
A couple years ago as an undergrad I was a lowsy programmer. I was on an all PC campus and had my powermac with me, so I couldn't do any of the programming assignments without heading over to one of the labs. Now, as a grad student we're programming in Java, and I can do my development on my latest Mac, so I can do coding into the wee hours on my own machine. That ability to experiment with the language on my own time has made learning new things much easier.
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Next topic!
For the record, the story was submitted with the title (How) Has the Internet Changed College. I put the "how" in there because I know it has, but I am not sure of the scope of how it has. Has it affected registration in any way? Textbook purchasing? Dating? (what is your email vs what is your phone #) Time management skills? Off-time activities? Are there LAN parties? How has it affected the non-tech major?
I was hoping for some interesting stories and experiences, not just
Random thoughts on changes (Score:2)
Also, it means you can sometimes get things done in off hours that normally you would have to do during the day, like signing up for classes, turning in assignments, asking a prof/student a question, etc.
And as a language student, I can say that a few really dec
OK, so I'm a curmudgeon... (Score:2)
Seems we have to work a lot harder to separate the wheat from the chaff now.
Re:OK, so I'm a curmudgeon... (Score:1)
Sure, there was gopher, ftp, and BBSs, but only a relatively few people knew about them and used them.
Weren't those the glory days, though? Damn, did not have every AOL dumbass in the world online, and the government did not even know the internet existed, even though they created it (Thanks Al Gore!). People complain about the companies turning the internet into TV. Sorry, already happened, not happening.
Nobody knows (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at your own life and see how the Internet has changed things in your daily routines and there's the effect it has kids going to college right now.
All you're really going to get is people talking about piracy and porn when it comes to this topic on
Re:Nobody knows (Score:1)
Before my senior year of college I had never even heard of the internet. By the time I returned for my MS, it was everywhere. No more long lines for registration or payment issues, etc. Access to Lexis-Nexis and many other expensive databases for free (now that I completed my degree, I miss this a lot). Best of all: being able to talk directly to experts i
Re:Nobody knows (Score:2)
School/Student relationship (Score:3, Insightful)
Many University administrators see that problem very clearly, and try to strike a politically surviveable balance to keep academic freedom alive.
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Re:School/Student relationship (Score:2)
Re:School/Student relationship (Score:1)
I suppose I should make it: "...Consistency is the Hobgoblin of little minds." Thank you for pointing it out though
~
Re:School/Student relationship (Score:2)
Re:School/Student relationship (Score:1)
I think that you're talking about schools looking the other way at underage drinking and the other excesses that teenagers can get into when away from parental authority for the first time. For the most parts I think schools still do this, maybe getting a little stricter, but I doubt much more adversarial than before.
I think you're saying that when it was a student pissing on someone's front yard at 2 in the m
Re:School/Student relationship (Score:1)
Absolutely (Score:2, Insightful)
It's interesting to me that my son has never known what vinyl LP's look like, has never known of a day without cell phones, and doesn't understand how the Internet revolutionized the way information is spread about. He uses it to play, to listen to music, to research homework, and communicate (not necessarily in that order).
There's a ton more information available now than in my college days.
Re:Absolutely (Score:2, Insightful)
You're kidding, right? Have you ever been to a library? They are insanely sorted. They make Google look like a haphazard mess by comparison. I have to admit that the Library of Congress classification system doesn't get me excited the way the Dewey Decimal system does, but card catalogs and decent shelving habits never prevented me from finding stuff I was lo
Re:Absolutely (Score:1)
Re:Absolutely (Score:1)
Re:Absolutely (Score:2)
You really don't believe that, do you? Not only are libraries sorted better (no matter which system they use) than Google, everything in the library can be verified. I'm willing to bet that 90% of the stuff that's listed by Google is crap anyway. Who would want to search through that? Published books are verifiable sources of information. You can't go wrong. T
of course... (Score:1)
email and office hours (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, I matriculated years ago, but... (Score:4, Funny)
How has the internet affected your opinions on things during these formative years?
Apparently, it is now much easier to write term papers [collegetermpapers.com].
Re:Of course, I matriculated years ago, but... (Score:1)
Re:Of course, I matriculated years ago, but... (Score:2)
We'll also note my slashdot commenting style does _not_ reflect my academic writing style.
Re:Of course, I matriculated years ago, but... (Score:1)
Well maybe if they didn't copy paste and actually put a little work into it they could get away with it.
Sure. Is it for better or worse? I dunno. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sure. Is it for better or worse? I dunno. (Score:2)
I absolutely hated IM at college. Not because I used it, but because, in a lab of 50 computers, several people would be using it with the speakers turned on.
Imagine, every three seconds at random positions in the lab a "Boop beep" followed a few seconds later by a "Beep boop". It was immensely irritating. And the worst thing: the students doing it couldn't have cared less they were disrupting everyone else.
I guess this post is actually on topic, where technology allows people (
more like. (Score:1)
Course Web Sites (Score:5, Interesting)
- course syllabus
- assignment/lab report/essay due dates
- exams dates
- (sometimes) class notes
- marks
- how to contact the professor (email, phone, office hours, etc)
It has probably drastically cut down people going to see the prof during his office hours to ask silly little questions and also improves professor to class communication. Email does the same thing as well.
Of course it also makes students lazy.
Archived class web sites are also useful for research. I can't count the number of times I've found a useful bit of info on an old class web site from MIT or the like.
Re:Course Web Sites (Score:2)
It was called "paper." All a student had to do was save all those things in his PeeChee folder and he was all set. Class notes (at my Univ., at least) could be bought at the University Center from University approved note takers. The lazy thing? Maybe. The paper way took
Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some, on the other hand (primarily faculty in the Liberal Arts fields, from my experience), don't want anything to do with the net. We have a couple of online course management solutions that let students track grades, turn in assignents, etc. online. I've had classes where the professor use it to distribute 1 thing: the syllabus.
At OU [ou.edu], we've got a fairly progressive faculty (at least in the College of Engineering), I just feel sorry for those stuck in a place where everything's done by the book. literally.
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
* Computers are loud. I can't imagine sitting in freshman Chemistry (population: 350) and listening to all those people type at once. Shoot me now. Likewise, I can't imagine a wireless group all receiving IMs at va
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:2)
I don't even know why people bother taking notes, it's all in the book.
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:1)
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:2)
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:2)
My professors usually picked a book, usually a Tannenbaum book, "recited" (in their own words) a subset of it in class, and at the end
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:2)
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:2)
Of course, I tend not to take notes either, cause its all in my head (this doesn't always work, especially when I skip a week of classes to work on senior design)
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:1)
What I found though was come final exams, I had to spend all my time studying for the "easier" and "intersting" ones but usually breezed through the exams for courses in which I took notes. There really is something to be said for how the act of writing something helps memory retention. To get the same benfit out of someone else's notes I imagine you would
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:1)
Taking notes is one form of increasing memory retention, and it's a very powerful one. Of course, if you can do the same thing with typing
My suggestion - write first, then if you have time, type up later. This always cements the concepts in my mind.
Oh, and I am a Math/Physics person, so I think this applies
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:2)
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:2)
I'm not sure if it's against the student code, but that's against my own morals. That sort of returns to my other post's point that it depends on the quality of the students, whether this is an issue or not.
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:1)
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:2)
Well, I was thinking of a couple of specific examples. In all of these courses, the professors have posted their own notes online in various formats, usually PDF or PPT. What usually happens is people will either bring in a laptop and just make extra notes every now and again ON the soft copy notes themselves. Generally, my experience has been that those are much mo
Re:Oh, it's changed the students, but... (Score:1)
I wasted so much of my life playing that game.
What do you mean, no email? (Score:2)
[In 1988] you had to actually communicate with people in person instead of email, and you had to go to the library and do your research from books.
I don't know about you, but I got my first undergrad email account in 1985. And I was NOT a CS student, or even a science or engineering student. It was BITNET, not Internet, but I could email to Internet accounts through a gateway, could telnet to other folks' accounts at different universities, could use finger, could play a game with a number of different
Re:Computers or the Internet (Score:2)
The submitter specifically talked about how his/her fundamental outlook on life was formed and refined during the experience of College, and wonders how that process differs because of the near-ubiquitous communication that the network has provided.
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Re:Computers or the Internet (Score:1)
From his discussion, it's abvoius he really wants to know how computers, e-mail, LANs, broadband to the dorm, etc have changed college life, but apparently I made the mistake of actually answering the question he really asked.
I dropped out because of the web (Score:2, Interesting)
If I returned to school now, I would expect to be a better student than before, partl
Re:I dropped out because of the web (Score:2)
As an engineer, I can say I've learned almost nothing from the Internet. There's a lot of what-if scenarios and photoshopped pictures, but little hard fact. It is of course invaluable if you are looking for a specific datasheet, and the company has made that available. But you don't magically absorb intelli
Re:I dropped out because of the web (Score:1)
Good luck.
Tom
Not necessarily that different (Score:2)
You can't help but be affected by the college atmosphere, it's a completely different world than what 90% of the kids knew growing up. No parents, no curfews, complete (mostly) freedom. It's the first taste of adult life where you're on your own and required
Internet == Freedom (present config only) (Score:1)
Many thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)
I know christianity isn't popular on slashdot or amongst geeks (hackers portrait says we're rare but not unknown). Nonetheless, there is a verse in there which is pertinent to this conversation:
"many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase"
I quote that mainly because I'm not sure we always take note of how different the world is from what it was. King Solomon commented on how there was nothing new under the sun. Under Chinese religion (can't remember exactly what), they say nothing is ever quite the same. I think both are true. We have changed so much, but we are essentially the same as those who went before us.
What amazes me the most is how much the world has changed in 10, 20, 50 and 100 years. What amazes me more is just how quickly we can adapt to the change. Computers as we know them today weren't around 20 years ago. A new technology comes out and people can learn it within a few days, weeks or months.
I was thinking the other day about books, when I got my sharp zaurus. I thought, this is cool I can put books on this device and read them while I'm away. The gutenberg project gives me access to a wealth of information. I was in a shopping center at the time, and I looked around at all the people and thought, "we have so much wisdom available and hardly any of it is going to be touched". I wondered how many books we have at our fingertips that before the printing press people would have been delighted to get their hands on.
But I digress a little. Nowadays we can travel hundreds of kilometers in less than an hour by means of aircraft. We can communicate virtually instantly with people all over the world. When we want, culture and political barriers can be circumvented. We have an unprecedented capacity to learn, and it's only going to increase in the future. And it just amazes me how quickly humans are able to adapt and comprehend the changes. Slashdotters are, in general, unique in the world in our ability to comprehend the changes. But the using of the technology is not so far off that your grandmother can't eventually learn it. Our generation will have lived and learned about rapid change. Even if we can no longer learn and understand what's behind it, we will be able to use it.
I just think, so much has changed, yet essentially everything is the same. We eliminated hunger problems in rich countries so that we no longer need to work much to eat. Now people work for other things - electricity, internet access, computers, etc. If we ever make them as ubiquitous as air, then there will be something else to work for. I think this is a universal principle - we will *always* work no matter what changes. We'll just find new ways of doing what we already want to do, and faster, more efficiently. I think some of the primary ones (not true in all circumstances, but mostly): work, love, learning, life, communication.
Anyway, there's no real coherency to these thoughts. Just reminding everyone of how much it's changed. It's sometimes hard for me to appreciate how much it's changed. I yearn new techology and the change it brings, so for me these things are not overpowering or daunting. I feel it's moving too slow. Yet most feel it's going too fast, and though it doesn't feel that way to me in general I have to agree - and step back and see it that way every now and then.
Change, and Everything After (Score:1)
Re:Change, and Everything After (Score:2)
Re:Change, and Everything After (Score:1)
For me it started as a vague feeling about a decade ago. It was a simple thing that triggered the thought, really. I gave my then 10 year old nephew a book he wanted on simple programming for Christmas, and in less than 48 hours, he devoured it. It was amazing how quickly he grasped the concepts, but when he tried to articulate what he'd learned to my sister, you could see a real disconnection. For him, the future would be shell scripts, hacks and the Internet.
Lately, though, those vague feelings have sol
Re:Change, and Everything After (Score:2)
I'm not sure of what I think really. My gut feeling is that, despite all the changes, we'll move on. Things will change, yet they will stay the same. We'll eliminate one need to have another take it's place. We'll find an answer only to have another one opened up.
And you know what - there's so much with technology we could do now, but there's just not enough time/resources/money for individuals. Given the freedom and the money I could wire my home to make it a house that most peo
music... (Score:1)
[almost]Anytime I want to know something, I can look it up online, thanks to IMDb, allmusic.com, google, etc. I guess that's a difference in all life, not just college. But it helps that I have an always-on 10Mbit connection.
Another interesting story: I was taking a music class and one student who didn't have a computer and lived off campus handed in the first
Re:music... (Score:1)
No WHAT in 1988? (Score:1)
>There wasn't online gaming to lure you away from
>your studies for hours at a time.
Riiight...So you weren't cool enough to get invited to play Empire (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/games/empire/faq/). Or a MUD. Okay. At my school, you could tell who was playing because they'd all head for their PC or a terminal once an hour, every hour, if they'd even left the terminal at all.
Well, instead you could have been playing dorm-wide games of Strategic Conquest (over homebuilt PhoneN
Re:No WHAT in 1988? (Score:2)
Apple did have A/UX (i think thats how it was spelled) which was a unix that runs on some of the 68k based macs. I think A/UX provided access to the finder, so you could have GUI vs command line goodness arguments.
Re:No WHAT in 1988? (Score:1)
You could get XENIX only for the Lisa, too, that's why students had to get one instead of the cheaper Mac Plus. Not sure why. I had some surplus Mac XL conversion kits (this is all coming back to me) that I bought at a MacWorld and sold at a huge profit on campus. Once someone converted their Lisa to a Mac XL, they couldn't run XENIX anymore. As I recall.
Re:No WHAT in 1988? (Score:1)
thanks
Re:No WHAT in 1988? (Score:1)
I don't think it is easy to tell (Score:1)
Granted, there might be a group of people from any one school that spans a 4 year period in which they witnessed both, but even their lives started to get influenced by computers and the internet prior to it actually hitting their campus.
Re:I don't think it is easy to tell (Score:1)
oddd... (Score:2)
There were TONS of Internet games.
Internet chat was the big deal at the time.
The Internet hasn't changed all that much, except for the advent of the WWW. Everything else that's out here fairly well existed (the WWW including the media facilities...) before then.
Instant Messaging didn't exist, but IRC did, so that was sort of the Universal Instant Messenger (oh, and TALK.
Google. (Score:3)
In my computer science courses, the prelab questions would be posted online, and after they were due, the answers were posted online.
The answers were also in the google cache...
The Dawn of Email in Texas = 1989 (Score:1)
There's a quick answer. (Score:2)
I remember the library, too. I'd still probably use it if I went back today: I am more comfortable with citing published works as sources; your eyes don't hurt as much reading a book compared to a screen; and you never know if the guy on the web is full of crap, or craz
Went to college in '75 (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes it has (Score:1)
Yeah! (Score:2)
Dolemite
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My expierence (Score:2, Interesting)
Personal story (Score:2)
Mainly though, it was really great at distracting me. I have..
Was your college under a rock somewhere? (Score:2)
When I started undergrad in 1986, one of the first things they made every student do was get their computing account and password. Even then, there were plenty of professors who insisted on contact via email, and most students I knew had at least one course where a significant portion of discussion was conducted online.
People spent incredible amounts of time on email and chat, with most people I knew checking their email from public kiosks, computing centers, or their home machines several times per day.