Thread: Venting

Just venting. I am working on my Graduate Degree (only because it what I am suppose to do at work so I can make more than 100K). Since I have been programming professionally for five years, the work is easy and not very challenging. The problem is that other students in the classes are always asking for help. If I am on campus, I do not mind giving someone a hint in the right direction. What I can not stand is when someone expects me to help them write their entire program, or do not read the book first to find the answer (it is amazing how quickley an answer can be found be looking up the subject in the index and then turning to the appropriate page).

Now for the totally absurd. While taking my family out to eat, I kept getting bothered by a student in one of the classes for help. He was a cook at the restraunt. After asking him to not bother me since I was with my family for the ninth time. I had to get the manager involved.

Since I am now feed up with people asking for help at inappropiate times and with out looking at any reference, when someone asks for assistance off campus, I purposely give them wrong information. Result, my instructor is scheduling a retest for our last exam since so many people failed it (the grades were: A - 7, F - 19).

Thanks for your patience while I ranted.

Perhaps the students at your classes haven't learned looking up information. They know how to study, but not how to solve practical problems, which usually requires the skill of being able to find information in a relative easy way. You've worked and when solving problems, you have learned how to find the required information in an efficient way. So you're trained at it.

So you give bad info to the students at your classes? Hehehe, do they know that already?

i must say... that's a little harsh... why not just turn them down? Tell them you're not offering help anymore and to ........ off.

ORR... just wear a shirt around with the letters RTFM printed in big letters and flash that to em everytime they show up.

And good luck with your degree!

>what language are you an expert in ?????
C, C++, picking up JAVA

>are they aware of your actions ????
>do they know that already?
yes, tell them something outrageous and they get the idea

>why not just turn them down?
Like: "I have to get back to work now, but I will be in the lab an hour before class on Wednesday"; "Excuse me but can we discuss this before class tomorrow, I am trying to have diner with my family"; "It is 12:30am, I am sleeping and have to get up early in the morning"; "That topic is covered in chapter 5 and in the instructors notes online that includes an example, now I need to finish shopping so I can help cook diner for my family";
The usual response to the above is "but can you show me how to code it in and make it work?"

>when you teach others how to learn
Like: "Start with the basic example and start changing things to see what affect it has on the program, then apply the technique described in last weeks lecture and make changes to that to so the affect";

To see an example of the instructor notes look at: http://boisdarc.tamu-commerce.edu/ww...tes/Week07.pdf

If this is not spoon feed, I do not know what is.