Evaluations CS245 The Internet Spring 1999

• Sometimes he is not real clear on what we should be going.
• He does not do a very good job at helping the students learn what he wants them to know.
• This is a good course that gives a lot of information
• Outstanding
• Outstanding Some NTS" have an extreme amt of anxiety RE: computers -- Gone!!
• In the beginning of the term the professor's attitude could have been better
• Sometimes it feels as if we are being overwhelmed by the prof's knowledge and we are expected to learn unnecesary stuff

• If you are so sure that you know what you need to know, why don't you take pains to learn exactly that and get on with your life? If your answer is "I need the degree", you are wrong. When you know enough, you will be able to do without the degree. (Some of the richest, most successful folks in the country dropped out of college: two examples are Bill Gates and Michael Dell.)

If you still believe you need a degree, then you put stock into the claim that a degree ensures a level of competency obtained by meeting requirements asserted from another authority -- that is, you don't know everything you need to know. In one sense, you are absolutely correct: you don't need to know about X (where X is any of the things students have told me they don't need to know). There are some five billion people on earth today who know nothing about it and still manage to get along day to day. You don't need calculus to drive a truck, harvest fruit, or serve fries at McDonalds.

Is there any course at this institution where it is not possible to learn something significant? Are you already either so learned or ignorant that no knowledge could be useful to you? Is education so structured and painful for you that you can't tolerate a new view of something? I do feel sorry for your future students, since you will surely kill their natural curiosity.

There are many things an informed citizen should know. What really happened in East Timor? What really caused Y2K and how could it be avoided? When the package says "average lifetime 1000 hours", what does that mean (that is, how long can you expect this product to last ... given 100 of them, how many will be running after 1000 hours? If the product is a lightbulb and you say 50, then you are wrong.)? What does it mean for a government agency to spend $100 million on "electronic infrastructure"? Where does the money go, and what do you get out of it? Did the Aztec calendar really prove to be more accurate than the one we use now? If there is life on Mars, what does it look like? If there is life outside our solar system, how will we know? What will it look like? If a farmer plants cotton on a piece of land for 20 years, what is the effect on the soil? Suppose the global warming threat is really a farce. How can you tell? Suppose it's not a farce. What can be done about it? A commentator on the radio says that the United States is the first "experimental republic." How is that different from a democracy? Is that statement true? What could we have learned from other governmental systems that could improve the quality of life for citizens in the US and in the world? If the population rate does continue to grow at an annual 2.3%, what effects can we expect to see by the year 2020? A solicitor calls you on the phone and tells you there's a great internet company with an IPO at $2/share hitting the market in the morning. Should you invest?

• The list is endless. I can't tell you what you need to know. I can only encourage you to learn what you can and think.

• I did learn a lot more than what I knew