#necss

As you can see, I don’t have a new post ready for today. I attribute that to having been so busy at NECSS over the weekend that, by the time my wife and I got back on Monday late afternoon, we were pretty much beat. So I decided to do the American thing and take July 4 completely off, which means no post today. I’d like to thank the NECSS staff for managing to put together a fantastic conference…

February 1 - 5

That one guy was sleeping in class this week. I didn’t understand him. I think the reason why I pay too much attention to him is because he doesn’t fit my understanding on how people should treat college. It is especially harmful to treat college like that because money is being spent and college isn’t mandatory, kind of.

I remember in high school, everyone wanted to go to college. I’m not saying it’s wrong, because I’m going there now, but it is something that has been instilled in the young people’s mind that you must go to college in order to be successful in life. Not getting a higher education was equated with poverty and anything negative in the mind of young people. I learned outside of school that college isn’t the answer that everyone makes it out to be. The irony is that I don’t trust that source of information anymore. I would have to say, the one good thing it did for me is to not be pressured into college with no idea of what I want to do, nor whether I would make it.

The thing that made me nervous about college is what had happened to my brother. He went to college for a year or 2 with a grant. The grant was free money, unless he quit college, which he did. Now he has to pay it off. I think he’s still paying it off. it’s been about 8 years now. This brought me to question the usefulness of an institution that requires us to spend a lot of money on something that people claims to help make us a lot of money.

So when I finally decided to go to college, I had a goal to achieve. My goal is to pursue computer science and learn as much as I can in my classes. So when I see someone who's missing all the time and sleeps when they're present, I wonder why they are even there, why do they not drop the class? I also don't understand people who go to college and pick classes that don't interest them or they can learn from. I know a guy from last quarter who's always reading the textbook for his ethic class, but he says he didn't learn anything from that class.

NECSS Apology to Richard Dawkins

I have been critical of NECSS for how it handled the Richard Dawkins situation. But I am also supportive of NECSS for eventually doing the right thing and issuing an apology to Richard Dawkins.

Yesterday, the NECSS executive committee released the following statement:

We wish to apologize to Professor Dawkins for our handling of his disinvitation to NECSS 2016. Our actions were not professional,…

Quick update on a previous post I made about Dawkins being uninvited from NECSS. 

The NECSS has apologised and re-invited him.