School programs and the screw-ups associated with them...

[Shurikane]

So, I joined university in 2004, on a program that was due to be dumped the following year for a new one. However, I didn't know that at the time.

The old program, the one I'm on, has a first year that consists mostly of classes common to all engineering programs: physics, chemistry, materials, etc. While this idea in itself is perfectly valid, it makes most students sweat blood and water over most of these classes. Physics engineers have no interest in computing, computer engineers despise materials, material engineers find no use in chemistry, and chemical engineers don't feel like listening to their physics teachers. Out of about 5 or 6 classes per semester, you only have a remote interest in one, two if you're lucky. In fact, half of the students quit during that first year. One friend of mine, an extreme programming buff, got completely turned off and abandonned the school in the middle of the winter semester. He didn't go to any of his finals and has applied to another college to become a sound technician.

Myself, in the first year, I have had only two classes of computer engineering, out of 10 classes. In one year, I've learned some C++: how to operate variables, calls, sub-functions, classes, inheritance, polymorphism, virtual functions, trees, sorting, and the STL library. Seems like a lot, but in truth, it allows me to do very little compared to all the stuff I could possibly learn in programming.

While browsing through the new program for this year, I learn that new students get 7 out of their 10 classes to be about computing. Physics is gone, chemistry is gone, materials is gone too. After a single year, those students will have more computer knowledge that I will have learned in two years. Those students also have less work and/or more motivation on average, allowing them to ace these classes if they pay attention to what they're doing.

While talking to some UbiSoft folks at their kiosk, I realize that I am actually far behind others. UbiSoft wants people passionate about programming and gaming. People who have done projects and mini-games and whatnot - in essence, people who have made themselves a portfolio, much like an artist exhibiting his works.

At this, my eyes go wide open. What have I done the last year and a half? I struggled through my classes, I studied like a maniac for stuff I wasn't even interested in, and spent summer doing 80-hour weeks in a warehouse. I had nor the time nor the will to learn a new programming language or program a mini-game of my own. I didn't even have the will to number-crunch my new formulas for POb. I'm too busy studying stuff like differential equations, resistance of materials, calculus, and electricity. And later on I'm supposed to learn thermodynamics along the way. For a fucking software engineering program.

And yep, still in the God damned common trunk, with all those common classes and all because I couldn't get some of them done right the first time around.

It's painful to know that I'll finish school next to people who will have learned more, in less time, and with less effort.