Grudging upvote. One of the most depressing sights I see these days is lecture halls full of students on Facebook. I guess a lot of students don't care about red black trees or strongly connected components, despite ostensibly seeking a CS degree.
I'm sure that no more students care today than cared back in my day. Which is to say: At least half of them don't care.
But there's more to it than that. Lectures suck as a means of learning about red-black trees. Unless the lecturer is literally world-class, I can better spend my time by watching the world-class version of the lecture on iTunes U. Or by reading the best book on the subject -- books move faster than lectures, except when you need to slow down and think, in which case they obligingly slow down for you.
Of course, while lectures are a fairly low-efficiency way to learn many subjects, it is necessary to give them at least a little attention in order to learn about what will be on the specific test that the professor will give you at the end of the term. And, of course, some lecturers are world-class. If you find one, put Facebook away, for god's sake!
So very true. The summer after I graduated I started listening to Genetics lectures by an extremely entertaining lecturer at UC Berkley. I was far more engaged with iTunes than I was in most of my classes. The same went for books. Pity I learned these lessons too late to do independent study as much as possible.
You can find it on iTunes. There are three professors who teach at various times that are all very competent, but Urnov's lectures especially captivated me. I wonder if he will discover one of his mysterious podcasters with a google search ;-)
Molecular and Cell Biology 140: General Genetics - Fall 2007 Audio
Isn't wikimedia trying to build wikiversity? The last time I went there it was piss poor compared to wikipedia articles, but it made an attempt to read like an introductory text.
For most people, there is a lot more than just a degree to seek out in college. I'm no big fan of Facebook whoring myself, but while it obviously doesn't replace stimulating conversation or actual time spent together with good friends, it does provide a lubricant for them. My guess is that when all is said and done, you'll value your social ties and personal development a lot more than your knowledge of red black trees.
P.S. I don't mean to suggest people blowing off their classes to use Facebook is the way to go, but I think that to suggest it can't have value is somewhat silly.
It certainly does have value, but considering how much people pay to go to college it seems wasteful not to take advantage of the classroom resources. Going to college is great for finding a co-founder, making friends, etc. Whether class time is well spent doing those things, however, is less clear.
It all depends on the class and the context of the college.
I Facebook in a few of my classes. Sometimes it's because we're going over something I learned when I was younger. (I know how to use Final Cut, for instance, even if I'm completely clueless about sound/lighting setups on a movie set, so despite one class's being productive there're interludes where I don't need to focus as much.
I have other classes, however, where a good part of the focus seems to be on socializing. My entire major is devoted to entrepreneurialism; a huge part of the major is meeting other people and getting ideas going. So classes often have a relaxed environment in which people are encouraged to talk to one another. Facebook's useful there, also. I personally find it much easier to judge people and their ideas online; in person everybody seems beautiful and brilliant.
A huge part of what you get when you pay for college is access to all those people. Classes are valuable on one level specifically because they put you in a defined context with a slew of other people. I'm a people person, but I hate randomly going up to people, and I don't like talking to people without there being a reason for us to talk. Classes connect me to people, which is just as valuable service as the things I learn.
I'll also add that in the group I'm working with right now to launch things, all the communication's handled entirely over Facebook. We tried Backpack and Skype and Google Wave, and none of them could handle the conversation as well as informally talking to one another on Facebook did.
Ha. I wonder what the best MITM attack would be. Is rickrolling still in vouge? or should they be sent to a G.W.B./Sarah Palin fanclub page(assuming that most students on campus are liberal this would be an insult)?
Alright, I get that it's cool to "lament the failings of the common man" or whatever you're doing here, but I'd like to point out that both Red Black trees and Strongly Connected Components are just SUPER trivial. In fact, most thing covered in CS classes are trivial. With the book and provided notes/slides, you should be able to do just fine.
Class time should be productive time. Work on something important instead of the low-bandwidth information exchange that is the lecture.
I have talked to some kids in college classes that just don't have the intellectual curiosity that most hackers have. They will simply not go out of their way to learn something new for the sake of learning something new. I started learning Erlang not because I want to find a job programming Erlang but because I would like to expand the way my mind thinks about programming. If all you have is a hammer....
