Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

One of my co-teachers, part of the School of Information Technology and Computing and who handled one of the two groups of seniors who had their practicum in the campus, was venting her frustration yesterday.

Her students had just defended their project to a panel that included the Executive Vice President, himself a former dean of the College of Computer Studies.

During the presentation (actually the question and answer portion already, like a beauty contest) one of the students continually interrupted the panelists – including the EVP, to tell them that the panelists’ perception of the students’ work (or lack of it) was wrong, even before the entire explanation by the panelists were finished.

If a panelist would ask them to return to a certain slide in their presentation or a certain screen in their application, he would also change to the next “page” rather than admit that they didn’t do what the panel was asking.

It’s as if that particular student thought their panelists didn’t know the classic tactics for distraction from gaps in a thesis or project defense.

Afterwards, they were complaining to their adviser (or project manager) about why the task was so difficult, even comparing it to the relatively much easier time had by their batch mates who worked outside, or that there were fewer questions in one of the defenses they watched.

The question is, why do these students always believe that everything should be so easy? This is the practicum we are talking about here, which is supposed to be the culmination of all of their studies, and thus showing whether they learned something or not in those three or four years here, drawing on all their previous knowledge attained.

If that isn’t supposed to be difficult, what is? Why do they keep saying that “it’s JUST a practicum”? Will they complain more if they are totally unprepared for their real jobs and blame the teachers?

Session 1301 is now a hundred times unlucky, if superstition counts. Class dismissed.