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"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." –John 16:33

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How to teach computer programming to kids (Part 8) CSC 116 Introduction to Computing – Java at NCSU

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On Saturday, April 27, 2013

In Education, Software

Day 614 of 1000

This is the eight in a series of posts on how we taught our children to program, what we did wrong and how we think we could have done better.  You can see the introductory post and index to the series by clicking here.

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Kelly and Christian both took the “Programming 101” class at North Carolina State University this semester for science majors.  We all agreed that it was badly done.  Part of the problem was with the disparity in knowledge of the students coming into the class, but a lot of it had to do with the structure and operating rules of the class.  This seems to be a typical problem for many, if not most, introductory college programming classes.  Here is the course description:

CSC 116 Introduction to Computing – Java UNITS: 3 – Offered in Fall Spring Summer
Corequisite: (E115 or PAMS 100) and (MA 121 or MA 131 or MA 141)
An introductory course in computing in Java. Emphasis on algorithm development and problem solving. Careful and methodical development of Java applications and applets from specifications; documentation and style; appropriate use of control structures; classes and methods; data types and data abstraction; object-oriented programming and design; graphical user interface design.

First, let’s talk about the disparity of knowledge of the kids entering the class.  Kelly and Christian are a classic example.  Kelly, as is described in a previous post in this series, had virtually no programming experience before she took the class.  The University required her to take a one-hour course on how to log into a University computer and use a Linux environment, how to make a PowerPoint presentation, and a bunch of politically correct goofiness.  In other words, she started the Java class with zero programming knowledge.  Christian, on the other hand, already had more knowledge about programming in C/C++, C#, Python and PHP than would be taught in the course.  So, while Christian was bored out of his gourd, Kelly struggled to learn about data types, loops, if-else statements, classes and objects, and all the rudimentary building blocks needed to program.

Meanwhile, the operating rules of the class prevented her from getting help from her brother, Google, me, or anyone who had deep knowledge of these programming topics other than the course instructor and the less than capable TA’s for the class.  Whose bonehead idea was it to make those operating rules?  I get that the student who takes the class needs to understand the material on their own and it is important to do their own work, but it is ridiculous to forbid the use of tools and resources that will allow the student to learn the material more thoroughly.  I am sure many students ignored these rules, but Kelly worked mightly to do the class according to the operating rules.  Those rules were a great hinderance to the learning process for Kelly.  For Christian, it did not matter, he already knew everything.

There has to be a way to do some kind of triage before assigning kids to a class like this.  There has to be a better way of teach the beginning programmers.  I will talk about what we would do to prepare our kids for these classes if we had to do it over, but I do not know what to do about the college classes themselves.  I am not sure what to do about the college level introductory courses themselves.  What I do know is that I have hired lots of programmers during my career and I rarely, if ever, hire programmers that have Computer Science degrees.  Partly that is because of the type of programming we do in my field (robotics and machine vision), because it seems like the CS majors are best suited for database, gui, and internet programming.  Partly, it is because I have seen too much of the kind of nonsense like the course desribed here that goes for college level programming instruction.

Christian at the Spring 2013 NCSU Undergraduate Research Symposium

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On Wednesday, April 10, 2013

In Education, Software, Technology

Day 597 of 1000

Christian at the Spring 2013 NCSU Undergraduate Research SymposiumChristian dressed up today to go to the McKimmon Center at NCSU to show off a poster he made for the Spring 2013 Undergraduate Research Symposium. He made the poster for his work at NCSU’s Optical Sensing Laboratory where he is designing, building, and characterizing a Black Body Source for infrared camera and spectrophotometer calibration under the Tutelage of Dr. Michael Kudenov.  I think Christian was a little nervous when the thing got started, but he texted me that a lot of his buddies were there with him, doing the same thing.

Christian did not really have much to show because this is the first semester of a two semester project.  He is just getting started building the device and has programmed (in assembly language) some basic functionality into it.  When we get back from California at the first of June, Christian will devote about six hours per day to this project until it is complete.  He hopes to be able to present some good data and a manual that explains how to build and use the device.  The big deal about what he is doing is not so much about what it does, but what it does for less than $1000.  I am looking forward to seeing how this all turns out.

Christian’s first undergraduate research poster

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On Saturday, April 6, 2013

In Education, Technology

Day 593 of 1000

Christian's undergraduate research posterChristian created the poster in the image to the right to describe his undergraduate research.  This is first of the two semester he will spend working on the project.  A poster is required for each semesters.  He will present the poster and describe his work for the poster at a symposium on Wednesday morning.  Here is the poster abstract:

Spectrophotometers and infrared cameras are widely used for non-contact temperature detection. These devices have been applied to manufacturing processes monitoring in industry Bnight or smoke vision systems for the police, firefighters, and military, and many other places. However, the sensors need to be calibrated to their surroundings to collect useful information. This calibration can be performed by metering the camera with respect to a light-absorbing surface with constant temerature and constant electromagnetic emissions.  This project involves building and testing a planar metering source for the described equipment which maintains enough temperature precision to allow accurate temeprature calibration while maintaining lowcost.

Why not skip high school? (Part 9) Christian takes Chemistry at Big State U.

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On Thursday, April 4, 2013

In Education, Homeschool

Day 591 of 1000

This is the ninth in a series of posts on the benefits of skipping high school and going straight to college.  The introductory post and index to all the other posts in the series is here. You can see their undergraduate results and post-graduate (PhD) chase here. I try to keep the results updated as they occur.

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Christian’s first class at NCSU was Chemistry.  We really wanted Christian to get started the same way as Kelly.  We described in the previous post in this series how we put her in a single summer class to get her started at Big State U. (NCSU) when she started there.  We helped her choose a hard class called Foundations of Advanced Mathematics because we wanted her to get a feel for the difficulty of STEM classes at national research university and because it was the first class she needed for some future sequences.

The reasons to put Christian in the same class were the same as for Kelly, but we ran into a snag.  When we evaluated his whole program, we realized that he was going to have a pretty tough go at getting all his classes done in time to graduate in four years both because of the sequences he needed and because he did not have nearly as many credits as Kelly.  We described all the reasons for that in this post.  We got a little bit frantic, but figured out a way he could graduate on time.  The problem was that he would have to take a Chemistry class in the summer rather than the Foundations of Advanced Mathematics class.

That was all good and well, but there were two problems.  First, because the Foundations class would have to be put off until fall semester, Christian would have to take a very heavy load during spring semester (he is in that right now) so he will have the prerequisites for the classes he needs to take during his senior year to be able to graduate.  Second, he had to pass a test that showed that he had enough skills from previous Chemistry studies to perform well in this college level Chemistry class.  The problem was he had not had a Chemistry class since fourth grade.  He had only two weeks to study before he had to take the test.  To complicate things a little more, he used that same time period to study the material need to test out of the computer literacy class all incoming students are required to take.  It was a little bit of a grind, but he passed both tests without too much trouble.

We did something by accident that turned out to be important later on.  Christian and Kelly took most of their hard STEM classes together at the Community College.  They helped one another and worked together a lot.  What we did not think about when we split the kids up for this summer semester is that we really did not know how they would do in one of these hard STEM classes if they did not have each other.  It turned out OK, but if we had to do it over, we might have split them up for at least a few classes earlier in the process.

The Chemistry class was a joy to Christian.  He feels that if he had had more time to focus on that earlier, he might have even tried to get a degree in Chemistry.  He had to work hard, but got an A.  That he got an A was a confidence builder for his next semester.

Why not skip high school? (Part 8) Kelly takes a mathematical proofs class at Big State U.

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On Wednesday, April 3, 2013

In Education, Homeschool

Day 590 of 1000

This is the eighth in a series of posts on the benefits of skipping high school and going straight to college.  The introductory post and index to all the other posts in the series is here. You can see their undergraduate results and post-graduate (PhD) chase here. I try to keep the results updated as they occur.

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Learning how to do mathematical proofs for the first time is not for the faint of heart.  We decided it would be good to ease the kids through the transition form Community College to Big State U. (NCSU in this case) with a single class in the summer before entering full time in the fall of 2012.  The class Kelly chose was one called Foundations of Advanced Math.  The prerequisite for the class was Calculus II.  Here is the course description from the catalog:

Introduction to mathematical proof with focus on properties of the real number system. Elementary symbolic logic, mathematical induction, algebra of sets, relations, functions, countability. Algebraic and completeness properties of the reals.

What is not mentioned in this description is that the move from applied math to proofs requires a paradigm shift.  I wrote a little about this class as Kelly went through it here and here.  Kelly had a tremendous professor for this class.  He was a 75 year old emeritus professor who truly wanted his students to learn how to think properly about mathematics.  Here is a quotation from one of the linked posts above about the admonition this professor gave to his class.

At the beginning of the class he said it was possible to pass the class just by memorizing the proofs, but if you did it that way you would lose out on two levels.  First, it would be hard to get a good grade doing it that way.  Second, if the student did not have a “lights going on” experience during the semester, their math world would only involve ciphering and not “real” math.

He was exactly right about this.  It was doubly important for Kelly to have her “lights going on” moment because she would have two key classes called Mathematical Statistics I and II that require the ability to do and understand proofs.  It was not OK to just learn the mechanics of this class.  In her previous applied mathematics classes, Calculus I, II, III, and Linear Algebra, Kelly had Christian with whom she could collaborate when she did not understand.  Foundations of Advanced Math was the first class like this she had to take without a safety net.

She started out slowly. She studied hard, but got herself into a little bit of a hole.  She could do the material, but did not really understand it.  She studied harder and harder as the semester went along, but at the mid-point of the semester, she could do the proofs, but was not really “getting” them.  She studied even harder, late into the night every night and some time, about three quarters of the way through the class, the light went on.  She remembers a precise point when she realized she knew how to do the proofs.  It was extremely exhilarating for her.  She aced the final and got an A in the class.

Earlier, we mentioned that a light load for the first semester at community college served our children well.  Kelly’s single hard class during the summer semester before she started full time at Big State U. was very valuable both in terms of building confidence and giving her a sense for the difficulty of hard STEM classes.

Why not skip high school? (Part 6) That supposedly thorny socialization question

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On Monday, March 25, 2013

In Education, Homeschool, Socialization

Day 581 of 1000

This is the sixth in a series of posts on the benefits of skipping high school and going straight to college.  The introductory post and index to all the other posts in the series is here. You can see their undergraduate results and post-graduate (PhD) chase here. I try to keep the results updated as they occur.

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This post is not about socialization in a homeschool.  The move from homeschool to college after the eighth grade at age fourteen is a somewhat more thorny issue.  I have explained why we believe the socialization that occurs in typical homeschool settings is profoundly better than what currently happens in traditional government and private school settings here.  There are links to reasearch and additional articles on socialization in that post.  This post describes some of the things we considered with respect to socialization when we chose to move our kids from homeschool directly into college.

Timing

The timing has somewhat to do with the fact that we were not aware that Kelly could have handled college work at least a couple of years before she went to college.  After she passed her third or fourth CLEP exam and got good scores on the ACT college placement exam it became apparent that she could probably handle the academic rigor of college.  Still, we do not think we would have put her in college then even if we would have been aware that she could handle it.  The reason is that she was very young and she would have been attending college on her own.  We think it was good that she waited that extra couple of years during which she took many more CLEP tests for college credit and worked on the understanding the intellectual underpinnigs of our worldview1.

When the time came to consider college for Kelly when she was sixteen, we still thought she might be a little unsure of herself to handle the social aspects of college on her own.  We did not want her to be too far from home and we did not want her to be alone.  By that time, we had been through some pretty rigorous worldview education with both the kids.  Kelly and Christian have always been very supportive of each other, so we thought that, if they went to the Community College together, they would, at least, give each other some moral support and it might not be so scary.  We now knew through testing and for other reasons that Christian could hand college, go we decided to pull the trigger and put them in college together.

The Social Environment at Community College

We were surprised by the high professional and academic standards of the teachers at Wake Tech, but even more surprised and appreciative for the kindness and helpfulness of both the teachers and the administrative staff.  Of course there were a few who did not want to do their job or had (being gracious here) bad people skills, but they were definitely the exception and not the rule.  Our expectations about the students was quite a pleasant surprise.  There was a very interesting mix of students at Wake Tech.  There was a good mix of foreign students, vocational and college prep students right out of high school, people in the work force trying to upgrade their skills or get a degree, and maybe a little bit unique to Wake Tech, soldiers recently discharged from military service at Ft. Bragg, going to school on the G.I. bill.

Kelly and Christian befriended a pretty amazing mix of people.  They made four special friends with whom they remained in contact.  Nestor and Daniela are a brother and sister from Venezuela who come from a close-knit Latin family.  They took the same hard math and science classes as Kelly and Christian.  What was really great about them is that they also had a Latin mother and understood Kelly and Christian in ways that are sometimes difficult for gringos.  Christian still gets to have a class with Nestor and Daniela every now and then at NCSU.

Mike is an Iraq War veteran who pretty much adopted the kids.  They took almost all of their math classes together.  It is hard to over emphasize what a great thing it was to have Mike as their friend.  Make was old enough, mature enough, and sure enough of himself to not care to much what anyone thought about him, including the commie English professor he took one semester before Kelly and Christian got him.  He was unfailingly kind to the kids, more conservative (but not by much) than me, and willing to give the kids advice and correction when they needed it.  They still love the guy and are grateful that Mike went on to NCSU with them.

Finally, there is Mr. McCarter.  He was the kids math professor for Calculus II, Calculus III, and Linear Algebra.  He talked and joked with the kids and Mike every day before and after class.  They send Mr. McCarter an email every now and then to let him know how they are doing.  They owe a lot to him for the encouragement he gave them and the rigor with which he taught his math classes.

The upshot is that Community College was very scary when the kids first started.  They got to turn down invitiations to parties that were illegal on their own right, but would have been profoundly illegal if two underage kids would have showed up there.  The saw lots of drugs, heard all kinds of immoral jokes and stories, and heard all manner of casually used bad language.  They even saw a fist fight our two.  They came away from Community College with their Christian worldview intact and with a good mix of wonderful friends.

The Social Environment at Big State University

The social transition to NCSU was interesting.  It seemed to be a big advantage to not have been socialized in the artificial world that only exist in traditional government and private schools where self-esteem and political correctness are preached as if they were holy writ.  The entire educational experience of most of the kids entering the university was in a highly regulated, institutionalized environment where decisions were made for them about what they studied, when they could talk with a time and place for virtually everything chosen by the school district or state set regulation.  The self-esteem thing was particularly apparent when the kids went to new student orientation.  Since the kids were both in their Junior years in hard degrees, so they did not have to spend much time with the freshmen.  By the time students make it to their Junior year in a hard (STEM) degree, some of the narcissism gets knocked out of them.

Conclusion

All in all, the kids homeschool transition served them very well in their move from Junior high school to college.

1.  See this link on worldview considerations.

Why NCSU is a great school to study Statistics

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On Wednesday, March 13, 2013

In Business, Education

Day 569 of 1000

It is tough to get a job these days.  I feel sorry for kids in University who need a summer internship or a job when they graduate.  Christian plans to go to grad school and has already had an internship so it does not affect him so much.  Kelly, on the other hand, wants an internship this summer, so she went to two job fairs at NCSU to get leads.  She got six interviews.  She has received two job offers so far, but turned down one of them because it was not a good match.  She is one of two finalists for a third position and has not heard from a fourth.  In this market, that is a pretty amazing record.  I think the reason she received so many offers when others did not is because she studies Statistics.  It seems like there are a lot more jobs available to engineers, but there are also a lot more people chasing those jobs.  For each job that requires a statistician, there are way fewer people with the skills to do the work. 

The other thing is that NCSU uniquely trains their Statistics majors in the use of commonly used industry tools.  For example, Kelly has a class that teaches her how to perform statistical programming.  The programming environment they use is SAS which is expensive enough that individual students cannot afford to it.  The reason it is available to NCSU is that SAS started at NCSU and still has a close affiliation with the school.  At they end of the class, she should have learned everything necessary to get her first SAS certification.  The class even offers them the opportunity to take the certification test at a discount rate.  The students use SAS and R, normal industry tools, to do their homework in other classes, too.  The expectation is that the students will be able to walk into a new job and contribute the first day.

An ancillary benefit to the SAS training is the ability to talk about the use of these tools effectively in an interview.  I think this was huge in her last interview with one of the research labs at Johns Hopkins.  Kelly could explain in detail how she would accomplish specific tasks such as data cleaning and analysis.

Is a double degree in math and engineering worth an extra year of college?

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On Sunday, February 3, 2013

In Education

The math department switched Christian’s adviser on him last week.  He met with his new adviser late Friday afternoon.  Christian worked hard to make a plan to finish his degree by spring of 2014 that would prepare him to go on to a PhD program in Electrical Engineering.  His previous adviser thought it was a fine plan.  Our friend Igor (PhD mathematical physicist and all-around really smart guy from Russia) thought it was a fine plan.  I thought it was a fine plan.

A professor in charge of graduate research in the Electrical Engineering department at Stanford thought enough of the plan that he said, “I would be delighted to meet you to show you Stanford and talk about research opportunities…”

A professor who runs a research program in Control Theory in the Electrical Engineering department at Cal Tech said, “It looks like you’re doing the right things academically.”

The new adviser was very interested and engaged during the advising session, but developed a plan that would take entire fifth year of college to complete.  I think part of the problem is that Christian’s previous adviser told him to add Electrical Engineering as a second major because, if he did not, the University would not allow him to take many of the Electrical Engineering classes he needs.  He explained that to the new adviser, but she pushed on anyway because I think she really believes that is his best path to getting what he wants.

The kids and I have spoken about this often.  There might be some circumstances where it makes sense to take another year to get a second Bachelors degree having to do with a desire to get into a graduate school that requires a specific bachelors degree for entry into a program.  Still, there are a LOT of good schools in this world and it most often makes more sense to pick a different school that allows a student to take leveling classes before or after they are admitted to a Masters degree program.  The result is way better.

I worked with a girl started with a Bachelors degree in English then took two years of classes (part time) at a good regional university that lead to her acceptance into a Masters degree in Mechanical engineering.  She did it by getting good grades and getting to know the people who had the power to accept her into the program.  I got a weak (because I did not work hard, not because the program was bad) Bachelors degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing when I got out of high school.  I took quite a bit of math and science before I switched to business, then got an associate degree in electronics, something that flies completely in the face of the advise I am giving here, but I thought that is what I needed to do to get a job.

Ten years after I left school, Bachelor and Associate degrees in hand, and after I worked my way into an application engineering position, I got recruited by a professor at University of Texas at El Paso to set up a machine vision lab.  When I got there, he asked me why I did not get a Masters degree in Industrial Engineering while I was at it.  I explained that I only had an associate degree and a Bachelors degree in Business.  He said that would not be a problem, I could take some leveling classes to pick up the stuff I did not have and demonstrate I could handle the workload.  Two years later, I was accepted into a top ten Industrial Engineering PhD program at Texas A&M.  I did not finish there because of life, but they were very happy with my academic background.

The point is it most often does not make sense to get a second Bachelors degree when it will take an extra year and a lot of extra money to do it.  Christian has done a ton of due diligence with respect to what he wants to do when he finishes here at NCSU.  He has talked to advisers at school, highly qualified people he met in his internship work over two summers, and even me.  He has started contacting people in charge of graduate programs where he wants to go.  He developed a study plan very early and has continually reviewed and revised it based on input from others and research about the schools and areas of study he wishes to pursue.

We spent about two hours last night to write a concise email to his new adviser to explain all this.  We had some heated discussions about what should be in the email.  Christian did all the writing. He wrote a first pass, then made lots and lots of revisions.  In the end, the email was much shorter than the first draft.  He made his case to the adviser.  In his meeting with her, Christian could tell she was a very good adviser who tries to get things right for her charges.  She has already given him some good advise about changes he could make that he plans to implement.  This kind of iterative approach works very well in these kinds of situations and we have great hope Christian can put together a plan that will get him what he needs while it avoids wasting time and resources.

Working on Java with Kelly

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On Wednesday, January 16, 2013

In Education, Software

Day 513 of 1000

Both Kelly and Christian have a class in the Java programming language this semester.  Christian has done a significant amount of programming already, so for him, the class it is more of a nuisance class than anything else.  Kelly has really only programmed in the R and SAS statistical programming languages.  She has never learned a general purpose programming language like Java or C++.  Shame on me.  She struggled with her first assignment and the teacher had made some draconian admonishments about not getting any help, so she did not want me to she her what to do.  That would have been OK if the teacher would have explained the stuff in any way that makes any sense.

So, I helped her with her first assignment.  I did none of the typing, but we walked through the programming assignment step by step, then went through another in-depth explanation of exactly what went on in the program as it ran.  I LOVED it.  Kelly has a knack for programming and picks stuff up fast, so it was fun.  The other thing that is an issue is that she has to write and run the programs over an SSH link from a Linux computer.  That stinks.  It would not be so bad if we had the computer set up right, but we do not and I will not be able to help much until I return from Arizona.  Right now, the way I help her is by cutting and pasting the code snippets into a gmail chat session and talking through it over the phone.

We have a different plan going forward.  I am going to show Kelly how to do several things.

  1. Install Skype in Linux so we can share desktops and talk while Kelly is programming.
  2. Install the Oracle JDK (Java Development Kit) so Kelly can develop and run Java programs on her computer before she SSH’s in to do it on the NCSU computer.
  3. Install Eclipse so Kelly will have an IDE for Java program development.

As for myself, I installed the above stuff in Windows last night at the Prescott Valley Public Library so I could run programs as I helped Kelly.  Now, I have to think about how I am going to do the new Android GaugeCam application, in Java or C/C++.  I will probably stick with C/C++ because I will be able to reuse a bunch of libraries, but Eclipse looks like a great development environment for developing for Android.

Working with Ubuntu again

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On Thursday, October 11, 2012

In Software, Technology, Work

Day 417 of 1000

Christian has been stressed out about a test he took about a week ago.  He was pretty sure he was going to get a score of about 70%, but was hoping for 80%.  He messaged me today that he got a 94%.  We were both happy.  I am happy about something else.  I have spent a lot of the day loading a Linux development environment into a virtual machine on my computer.  That is part of my job!  I have to pinch myself when I think about what I am doing for a living.  It does not get much better than that.

I have been pretty down on the change to Ubuntu Unity from the normal desktop that they had previously, but after talking to my buddy, Andrew about Windows 8 and Android, I realized there is a pretty big shift in desktop architecture going on and I better get on board or I would be left behind.  Thankfully, I have a very cool project going on with Linux and the Microsoft Kinect right now, so I decided I would do the development on a Linux platform rather than Windows.  I am not all the way to loving the whole new Unity thing, but I am to the point where I can see it is really not so bad.  Give me a few more days and I might really love it.  I will keep you posted.

Christian to apply for undergraduate research mini-grant

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On Friday, October 5, 2012

In General

Day 411 of 1000

Christian is working a second day of his fall break in the OSL lab at NCSU.  His professor popped him an email last night and asked him if he might want to apply for an undergraduate research.  Then, this morning, when Christian went in to start work, his professor gave him an idea for a project that would integrate well with the other research he is doing.  The really cool part is that he could use an Arduino on the project and it is very much EE oriented.  I will write more as I know more.

Kelly celebrates her Dean’s Circle Scholarship at NCSU

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On Thursday, October 4, 2012

In Education

Kelly's Scholarship Dinner ProgramKelly went to the annual scholarship dinner for the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. She was one of only four in her college to win a Dean’s Circle Scholarship. That is a merit only scholarship specifically for competitive recruiting. It was quite an honor and she had a great time.  She talked with donors and other honoree’s at a dinner that featured “lots of forks.”  We thought she looked quite fetching so we took her picture!

Kelly goes to the scholarship dinner

Kelly goes to the scholarship dinner #2

Christian’s undergraduate research

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On Friday, August 31, 2012

In Education, Software, Technology, Work

Day 376 of 1000

Christian asked his Electrical Engineering professor what he could do to get some undergraduate research in the EE department.  His professor told him to get in touch with the EE head of graduate programs who got the word out that there was an undergraduate math student who would like to do some research.  From there, he got two interviews, both of whom gave him an offer of work.  He would like to take both, but I doubt there will be time for that.

The latest offer would give him three hours of independent study research credit gathering data with a spectrophotometer.  It might even lead to paid work.  It is under a young professor who got his PhD from one of the top two optics school in the country.  That would be an awesome opportunity because it is real research aimed at discovery and he would be gathering primary data.  The first job was also quite good because it would give him an opportunity to hone his expand on his Python programming skills.  I am not sure that would turn into anything other than a software maintenance job, but programming experience never hurts.

The first semester at NCSU is complete

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On Thursday, August 2, 2012

In Education

Day 347 of 1000

Wow.  We were very, very happy with the grades Kelly and Christian received in their summer classes.  Christian took Chemistry from a hard professor and learned a lot about both Chemistry and how to take a hard class at a national research university from a hard professor.  Kelly had a very interesting class from a 75 year old emeritus math professor called Foundations of Advanced Math.

At the beginning of the class he said it was possible to pass the class just by memorizing the proofs, but if you did it that way you would lose out on two levels.  First, it would be hard to get a good grade doing it that way.  Second, if the student did not have a “lights going on” experience during the semester, their math world would only involve ciphering and not “real” math.  The amazing thing is that Kelly absolutely had that lights on moment.

It was late in the semester and she was really struggling.  She had gotten great scores on the homework and some extra credit opportunities, but the first mid-term was very hard with only middling results.  A little bit before the last mid-term, we could actually see the whole lights on thing happening.  She did  better on the second mid-term, but absolutely smoked the final.  How good does it feel when you really get something with which you struggled.  The getting it is better than the grade.

The Wendys by Wake Tech and how to use CLEP tests in homeschool

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On Saturday, July 28, 2012

In Blogging, Homeschool

Day 342 of 1000

Yesterday Kelly and I had lunch at the Wendys over by Wake Technical Community College.  We ate there a lot when the kids were going to Wake Tech because it was so convenient.  While we were sitting there waiting for our food, it dawned on my that this was no longer the official “on the way to school” eating place because the kids have moved on to NCSU.  For some reason that seemed pretty weird.  Then today, a lady wrote a very nice comment about some of the stuff we did with CLEP and homeschool that I have written about in a series of blog posts several years ago.  It got me to thinking.

I miss homeschool, but not nearly as much as I thought I would miss it.  Lorena, the kids, and I really did the very best we knew to do in our homeschooling.  The same is true for the community college.  Maybe that is why I feel a little nostalgic about those times, but even better to have moved on.  Sure, there are a lot of things we think we could have done better, but we really do not know how we would have known we should do them at the time–if you know what I mean.

Now that we have a new school to support, we need a new “on the way to school” eating place.  Even though the closest Chick-fil-A is not really on the way to NCSU, in light of recent events, I think it will be worth it to make the detour–a double reason to eat Chikin.

Indoctrination at NCSU

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On Thursday, July 19, 2012

In Christianity, culture, Education, Socialization

The kids have orientation at NCSU today.  So far they have heard about all the special benefits people receive solely because of the color of their skin or their sexual behavior choices.  It is a good thing they are Mexican or they would not receive all the special privileges and advantages that are withheld from white males.  It all seems pretty degrading to me.  Thankfully, the only have one or two more brainwashing classes each–they got most of that stuff out of the way at Wake Technical Community College.  Still, it is a shame they have to run the gaunlet of such nonsense to get to classes that actually teach them stuff that is relative true like math and chemistry.

Great summer classes

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On Friday, July 6, 2012

In Education

Day 320 of 1000

I am really glad Christian and Kelly both chose to take a class this summer.  Both of them needed it to be able to graduate in two years.  Actually they need to do the same thing again next summer, but I think they are getting more benefit out of these first classes than just the learning and the credit.  Kelly’s Foundations of Advanced Math class is taught by an emeritus professor who is well over 70 years old.  He tells the students EXACTLY what to expect in the class including how many hours they should study for each hour they are in lecture, how it is important that they bother their professors to make sure they are “getting” the material, exactly what they need to do to get an A, etc.  He gives them extra-credit points on what appears to be a regular basis.  What a great first professor.

Christian is taking a required Chemistry course.  It requires more time at school because it includes lab and recitation classes.  Yesterday, he got an email about a help session to help go over material that will be on his first test on Monday.  It is even more hours at school, but he is there now.  His professor got great reviews on RateMyProfessor.com and it appears the reviews were justified.  We do not know how this will end, but it has started well and there is definitely a lot of support infrastructure to help the students through the material.  If they take advantage of all the help and maintain focus, there is no reason they should not do well.

Official!

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On Saturday, June 30, 2012

In Education

Day 314 of 1000

Kelly and Christian NCSU IDI remember when I got my first ID card at Oregon State. It was bright orange and I was quite proud. I think I still have it around here somewhere. I need to put an image of it up here for posterity. It made me feel official. Well, now that Kelly and Christian have been to school for two days AND they have their ID cards, I guess they are official now, too.

We have not figured the transportation thing out.  We have too many drivers and not enough cars.  Our current game plan includes taking the bus home part of the time.  We have not tried that out yet, but Christian has been poring over the bus routes and has it pretty well figured out.  We will see how that goes.  Eventually we are going to have to break down and buy another car.  Maybe that was a poor choice of words.

NCSU First day at University

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On Thursday, June 28, 2012

In culture, Education, Family, Homeschool

Day 312 of 1000

Kelly's and Christian's first day at NCSUWe are running out of “first day of school” picture opportunities.  If all goes well, the kids will be off to graduate school in a couple of years, but we doubt whether we will be there to take the picture.  We often talk about the concept of life-long learning, so maybe I am wrong.  I hope so.  Our departed friend, John Sterling often told us about a fellow, I think it was Beach Paddon who just kept going to college.  My understanding is that he got a new Masters degree every now and then.

This is a favorite topic of Charles Murray the co-author of, Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.  Christian and I have spoken about how cool it would be to continue getting Masters degrees as a hobby after he finishes his “real” school.  That is one way to continue learning, but self-teaching and pursuit of knowledge not readily available in college through alternate means are other good ways to keep learning.  Homeschooling certainly served me well in that regard.  Kelly has a sense for what she wants to do when she gets out of college and she will have to continually study and work to make it happen.  Her school will give her something to do that she enjoys and will pay the rent, but her vocation lies in a completely separate direction.

At any rate, we have hit another milestone.  The kids are stressed and excited.  Lorena and I are a little bit melancholy.

New job

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On Wednesday, November 30, 2011

In Business, Work

Day 100 of 1000

Ten percent of our 1000 days is now complete.  It is an auspicious day for that reason alone, but also because I turned in my resignation at my current wonderful job so that I could accept another position that will take me out of the world of medical devices and back into the world of industrial automation where I started.  I cannot say too much about it yet, but it is a wonderful opportunity that allows me to stay in Raleigh so the kids can attend NCSU, travel around to see customers, and invent some new products that solve hard problems.  It is very exciting.

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