60th Birthday Speech By Person 60

Do learn all in college?

The answer perhaps not so obvious, but simple is not , yet the interesting thing is why ... Being a teacher and even as a student sometimes asked me where I learned to program, how I did it or even some assumed I learned in school and why I made it easy in college.

While my career is "Engineering Management" which is more oriented to the management of technology projects, as than any other engineering, we have to learn the basics before moving on to manage a project, is something that can not be without knowing the basics. In my case, within the university has always been my strong technical side. Now where I learned most of what I know ... The answer is simple ... In my house ...

For many it may sound crazy, but it's true in most races, if we expect to learn everything in college and that teachers explain to us all, I think the view is quite wrong ... For one simple reason, not enough time to cover everything, plus that much knowledge is changing, creating or being modified as time goes by ... And while universities pensums try to keep up, require multiple reviews and approvals before it can be adapted to existing programs.

The main motivator for students (any level) should always be the curious, that it can be done at the university or college and I think it is the task of all teachers, ensuring that our students are motivated to want to Find more information on what comprises each subject, so that way each one passes to deepen and become self-taught. Is it possible to achieve with all students? I'd love to say yes, but they I'd be lying to everyone and myself, but I'm glad when 10 students, at least 2 or 3 are left with the concern and started asking where to get more information.

From my personal experience, the school decided to take the computer specialist for one simple reason ... It was what was ... It was by elimination, the logic applied to the 15 years was: Physical mathematician I can not be bored because I hate math and physics, biological chemistry and not because I see blood I faint, Social, I do not like (even if the guidance counselor I said it was recommended to me) ... So the only thing left is computer and joined, by discarding ...

Many people believe that I was the typical nerd that was spent fiddling with a computer and when I did choose specialization for that, but the truth is that in choosing the specialization did not even have a computer, was used only for a couple of friends who owned a home and computer classes in school (most of the times we used to play), just the second year of specialization to be studying my parents bought me one (which were very expensive at the time). In fact, upon entering the race all my colleagues knew anything about computers, I almost seemed to speak in Chinese, not knowing anything of what they meant.

I must confess that I spent the first months the fatal, it was hard to understand, especially when I could not even practice unless it was and asked to borrow a computer, but in the end decided I would do it, I was not going to stop beating ( mostly because I've always been very stubborn). At the end I managed to not only learn, I became one of the best students, in fact I was the 3rd to the graduating class ... And do not bother me at all to be the 3rd, for the first two places were two great friends.

What I won at that time was the desire to learn, especially when we had the same facilities as there is today, was just starting to use internet, it was not easy to access and all you had were books loose material dispersed and medium-size hand. With the growth of the Internet that I took months before can now be achieved in a matter of weeks or even days (less than that would not be healthy because we need to rest).

is no doubt that both schools, colleges and universities can and should provide the basis for what we learn, although I have no statistical number which I would base myself say that what we learn at the university is only 40% of what use in day to day and in our work, but that 40% should be sufficient for us to learn the rest for ourselves.

I also think the important thing is that you should not teach theories and concepts, but learning how to learn and understand, this is far more useful than any theory, it allows us to acquire new knowledge and solve problems more easily.

So when people ask me where I can take a course in "X" thing, where you learned? My answer is almost always in my house, reading a lot ...