Laptops in the Classroom
Nov 5, 01:54 PM by Eric Allen
As an avid gadget freak, you might guess I’d be the last one to give up my laptop during class. Last year, however, I discovered that taking notes on paper helped me with retention and reduced distraction. I still pull out my laptop once in a while, but all of my class notes are on paper. This article highlights the reasons why it might just be a good idea to shut that laptop and go back to good ol’ pen and paper!
Why I Ban Laptops in My Classroom
Hacking Education
Nov 2, 06:57 PM by Eric Allen
Fred Wilson over at A VC wrote a great article about how we need to update our education system for the 21st century. I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about education and how to fix it, and this guy has done so much better! I’m optimistic that if enough of us push to make this happen, we really can transform education in America and around the world.
Check it out!
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/11/hacking-educati.html
Undergraduate Research
Oct 21, 01:55 PM by Eric Allen
A number of my classmates last year told me that they had come to RPI in part because of the opportunities for “undergraduate research.” I thought that was crazy. Spending hours upon hours slaving away doing menial work for some stupid professor? All of these kids doing “Undergraduate Research Projects” (URPs) must be brown-nosers with no ability. Yeah, I seriously thought that.
Why didn’t somebody set me straight?? As I’ve now discovered, URPs can be really cool projects, even as cool as the stuff I didn’t do for credit! I’m now engaged in two projects: one for pay and one for credit.
I ran into my first URP when I went to my Data Structures & Algorithms professor asking for advice on open source licenses. He gave me a couple of books to read, and then asked if I wrote much open source software. Of course I do! One thing led to another, and now I’m developing a tool to help RPI students create customized plans of study and getting paid for it.
My girlfriend has been pushing me to meet her Circuits professor almost since the year began. I’ve been reluctant, since I really had no excuse to just walk into his office, but I finally contacted him and set up a meeting. He is currently working on a tool to change the way electrical engineering is taught, and he needs more researchers! As chance would have it, I actually worked with his one graduate student early last year, so Matt and I were already on good terms. Now I get to spend a semester sucking every bit of knowledge I can out of an awesome grad student! I’m going to be working on a few minor features this semester, but next semester and beyond I have opportunities to work on some big stuff that will have a lasting impact on education. I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.
The East Coast is Getting to Me
Oct 17, 05:53 AM by Eric Allen
The East Coast culture is really starting to get to me, and it’s a good thing! I grew up in a unique environment. In Silicon Valley, the highest achievement is to start a successful company, sell it for millions, and become an angel investor or maverick CEO. That isn’t even remotely normal! Because of that mindset, though, I held an exaggerated disdain for higher education. I was going to college because sometimes people required a college degree on your resume, not because I wanted an “education.” My real education is working at companies like Allocade and Wesabe, where I was an active participant in early-stage startups.
Come to think of it, I have never learned about the field I enjoy from teachers until I got here. All through middle school and high school I was teaching myself programming and computer hardware with very little adult help. Dad got me started, but I taught myself most of it. I discovered other people would pay me for this knowledge, and I hadn’t even been taught it! So then what’s the point of going to school and learning from teachers?
I came to RPI with that mindset, and I resolved to engage in worthwhile things outside of school while not working too hard at academics. Even though I came in a semester ahead thanks to AP credit, I figured I’d just have a few easy semesters and do more work outside of school. I chuckled to myself at the kids who thought they could get their Master’s degree in four or five years. “Ha,” I though, “they’re going to come out with a piece of paper and that’s all. I started at this place making more money than they will when they graduate.” There was no way I was going to graduate school. Who needs it? Maybe down the road, but higher education is worthless, remember?
And then it hit me. Instead of blowing off school and focusing on doing cool things outside the university, I could blow off academics and focus on doing cool things inside the university. What a concept! And it gets better: Cool projects here are called “research.” I always thought of research as working in a wet lab with goggles and a lab coat, slaving away over equipment until you could publish some insanely dense paper about some esoteric topic. I was blatantly wrong. Even more awesome? I get credit for doing research (working on cool projects)! Credit = graduation, so if I load up on research I can graduate earlier. Since I’m already ahead, this would allow me to basically finish my B.S. in three years. And you know what they do in graduate school? Research!
In less than three weeks, I’ve gone from never in a million years getting a “co-terminal” degree (working on undergraduate and graduate degree at the same time) to planning on getting a Master’s of Engineering in Computer & Systems Engineering by Spring 2011! I’ll spend the same four years here on the same financial aid I receive, but instead of coming out bored with a B.S., I come out having worked on an awesome project and with a really cool piece of paper that says I’m qualified to do all kinds of stuff.
The pieces just sort of fell together, really. My girlfriend had this awesome professor this semester who she kept bugging me to meet. I finally sat down with him, and now I’m “stuck” with him for the next three years working on his Mobile Studio project! It’s software, hardware, user interaction, and embedded control all in one project! Oh, and I already know and like his grad student who I’m replacing. I worked with Matt at a startup in the incubator last fall, and I am having a blast learning from him. He taught me this really cool game called Allegro where you have to connect all the little pins according to the plan without letting any of the wires touch. So fun!
So yeah, I’m sorry to all of you who I’ve laughed at (internally, of course) or ignored. I was the naive one, but I’ve finally come around. It sure took long enough! 21 credits (the normal load is 16) per semester, here I come!
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
Jun 23, 08:17 AM by Eric Allen
I just ran into an article from The American Scholar that confirms many of my fears about top-tier schools. Having blatantly and publicly resigned from the whole pre-school system and headed off to an essentially vocational school (okay, engineering is a pretty awesome vocation, but still), I have found an interesting path. Unfortunately, most of the people around me at RPI are even less interested in being intellectual. Not only did they play by the rules, but they “lost” the game. Come on, guys! I, for one, and thoroughly enjoying the activities on campus, including a College Democrats club that has zero political science majors and a student-run sound reinforcement crew. I mix rock concerts! There is a significant handful of people at my university who do what they do because they enjoy it, not because it will get them good scores.
My Computer Science Rant
Dec 28, 04:44 AM by Eric Allen
If you go to RPI, you’ve probably gotten my Comp Sci rant a few too many times. I was pretty convinced that computer science does not prepare programmers for software engineering before I got to college, but now I’m sure of it. Why don’t we have a software engineering major here?! Anyway, somebody else beat me to blogging about it.
