The popular question has been heard severally and arises mostly from students with ambitions to become computer, hardware or software engineers and developers as well as other professions the technological world tends to offer and you too must have asked “Why do we offer this course? I won’t use in life.”
The burning zeal dies off when you get to find less programming and compliments of courses which as some people say “irrelevant courses” in the school’s program, especially in the first year. Sometimes, we often feel like the school’s choice of programming languages to learn from the onset aren’t smartly filtered and picked; take for example a university that teaches pseudo code (written algorithms) and C instead of HTML & CSS. First off, in as much as teachers aren’t the smartest of people in the academic field, questioning the choice of order of the curriculum incites wonder if the student(s) with such suggestion came to learn or to teach.
These thoughts got to me. Before starting off on game development using Unreal Development Kit (UDK), I wondered why I learnt physics again in the university after 3 years of facing it in secondary school, I realized that it was the fundamental propeller towards what I needed to achieve in game development based on some part of creation of models and what not.
I feel the reasons why some courses shouldn’t have the “why do we …” tag are:
1. The lack of interest arises for that course which boils down to little or no knowledge of what it entails and most likely poor performance due to apathy.
2. The school is not dumb, sometimes at a point in our career, we need things we learnt way back to boomerang back to us. Yes, everything can be found online but with proper knowledge comes effective handling and confidence.
3. Life is unpredictable as it can take you to a career or desire where your poison may become your bread or vice versa.
4. Not so solid a point but what ever the course seems to be, it is fundamental in your academics to boost your grade point average during the semester and the academic year. At the very least succeeding in it not for knowledge sake is not an advice but can be a resort.
Offering all of these courses sometimes comes with choices:
1. If time usage is of essence due to age, strong passion, zeal or desire to get to the “main thing” or the need for a job is prior; my advice is to apply to a coding school with bootcamps and other facilities. Andela, Cregital are just two out of a thousand places based on your location to get the real deal. Online courses(paid and free) are offered on Udemy,Coursera, Udacity, Treehouse amongst others, YouTube is a very great resource as well for video tutorials and learning materials.
2. Dropping out isn’t an option for you?
I see.
You and your computer become BFFs outside the classroom. It enhances personal growth, depending on how well you work. Choose the language you desire, research on it (thoroughly), watch tutorials, read PDFs, learn from those who know, attend seminars and conferences — network with people.
In time this builds you up to a strata where you can see yourself and judge how well you’ve accelerated; where you can pay attention both to things that matter and those that “don’t”.
Good luck.
A bientot.
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