I’ve been trying to write about this latest book that I read for almost 4 days now and finally I got time @ 1.50 am today.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Pradeep, for writing about this book. I know nothing of James would go unnoticed by him. So by visiting Pradeeps’ posts, I get to read many good ones besides his and this was the best of all so far.
About the Book:
I started reading this book after a little technical tussle in downloading the free copy on a Saturday evening and my excitement had already started. I have to admit that the book was so compelling that I had to make some time during by office hours (thought I was running pretty busy) even if that means I had to stay little late in office.
How did I relate to the Buccaneer-Scholar
I was just going thro the first few pages of the book and a specific lecture I attended during my masters degree flashed right in front of my eyes.
My 4th semester period, a week day, around 5.30 pm.
The then Head of the Department of Computer Applications was in the class, not explaining anything around software but trying to understand why there was a good number of students (~30%) bunking the class consistently (he was actually talking about myself and some of my friends). As he was addressing, I couldn’t wait anymore and told him “the time that we spend in the class room (we were spending almost 7 hours a day attending different lectures) were of no use (no use == we werent hearing/going thru/reading about anything other than the contents in the text books prescribed) and I could learn more by just spending couple of hours in the library and with technical magazines”
After that day for all obvious reasons, I had to face consequences. Because I had questioned the very reason of the teaching that he (HoD) thought was happening and of course the rest of the faculty members thought process about teaching.
This instance actually put me and some of my friends in a spot. We had to prove that we were indeed better of without those lectures. To prove a point we had to work harder hence followed more hours in library, more hours reading about lot of stuff which ended up as a paper on VoIP by myself and one of my friends during our 5th semester. This lead us to become winners in one of the technical symposiums (on September 24th 2002) in paper presentation category. That was first of its kind in my college.
Back to present; I wish I had such a book to read when I was a student. I wouldn’t say I would have quit the college . But it would have certainly made my outlook about learning far better.
I recommended this book to some of the testers that I work with; but that’s before I read the book full. Now that I have read the book completely, I wish every student gets a chance to read this book and make the correct sense of it.
Thanks very much James - for penning down your experiences and few others and
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Pradeep, for writing about this book. I know nothing of James would go unnoticed by him. So by visiting Pradeeps’ posts, I get to read many good ones besides his and this was the best of all so far.
About the Book:
I started reading this book after a little technical tussle in downloading the free copy on a Saturday evening and my excitement had already started. I have to admit that the book was so compelling that I had to make some time during by office hours (thought I was running pretty busy) even if that means I had to stay little late in office.
How did I relate to the Buccaneer-Scholar
I was just going thro the first few pages of the book and a specific lecture I attended during my masters degree flashed right in front of my eyes.
My 4th semester period, a week day, around 5.30 pm.
The then Head of the Department of Computer Applications was in the class, not explaining anything around software but trying to understand why there was a good number of students (~30%) bunking the class consistently (he was actually talking about myself and some of my friends). As he was addressing, I couldn’t wait anymore and told him “the time that we spend in the class room (we were spending almost 7 hours a day attending different lectures) were of no use (no use == we werent hearing/going thru/reading about anything other than the contents in the text books prescribed) and I could learn more by just spending couple of hours in the library and with technical magazines”
After that day for all obvious reasons, I had to face consequences. Because I had questioned the very reason of the teaching that he (HoD) thought was happening and of course the rest of the faculty members thought process about teaching.
This instance actually put me and some of my friends in a spot. We had to prove that we were indeed better of without those lectures. To prove a point we had to work harder hence followed more hours in library, more hours reading about lot of stuff which ended up as a paper on VoIP by myself and one of my friends during our 5th semester. This lead us to become winners in one of the technical symposiums (on September 24th 2002) in paper presentation category. That was first of its kind in my college.
Back to present; I wish I had such a book to read when I was a student. I wouldn’t say I would have quit the college . But it would have certainly made my outlook about learning far better.
I recommended this book to some of the testers that I work with; but that’s before I read the book full. Now that I have read the book completely, I wish every student gets a chance to read this book and make the correct sense of it.
Thanks very much James - for penning down your experiences and few others and
(again) Thanks Pradeep – for your post on the book (that’s how I came to know about it)
1 comment:
what an irony...I read about this book only on 25th....hence could not download a free version. Well, I will read this one with help of my fellow tester friends on their machine.
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