Hi,
I'm a student at Nottingham and I really don't like the way programming courses are done here.
The approach is: 2 hourly lectures a week, lots of coursework and weekly lab sessions.
The lab sessions are run by payed undergrads and postgrads who are there to help you but they end up just doing it for some people and spotting trivial problems. This a real handholding approach and really doesn't work.
Coursework is of course the right way to go providing it is of quality.
Lectures are boring.
I think the best way to learn a language and get better at programming is:
Read the best book.
Have someone who knows their stuff on tap for questions(not for debugging!).
Do exercises/coursework that is of the right level, not so hard you lose interest/not a learning experience.
Have said person tell you that your code is shit, rather than write it for you.
At Nottingham no one notices if you go to lectures or not so you may as well read the book. The coursework is probably ok. The lab sessions are harmful and along with other things produce graduates who can't program, can't do anything unless they are spoon fed it and get pissed off if the can't fix a bug in one minute. There is _no_ feedback at all! Of all the coursework I have done I have never received more than a score, it is terrible.
But I suppose this is the nature of doing a course with far to many students, nowhere near enough lectures and a large amount of people on the payroll to *support* modules, what a load of bollocks!
Bar humbug.
James Chapman
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