Passing through No Calc to No Internet Aged Professional

When I was a student at a high school level education, we had mathematical tables to do calculations, and scientific calculators just started emerge in the market. The market was very responsive, and it brought calculators of upto date model. They were certainly costly for the students, but students being young people who always strive for new things, bought these calculators. Thats what I did. My elder brothers had bulky AAA type battery loaded calculators, and I had a very tiny smart Casio calculator. I hardly turned the mathematical table that I was handed over by my elder brother who used it just a year ago. I was forced to change myself to move with the wind of time.

Later, I moved to a university in India, and I was exposed to many challenges. One of them was learning computer program as a student of civil engineering. It was challenging because you had to use punch cards, and typing a correct line on the bulky and ugly keyboard was very very difficult. We were required to do at least one homework: e.g. calculation of area of a rectangle. Input data were as simple as like side of a square. The time allocated at the computer center (main frame was the style at that time) was only 3-5minute in each session, and it was a quota for that day. Imagine the number of hours you hang around computer today. In those days, most of the computers were occupied by either computer science students or Ph.D. students. It was extremely frustrating to wait and wait until someone leaves and you get the time slot of 3-5 minute. But, I would not have done that thing in 20/20 hindsight today, that I am going to have a couple of fast computers right here at my home. Why would I have rushed to have 3-5 minutes slot in a whole day? That was the demand of time, I fulfilled what I needed to do that time as a student of computer program course, and if I would not have done such thins then I might have changed my course of learning, and I would have ended up as a CT guy and not as a GT guy.

You can imagine the hardship of using computer at that time. When I advanced to third year (senior year), our head of the department got changed. Dr. G. C. Nayak, a finite element think tank (you may refer to his famous equation used to find Stress Tensor, Zienkiewicz and Nayak (196?)) occupied the head of the department position. That was a turning point to the CE student's computer learning acitivties. That made my dream come to true. Within a couple of months of his chair as the head of the Civl Engineering Department, he created a computer lab for teachers and students of CED, and brought about a dozen set of brand new desk top computers. I was told that it was the first time in whole sub continent to get such a collection of desktop computers in the department of civil engineering in India to have computers available for undergraduate students. That opened a new world to me, and it fulfilled my desire to learn what is a computer, what can it do, how can I use it. I spend all my real free time in front these floppy drive driven computers. Can you imagine that computer did not have hard disk, but these boxes were simply empty and the DOS was installed on my personal floppy disk. Top of all, the computers were run on 340kB DSDD 5.x" floppy disks. I bought a floppy from local store, and started using it. BTW, do you understand the abbreviation: DSDD, what does it mean?

More to follow.... GTG. (Break > 24 hours .. there can be discontinue in writing, please apologize for such discontinuties. After all it is a blog.)

I had to go out, and I am going to continue my talk on calc to internet stuff.

Well, I used to run the DOS on Floppy disk, and sometime floppy disk used to get corrupted. Reformat it, and re-copy DOS into it.... The process was certainly tedious, and frustrating. We did not have DOS reference manual. I had to ask the lab technician or watch them how would they run the computer different components. The worst thing that I ever tested was del *.* on root directory, and you know what? I did not know what was I doing. Slowly I learned these 30+ DOS commands, jotted down somewhere and wrote comments. I also learned the Lotus-1-2-3. The cell coordinate system was new to me.

Within a few months, the local book store: Name Chand and Son's Book Store in Roorkee Town had a book. It looked like USED one, but I did not want to miss a golden chance. That was the only copy of that kind of book (on DOS command), in that book store. I remember it was a holiday morning. The book was certainly costly (overseas printed copy of the book) because I had to spend more than 20% of my monthly stipend. It was a moment of joy and celebration: "HEY, I got it". I went back to dorm read the book. I did not have to memorize these commands any more. Just simply read and try one by one. In a week I understood the real meaning of the commands, especially syntax I needed to use to save my time. F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 ... funtion keys' meanings. Then, the bookstore started to get additional books and I got Beginning Lotus-1-2-3. A transportation engineering professor who just returned from US, was typing his technical papers on WordStar (the MS Word equivalent of that time: very famous word processor of late 1980s), and I did not have anything to type, therefore I never learned the WordStar to more than beginner's level. Later I learned Lotus Manuscript to type my Masters Thesis. (Coming soon at http://www.finite.info/ ). Lotus Manuscript had math equation typing capability and it was a great tool for me.

Later in my last year of BE studies, I learned AutoCAD in the same way as I learned DOS: hit and trial, watch what others are doing .... method. No book at all. I submitted one homework to my irrigation engineering teacher, and I found for the first time appreciation from a peer. That was a profounding moment for me, because he cited this as a great work, and it is good thing to try. Well, I became "free volunteer" tutor to those who just began to learn use of PCs. That enhanced my confidence, and I kept on exploring things. Well, must heartening moment to me that a vetran professor who used to teach an important class, openly told that computers and calculators are waste of money, and he claimed that he can achieve the same level of accuracy with SLIDE RULER. Now, I realize that if you are not ready to change or accept the good changes, then it means you are old. He was certainly old personality, who wanted to hide his weakness of learning new things / his inability to learn new things. The professor was openly asking students to defy use of calculators, and return to math tables and slide rules.

In final semester of my undergrad studies, I got a chance to study matrix method of structural analysis with Dr. A. K. Jain, and learn first finite element course with another Professor who had ever worked with Professor Zienkiewicz at Swansea. While studying the finite element methods with these two great professors, I was heavily involved (at that time period) with computers and learned how to handle FORTRAN program on PCs. I appreciate those close friends who took FEM course just because I requested them to join the course to have a thresold number to run the course. Well, our friends who took CT / CPM-PERT got almost perfect score without spending a real time, and we certainly had hard time completing the course. We certainly got better score, but we were not lucky to secure almost 100%. Almost all the friends who took FEM course at that time have already been conferred Ph.D. degree by now. ... That was a great computer oriented course, and it won't be possible without calculator or computer.

Well, one year in transit after graduation from BE level, I moved to another graduate level institution. It was different kind of institute as compared to my BE level studies. The institute was only for graduate studies. It was probably the second week in the institute, and I brought a first homework assignment to a professor in his room. When I submitted the homework, the professor was very furious and threw my HWA right into TRASH CAN, and blasted me: threatened to return to home without letting me complete the degree. I was totally confused, because I could not understand what went wrong with my homework. I took out my paper from trash can and returned to cafeteria and there were two seniors who were already graduated from the same discipline. I explained the scenario, and finally, they were able to pin-point the problem. They told me that the professor hates anything typed in computer, and suggested me to submit hand-written HWA. They even told me to quit the major and switch to new one, and it is not worth continuing the subject because I already disappointed him by giving the computer typed output. One of them, even told to return home quitting the study. I did not have choices like they offered, and I had to continue my study at the same division, because the world was not easy like they said. Next week onward, I submitted all assignements from him on hand written form. He was happy, and I was safe. I established a good reputation with him, and finally, he even offered me a chance for PhD work under his guidance. Because of financial reason, I moved to another university. The problem with Professor was that he was very busy as know a senior Professor means, and he did not have time to understand computer, and use it to understand the way I learned about the 1 cubic box that we call a computer. This professor never told us to use calculator, but he did not like computers.

Then, internet evolved and now, I can see articles circulated by some bulletine boards (let me avoid naming it). One of the article openly denounces the use of PowerPoint as a lazy person's teaching instrument, and it says that PowerPoint will reduce the student's attendance ratio. I am wondering whether he does not have enough time to understand how PPT works, or he misses the dynamic side of PPT type of presentations. .... I have also seen others who do not like to shift to WebCT or Blackboard type of communication between students and teachers, but deny their weakness by blatantly criticizin these modern teaching methods. I think the reason that there are some teachers who resist the use of time saving devices like the eInstrument, WebCT, Blackboard ... and internet, is not because they honestly think that these equipments are worthless, but because they do not have enough time, effort and dedication to move with wave of new technologies. Like resistance to calculator during my undergrad studies, resistance to computer during my grad studies, and currently the resistance to use Web based teaching tools will continue to appear, and such resistance will not completely cease but switches to new technologies. Students should not give up learning the new technologies, but adjust themselves with the weakness of the teacher they might face. Resistance to learning a new technology is a sign of too busy or a generation gap. Whenever I see such resistances / criticisms from fellow colleagues, I simply try to change the topic realizing that s/he might be having some weakness and trying to pour personal weakness by blaming on the technology.

Have a nice reading.

http://geoeng.blogspot.com/