School/Work IT "pros"

[CornOnJacob]

Hi everyone,

    I made this thread for people to share stories of bad IT people at their school or workplace. My school, for some stupid reason, buys copies of Windows 7 Professional for EVERY SINGLE COMPUTER. They leave them idling for 95% of the time, and only ~8 of the PCs are actually used for content creation (graphic design lab). The others could be replaced with RPis, for all the use they get. Rather than running Folding at Home, everyone gets their own school account, and the PCs are kept logged out, so nothing can run in the meantime. Our Computer Class is an absolute joke. It is great for learning to touch type (I'll give them that), but every single thing I learned was self-taught. After 5 years of class, nobody has been taught the difference between a HDD and an SSD, a bit vs. a byte, or that Linux even exists! We spend half the year learning about Internet safety (Don't get kidnapped by some random person you met online, kids!), and the other half doing ridiculous tasks in Photoshop (which we relearn if we work on the yearbook). Rather than use the new LibreOffice, we are forced to use MS Office 2003, which works fine, but has a different UI from the newer versions and is obviously not forwards-compatible with the documents we write at home. Luckily, I just graduated from that school, and I'm looking forward to taking Programming classes at my new school.

 

 Sorry for the rant, and share your stories below :)

[Hyydrah]

That's how school is (at least in Canada), not just in computer classes.

[joelthezombie15]

Well, i think both of you guys saw my worst two. but one time my IT guy from apple told me to try and get a screw driver to take my ipod apart.

[jaypro]

Schools don't follow common logic, they have a much more convoluted method to computers.

 

For example, the university I attended, you would assume that the engineering majors would need better computers, especially the mechanical/civil engineers who need to use 3D software like Solidworks.  However, because the school had a policy of every student pays the same tuition, they ended up with the worst computers.

 

Why? Engineering professors get paid more otherwise they would just actually work in the industry.  The History major professors get paid a lot less so that department has a lot more money to spend on computers.  

[CornOnJacob]

Schools don't follow common logic, they have a much more convoluted method to computers.

 

For example, the university I attended, you would assume that the engineering majors would need better computers, especially the mechanical/civil engineers who need to use 3D software like Solidworks.  However, because the school had a policy of every student pays the same tuition, they ended up with the worst computers.

 

Why? Engineering professors get paid more otherwise they would just actually work in the industry.  The History major professors get paid a lot less so that department has a lot more money to spend on computers.  

lol, how backwards is that?

[criso8]

what grade levels are we talking about here? From what I've seen many schools just leave their computers idling all the time so that is no surprise. I think schools should drop computer class. People that want to learn will learn the basics at least by themselves.

[Blade of Grass]

This sounds like every school.

And you think that you could replace a desktop with a raspberry pi? Of course everyone gets their own account, that's how it works everywhere. Go to any business, and each employee will have an account. It's a security and privacy thing.

[Emperor_Piehead]

My school has mostly core 2 duo's and P4s, but the graphic design classes get mac pro's. At my school though the P4s go to the usually empty computer labs and the teachers who don't go well with technology(my world geography teacher needed help sometimes how to press play on a youtube video. :wacko: )

[EricX2]

I'm one of the two IT people at work, we're 50% brilliant!

[Emperor_Piehead]

I'm one of the two IT people at work, we're 50% brilliant!

Lol so what is the other half?

[piplupgao]

I was the unofficial IT kid in 5th grade whats has the world come to letting a 5th grader doing all your tech stuff

[Rhotis]

Hi everyone,

    I made this thread for people to share stories of bad IT people at their school or workplace. My school, for some stupid reason, buys copies of Windows 7 Professional for EVERY SINGLE COMPUTER. They leave them idling for 95% of the time, and only ~8 of the PCs are actually used for content creation (graphic design lab). The others could be replaced with RPis, for all the use they get. Rather than running Folding at Home, everyone gets their own school account, and the PCs are kept logged out, so nothing can run in the meantime. Our Computer Class is an absolute joke. It is great for learning to touch type (I'll give them that), but every single thing I learned was self-taught. After 5 years of class, nobody has been taught the difference between a HDD and an SSD, a bit vs. a byte, or that Linux even exists! We spend half the year learning about Internet safety (Don't get kidnapped by some random person you met online, kids!), and the other half doing ridiculous tasks in Photoshop (which we relearn if we work on the yearbook). Rather than use the new LibreOffice, we are forced to use MS Office 2003, which works fine, but has a different UI from the newer versions and is obviously not forwards-compatible with the documents we write at home. Luckily, I just graduated from that school, and I'm looking forward to taking Programming classes at my new school.

 

 Sorry for the rant, and share your stories below :)

 

They use the pro version and idle the computers so they know who was logged in from where when and why.  This keeps the teachers from watching porn or the kids from doing something stupid or even just someone from walking in off the street without knowledge of how to break into the system from doing anything on the network.  This is basic network security.  I am surprised your high school uses it,  pleasantly surprised that is.  

 

Modern tech moves too fast for that level of school to keep up with even in the slightest.  They are teaching you also there to be end users not to be PC technicians or programmers.  Even if they have an intro programming class its going to mostly be busy work at that level.  

 

Not everyone is on the yearbook.  

 

When you get to college it will be better but you will have the same basic complaints.  The technology will be behind by a few years like it is at almost every university in the western world unless you get really lucky and get there at the positive end of an upgrade cycle.  

 

Oh and BTW your professors in comp sci will almost uniformly suck.  There is a reason they are teaching class to a bunch of people where a 3rd to a half will never finish the degree and not creating something for a big software company or starting a software company of their own.  That reason is not because they enjoy teaching.  

[arkon]

I was the unofficial IT kid in 5th grade whats has the world come to letting a 5th grader doing all your tech stuff

 

I was the IT kid from 5th grade onwards too. Fun stuff.

[Emperor_Piehead]

I was the IT kid from 5th grade onwards too. Fun stuff.

Me and my friend shared that role this year , but 9th grade.

[Marc030]

We are still working with IDE drivers, schools just cant keep up with the new tech thats out there. they have to know it themselves + make a teaching plan and need to be able to supply the new tech and there just isn't any money for that.

[wkronbaek]

the case at my old school was that they had computers that would've been outperformed by RPi's.

 

I have now thankfully found a school where we are required to bring our own laptops, and they're used in productive ways for classes (and 9gag for some)

[Matsy]

School (secondary school) was a total joke.

Our IT class was just a waste of time in my opinion, things like how to use word, how to type, how to draw in publisher(???), don't give personal details out over the internet.

That was basically it, really basic stuff, I learned absolutely nothing during the like 2 years that class went on, I just went, finished the work before everyone else (since most of it was just typing and I can type fast, and just sat there playing games until the end of class.

College wasn't much different except we talked about more stuff and typed more, again I finished every assignment before everyone else because it was mostly just typing and sat playing games the rest of the time.

Then I pony'd up the money to go to university thinking that It had to be better......it was but by this point I already knew everything they where talking about and how to do everything that was required so it was boring as hell end basically ended up spending max 2 hours per day instead of the 6+ I was supposed to because I didn't have anything to do....

 

Meh....still can't get a job though... <_<

[Aaanum1]

In my school, our servers and the every cable going/coming from it protected by nothing! Our IT head is a libraian who didn't know what a PCI-e slot was untill I explained it!

[Aaanum1]

THey also don't allow cookies, have a CRAP tonne of scripts for no reason, and they also have a really unsecure system. My friend deleted 1gb of work for the system once. I'm actually posting this from school :P

[Frix]

I left school about a month ago but when they upgraded to windows 7 they had fake copies of windows 7 business :D

[Dim]

My university has a room full of Alienware computers with 3960X processors and dual GTX 680s in them.

Good way to kill time, though :P I just wish they didn't decide to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on these computers, and just built the machines themselves instead  :mellow:

[rashdanml]

Well, i think both of you guys saw my worst two. but one time my IT guy from apple told me to try and get a screw driver to take my ipod apart.

iPod touch? Assuming it's anything like an iPhone, a flat screwdriver is actually needed to remove the screen to get at the internals. If it's a classic/nano, ignore me.

[joelthezombie15]

iPod touch? Assuming it's anything like an iPhone, a flat screwdriver is actually needed to remove the screen to get at the internals. If it's a classic/nano, ignore me.

Nano.  He was really dumb.

[qwertywarrior]

IT at my UNI are awesome

i think its because its government run

[CornOnJacob]

They use the pro version and idle the computers so they know who was logged in from where when and why.  This keeps the teachers from watching porn or the kids from doing something stupid or even just someone from walking in off the street without knowledge of how to break into the system from doing anything on the network.  This is basic network security.  I am surprised your high school uses it,  pleasantly surprised that is.  How does the pro version help them log the users if the normal version can't? I wish they would save the money they spend on Windows Pro (by replacing with linux for free) and use it to get better hardware in the computers. They PCs are overkill for normal use but struggle in the graphics lab where they are pushed. Nobody has ever explained the reasoning behind their choices, so I didn't know that it had to do with network security.

 

Modern tech moves too fast for that level of school to keep up with even in the slightest.  They are teaching you also there to be end users not to be PC technicians or programmers.  Even if they have an intro programming class its going to mostly be busy work at that level.  I can't really expect to be taught programming, but nobody in the class (besides me) is even computer literate. A computer class should be informative and helpful, but after years of that class my classmates are just as clueless as ever to how the computer works, etc.

 

Not everyone is on the yearbook.  Fair point, but everyone who is interested in graphic design usually takes one of the classes in it, so I feel like the class time could be spent more efficiently.

 

When you get to college it will be better but you will have the same basic complaints.  The technology will be behind by a few years like it is at almost every university in the western world unless you get really lucky and get there at the positive end of an upgrade cycle. 

 

Oh and BTW your professors in comp sci will almost uniformly suck.  There is a reason they are teaching class to a bunch of people where a 3rd to a half will never finish the degree and not creating something for a big software company or starting a software company of their own.  That reason is not because they enjoy teaching.