Looking for some advice before applying to TESC/TESU

[alzee]

Oh thank God.

I thought it was just me.

In addition to the material that doesn't align with the real world, technically, the questions often had more than one acceptable answer. Or were wrong.

I felt you really, really need to buy into the teachers' point of view if you want to succeed, including their concepts of dates, and when things began, and were superceded.

I barely passed. I'm not dumb about computers OR networking OR the history (I was around for much of it!)

Same here. I've been working in the field for over 20 years now, and it was a hobby before that. During this course I had opened a ticket with SL expressing my extreme displeasure with the material and pointing out specific issues like the mesh issue above. I was keeping a text file open where I logged every such problem I found and, at their request, was updating the ticket periodically (usually at the end of each module) with all the problems I'd found.

About 3/4 of the way through, without warning, they just closed the ticket on me with no response or resolution. I passed the course with an 80 or 85% I think, I'm too lazy to go look, but it was really an exercise in frustration and patience.

At one point I remember a question was asking which was a more appropriate language to author a webpage, C or PHP. The obvious answer they wanted was PHP, but the reason they gave was so idiotic that I really wanted to find the author and just strangle them. The reason given was that, as a webpage, the code was most likely to run in a web browser, and web browsers support PHP and not C. This "logic" misses the mark so badly that I'm convinced the author doesn't actually know *anything* about web development except that PHP is involved.. sometimes.. somehow.

[bluebooger]

...... as a webpage, the code was most likely to run in a web browser, and web browsers support PHP and not C. ...

that may be the dumbest thing any teacher has ever said ever

[alzee]

that may be the dumbest thing any teacher has ever said ever

As I said, the course is/was horrible. A great deal of the material is nonsensical or blatantly incorrect, that wasn't even the worst example, just the one most likely to be understood by a wide audience. Acronyms like SDLC and even DNS are incorrectly defined throughout the course, and the definition they use often changes from one page to the next. The section on how DNS resolution works is completely wrong. Most of the networking related material is completely wrong. In the section about operating systems there is a part where different versions of windows are mentioned, a distinction being drawn between the workstation, server, and mobile versions. This gem follows:

Unix also has a similar suite: Unix server for servers, Linux application for workstations, and Android, which is a Lixus[sic]-based mobile OS

Here's an actual question from the course.

"Which operating system uses the point-and-click GUI?"
a) Linux
b) Tables
c) Smart phones

My "this is wrong" notes file for that course is 35KB. Just picked a few of the more illustrative ones here.

[Nixi]

As it's free right now, and my $99/mo. membership is still active, I'm going to give this course a try to see just how bad it is.

[alzee]

As it's free right now, and my $99/mo. membership is still active, I'm going to give this course a try to see just how bad it is.

If you can take something *else* for free, you should do that, unless you actually need the course. It'll hurt your brain.

[Nixi]

If you can take something *else* for free, you should do that, unless you actually need the course. It'll hurt your brain.

The free promo is only for the two Acrobatiq courses. I don't need any of these in my requirements, but I decided to claim the IT Fundamentals course anyway to give Acrobatiq a try. Not going to be actually completing it though.

[alzee]

The free promo is only for the two Acrobatiq courses. I don't need any of these in my requirements, but I decided to claim the IT Fundamentals course anyway to give Acrobatiq a try. Not going to be actually completing it though.

Ah.

Acrobatiq itself isn't really bad. My only complaint with it was, as others pointed out, your progress report @ SL is far from "instant." If I remember it took the better part of a week after I finished that course for it to show up as finished on SL.

[Archer]

The free promo is only for the two Acrobatiq courses. I don't need any of these in my requirements, but I decided to claim the IT Fundamentals course anyway to give Acrobatiq a try. Not going to be actually completing it though.

As we have a week or so to decide please return with your feedback, I've still not decided which I'll take. Probably SOWH but I still need to double check if that'd end up doubling up on other credits from my CC.

In other news, final term starts tomorrow. Still need to test out of 9 credits I think... Halfway through public comm, probably just going to take a week off work and blow through Microbio/Comm (that's 6 credits) on SL. Ready to be done. Has anybody taken Operating Systems? It's that and the capstone this term.

[High_Order1]

I was keeping a text file open where I logged every such problem I found and, at their request, was updating the ticket periodically (usually at the end of each module) with all the problems I'd found.

lol!

I did the same thing, for about two-three modules. Then, I realized... I can either be right, or I can just put my head down and pass. This is not typically my modus operandi. It ain't nothing to me to critique even a Federal course and take screencaps and tell them, no, this is wrong; here is the actual source, and that's what is commonly accepted.

I went the high road, that day is now done, and should it ever come up again, I got over a dozen people a reviewer could contact as far as real-world applications of my knowledge. (shrugs).

Should this happen again in another course, I'm undecided as to how I will resolve it, though, that's for certain!

[alzee]

lol!

I did the same thing, for about two-three modules. Then, I realized... I can either be right, or I can just put my head down and pass.

Why not get both?

I passed, that wasn't ever really a question, but the material was just SO bad that I couldn't keep my mouth shut about it. If I had been under a time crunch, or if me opening my mouth was an invitation for some sort of backlash, then I would have taken a different approach. As it was, I had nothing to lose, and they (initially) encouraged me to continue reporting issues as I found them.