This is my final post in the CS Review Series. I’ll talk about the changes the I consider useful for this faculty. I am aware that I will shock many people, especially teachers and/or TAs, but this is the way I see things.
In the previous parts I have already noted some ideas:
- the final mark could be expressed out of 100 points instead of 10 points.
- consider changing the language used in the first programming courses
- use the mony to by computers for the students, not for the auxiliary personnel or for LCD TVs
What else could be done? Well, an idea would be to publish the budget (with more details than here). Another one would be to externalize the cleaning of the school. It would cost more, but if the contract would be well written, we would have a clear improvement in the quality of the services.
About the teaching itself, promoting young teachers and convincing graduates to remain in the faculty is essential. This can only be accomplished by offering more places in master courses while updating the master courses. On the longer term, more interesting PhD subjects and research programs could help rebuild a normal group of teachers (the current ones are either very old or very young).
There should be promotional campaigns in the high schools to attract the best students to CS. A very good argument would be the fact that here you can learn the basics of many interesting technologies and you can interact with people interested in the same domain.
In order to sustain this campaign, the school should have a coherent image, like all important universities – with guidelines on the look of the logo, templates for presentations and documents, and so on. I am aware that this would probably imply using a specialized company, which is probably difficult considering the budget limitations.
This concludes my old faculty’s review. I hope that some of the people who read this will find it useful.
o singura observatie: banii din care se cumpara dotari vin din 2 surse complet diferite, si anume:
(1) banii universitatii sau ai facultatii
(2) banii din contracte de cercetare ale diferitilor profesori
aparent (1) ar trebui sa fie mai important, dar la nivelul anului 2008 in UPB (2) este >= (1). Adica, univ. finanteaza foarte putin prin (1).
Ori, titularul unui contract de cercetare nu este obligat sa investeasca banii in laboratoarele pt studenti. Unii baga ceva bani si in asta, dar in general pt astfel de cheltuieli ar trebui folosita sursa (1). Sursa (2) poate fi folosita pt. cumpararea de tehnica de calcul pt echipa de cercetare a profesorului, incl. personalul auxiliar (ok, ei nu fac chiar „cercetare”, dar cine crezi ca se plimba cu tonele de hirtii la minister, rectorat, whatever?), de diverse aparate utile doar pt contractul respectiv, si complet inutile pt. studenti, etc.