Re: Looking for a good Ada 95 book

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <584rno$294$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
Dale Stanbrough  <dale@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU> wrote:

>Yes I understand this. However when someone leaves a company and
>moves on to another, their lack of ability doesn't reflect on the
>company. However when someone graduates from a University/College/
>whatever, they are given a piece of paper which says "we think this
>person _is_ good enough". Often the _only_ thing a University has
>of worth to employers is a reputation. If you sully that with students
>who get a free ride, you are in trouble.

Well, of course in the US at least, we give students grades, and based
on their overall grade average, they graduate. On the standard US
scale of 0.0 (fail) to 4.0 (A), in most schools students will graduate
if their average is 2.0 or slightly above (at GW it's 2.0 overall,
2.2 in CS and other technical courses). It's reasonable to assume
that grades are reasonably representative of ability; over the years
they've gotten a bit inflated, but still, a C student is a C student.

Sure, universities have reputations, and I'd definitely like to know
about it if one of my good students is disappointing an employer. On the
other hand, if you hire a C student, you get what you deserve.:-)

Mike Feldman