When Mike Otto signed up for a 2 year associates program at a local community college, he was a bright eyed, eager young man, ready to learn all he could about computers, especially programming. "I knew the industry was big, and it seemed like progrmmers were the ones getting all the perks. So I thought I'd learn C++. I picked up a book, glossed over it, and realized I'd need to start off slower."

Mike signed up for "Intro to Computer Programming", a required class for the CIS degree. "That's for Computer Information Systems, I think." commented Mike. "I'd had flowcharting classes already, so looking over the book, a QBasic book, I figured I'd do fine. I turned in my first flowchart and program, which worked, and got a 'D' on it. I was like "What the hell?" That's when someone mentioned the teach, Miss Henny, was a major hard ass. It went downhill from there."

Miss Henny slowly drains all love of
programming computers out of her students.

"I was working at some stupid contracting agency, getting $12 an hour to do unix sys administration in Ohio. I was hosting my own domain on a PC server I built myself out of crap I collected from work. I knew BSD, sendmail, every nuance of vi.. my ticket to a good job was already written until I took that horrible class."

That class, according to Mike, was almost impossible to pass because of the way it was taught and the futility of learning some archiac system like QBasic. "Hey, I realize it was an intro class, but Qbasic?! When I told a programmer pal of mine what I was taking, he laughed at me. I tried to keep up in class, but how much can you learn from a teacher that draws simulated Windows screens on a chalkboard?

So far, Mike Otto has withdrawn from classes all together because of Miss Henny's class, causing him to lose his job at "A killer tech job, for Ohio." because the employer hired only college graduates or college students. "I'm not saying because of Miss Henny, I'm headed to McDonalds." commented Mike. "I hear Hardee's is hiring, too, and they pay $.50 more for the closing shift."