Re: 7.4 Wishlist

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:

> > viii) General advocacy, particularly in pushing mainstream IT media
> > coverage, conferences and university usage -- both for teaching SQL and
> > for teach database engineering concepts for senior undergrads.
>
> Definitely. How about a resource for college/uni professors on how to use
> PostgreSQL in their courses?

I might get together with some of the lecturers I've worked with in
Sydney to give such a document some weight. I must say, the problem is not
a technical one though. I've given talks to 3rd and 4th year students
about PostgreSQL -- technical, conceptual, political talks... you name
it. Out of 200 odd students, only about 5-10 actually seem interested. Its
terrible.

Why aren't they interested? They think that if they study Oracle
(instead) for 6 months they'll walk straight into a job with an extremely
high salary. Its a myth, but I cannot shake that perception.

In fact, things got very heated when two universities in Sydney moved
their SQL courses from Oracle and Sybase to PostgreSQL. Enrollments will
be down next year for the courses and Australian universities are heavily
geared toward bums on seats not facilitation of education.

Gavin