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University and it's Day to Day Effect's on Life
   at 22:15 on Fri 17th March 2006
Aside from the fantastic social and self-defining side to the University experience there's one thing I'm really in awe about. Before I went to University I would read articles on the Internet, in the newpapers (rarely) or hear facts from others in conversation. I still do, of course, but now I question everything I hear.

I have just been reading this article about "slacking" at work might be more beneficial than working extremely hard. There are lots of interesting statements in the article. One that stood out to me is

The "time cost" of refocusing your attention may be only a few seconds with each switch, but the researchers found that, over time, it reduced people's total efficiency by 20% to 40%.


Now that's all well and good but I'd like to know:
  • Which researchers found that out (Are they credible, is it their usual field of research, etc),
  • What sort of people they studied? (Was it purely office workers, bus drivers, farmers, or a mixture?)
  • Over what period did the research take place? (Surely to get a good measure of productivity you'd have to study people for years)
  • What methods did they scale "people's efficiency" on? (The money they made for the company? The amount of corresspondance they wrote? The number of lines of program code they produced? The number of academic papers published?)
  • What was the control group like to compare the "slackers" from those who worked normally?
Etc. There are so many hidden questions in that phrase. And thinking through how baseless the statement I highlighted is made me realise that I've learnt a great deal more than how to design and develop computer programs at University. It's a vast learning experience. Fantastic.

One comment
Submit a comment:
by Neil-san (a.k.a. a-v0id) at 22:37 on 11th May 2006
Would you not ask those questions even without a degree?
I've been developing questions all my life, as I get older the more advanced the question. Ultimately, I think 3 years at university is a waste of life. I have learnt nothing I could not have picked up on a day to day basis in a work environment.
Redundant information that you spend the first few years at work trying to forget about seem to be aimed at confusing you and fogging your intelligent judgement about.
Irony with my university experience lays where I've been taking industrial experience whilst learning. Lecturers assuring you that things are common practice in industry are completely wrong and prove how little knowledge they really have about that which they profess to teach.
That last bit doesn't really argue my point but just goes to show how bitter I am about the whole to-do. Matt, I think you would have asked all those questions even without a degree.