I had a extremly positive attitude when I went to the first three classes today, since today was the first day of the Fall 2005 semester. When I was done with my second class, I was bitterly angry and dissapointed in one of my classes, i would even go as far as naming in, CPSC111 at Texas A&M Univeristy. Its a course on Java, but the real catch wasn't there. As much as I dislike Java, I have no problem learning it, no harm can come of learning it, I am just opposing using it in real production areas.

But what I though was so horrible was the way the class is issuing books, and as a requirement we had to buy a clicker. The clicker I am talking about is a RF remote control (link) which will be used in pop quizes in class, and even to take attendance. I have to agree, this is one of the best ideas I have seen so far in the university, but the way they have set it up is the student has to go out and buy one of these clickers. The pop quizes are 5% of the grade, which means not buying one of these devices will decrease my chance in a A for the class grade since the maximum grade I would be able to get is a 95. They say that if I buy the book for the class I will get a $20 dollar rebate fot the clicker, but still I don't want to spend $90 on a wasteful Java book when I know the basics of Java along with many other languages (in which most other students also know) and there is more then enough information free of charge online which can be obtained by anyone legally. I am forced to get the book again for the reason being him stating that he will question from the chapters in that book specifically.

Him stating several times that all the notes and other information is his copyright, just proves the fact that he is indeed selfish.

I am sure I am not the only one with this problem, almost certain that other classes, departments, even many universities are doing this. It seems something has terribly gone wrong somewhere, as for they are increasing the cost dramatically for tution, and on top of that forcing the students get useless crap like this.