The Education VECTOR

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 17

The Education Vector¶

April 1990

Editor Alan Sykes

This Education Vector has been reprinted from VECTOR Vol.6 No.4. VECTOR is the Quarterly Journal of the British APL Association; for more information about the British APL Association, contact the Secretary: Graham Parkhouse, Dept. of Mech. Eng., University of Surrey, GUILDFORD.

Contents¶

Editor:
Dr Alan Sykes,
Dept of Management Science and Statistics,
University College of Swansea,
Singleton Park, SWANSEA SA2 8PP

Editorial¶

by Alan Sykes

Welcome to another edition of Education Vector! Although it only appears quarterly, it has a nasty knack of coinciding with some important academic deadline, so that I end up producing copy in great haste. (I sit typing this editorial when I should be packing my bag to attend the International Conference on Software Engineering.) I console myself with the plain fact that most people these days seem to operate a juggling act with so many balls on the go that dropping one seems inevitable. Despite these sentiments, I think there is something of interest for all readers of Education Vector and I am constantly heartened by the letters I get from far and wide, some of which have found their way into this edition. Please do keep those letters coming.

In my professional capacity as an academic statistician in the University of Swansea, a significant percentage of my time is spent using APL in my own research, teaching statistics using APL, and to some extent teaching APL itself. Our students use it in their first year to do their statistics practical, and to submit assignments for marking by the computer. In their second year, they may take as an option, a course in statistical computing using APL. Third year courses then assume that students can proceed to do whatever computing is necessary to complete their statistical assignments. A growing number of students opt to learn APL, even though many of them have been inculcated into the art of FORTRAN programming in their first year.

It comes as some surprise to them when we mention the possibility of pursuing a career in APL. At a recent recruitment drive held in the college our students were introduced to the wide range of job opportunities that exist in firms such as British Airways, banks such as National Westminster, Insurance firms (e.g. Commercial Union), Operations Research departments (e.g. Rowntrees of York). A significant feature of such job opportunities is that rapid promotion is possible with early development of careers into APL consultancy and management roles.

I mention this as it seems to me a significant potential spin-off of using APL in education. There are significant career prospects for bright students with a broad spectrum of abilities in mathematics, statistics, economics, business studies, and management science plus APL programming expertise because such people are often able to produce innovative solutions to important problems quickly and efficiently. In the last two years, three of our students have started their careers as consultant programmers in APL. It will be interesting to monitor their progress and the extent to which their chosen career path is followed by other graduates.