[MUD-Dev] Mudding and impact on academic grades

[Kwon Ekstrom]

From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>

> I find it interesting that everyone is seeing the problem as being
> the MUSH or the time spent there, and nobody is suggesting "have
> study groups in the MUSH." You have a community there--leverage
> it!

I've noticed that generally people like to point out how muds are
depriving people of education, but I've noticed (quite regularly)
the reverse.  Sure there's alot of people without self-control who
spend hundreds of hours on muds without any real care how it affects
their future (I've spent more than my fair share on them).

There are several people I've known who have benefitted from muds
(myself included).  My former roommate for example... was computer
illiterate whose reading consisted of the back of a box of hamburger
helper and assorted canned food.

Within 6 months of mudding knew more about computers than you'd get
in 2 years of introductory computer courses, and had actually
started reading fantasy fiction for fun.  Sure he wasn't a "fast"
reader but it was definitely an exponential improvement.

Another friend of mine is in sweden and has recently gotten a B in
her English class (from not knowing any english when she started
mudding) of course she tends to miss alot of classes while online,
but alot of the "allow the player to freeze themself" solutions
wouldn't affect her.  Most of her time, while on the mud... is
chatting with other players, quite often using an external mechanism
(im/email)

I've personally benefitted by having the opportunity to talk with
other programmers and learn good/bad ways of handling things
(working in actual "stock" code has taught me alot about what bad
habits can do to a good design and has if anything tightened up my
coding discipline)

-- Kwon J. Ekstrom

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