Professor

“Along with everything else, I teach about the Internet because it’s become a necessity. I tell my students, ‘You’ve got to learn this stuff if you want to keep up with your children… when you have them!’”

“I spent five years on a mission to become a full-time instructor at SMC. And I succeeded! So they’re stuck with me now,” says Diane Gross with a laugh. With certainty, the needs of the computerized world are going to demand Diane’s set of skills for many years to come. “I get involved in the end-user aspects of teaching: word processing, spreadsheets, general computer concepts. What we focus on in these classes is for people who will be users of programs, rather than programmers or engineers.” But Diane stresses that any field of endeavor in the next millennium will demand up-to-snuff computer skills.

“Doing term papers, researching in any field, or becoming a nurse—all of these areas will require expertise in computers,” she says. “And whatever profession you then choose to enter, you’ll find your potential enormously enlarged by your skills in operating computer programs.” Diane adds that “patience is the ‘number one’ factor in making progress with computers. It’s really all about being able to have things explained more than one time—and in more than one way,” she says. “Until there’s true understanding of the subject matter,” she adds, “my students can expect me to be standing in the front of the classroom—with a big smile on my face—and willing to do my absolute best to make sure they all understand.”

Diane also thinks SMC “is really doing a two-fold job. First, it gives a leg up to students who—academically—aren’t quite prepared for going straight into four-year colleges. And second, it gives any college student the chance to save a lot of money. And that’s a very smart deal.”

SMC Computer Applications Professor Diane Gross began full-time at SMC in Fall ’99. Welcome!

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