Brantley Coile

So Monday my Computer Architecture class got a guest lecture from a guy by the name of Brantley Coile, who was there to talk about the development and history of the hard disk drive. Now, I’m not making note of this because Mr. Coile was a particularly amazing speaker or anything of the sort, but rather because it was a lecture from someone who works in the industry. Mr. Coile is Founter and CTO of Coraid, an Athens, Georgia, based company specializing in network based large-scale storage.

I feel as those academia often suffers from something I’ve labeled the “PhD Delima.” To elaborate: there is a group of in every class of students that absolutely love school. I feel that these are the people who usually end up getting their Masters or PhD’s, and I feel as though there are a great many of them who have never worked in the industry and never want to work in the industry for one reason or anther. So they become teachers.

Now, I have all the respect in the world for teachers and professors because their job is more often than not a thankless task. However, it is validating, in a sense, to hear some of the same material we’ve been reading/hearing about in our architecture class reinforced by someone who makes his living working in the business world, which is where I’d like to end up myself.