Posted on 04/25/2007 12:48:14 AM PDT by neverdem
You were commenting on me saying — “It’s all mental gymnastics.”
You said — “No, not really! There are some people who benefit and get a good education, but any more, the curriculum is weak, and the product the universities are producing is poor.”
When I said “mental gymnastics”, I was contrasting the type of “work” that is done by the students there, to other “work” in the public.
Now, when you look at someone at “work” (in the public), you might be looking at one kind of laborer or another, perhaps. It could be any sort of the trades or whatever. It actually “looks busy”. You can see people “doing” things. It actually looks like “work”. And so it is. Even with office jobs, where you’re not hauling things around in a warehouse or building something or whatever — you can see people “working” in an office, too.
But, when you come to the university, what do you see most of the time. Well, when they’re “working” — they’re simply sitting around, maybe reading a book, perhaps writing something on paper, or perhaps just sitting contemplating or trying to figure something out. It all looks sort of what a person at “real work” would be doing when they are “on vacation”.
Most of the time, as a student, you’re either at a library, on a bench somewhere, at a computer terminal, sitting around in some public space, at a park, in your room, or just sitting around — when you’re “doing work”. Maybe there are times when you may be in a lab and perhaps that looks a bit more like “work” than the other. But really, most of the time it “looks like” nothing at all. It looks like “vacation”.
However, it’s far from vacation. It can be grueling to get through all that stuff, understand it, make sense of it, memorize it, categorize it and then be able to repeat it back again. And all this stuff is supposed to carry you through on some future job or occupation that you get, later on, when you get out of school.
So, that’s what I’m referring to as “mental gymnastics” — in that the “work” consists *mostly* of the totally unseen and totally in the mind. That’s where all the work is being done. That’s the “gymnastics”.
I remember when I first started college and was accepted at a particular university. I got a letter that asked me to come in and talk to some people about a special program that the university was trying. I have no idea how they got me, but apparently it was me and a few others. I never saw who else though.
They wanted me to participate in some sort of program where I would be the one to set my own curriculum. I would design and devise my own course work, and then I would follow through on it, too. I would be working closely with some kind of university advisor/counselor (have no idea what he was...). So, in essence — they were telling me I would pretty much devise my entire curriculum for the entire four years.
Well, let me tell you, I had no idea at all what to think about that one. I thought and thought about it, but I finally came to the conclusion that although it would be interesting to do and I could probably do it — it simply looked like *way too much work* for what I wanted to do. Thus, I turned them down and said that I would go with the standard curriculum and the standard course. Who knows what would have happened if I had designed my own entire college course load myself.
They did tell me that not very many were chosen to do this and it would be a marvelous opportunity. Maybe so, but I figured if I did that, they should be paying me to go to college.... :-)
.
You then said — “Many of the teachers are at best “think they know it alls” typically with no practical experience beyond reading books and sitting in front of computer screens, and the children (forgive me if I don’t call them adults because they are not) party all the time and have the delusion that they really know something when they get their degree.”
That may be for a certain part of them. And for them, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, if you’re a mathematics professor and teaching Calculus, what kind of “job” do you need? In fact, I don’t know of too many “jobs” that most of us work at, that would be using calculus. So, what is that professor supposed to do — in order to enhance his teaching abilities at caculus? Is he supposed to work at McDonalds, or perhaps Best Western, or maybe Kroger’s Grocery, or maybe learn how to weld, or perhaps learn how to build a house, or be an auto mechanic or what? It doesn’t make any sense for his job in teaching calculus to to any of that other stuff. It doesn’t relate.
And then, there are lots of other positions like that. At the same time, I’ve come across professors who have come from the work force and they teach also from their experience. For example, I also took some university level business courses at one time (later than my college days). Now one guy was teaching about the stock market. He had been a floor trader on the New York Stock Exchange for many years. He knew that subject inside and out, and he knew it first-hand. And he could talk from his experience, besides teach what was in the course curriculum. Another guy taught another business course. He was a successful business owner, having over a hundred employees and having retired from it (actually from several businesses) and was now teaching. So, his teaching benefitted from that.
Therefore a lot of the professors will not benefit from the workforce while others will. Calculus, geometry, computer programming, physics, astronomy, literature, and so on. It goes on and on. There may be some aspects of certain things that *may* — once in a while — be used in business, but some of those — there are no business aspect to it. They are merely “knowledge areas” where a certain business may from time to time use a piece of that knowledge — but that “knowledge area” is never a business unto itself.
Thus a university is an entirely different type of environment and it is not supposed to match the job market or what people are doing on jobs. If you want that — don’t go to a university — go to a trade school to learn a particular skill for a particular job — if that’s what you want. Universities are not trade schools.
.
And then — “I know I have offended you, but I have to call it the way I see it; American colleges are typically the home of over paid under achievers - both young and old,.”
No, I haven’t been offended, I just talk like I have been (although I hardly ever am offended). But, you just have to understand that universities are not trade schools and they are not for directly educating anyone about getting a job. They are simply places where a lot of knowledge is stored and passed on to another generation — and not job skills. Like I said, if it’s “job skills” and learning a trade, just go to a trade school and that will suffice. But, if it’s about learning a lot of those things about the scineces or mathematics or sociology or literature or many other areas of education, then the universities are it.
.
Finally — “But it’s odd; every once in a while you meet one of those oddities that you know could change the world if they don’t get crushed like a bug by some under achieving bean counter in government or industry.”
There are a lot of smart people in universities, that’s for sure. And there is a problem with a certain part of that culture in universities that breeds a liberal political philosophy, besides also breeding contempt for Biblical matters, like Jesus Christ and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They seem to think that they are “centers of self-sufficiency” in terms of those two things. Aside from that, on the pure knowledge basis, they do manage to convey that to the up and coming generation. If they could leave the philosophies of the two areas that I just mentioned, alone, then it would be much better.
Duh!
After helping design and operating some of the most sophisticated machines on this planet, I decided ten years ago to move back near a big ten university in Pennsylvania since it was near where I grew up.
What I learned was disturbing; the engineering curriculum was watered down, and so was the mathematics that went into it. Everything was group accomplishment. I’ve seen research preformed that was a repeat of work done 30 years ago; I’ve seen a costly experimental set up where not the slightest fundamental knowledge was known about the mechanical components used to run the experiments. Engineering was representative of the other colleges within the university.
I could go on and on, but the simple truth from an expert’s point of view is basically what I said previously.
So, I appreciate you thoughts but I’ve taken my own time to look into this matter and really know where it stands!
You said — “I could go on and on, but the simple truth from an expert’s point of view is basically what I said previously.”
—
So, it’s that they are not being rigorous enough (not high enough standards) in their teaching and studies? They’re slacking in the level of their education?
If that’s the case, as you say, where are students going for their best education, if not here in the United States? Have things changed now, so that students are going to certain other countries, because now their universities are better (maybe different countries for different disciplines)? Or maybe it always has been that way, that some other countries have always had better educational programs (in certain countries)?
I’m not saying I know, but since you said you know about the above, I figured you would know that.
You're right, I was thinking of mine.
Looking and searching for excuses! Liberal policies look no further! We were convinced years ago that the mentally ill could be treated in outpatient clinics with no supervision and mental institutions were wrong and cruel. So today they walk amoungs us and 32 bright young people who could have made a difference are gone thanks to thier “I know better than you” hypocracies. LETS GET A HANDLE ON THIS FOLKS THE TOILET IS ABOUT TO BE FLUSHED!
Education has become big business; i.e. charge them allot of money for 4 years, give them crap and at the end a piece of paper saying something to the extent “yesterday I couldn’t spell smart, but today I are one”. People will believe anything if you put it in their minds, tell them they are smart and give them a paper that says it. For me, it takes a whole lot more.
The socialist that run this big ten university in Pennsylvania only care about cutting deals with companies and forcing as much “product” through the pipeline as possible”. They haven’t even developed standards to look at quality except some nonsense numbers that make them look good.
What went on at Enron pails in comparison to the stuff going on in the universities.
I suppose by now you’ve heard about the Admissions Dean at MIT;
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1997/jones-1217.html
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/tools/papertrail/070427/mit_admissions_dean_falsified.htm
Standard procedure in a personnel company I owned 15 years ago was to do checks on resumes to make sure people were who they were saying the were; heck, there is an ANSI standard developed in 1986 for this purpose! And the brainiacs at MIT were not smart enough to use the quality control tools everyone else uses to verify fact from fiction?
Universities are in a state of retrograde due to socialist in charge implementing social engineering standards of how America should look; chasing wealth, and quite frankly of thinking their stuff stinks when it really does not (i.e. they are full of themselves).
About where other schools students are going to you need to look at the flow; there has been some discussion of the quality of tech schools in India and that may be reducing the flow to the US; certainly many Indians are not staying here.
Just because the only product you have to give someone is inferior does not mean people will not use it; the socialist soviet economy shows people will use any product they can get - then there is the great Harvard “shock Therapy” to that economy that set them back 2 decades! Did you know that the US government sued Harvard over that to get their money back? But thats another story.
Well, it doesn’t sound good, then. I’m long out of that environment, so I’ll never see it myself. But, I guess others will be having problems...
Well..., in fact, I’m to the point where I’ll be saying, “Let the world go to hell, because I’m gonna be outta here pretty soon...” LOL...
Thanks, this needs to be repeated often, and whenever a thread or person begins to look for someone other than Cho to "blame".
His photos with the hammer, the knives, and the guns show that he was consumed by evil.
Know what you mean. Now it’s my son’s turn in the barrel, and he is in a place where you would want things to be running perfectly, and, well, god help us.
Best thing I did was walk away; it was the only way to bring peace to my soul, but it still bothers me.
Good luck. It was nice talking to you.
I was and Electrical Engineer on an Army Scholarship. I worked my ass off. My life since has been gravy in comparison.
I had a wierd loner roommated for a while. I kept an eye on him, but he quit and went back to live with mommy and daddy....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.