Posted on 12/02/2012 10:30:41 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
MIT also has free videos of many classes. I believe it’s called opencourseware.
If there’s hope for conservatism going forward, this trend might be the biggest source of it. Breaking the stranglehold that academia has over the “best and brightest” is job one in restoring a constitutional republic.
—— If you want to be a scientist, you cannot self-teach yourself ——
Unless you’re Edison or Einstein. Or Bill Gates. Or Steve Jobs.
Or you could go to engineering school, like I did, and be of little scientific use to anyone, since I’m not interested in it.
My point is, you can become a scientist with or without formal training. But you can only get credentials at a college.
Dynamic corporations, or corporations in emerging markets are indifferent to credentials, as opposed to established corporations.
In school, the young Edison’s mind often wandered, and his teacher, the Reverend Engle, was overheard calling him “addled”. This ended Edison’s three months of official schooling. Edison recalled later, “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.” His mother taught him at home. [5] Much of his education came from reading R.G. Parker’s School of Natural Philosophy.
His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school’s regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning.
Jobs dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes, including a course on calligraphy. [41] He continued auditing classes at Reed while sleeping on the floor in friends’ dorm rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. [42] Jobs later said, “If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.”
Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard [31] and spent a lot of time using the school’s computers. Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen, and he joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974. [32] The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company. [33] Gates dropped out of Harvard at this time.
Um... are you a science major? Have you actually seen what science students actually do at the undergraduate level in colleges today?
A degreed education provides three things:
- 10,000 hours practice in the subject (a la Malcom Gladwell’s famous observation)
- assurance of covering all the important topics (self-taught, however successful, often suffer gratuitous gaping holes in their understanding)
- certification by recognized experts that the student learned what he needs to (”BS in Subject from Accredited University” is a lot easier in a job interview than 30 hours of debriefing).
Quibble as you may over these, they’re really important.
Is that really the case?
One would think literature or humanities majors would know how to write well.
A lot of them don't -- and haven't had anywhere near 10,000 hours of experience in writing.
I don't think I got anywhere near that kind of experience or the confidence that goes with it.
The problem with the university, as well as all education in our country, is that it could be done so much better. Most of academia are people who have not done much more than go to school. This results in in-breeding. Students who teach students who teach students.....on and on. And sabbaticals wind up being time to write books or do a little consulting. The best professor I ever had was a lady who taught me advanced statistics. She was a VP of an insurance company. She taught for fun. No nonsense and real world driven.
I think that there is a difference between training and education. Training makes you a good performer. Education makes you a better thinker. It’s a subtle, but important difference. Not everyone needs a higher education. Most everyone needs some training. I loathe what our universities have become. But, I’m not ready to give up on education for most people. Training allows you to live. Education can give you a fuller life. I don’t really see much difference in grinding away in a lab versus grinding away on a car. More social status and pay, I suppose. Better life? I’m not so sure.
I think that we have a tremendous investment in our universities. I don’t know that throwing the professors out to weed the cabbage field would be good for us. It would be good for them, I think. The universities have no reason to change. Paleface Lizzy Warren made $350,000 for teaching one class during one school year at Harvard. That’s a pretty good gig. I think the way to get their attention, and force them to change the way they operate, is to withhold the next two graduating classes from high school out of the universities. Believe me, the administrators and professors will just laugh at this for one year. Two years scares the crap out of them. “What if America discovers they don’t need all of us? I can’t weed cabbages!” the professors are not the least bit altruistic. You hit them in the pocketbook, and they will listen.
“Benjamin Goering”?
Hi, I’m Heinrich Yamamoto.
(sorry)
Well, that’s at least the premise. Some manage not to. 2500 hours per year times 4 years is 10,000 hours. The opportunity is there; whether many squeak thru without taking proper advantage of it is a different issue.
Another is that there is no "Truth in Education" that requires colleges to tell applicants, "So, how much does that $200,000 BA in Primitive Cultures actually earn you ten years after graduation?" like the EPA gas mileage stickers required of a $20,000 Hyundai.
A college degree is "worth it" for many, but an overpriced BA from a third-tier college in a lightweight subject isn't "worth it" for someone who's going to end up as a Starbucks barista.
That may work for a science major who has to do problem sets each week. Humanities students who only have to write a paper and take two exams per course per semester may learn a subject (more or less), but don’t get much experience writing, revising, and seeing comments on their work. As writing is one marketable skill they could have acquired, college may not have been worthwhile for them.
“Why would corporations pay an American Engineer with top $$$$ when they can get an Indian or Chinese worker for cheap.”
A friend who’d been laid off was contacted by his former employer. They were behind on releasing a board and wanted to pay him $55/hr to work during the day on the layout. At five Eastern Time he put the design on the internet and it was picked up by an Indian engineer who then posted his work at the end of his day. My friend talked to the Indian, who he said was very good. The Indian was making $18,000/year and very happy with it. All the company’s boards and designs were being done in India at a fraction of the US price.
Since, my friend has had on and off contract work in Defense, which requires the employee to be a US citizen. But he hasn’t had a “real” job in several years.
College tuition inflation happened for the same reason housing price inflation happened... the feral government decided EVERYBODY should get loans, including the people who were never going to pay them back.
The easy loans meant students didn't think about the future, they just borrowed the money and the colleges could charge whatever they wanted.
That could be true for state schools.
Tuition is high at private universities because there are people who can and will pay it.
Harvard or Yale pretty much can charge whatever they want, government loans or no government loans.
Some state schools are reasonable. I attend the University of Florida and it is rather cheap. It is also a good school for certain majors.
What do you call the guy who graduated last in his law school class?
.
.
.
.
“Your Honor”
Bumping...
Gotta question for you. Our youngest is just finishing up his degree in Computer Science, but doesn’t want to go for a Masters Degree. He’d like to get a job to see how to use his learning, and the things he’s learned outside school, along the way. What areas of Comp.Sci would you suggest for him to concentrate on, if he wants to make a decent living? He’s really into game making, but is interested in other areas, as well. I’d suggested Net Security, thinking that was going to be necessary even more in the future than it is now. Could he get certifications in that, instead of going back to college? Are there other areas you might suggest?
The most common BA/BS degree for medical school is Bio/Chem or some combo of the two. Many difficult prerequisites for medical school. For law school? Well, you can have a degree in basketweaving and some law school, somewhere will take you.
His writing was fascinating, but “Cat’s Cradle” is a book I am rather certain he wrote on high or schizophrenic. At which point, the ability to type despite the altered state is more important than any literary training.
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