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Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

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Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#61

Post by derefr »

rick888 wrote: post #60
derefr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Student loans and such—all the machinery students today use to get their tuitions—would still exist; they'd just be given directly to the student. 2. It would be a workers' cooperative, with the labor being learning. 3. Joining and participating would be different steps. The network would be free to join, but each class would still cost money, raised and pooled to create the class (in the fashion of groupon.com)

"1. Student loans and such all the machinery students today use to get their tuitions would still exist; they'd just be given directly to the student. 2. It would be a workers' cooperative, with the labor being learning. 3. Joining and participating would be different steps. The network would be free to join, but each class would still cost money, raised and pooled to create the class (in the fashion of groupon.com)"…

> If you joined for free, what would be the purpose unless you were going to actually get an education/pay for class?

For the connections. That was my original point.

> most students have no idea what they want when they start college

They should speak to a guidance counsellor, then. No one invests in a business not "knowing what they want"; why should investing in an education be any different?

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#62

Post by h3h »

I wouldn't recommend skipping college if you can get in and either afford it or are willing to incur the debt. Even after $25K+ of debt and 5 years of undergrad for two degrees, I don't regret it.

If I had to do it all over again, I think I would have angled very hard for a Symbolic Systems degree from Stanford (http://symsys.stanford.edu/). It's a very cool cross-disciplinary program and, if you can afford it (mentally, financially), you can cram in more CS classes or whatever strikes your fancy along the way.

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#63

Post by rick888 »

derefr wrote: post #61
rick888 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1. Student loans and such all the machinery students today use to get their tuitions would still exist; they'd just be given directly to the student. 2. It would be a workers' cooperative, with the labor being learning. 3. Joining and participating would be different steps. The network would be free to join, but each class would still cost money, raised and pooled to create the class (in the fashion of groupon.com)"…

> If you joined for free, what would be the purpose unless you were going to actually get an education/pay for class? For the connections. That was my original point. > most students have no idea what they want when they start college They should speak to a guidance counsellor, then. No one invests in a business not "knowing what they want"; why should investing in an education be any different?

"For the connections. That was my original point."

Is it really that difficult to find these connections on your own? sites like meetup.com have local groups where you can just go and meet up with other like-minded people. In some groups (especially college towns), many are students. I have gone to many different groups and made lots of connections in my area. I graduated and got my bachelor's degree in '06, but there are many people I meet that have not. Most of the time, the subject doesn't even come up.

"They should speak to a guidance counsellor, then. No one invests in a business not "knowing what they want"; why should investing in an education be any different?"

I really don't see how this is any different than a university. You would still need some sort of central authority that you would be giving all of your money to (and they would be managing classes and everything else).

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#64

Post by elblanco »

foldr wrote: post #58
elblanco wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose. I didn't make the hierarchy, it just seemed to be informally observed. There were definitely a fair number of people in the technical fields that took art courses for an easy A, almost no artists ever attended a course on discrete circuit design, or took a course in algorithm evaluation.

Well, I guess it depends on how tough the art courses are. My point was just that becoming a good artist is as hard as becoming a good electronic engineer. But if the art courses aren't rigorous then I guess that fact isn't relevant.

I'm not an artist, and I'm likely influenced by the perceptions (fair or not) of my alma mater. I have taken a few art courses for hobby and thought they were fun. I wasn't great, but probably nothing that practice and perseverance wouldn't overcome. But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard? Honest question, I really have no idea. To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice practice practice. But I'm sure that a B.A. in Fine Arts involves something more than an extended 4 year crafts session.

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#65

Post by [deleted] »

elblanco wrote: post #64
foldr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I guess it depends on how tough the art courses are. My point was just that becoming a good artist is as hard as becoming a good electronic engineer. But if the art courses aren't rigorous then I guess that fact isn't relevant.

I'm not an artist, and I'm likely influenced by the perceptions (fair or not) of my alma mater. I have taken a few art courses for hobby and thought they were fun. I wasn't great, but probably nothing that practice and perseverance wouldn't overcome. But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard? Honest question, I really have no idea. To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice pr…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#66

Post by foldr »

elblanco wrote: post #64
foldr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I guess it depends on how tough the art courses are. My point was just that becoming a good artist is as hard as becoming a good electronic engineer. But if the art courses aren't rigorous then I guess that fact isn't relevant.

I'm not an artist, and I'm likely influenced by the perceptions (fair or not) of my alma mater. I have taken a few art courses for hobby and thought they were fun. I wasn't great, but probably nothing that practice and perseverance wouldn't overcome. But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard? Honest question, I really have no idea. To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice pr…

>But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard?

I'm kind of baffled by this question. It's very difficult to create good art. If it is necessary to create good art in order to get an art major, then getting an art major will be correspondingly difficult.

>To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice practice practice.

You could say the same thing about learning a musical instrument. I guess it's true that with enough practice, pretty much anyone can learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of competence. But that doesn't mean that it's easy to become a good musician, or to reach a standard that's high enough for a music major.

Come to think of it, you could say the same thing about math (at least at the undergraduate level). Solving differential equations is largely about learning a certain set of techniques and practicing them.

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#67

Post by hga »

elblanco wrote: post #55
Locke1689 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least at my school, there was an informal hierarchy of undergrad majors that indicated relative hardness (and therefore respect): Math > Physics > EE/Engineering > Computer Engineering > Computer Science > Software Engineering > Information Systems > Biology > all soft sciences like poly sci and intl relations > Art > Criminal Justice. Former physics minor: your hierarchy is useless. Advanced classical mechanics (…

I'm surprised classical mechanics would be the weed out course. I found discrete mathematics quite a bit harder than that. But then again I found field physics and quantum physics quite a bit harder than discrete mathematics (and relativistic physics relatively straightforward no pun intended). I could probably still derive most of the equations for classical mechanics if I really sat down and worked at it (it's been…

I'm sure it depends on the student; I sure remember my physics major girlfriend struggling with Lagrangian mechanics in her advanced classical mechanics course. 3 decades after doing basic classic mechanics I can see the utility of Hamiltonian mechanics but I'm not at all sure I'd want to tackle it (chemistry major here ... I wonder where we fit in the hierarchy).

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#68

Post by elblanco »

hga wrote: post #67
elblanco wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised classical mechanics would be the weed out course. I found discrete mathematics quite a bit harder than that. But then again I found field physics and quantum physics quite a bit harder than discrete mathematics (and relativistic physics relatively straightforward no pun intended). I could probably still derive most of the equations for classical mechanics if I really sat down and worked at it (it's been…

I'm sure it depends on the student; I sure remember my physics major girlfriend struggling with Lagrangian mechanics in her advanced classical mechanics course. 3 decades after doing basic classic mechanics I can see the utility of Hamiltonian mechanics but I'm not at all sure I'd want to tackle it (chemistry major here ... I wonder where we fit in the hierarchy).

I can't remember where chem majors fit in. I think it was higher than bio majors.

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#69

Post by elblanco »

foldr wrote: post #66
elblanco wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an artist, and I'm likely influenced by the perceptions (fair or not) of my alma mater. I have taken a few art courses for hobby and thought they were fun. I wasn't great, but probably nothing that practice and perseverance wouldn't overcome. But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard? Honest question, I really have no idea. To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice pr…

>But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard? I'm kind of baffled by this question. It's very difficult to create good art. If it is necessary to create good art in order to get an art major, then getting an art major will be correspondingly difficult. >To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice practice practice. You could say the same thing about learning a musical instrument.…

I don't think I said anything about being "good" at art. There are sadly a great many artists that aren't particularly good.

I don't know what the admission standards are to get into an undegrad art program, but at least at my alma mater, there are a great many pieces of junk littering the grounds that are apparently supposed to be showpiece works of the art students, apparently actually being "good" is not a prerequisite.

I'm just not sure what exactly is "hard" about getting an art degree, and I'm perfectly willing to say that's because of my own ignorance. Some of the art history classes might be toughish, perhaps learning specific techniques, or comparative art across cultures or something. But nothing more difficult than say, a technical writing class.

Re: Ask HN: So What Universities Are Good?

#70

Post by foldr »

elblanco wrote: post #69
foldr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard? I'm kind of baffled by this question. It's very difficult to create good art. If it is necessary to create good art in order to get an art major, then getting an art major will be correspondingly difficult. >To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice practice practice. You could say the same thing about learning a musical instrument.…

I don't think I said anything about being "good" at art. There are sadly a great many artists that aren't particularly good. I don't know what the admission standards are to get into an undegrad art program, but at least at my alma mater, there are a great many pieces of junk littering the grounds that are apparently supposed to be showpiece works of the art students, apparently actually being "good" is not a prerequ…

I think that it's hard to get an art degree because you need to be able to produce good art in order to get one.

Granted, you don't have to be very good, but then you don't have to be a very good physicist in order to get a physics degree.

>there are a great many pieces of junk littering the grounds that are apparently supposed to be showpiece works of the art students, apparently actually being "good" is not a prerequisite.

What if undergraduate work in math and physics were put on display? Would it necessarily be any more impressive? You don't expect undergraduates to be world-class physicists, and you can't really expect them to be world-class artists either.

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