Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t • Hacker News Board

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#71

Post by jackmaney » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #6

Guess what, when you insist on doing only useless work, people start to think your work is useless. Humanities are incredibly important. I'd kill for somebody to help me communicate better at my undergrad, or understand people better, or any deep understanding of politics. Was any of that available? Of course not. There were only boring lessons, full of useless bullshit with professors claiming even objectively false…

> Now the writing is on the wall, humanities "uselessness" is almost unanimous. That's a shame, but maybe that causes things to change for once.

The wrong perception of humanities being useless is so embedded into today's culture that it would take a cultural change to fix it. And even changing the culture within a university is prettymuch an impossible task for one person.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#72

Post by jackmaney » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 7:14 PM UTC

bbayles wrote: post #3

This article is OK overall, but I could do without the "I am so brave for exposing this" trope at the beginning. The author presents some new insights, but complaining about the state universities isn't exactly original.

The author is a non-tenure track faculty member. Expressing his criticism of his university--not to mention a whole class of similar universities--is taking an enormous risk, as he could be fired (aka his contract won't be renewed) for any reason.

He was even threatened with just that for expressing his complaints in a colloquium:

    I tried to illustrate this old-style understanding for colleagues and 
    administrators at a colloquium at my university a couple of years ago 
    by offering a pictorial representation of the university as I thought 
    it should be. First I drew a very large building named “Students,” 
    then another of comparable size named “Professors,” then a still 
    larger one named “Library,” and finally a tiny shed well off to the 
    side named “Administration.” I wasn’t attempting to insult 
    anyone by this, but simply to make a serious point in a mildly 
    amusing way. In the event, my meaning was not lost on one 
    administrator, who, noting the disparity in proportions and considering 
    it necessary to match wits with me, suggested that come time for the 
    renewal of my contract, I would not be found in any one of my 
    fictitious university buildings. How is that for real university 
    debate? Suggest a deficiency in university governance and it’s a 
    pair of cement galoshes for you.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#73

Post by cableshaft » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #50

cableshaft wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was too smart for the pace of learning at my public junior and high school (not too smart for college, but that's another story), and regularly either doodled, wrote stories or poetry, or programmed simple text-based games in TI-BASIC on my calculator in order to get through my classes, while looking up periodically to make sure I was still following everything they said. And this was during the 1990's that I was i…

No you didn't do it at the same time. You did learning at a higher pace than the average pace (which is the pace at which the teacher will cover material), and then did not learn for the remainder of the time. That's completely different from doing things simultaneously, i.e. at the same time.

In some cases that was definitely true, perhaps most cases, but there were several times when I was being taught brand new material and was coding while I was listening to the teacher. In math class especially there was almost never a moment when I wasn't doing some form of programming during the class, since I could get away with having my calculator out the whole time.

This was TI-BASIC, though. I mean, it didn't get much more complicated than "PRINT", "INPUT", "IF THEN ELSE", "FOR", and "GOTO LABEL". I wasn't trying to figure out how to integrate a horribly documented third party API or anything.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#74

Post by jackmaney » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

The author and I are in very different fields, but this article echoes a lot of the reasons why I left my tenure track position and ultimately ended up in industry.

The final nail in the coffin was an email sent out by some middle-administrator schmuck to all of the faculty, encouraging us to think over the winter break about how to "provide excellent customer service" to our students (or some such horse shit...this was several years ago, so I don't remember the exact words).

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#75

Post by Retric » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #70

I was expecting the worst judging from the comments here, but it's actually an excellent essay (or article, or whatever you want to call it). I personally agree. University should be more about learning and becoming better thinkers than simply learning a few facts and getting a piece of paper. Pretty much none of the students I interact with care about 'learning', or any form of critical thinking. They want the profs…

IMO, the internet has changed who speaks for the masses. It used to take real effort to speak out. So, you generally only hear from people who do stuff. Now days speaking is easy, it's getting people to pay attention that's hard. And what most speaks to people are simple messages about simple problems. Sadly, this means it's simple messages from whiners that drones out everyone else.

There are still plenty of builders, protesters, and politicians, but it's just the drone of first world problems silences them.

PS: As to learners, you don't need to speak to your professors if you want to learn something. So, professors are going to hear more from people about there grades than the actual subject.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#76

Post by cableshaft » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #59

cableshaft wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was too smart for the pace of learning at my public junior and high school (not too smart for college, but that's another story), and regularly either doodled, wrote stories or poetry, or programmed simple text-based games in TI-BASIC on my calculator in order to get through my classes, while looking up periodically to make sure I was still following everything they said. And this was during the 1990's that I was i…

That's just you being ahead of the curve. Distractions mean you aren't at your best either way.

That's kind of my point. I didn't need to be "at my best" at those times. When I really need to figure something out at work, I do my best to eliminate distractions as much as possible so I can be "at my best" (I work in an open office). But even that's not needed 100% of the time.

Sometimes you're just doing grunt work that needs to get done, sometimes you're doing something you've done thirty times before. But sometimes you're figuring out one of the trickiest interlocking puzzle you've ever come across, and that's when I need to be at my best.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#77

Post by sandworm101 » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 7:48 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #48

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my impression as well. I love how, in one anecdote, he talks about how students "don't read" and puts the example that given they know they can get a B without the book, don't bother; some how this is the students' fault. Just the selective blindness to it all, how can anyone be surprised that given no external nor internal motivation any human being is going to be arsed to go out of their way to do things.…

Huh. 18 out of 230 students bought the text they were studying. That sounds like statistics. 'C' grades for what used to be failing exams - more data. And rising test scores? In what universe is that happening? These are 2nd-tier liberal arts colleges at issue, not Stanford. Tool belt? Its nonsense to imagine googling a subject is as effective as learning it. That's twaddle, and any student who skates over their lack…

>> The paper is not the point. Producing a likely-looking one is not the point. Actually knowing the subject is the point.

Tell that to the people handing out the grades/scholarships/acceptance letters. Students today see assignments as hurdles, not opportunities for learning. At school today the first and most relevant question is always "But will this be on the exam?" If no, then the activity is dismissed as a waste of time.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#78

Post by kaitai » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 7:53 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #70

I was expecting the worst judging from the comments here, but it's actually an excellent essay (or article, or whatever you want to call it). I personally agree. University should be more about learning and becoming better thinkers than simply learning a few facts and getting a piece of paper. Pretty much none of the students I interact with care about 'learning', or any form of critical thinking. They want the profs…

A lot of students don't care about critical thinking, but I think that really underestimates these students. What do we offer them, after all?

All I had to do was advertise some research opportunities and 10+ students were interested in doing work for no pay and no credit outside of class. Sure, they have no idea what they're doing -- but they know they want to be doing something interesting, and they took the initiative to follow up with me. What is so special about my students? They're pretty career focused, and not in a "learning-for-learning's-sake" kind of field. And yet they want to use what they learn in class to do meaningful analysis on extracurricular topics.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#79

Post by spdionis » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 8:17 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #61

spdionis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But often in university a good 80% of the material doesn't _really_ matter

What the hell are people majoring in that 80% of the material doesn't matter? I'm sitting here post-MSc wishing I'd done 80% more material in undergrad so I'd be properly qualified for the stuff I want to do!

Computer Science. 80% of the material in each course is useless (except maths courses and a couple theoretical ones). The rest 20% can be learned in a couple of afternoons. If you're American YMMV tho.

Re: Everything You Need to Know About Your Son and Daughter’s University but Don’t

#80

Post by superuser2 » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 8:20 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #70

I was expecting the worst judging from the comments here, but it's actually an excellent essay (or article, or whatever you want to call it). I personally agree. University should be more about learning and becoming better thinkers than simply learning a few facts and getting a piece of paper. Pretty much none of the students I interact with care about 'learning', or any form of critical thinking. They want the profs…

This is a matter of institutional culture. You'll find it in schools that are country clubs or low-cost mass-appeal credential factories. You won't find it so much in private schools with reputations for nerdiness and difficulty.