Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

lareviewofbooks.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–116 of 116 posts

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

#111

Post by spdionis »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #105
spdionis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>80% of the material in each course is useless (except maths courses and a couple theoretical ones). Soooo what courses were you taking, in which the non -theoretical material was 80% useless? When I think about applied computer-science subjects, I think of operating systems, embedded programming, circuit design with FPGAs, networking, program optimization, compilers... all eminently useful subjects.

First thing that comes to mind is MFC. Also CLIPS, graphics, operating systems (the way it was taught anyway). Most part of the java courses too.

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

#112

Post by spdionis »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #107
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>80% of the material in each course is useless (except maths courses and a couple theoretical ones). Soooo what courses were you taking, in which the non -theoretical material was 80% useless? When I think about applied computer-science subjects, I think of operating systems, embedded programming, circuit design with FPGAs, networking, program optimization, compilers... all eminently useful subjects.

Also a lot of stuff you internalize better when you get your hands dirty in it. That OpenMPI class may not be very practical or relevant on the job market, but it can teach you quite a lot about the problems and approaches in the field of distributed computing.

OpenMPI classes were actually very interesting. Same with e.g. prolog. I didn't mean that kind of courses.

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

#113

Post by lazyant »

hbosch wrote: post #9

In all honesty this writer sounds utterly curmudgeonly. He writes passionately about what "real education" is, dispenses some good ol' Hard Facts About Life, and urges us all to put down those dang computer-devices and just learn ! This is classic finger-pointing, angsty whining. I'm sorry, but the conceit here flagrantly disregards modern reality. Learning is easier now than it's ever been. People don't need to give…

> Kids today can listen with one ear, read with one eye... Do their research with one tab and chat on Facebook with another

Multitasking is a myth, just check current literature (only book I remember now is http://www.amazon.com/The-Teenage-Brain-Neuroscientists-Adol... but there are others)

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

#114

Post by jqm »

lintiness wrote: post #13
cholantesh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably another boring humanities elective of dubious merit, being taught by someone whose adult life has been preoccupied with empty navel-gazing.

this, i think, is what he's addressing. if you don't see value in humanities or the arts, i'm afraid you're completely missing the point of being alive. a world run completely by engineers is no place i want to live.

I beg to differ. I'd love to live in a world run by engineers.

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

#115

Post by ArkyBeagle »

pnathan wrote: post #63

If this is news to you, dear HN reader, then you really haven't been paying attention to the discourse surrounding education in the last 30 years of the United States. I believe the big work to hit the popular mind initially was Bloom's Closing of the American Mind, which essentially says the same thing , but the disease was slightly less advanced then. As an interesting linguistic note: the liberal arts were conceiv…

Bloom's dread was of the Rolling Stones; now elder statesmen - Sir Mick Jagger, once arrested for soft drugs.

This reeks of his attempting to separate culture into low and high, and no, he shouldn't have to explain himself. Oh really?

Computer science has a long border with linguistics. Somewhere on the other side of that border is rhetoric - the Liberal Art - so computer science is a roundabout way there.

This completely ignores the two most significant intellectual innovations - that of Claude Shannon, which revolutionized physics itself and of Godel, who diagonalized logic itself ( at least the Peano calculus ). These represent towering intellectual achievements unlike any other in history.

Trying to map classical society onto modern society is an exercise in futility. Classicals were bloody, venal, voracious and cruel. Our engineers, whether they're called that or not, made the difference. We live after the Scots Enlightenment, in which Man was freed from a destiny as a draft animal with thumbs.

As an exposition of the phenomenon in the article, I much prefer "I Am Charlotte Simmons."

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

#116

Post by mooreds »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #91
mooreds wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loved the reference to 'Gorgias', which, incidentally, I read in my college days at a liberal arts school. Rhetoric isn't the path to truth, but it can sure help with power. Here it is online: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html Edit: added link to 'Gorgias'.

Finished reading. The text is cut short on this page, but even after reading what is there, I am left amazed. A few points (mind you, I haven't read anything from the classic besides what they managed to force me to ingest in school, which as you can imagine is not much): - Though I found the discussion overtly long (yay my non-existent attention span), it's surprisingly easy to read; I expected ancient Greek texts t…

Glad it was so helpful. Sorry about that shortened text.
Post reply on HN