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

MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

tech.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 281 posts

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#71

Post by 0xFFC »

bobby_9x wrote: post #56

The current system was created for a reason: because for most people, it works. I ran a language learning group for a couple of years and we tried many different styles of learning. With no structure, most people flounder. Unless you already learned the material and just need it for review, it really doesn't work well. The best was complete structure: tests, lesson plans, and homework. Most people are passive. They w…

>most people are passive

They are not naturally. But society designed by people like you turned them to being passive.

Imagine people start education from start in society like this university, everyone will be excited, because they are going to do what they like.

My problem with people like you is this.you are scaling your small experience to one of the fundamental things in human kind.

Maybe passiveness in your language learning group was other where? Maybe because people was forced to be there? Because of raise? Beacsue of earning respect? Or because of something deep in their unconscious part of their mind. But I am 100% sure if they were truly there, they would have been excited.

Things are simple.if you compare them with sex.almost every bode (healthy) excited about sex. Education should be like this.free.and whenever whatever you like.

Every person is/will be excited if he/she truely become free to do what they love.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#72

Post by tmptmp »

Pharaoh2 wrote: post #27
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #19

We don't need a "new" university system. We need to update our expectation about higher education and the work force. Let's start but dropping our mantra that everyone should go to college. Here's another: Maybe not everyone should even go to high school.

But everyone should go to high school. Hell, if you aren't going to college I do hope there is an extended high school. I don't care if its taxpayer sponsored but even high school is not enough to foster a critical thinking process. I picked that up somewhere between high school and end of college. Some people may be faster than me but that skill is really important. Either that, or you don't get to vote. Edit: The l…

Critical thinking is a must, besides we need some STEM knowledge also because you cannot do much of meaningful critical thinking without it, especially in today's world. So high school is definitely a must and college if you can.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#74

Post by kedean »

digikata wrote: post #69

It would be interesting to compose your own 'major' program out of smaller granularity subject modules. So e.g. if one were interested in majoring in robotics, you could assemble a study program of something like basic CS, basic MechE, basic EE, then stack some other intermediate level subjects modules on top... Controls, Visual processing, etc...

Interesting, but maybe not all that useful. The purpose of a major is to give others an implicit idea of what you studied. If I say I have a major in Robotics, then everyone can infer what that consisted of, even if it varies across universities (in which case that knowledge usually disseminates). What happens when I say I majored in robotics, but I failed to actually include anything on the hardware side of it and only really studied AI and control algorithms?

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#75

Post by Pharaoh2 »

NovaS1X wrote: post #63
Pharaoh2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But everyone should go to high school. Hell, if you aren't going to college I do hope there is an extended high school. I don't care if its taxpayer sponsored but even high school is not enough to foster a critical thinking process. I picked that up somewhere between high school and end of college. Some people may be faster than me but that skill is really important. Either that, or you don't get to vote. Edit: The l…

I didn't finish high school nor did I go to college or university. I'm now a systems engineer. Should I not be able to vote?

Did you develop an ability to think critically? Can you rationalize your position? Congratulations, you can do well on your own and you are not a liability. But you are also in the minority, I envy your the intelligence and will to learn you were born with, but not everyone has that.

Most discussion about college not being important is about the fact that we don't use anything we learned in our majors after college, but your major is hardly the important thing to learn in college.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#76

Post by eli_gottlieb »

gravypod wrote: post #7
skizm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it probably makes it more acceptable to the "everyone needs to go to college" crowd. Trade schools have been around for a while, but for some reason people think you need a "university degree" to get anywhere. I assume they are trying to bridge that mental gap by using similar language to that of traditional colleges / universities. Also "trade schools" and / or specialty schools rarely have the same social…

Honestly, I wish there were major respected trade schools that taught CS/Software Engineering/IT/IS. The university environment, in my opinion, is adverse to the development of good CS knowledge. Most of us on here, I'd say, have learned through trying and experimentation and that is why we are fairly good at what we proclaim to do. University doesn't foster that kind of understanding. I also hate that currently I ne…

Five physics classes? Really? So... what subjects are those?

Because you should definitely be taking at least a little physics and quite a lot of math.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#77

Post by such_a_casual »

Pharaoh2 wrote: post #67
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the only environment people can learn these skills is sitting at a desk for extended periods of time?

I don't know what you did in your college, but I wasn't sitting at my desk for extended period of time.

Well in most highschools and universities children/people sit for hours at a time behind desks while someone talks.

Did you stand for your lectures? Did you not have lectures? Is 6 hours a day not an extended period of time?

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#78

Post by tmptmp »

0xFFC wrote: post #71
bobby_9x wrote: post #56

The current system was created for a reason: because for most people, it works. I ran a language learning group for a couple of years and we tried many different styles of learning. With no structure, most people flounder. Unless you already learned the material and just need it for review, it really doesn't work well. The best was complete structure: tests, lesson plans, and homework. Most people are passive. They w…

>most people are passive They are not naturally. But society designed by people like you turned them to being passive. Imagine people start education from start in society like this university, everyone will be excited, because they are going to do what they like . My problem with people like you is this.you are scaling your small experience to one of the fundamental things in human kind. Maybe passiveness in your la…

>>Imagine people start education from start in society like this university, everyone will be excited, because they are going to do what they like.

Anybody and their grandmom may be excited to do what they like; it takes education to learn to do something even if you don't necessarily like it. What he/she seems to be saying by "structured-ness" may have to do with this. Nature forces you to hunt for food, else I am happy to just keep on pondering and doing philosophy because I like it.

Re: MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms”

#80

Post by Pharaoh2 »

such_a_casual wrote: post #70
Pharaoh2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But everyone should go to high school. Hell, if you aren't going to college I do hope there is an extended high school. I don't care if its taxpayer sponsored but even high school is not enough to foster a critical thinking process. I picked that up somewhere between high school and end of college. Some people may be faster than me but that skill is really important. Either that, or you don't get to vote. Edit: The l…

>Either that, or you don't get to vote. What? Graduating from school (highschool or university) is about learning how to follow directions and play the game. To say that a degree somehow guarantees that a person knows how to think critically is ludicrous. But you're not even making such a modest claim, you're actually claiming that it is the only way to assure people can think critically (even though it's not even a…

I have a place for you that your might really like, https://www.reddit.com/r/topmindsofreddit

Go there and be happy.

The important thing in high school and college wasn't what I learned in the classroom, although some of it does help me in life. The important this was what I learned in that environment with my peers.

I don't know how bad your college was, but I did go to a pretty good college in my country. It might not compare to ivy league colleges, but it taught me important life lessons none the less. My opinions are biased by my college experience but it sure goes to show that college can be great and not completely useless and a lot of people like to claim.

Post reply on HN