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

tech.mit.edu

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

#131

Post by st3v3r »

digikata wrote: post #93
kedean wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

A company hiring someone out of this new kind of university would look at projects the student worked on as well as their subject modules. But large projects can get fuzzy as to what the specific contributions might be, and the subject modules then give you an idea of that candidates background skill spread. So if the company were looking for someone in robotics for more of the software side, then it would be apparen…

Unless it becomes the norm, what's more likely is that they'd just ignore people from that university unless they had a good reason not to.

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

#132

Post by Jach »

mietek wrote: post #96
david927 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising that it's taking so long. The wealthiest have always found ways to preserve their wealth and Ivy League institutions have played a role in that. Take some smart people, a lot of people that are good at fitting the mold that looks best, mix your rich kids in there and call the paint one color. Remember, George W. Bush (all politics aside, just looking at him in terms of intellectual prowess) graduated…

What do you really know about George W. Bush? http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/

Love that piece. It's worth pointing out also that Keith was there only for the final year of office, rather than near the beginning, which is one of the best pieces of anecdata against the post-1994 ongoing dementia theory (which a priori I still think is more likely than the "playing dumb" theory). There is of course other anecdata on Bush not being as intelligent as Keith claims, but the big issue that should make most people have low confidence in either extreme is it's hard for people to form an accurate mental model of the President. The 4th image from http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/04/08/the-essence-of-peopling... highlights the issue.

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

#133

Post by ceejayoz »

shawndumas wrote: post #106
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George W Bush plays much dumber than he is. It's hard to get an unbiased opinion on the matter since it can be used to score political points, but he definitely has >100 IQ.

I'll just leave this here: "George W. Bush, Republican, 1946–present, 2001–2009, IQ:138.5" --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax#IQ_e...

I think GWB is probably pretty intelligent, but this is basically psychic "remote sensing" applied to IQ testing. Is there any evidence this technique of estimating IQs works?

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

#134

Post by st3v3r »

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 can't say I've ever been convinced that those who rant against school are "really, really smart". Mostly they just sound like people who are insecure in their choices.

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

#135

Post by gravypod »

solipsism wrote: post #127
gravypod wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> theory of computation, recursion theory and type theory and PL, compilers, complexity theory and algorithms, advanced data structures, concurrency and distributed systems etc All of those are fairly basic topics that most people can pick up in an afternoon or two. These are all things that anyone who has been programming, reading, and interacting in the field of computer science understand. I could understand someo…

> theory of computation, recursion theory and type theory and PL, compilers, complexity theory and algorithms, advanced data structures, concurrency and distributed systems etc All of those are fairly basic topics that most people can pick up in an afternoon or two. ... I think these are fairly rational claims that I am making Um... no. Not fairly rational claims at all.

When I get into my classes at my university I get the textbook, read into the book a little and say "ok, I remember learning about this from X, Y, and Z project I've worked on".

I then go on to goof off in every class, as I am doing right this moment.

Nothing I have learned is of substance in my algorithms, computer science, or programming classes that I did not already know before I enrolled. I'm bored, and I want to learn something new.

I'm holding out for some 300 & 400 level courses, but from what I hear the courses I am looking forward to on operating systems is nothing more than "This is how you open a file in C" and the data structures classes I look forward to is basically "this is how you define a tree and how you traverse a tree".

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

#136

Post by SilasX »

legutierr wrote: post #5
gravypod wrote: post #4

The only point of a modern day university is that they are (a) exclusive, and (b) "guarantee" that students "know" what they are "taught". That's at least what people who hire think. I remember someone saying "It wouldn't matter if MIT only taught basket weaving as long as they still had such a thorough selection process". This holds true here. People only care about the pedigree of your degree, it's substance comes…

By this reasoning, you should put a list of the universities you were admitted to on your resume, not the university that you actually attended. Under these terms, what's the difference between going to Harvard for a couple of semesters and dropping out, and getting admitted to Harvard but deciding to attend Dartmouth instead?

Some people do that, for exactly that reason, although it comes off sometimes as a bit cringey.

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

#137

Post by obsurveyor »

st3v3r wrote: post #129
fao_ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With no structure, most people flounder. I find the opposite -- it is impossible for me to get any kind of complex learning done while I am on a structured course. It's telling that I learned more in three weeks of being ill and choosing to passively read books on mathematics (While coughing my guts up, of course), than I did actively participating in a course. (The only reason I am participating in the course is b…

So they give their experiences with many, many students that they've taught over the years, and you say it's not true because you're different?

The example used is flawed to begin with, in my opinion. Some kind of structure is almost required to learn a language in a reasonable amount of time, assuming there is no immediate access to full immersion 24/7.

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

#138

Post by gravypod »

jimmaswell wrote: post #107
gravypod wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were two medical schools, one a state funded community medical school and the other a big name like John Hopkins, what school would you want your doctor to have attended? Even if you were assured that they both teach the same material, you would want the Coca-Cola over the Pepsi.

I know what you mean but the soda analogy doesn't really make sense to me. How is Coca-Cola more "prestigious" or something than Pepsi?

I use it to describe the "name brand" that everyone wants although the two are essentially the same.

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

#139

Post by verst »

ucsdrake wrote: post #61
dhimes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"guarantee" that students "know" what they are "taught" That used to be the case, but now corporations require you to pass their own exam before they hire you. Let that sink in a moment. No longer are the universities taken at their word about their product. For some of you it has never been any different, but this change came about more or less when I was teaching at university/college. Some of us saw this as a quit…

> That used to be the case, but now corporations require you to pass their own exam before they hire you. You mean an ... interview?! Ok, that was purposely obtuse, but I don't see how an extension of a company's interview process (ensuring, through their own testing, that candidates meet the proper qualifications without school bias) is a bad thing. Or how it signals an 'inevitable disruption of modern higher ed'. W…

I think we are still quite a long way away from removing the school bias.

In my experience, the large tech companies actively recruit from select few universities (and prefer applicants from those universities). The resume screeners / sourcers are biased to look for top schools also. They often don't want to risk spending time on a candidate from a school with which they are not familiar.

Most qualified applicants never have the opportunity to prove their skills in a phone screen (e.g. coding interview). The school bias continues to exist at the resume screening stage.

It's not that different among startups (especially YC alumni).

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

#140

Post by mindcrime »

gravypod wrote: post #42
paulojreis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not U.S. based, so I don't have a total understanding of the whole "prestigious" university vs. community college debate. However, I find it hard to believe that they teach basically the same thing. I'd believe that their curricula are essentially the same, but that's what's "on paper", so to speak. Even if they're both accredited, wouldn't better faculty lead to better teaching? Or better research programs and p…

I know this is more anecdotal, but I don't see that at least where I attend. My school allows transfer credit from all of the neighboring community college. I also have friends who attended my same high school who are attending community collage. We have traded notes on classes and it seems like we do learn the same material. The only difference is that my school packs every class with 20+ people while their school h…

I've found that, for some classes, you may get a better experience at a community college than at a "real" university, just due to class size and personal attention from the instructors. CC's tend to have smaller classes, and teachers who aren't so swamped with students (and research) and can therefore spend more time helping the students.

This may not be universally true, but it's something I've observed.

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