MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms” • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by kaishiro » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

melted wrote: post #159

I think what we need are apprenticeships. I.e. a prominent research group hires kids after the remedial first two years of traditional college curriculum (or something like it plus a couple of years in an entry level job), and has them work on the actual problems at hand, filling the knowledge gaps as needed. It is no longer possible to know much of anything, so we should specialize and diversify at the same time, me…

I could not possibly agree with you more, having basically lived through this. When I look at the current tuition rates for my alma mater, Northeastern University, it makes me cringe. However, the fact that the default experience at Northeastern requires a student to undergo multiple "co-ops", 6 month paid internships, is genuinely a smart thing in my mind.

By the time I had graduated, I had work experience in embedded systems, a criminal justice stats analysis lab, the Red Sox, and a counter terrorism research center in DC. And that's all well and good, but the most important thing I took from it was that it taught me very quickly which sectors I did not want to work in.

You often come out of high school with this idealized version of what it would be like to work in X field. To learn what that field is really like, and to learn if it's something you truly want to pursue, is a huge win in my mind for an undergraduate.

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

#182

Post by holografix » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 9:50 PM UTC

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…

Totally agree. He's basically saying: we have high IQ students. Hire them.

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

#183

Post by gravypod » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 9:58 PM UTC

mietek wrote: post #174

finid wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He spoke like a man who didn't know how to speak in public, not like someone who was ignorant or addled. His problem went beyond not knowing how to speak in public, which, by itself, is not a sign of not being intelligent. He was truly very dull, something he himself admitted to ("I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed"). Aside from that, if you passed through college, then through grad school and always referred to…

> He was truly very dull, something he himself admitted You may wish to rethink this.

What do you mean by this?

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

#184

Post by Pharaoh2 » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

such_a_casual wrote: post #77

Pharaoh2 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Honestly, 6 hours a day in high school is nothing. For most of us that is the best use of the time that we have in a day when we are in high school. But it does provide the required base that is needed in college for a majority of the population. Are you saying we should stop the whole system for the benefit of the 0.1% (3 sigma)?

In college lectures was from a minimum of 3 hours to maximum of 5 hours depending on how many credit you took in the semester. But the actual learning happened outside of those hours and once again lectures were important only to create the base, maybe even only to provide an introduction to the base.

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

#185

Post by melted » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 10:34 PM UTC

kaishiro wrote: post #181

melted wrote: post #159

I think what we need are apprenticeships. I.e. a prominent research group hires kids after the remedial first two years of traditional college curriculum (or something like it plus a couple of years in an entry level job), and has them work on the actual problems at hand, filling the knowledge gaps as needed. It is no longer possible to know much of anything, so we should specialize and diversify at the same time, me…

I could not possibly agree with you more, having basically lived through this. When I look at the current tuition rates for my alma mater, Northeastern University, it makes me cringe. However, the fact that the default experience at Northeastern requires a student to undergo multiple "co-ops", 6 month paid internships, is genuinely a smart thing in my mind. By the time I had graduated, I had work experience in embedd…

Another thing that could be helpful is not forcing kids to go to school when they're 18. They have no clue whatsoever what they want to do with their lives and by and large motivation to truly learn something is very much lacking. Or at least I lacked it. My MSc with honors is a feat of willpower more than anything else, I ended up using maybe 10% of the knowledge I acquired in those years. Now if my career started in some kind of an apprenticeship situation, you can bet I'd have plenty of motivation to master the field. That's more or less what happened after college, except it's completely backwards from what it should be, and it's extremely wasteful: I ended up learning (and then, of course, forgetting) a ton of not even remotely useful stuff in hopes that I'd need it when I actually have a proper job. Some might say this is well rounded education, but I'd rather do it by choice, and not arbitrarily. The meta point is, traditional education is really broken, and it has been for decades. It's good that someone has the guts to go against the flow and do even a modicum of rethinking. Academic community is extremely clique-y and conservative, so it takes non-trivial courage to pursue something like this.

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

#186

Post by brodawg » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 10:39 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #172

brodawg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, maybe if you listened in class you would realize the benefit of what they're trying to teach you. If you really think you can understand complexity theory, algorithms, and advanced data structures in "an afternoon or two", I think about 90% of it went right over your head.

I don't mean you can understand the full depth of each topic in an afternoon or two, I mean at a working level you could get an understanding of the topic.

I still disagree entirely. You can understand one or two basic algorithms in an afternoon.

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

#187

Post by crzwdjk » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

pragone wrote: post #22

Taek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, being at MIT has been much more valuable than my time at RPI (my alma mater). And that's because lots of cool, innovative, and intelligent people flock to MIT. When hosting an event, MIT is able to get the best speakers in the world to show up, because the speakers are excited to be at MIT. I've had conversations with people who would never have come all the way out to RPI because RPI just isn't as interestin…

To be fair, RPI is in Troy, NY, and MIT is in Cambridge/Boston, MA. Nonetheless, I agree with you. Location probably is a deciding factor in a minority of people who would rather go to MIT to talk than RPI.

And what do you think is the advantage of Cambridge over Troy? At least in part, it's the fact that it's where people who go to MIT live. And once they graduate from MIT, there are plenty of companies just across the street waiting for them, having located their offices in part for the convenient access to MIT. It's not clear that Cambridge would be at all the same without MIT and Harvard.

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

#188

Post by solipsism » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #135

solipsism wrote: post #127

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. ... 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 t…

Understanding the material from the lower level courses in whatever university you attend in an afternoon is not even remotely comparable to picking up any of those topics fully in an afternoon. Are you under the impression that after you've been through your 200-level algorithms course you've now exhausted the topic and have nothing left to learn?

If you haven't even taken 300 and 400 level courses, how would you know whether "the university environment... is adverse to the development of good CS knowledge"? If that's the case, you should probably drop out of school and save some money. Just start submitting some research papers now! Your lack of a PhD won't matter once you've shown everyone how fully you know each topic.

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

#189

Post by jbhatab » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 10:50 PM UTC

rndmize wrote: post #89

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 want a teacher to lead them and guide them through the learning process. Bull. Most people have any interest in learning beaten out of them by our crappy factory/prison like educational system. Because you know what's not conducive to learning? Having no choice as far as subjects; having no choice how long you spend on them; having no choice on who to learn from; having no choice who y…

I disagree. I think most people need structure. It may be from personal issues or life issues, but most people need that guidance.

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

#190

Post by bediger4000 » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 10:55 PM UTC

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/

If Bush is that smart, what does that tell us about his questionable decisions on other things? Why start a war in Iraq based on WMD's that weren't there, and a government that was not in league with Osama bin Laden? Why start dragnet surveillance? Why let the CIA torture people? Why do the ridiculous tax cuts at the same time we're spending big dollar on a war?

If Bush is that smart, he must have good motives for those things, or if not good motive, hidden motives.