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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”

#211

Post by sytelus »

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…

This is not entirely true. Institutes such as MIT also has much much harder class work. One of the premises of being so selective is to make sure students are capable of getting through grueling coursework that will be required of them. So the MIT graduates are very well "stress tested" in addition to have been very selectively chosen.

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

#212

Post by melted »

crpatino wrote: post #207
nether wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different from existing internships? Or are you suggesting that they be made graduation requirements?

Yes, part of it should be that the student gets academic credits that count towards graduation. Even establishing minimum and maximum quotas of which credits come from apprenticeships is healthy with moderation. But a bigger part of it is that the University must provide for oversight so that the actual tasks assigned to the students is relevant to their academic goals, and that the complexity of the tasks increases…

I would argue even if they do rent "slave labor", if the tasks are appropriate to the chosen specialization, and the cost to the student is lower overall (ideally zero for tuition), it'd be an improvement over the status quo.

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

#213

Post by eli_gottlieb »

gravypod wrote: post #177
selimthegrim wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd pass on the nuclear physics, biophysics is where it's at these days. (Now if you meant particle physics you might have a point). But nuclear physics itself is kind of considered as a field whose heyday is past.

Or I can take thermodynamics hate my life. I have a few options, I just don't like many of them.

Spoilers: if you learn statistical thermodynamics, machine learning is easy.

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

#214

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

cholantesh wrote: post #191
finid wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll have to give me good reasons to. No, downvoting is not one.

Was not the linked article sufficient?

It's revisionist history.

Bush is clearly not as dumb as he was caricatured. But he certainly couldn't lead in any way on his own without daddy's entourage telling him what to do.

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

#215

Post by totalrobe »

melted wrote: post #185
kaishiro wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

In SDLC terms, college is an education delivered via the waterfall method whereas the workplace requires a continuing agile process.

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

#216

Post by cmurf »

tzs wrote: post #167
cmurf wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well 100 is average so you're pretty much riding the top of the bell curve with this comment. But then, there are house plants that decided not to invade Iraq and Afghanistan...

Why are you lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together? Those were vastly different situations. Note to down voters: do some research. First of all, there was widespread support for invading Afghanistan in both the US (over 90%) and in Afghanistan (also in the 90% range). This was not the case for Iraq. Second, Iraq was based on questionable intelligence that there might be things going on there that could potentially lea…

Well you can make a low intelligence claim for Afghanistan because of how many others have tried that in the past and failed miserably. But history and constitutions are just pieces of paper, he wanted to do what he wanted to do because he wanted to do it, even though neither country attacked the U.S. and therefore attacking both of them was a U.N. Charter violation, which we are of course signatories to. So I prefer suggesting he was low brain cell count rather than suggesting he's malevolent, but those are the binary options in my world view when it comes to George, and anyone else who voted for either one of those invasions.

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

#217

Post by melted »

totalrobe wrote: post #215
melted wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

In SDLC terms, college is an education delivered via the waterfall method whereas the workplace requires a continuing agile process.

Not really. I would argue that today college is little more than a weeding out process that weeds out far too many. You sit in classes and solve bullshit problems with known answers that will have very little bearing on the realities of your professional life once you graduate. For the most part people go to college to have a piece of paper that says they went to college and had enough stamina to tolerate this bullshit and not drop out.

What we should be cultivating instead is the capacity for self-directed learning and deep motivation.

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

#218

Post by david927 »

cholantesh wrote: post #191
finid wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll have to give me good reasons to. No, downvoting is not one.

Was not the linked article sufficient?

The linked article was fluff piece by a friend of his.

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

#219

Post by samstave »

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…

Startup idea #4096

---

A YC apprenticeship program that combines internships with YC companies with trade classes from various resources including techshop, crucible, and others.

There are so many creative people in the world that simply need mentors and resources.

The Bay Area can really provide all of this!

There are likely tens of resources I am glossing over, but if the YCcommunity is to prove that we can solve this issue, we have everything we need to do so and just need a leadership umbrella; YC, to prove it and the gumption !!

Who's willing (other than me, and I will dog food this!!)

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

#220

Post by tmptmp »

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…

>>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 you learn with.

Yes, the interest gets beaten out of many children due to bad schooling, but nowadays excessive usage of TV/internet/facebook/whatsapp/sports/entertainment are also equally or more responsible for that. That's where some kind of structuredness and discipline is required.

About choice - it would great if you get some of those choices - but life/Nature/society are not so kind. But one can try homeschooling. Homeschooling gives you a great deal of freedom to you as parents to offer a great deal of freedom to your kids as students in this respect. But beware of unschooling as it is not very helpful from education point of view as some amount of structuredness and discipline are a must to learn any non-trivial technical subject to a significant level of detail.

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