Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
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Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#2I've taught college. This study is wildly unsurprising. I've written about this in various places (e.g. https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz...), but most colleges have evolved majors and paths that are designed to move students through the system, collect their tuition money, and graduate them.
In re-reading the previous sentence, I think I sound opposed to this. I am a little bit, maybe, but mostly I'm opposed to the way no one explicitly tells this to students. A lot of the brighter or better prepared ones figure it out, but many, it seems, never do.
Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#3I've taught college. This study is wildly unsurprising. I've written about this in various places (e.g. https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz... ), but most colleges have evolved majors and paths that are designed to move students through the system, collect their tuition money, and graduate them. In re-reading the previous sentence, I think I sound opposed to this. I am a little bit, maybe, bu…
I was a part-time college instructor and agree. Some of the smarter students IMO were the homeless, poor, and others who paid little to nothing. I taught a homeless ex-Stanford professor who was well known in the community and he was very sharp. The rest were mostly under no illusions about what they were there to do: Get a degree or certificate and move along. It doesn't take much critical thinking to recognize a stepping stone like college for its most practical applications: Degree printer and networking system.
I made many good friends of students who were critical thinkers. I also saw really sharp critical thinkers get absolutely torpedoed by life events and poor decisionmaking; these were often the 4.0 high school students who thought they could cruise. It was sad to have to demolish their record.
I wish I could read TFA, as I wonder how my experience squares with the point of the article.
Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#4I went to Boston University for undergrad. When I went, tuition and board were 46k, which I thought was absurd. Fast forward a decade and it's 70k. At this rate, in less than 10 years it will be 100k per year. How does any of this make sense?!?!?!?
Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#5I've taught college. This study is wildly unsurprising. I've written about this in various places (e.g. https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz... ), but most colleges have evolved majors and paths that are designed to move students through the system, collect their tuition money, and graduate them. In re-reading the previous sentence, I think I sound opposed to this. I am a little bit, maybe, bu…
Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#6I've taught college. This study is wildly unsurprising. I've written about this in various places (e.g. https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz... ), but most colleges have evolved majors and paths that are designed to move students through the system, collect their tuition money, and graduate them. In re-reading the previous sentence, I think I sound opposed to this. I am a little bit, maybe, bu…
Totally agree. It took me until several years out of school to realize that learning to think should have been a primary focus of university.
25 years on I am realizing that although it got me work and very decent pay I probably would have been much better off if the entire focus of university had been:
1. Learning how to think
2. Learning how to learn
Really the focus of earlier schooling probably should have been:
1. Learning how to read with good comprehension
2. Learning how to write so that others can understand me
3. Math so that I could do basic calculations required for everyday life.
Everything else is gravy.
Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#7I went to Boston University for undergrad. When I went, tuition and board were 46k, which I thought was absurd. Fast forward a decade and it's 70k. At this rate, in less than 10 years it will be 100k per year. How does any of this make sense?!?!?!?
One way it might make sense is in how much return you get for it over the rest of the years of your life. That's one "problem" with education; the payoff is very much later than the goods are delivered, and the goods are fairly expensive.
Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#8I went to Boston University for undergrad. When I went, tuition and board were 46k, which I thought was absurd. Fast forward a decade and it's 70k. At this rate, in less than 10 years it will be 100k per year. How does any of this make sense?!?!?!?
I remember looking up a list of the cost of tuition + room of colleges somewhere and there were at least 100 colleges that were > $55,000.
Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#9[deleted]
Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
#10I've taught college. This study is wildly unsurprising. I've written about this in various places (e.g. https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-eliz... ), but most colleges have evolved majors and paths that are designed to move students through the system, collect their tuition money, and graduate them. In re-reading the previous sentence, I think I sound opposed to this. I am a little bit, maybe, bu…
I'm a student and I agree. I'm enrolled in 3 classes right now that will have little to no impact on my future career. I am personally motivated to learn more about topics that interest me, and I believe that colleges should be more focused on helping kids work towards something that they want to do, and not have them taking extraneous classes just for the sake of it.