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Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

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Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#321

Post by rockinghigh »

icelancer wrote: post #273
shahbaby wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy should not be down voted. For better or worse, College is the new high-school. Of course a degree in of itself won't get you far but it's an easy filter that many companies use to quickly weed out candidates. There are also other opportunities inside college (internships, friends, learning difficult concepts) that you realistically aren't going to find outside. The value of a College degree depend heavily on…

>The value of a College degree depend heavily on how the individual leverages it but it's an important thing to have. Without what are you left with? Being a software developer with an impressive Github and set of independent work, the likes of which will impress the vast majority of good tech companies that need productivity and not papers to hang on a wall? People that think that undergraduate degrees pass a "filte…

I also hire engineers and don't care about education. However, what you call networking is often bootstrapped by education and previous work experience. Very few people have "an impressive Github" out of high school that will actually impress good tech companies. However, if you have a bachelor from an average university, you will at least get some phone interviews.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#322

Post by linksnapzz »

omegaworks wrote: post #73
pieterk wrote: post #30

Why should we believe that their critical thinking evaluation is accurate?

The first critical comment! A lot of anti-college head-nodding in the commentary here. It's not really that unexpected from a community that goes ga-ga over stunts like this[0]. The headline wreaks of Rupert Murdochian anti-intellectual pandering. A great claim requires great proof, and when it's below the fold... what can ya do? 0. https://venturebeat.com/2011/11/21/peter-thiel-fellowship/

Of course, we all agree that criticizing the efficacy of the Higher Ed. academic-bureaucratic axis is de facto anti-intellectual.

Where else but Higher Ed. would we find intellectuals?!

I am also unclear that the headline "wreaks" anything.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#323

Post by thebspatrol »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #162
thebspatrol wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually be really interested in knowing what percentage of people read opposing rhetoric. I easily spend far more time listening to and reading right-leaning rhetoric, despite being left leaning. I already know "my side". Why would I want to live in an echo chamber?

Have you ever considered that maybe both the big "left" and "right" media is itself an echo chamber?

I find that hard to believe. The American right wing and the general western left wing are MILES apart. I think the fact that there are people who unironically think that center-right Hillary Clinton is a "communist" is evidence enough of that.

I mean I still live within the constraints of reality, and generally only read politics which are widely accepted. I think I'm getting a fairly broad spread by reading opinions that range from "deconstruction of class" to "this is a Christian country".

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#324

Post by thebspatrol »

justin66 wrote: post #217
thebspatrol wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually be really interested in knowing what percentage of people read opposing rhetoric. I easily spend far more time listening to and reading right-leaning rhetoric, despite being left leaning. I already know "my side". Why would I want to live in an echo chamber?

> I'd actually be really interested in knowing what percentage of people read opposing rhetoric. It depends what you mean by "opposing" - different sides in a power struggle or genuinely different ideas? I think the number of people who read both WAPO, NY Times and WSJ (even National Review and Reason) is probably quite high, now more than ever thanks to the internet. They'll be familiar with the different sides in t…

Is understanding views that range from "deconstruction of class" to "this is a Christian country" not enough?

The void between the american right and the general western left is HUGE, to the extent that you will have american right wingers calling Hillary Clinton a communist, despite her being by all measures right leaning in any other western country. I don't feel like I'd be doing myself any value in reading extreme fringe politics, since I can read widely applicable politics that are so eclectic. And I do read green and libertarian rhetoric.

I think reading global rhetoric is really useful, especially if you live in a country that positions itself as the center of the universe, but I just don't see the use in digging up hyper-extreme ideology that no one participates in and will literally never see the light of day in my lifetime.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#325

Post by justin66 »

thebspatrol wrote: post #324
justin66 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd actually be really interested in knowing what percentage of people read opposing rhetoric. It depends what you mean by "opposing" - different sides in a power struggle or genuinely different ideas? I think the number of people who read both WAPO, NY Times and WSJ (even National Review and Reason) is probably quite high, now more than ever thanks to the internet. They'll be familiar with the different sides in t…

Is understanding views that range from "deconstruction of class" to "this is a Christian country" not enough? The void between the american right and the general western left is HUGE, to the extent that you will have american right wingers calling Hillary Clinton a communist, despite her being by all measures right leaning in any other western country. I don't feel like I'd be doing myself any value in reading extrem…

I don't hugely disagree, but the person you were responding to was holding up his daily reading of WAPO and Fox News as being representative of real "critical thinking," hence my wanting you to define your terms.

> The void between the american right and the general western left is HUGE

Of course, there's a gap between the American left and the "general western left" as well. In many ways in America we effectively have a center-right party and a far-right party which harbors substantial fringe elements. There is not really much of an American left by any conventional measure. (America's left wing party just ran a hawkish supporter of the death penalty whose husband "reformed" welfare)

> I just don't see the use in digging up hyper-extreme ideology that no one participates in and will literally never see the light of day in my lifetime.

If you don't think the ideas have intrinsic importance that's fair. On the other hand, it appears to go hand in hand with an American culture wherein people don't even realize that Communism and Socialism both used to be a living, active thing in their country. I don't think you can be a "critical thinker" and just ignore all that history and context, but at the same time... yeah, I'm not seeking out the Socialist's newspapers, or whatever.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#326

Post by pmarreck »

monksy wrote: post #203
pmarreck wrote: post #148

See: the last election cycle Also: As someone who does have critical-thinking skills (perhaps taught by my Cornell Psych major), it's extremely disheartening to see bad thinking pretty much everywhere

The last election cycle and the conservative party is not reflective on intelligence. (Granted the party has had and currently has vocal people who are 1. aren't well educated and 2. are incredibly intolerant 3. a mixture of both) Politics relies on playing on people's confirmation biases and it works. Trump is not the only one who did that. Politicians won't debate fact because they can be wrong, and also they can b…

As the other reply stated, I did not mention conservatism at all, you read that into my comment somehow though, which is itself interesting.

I should relay my bias, however meaningful or meaningless, that I am still shocked that the candidate who scored the lowest of all in factual accuracy according to all the factchecker sites (note: not "lying" as the left often claims, which requires intent; but simply not being factually-accurate) is now our President.

I did see a lack of critical thinking on both sides of the aisle, though.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#327

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

pas wrote: post #315
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I wonder about the nature of the jobs that have a requirement for critical thinking: these might be analysts, or managerial posts, how prevalent is this requirement?

I think it's more dependent on the type of organization and sector. So if you are in a fast moving sector, you need agile self-aware people. They will think critically about the problems, uncover their basic assumptions, try to challenge them, and so on. It helps if you have open-ended, think outside the box, oh wait, we don't even have a box ... problems. But it doesn't help if you want to cook your books and your a…

Thank you for the answer.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#328

Post by NotSammyHagar »

Animats wrote: post #34
jseliger wrote: post #2

I'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…

"Paying for the party" is amusing. "Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities" covers much the same material. The importance of drinking didn't happen by accident. The alcohol industry promoted it heavily.[1] Two out of five students in the colleges studied are now binge drinkers. I got critical thinking early because I was brought up by a lawyer. There were always briefs around the house, and I could read the briefs fo…

You have an interesting background. But I think the left doesn't read the wallstreet journal because it's paywalled (ha, just kidding). Because the WSJ editorial page is batshit insane, with people like Peggy Noonan writing about conversations with her taxi driver as illuminating her views of the working class, and endless petty complaints about the evils of the global warming conspiracy. There is a reasonable and intelligent different world view than the liberal one of course, but don't go to the wsj looking for it.
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