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In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

theguardian.com

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Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#101

Post by jimmy1 »

kmonsen wrote: post #69
jimmy1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With risk of being deemed survivorship bias, I went to a community college for the first 2 years in the US at a whopping $698 a semester, got my associates in science which transferred to a prominent a state college and counted for my Gen Ed requirements in my Computer Science degree so I was able to jump straight into CS courses. With tuition assistance (everyone qualifies at a certain level, unless you are uber ric…

This is clearly the way to go, even private universities let you transfer some credits from community college and everyone with any care for their money should do this. The problem is that it is a bit hidden and young people get guided to do it the expensive way. It also makes almost zero difference at the end, no one will care if your electives comes from a community college if they care about your degree at all.

And honestly, my courses at the community college were much tougher but also much more rewarding than at university. It was almost as if the community college professors had a chip on their shoulder and had to prove they were "real" professors, while your university professors just cared about getting back to their research and were barely invested (most, not all). Just my observation.

In a country-side suburb here in my state, we have one of the (to my surprise) largest clusters of aerospace engineering companies (I believe over 20+) -- they receive over 80% of their candidates from the regional community college nearby. If you think about it it makes sense for the employer: they get to work with the college to basically create a curriculum that will ensure their future prospects have the highest chance of being the best workers for them.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#102

Post by Angostura »

astrodev wrote: post #79
Angostura wrote: post #7

There's also the issue of what has happened now that students have to pay through the nose for courses. They are now customers who expect high grades for their fees. This has certainly changed the dynamic with regard to rigorous marking in some areas

PhD selection committees don't give much weight to grades (did they ever?) and instead rely on letters of recommendation. The corporate world doesn't care what one has gained from their degree apart from the social skills which universities don't grade for anyway. So who needs the grades to be rigorous?

> The corporate world doesn't care what one has gained from their degree apart from the social skills

As someone who interviews people for jobs - nonsense.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#103

Post by purple-again »

TheForumTroll wrote: post #70
pjc50 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I have no idea what you two are talking about. Could you enlighten those of us that don't know?

Some guy derailed the conversation for no reason. Jonathan Haidt is far from right wing propaganda (though he is heavily focused on morality and religion like many D's).

Below is a quick dirty quote from Wikipedia.

In chapter 8 of The Righteous Mind, Haidt describes how he began to study political psychology in order to help the Democratic Party win more elections. But in chapter 12 of The Righteous Mind Haidt argues that each of the major political groups – conservatives, progressives, and libertarians—have valuable insights and that truth and good policy emerge from the contest of ideas. Since 2012 Haidt has referred to himself as a political centrist

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#104

Post by golergka »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #80
golergka wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offer a course without a certification. Then, those students who are only in uni for the grades will not take it, but students who actually value knowledge will opt in for the course.

Which then will be penalised by mainstream employers, because there's no certification - automated CV scanners will dump your application as it's "not a proper degree".

Which, in turn, will reward no mainstream employers. After 11 years of design/engineering career without a degree, I don't think it's such a big issue.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#105

Post by mayniac »

MichaelGG wrote: post #48
mayniac wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a few issues with that link. Namely that a traffic light system is a huge, huge , HUGE oversimplification of complex issues. While the analysis seems fairly transparent, I don't think many people will actually look into it past the traffic light. I checked out the uni I went to: apparently the students union got an amber light because of "no tolerance to sexual harassment". How exactly does that violate free s…

>cannot be considered offensive >Both of these appear reasonable to me. That is the issue. Just because someone considers something offensive does not make it so. With a tiny bit of effort, so many things can be "considered offensive". A generous interpretation would be that a governing body must consider it offensive, but more likely this means the recipient of a message can take offense where none is given. But far…

>That is the issue. Just because someone considers something offensive does not make it so. With a tiny bit of effort, so many things can be "considered offensive". A generous interpretation would be that a governing body must consider it offensive, but more likely this means the recipient of a message can take offense where none is given.

I agree with the principle in theory. Of course outright banning anything "offensive" without clearly defining what is and is not offensive is very open to interpretation and can be abused. But when it comes to writing rules regarding offensive communication and harassment I think it's better to be over-zealous and treat all incidents on a case by case basis, especially in organisations where they're more concerned with incidents being made public and the organisation getting bad PR.

Also an important point is the "cannot be considered offensive" rule is an IT policy, not a general university one. Every employer I've had has made me sign an acceptable use policy from IT that says (among other things) "don't send offensive emails". It's not that much different. As I said in the original comment, the site is an oversimplification of a complex problem, and generic IT policies shouldn't really be considered anti freedom of speech for various reasons.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#106

Post by mayniac »

tzahola wrote: post #63
mayniac wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to because that's a really fucking stupid argument.

Your tone feels threatening. I hope you don't bring that attitude to the campus...

If you've got an actual argument to make then please make it, I really don't have the time or patience for no-effort bait comments like

>Define "sexual", define "harassment".

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#108

Post by mayniac »

henryaj wrote: post #96
mayniac wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a few issues with that link. Namely that a traffic light system is a huge, huge , HUGE oversimplification of complex issues. While the analysis seems fairly transparent, I don't think many people will actually look into it past the traffic light. I checked out the uni I went to: apparently the students union got an amber light because of "no tolerance to sexual harassment". How exactly does that violate free s…

> ‘Users must ensure that the content and tone of their email messages cannot be considered offensive.’ This doesn't seem reasonable at all. "Considered offensive" - those are just weasel words. How can I be expected to have a perfect model of other people's minds and the things they would be upset by?

Just replied with a longer argument here

>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16911880

tldr is that it's an IT policy not a university one, and every single employer whose email server you ever used has exactly the same policy in place. I actually looked up a few more universities and all the times the "no offensive speech" policy was cited it was an IT policy.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#109

Post by ben_w »

sergiosgc wrote: post #77
gaius wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of universities seems to have shifted from providing academic research and learning to simply being another stage of school There’s no “seems” about it, 50% of school leavers going to university was an explicit policy goal. There’s no way to reconcile an institution of higher learning with one that has to accept anyone that applies

That makes no sense. It seems to me it is an elitist view that when you provide a service to the unwashed masses, it must be of lower quality. I believe it is false. Curricula don't have to be easier if you have a large student body, and graduation requirements don't have to be lower. Taking in more students does not inhibit service quality, up to the capacity of the school, which can be easily scaled by hiring more…

> Curricula don't have to be easier if you have a large student body, and graduation requirements don't have to be lower.

Only if everyone became a lot more skilled than their grades imply.

Academic achievement is not be a perfect measure, but if you go from the top 3.4% of the population to the top 50%, the only possible situations are:

1) everyone is doing a lot better at school now

2) graduation rate goes down

3) standards go down

Or some combination of those.

That doesn’t mean there is no benefit in getting half the country to spend three more years in education, just that nobody should expect 18.7 times * as many of whatever made you want to get half the population into university in the first place.

* population growth too.

Re: In UK universities there is a daily erosion of integrity

#110

Post by shawnz »

collyw wrote: post #12
Xuper wrote: post #5

It would be nice to see some STEM-affirmative universities without any x-studies leaching. Professional complainer is a viable career path these days and it starts at uni.

Listening to Jonathan Haidt its pretty scary stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IBegL_V6AA

> Listening to Jonathan Haidt its pretty scary stuff.

Because that's what a fear monger does.

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