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Going to university does not broaden the mind

economist.com

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Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#231

Post by thinkingemote »

scarface74 wrote: post #120

Only the privileged can afford to go to college to “broaden their mind”. Most people go to college to compete in the market and get a job. It’s amazing how much push back I get about computer science degrees should teach marketable skills and people say they weren’t meant to be ”vocational degrees” and you shouldn’t go to college for “job training”. Just the idea that people are suggesting in some of the comments tha…

It was often understood that the privileged should travel and broaden their minds as a kind of antidote to their privilege.

Consider encouraging the privileged to have narrow minds and experiences

Privilege used to be understood as a positive thing and something to be held with responsibility.

Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#232

Post by em-bee »

dgellow wrote: post #199
kuerbel wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm German. We have a three tiered school system: the lowest one where you go to school for, iirc, 9 years is usually bound for people who are ... more hands on and later do an apprenticeship as a e.g. hairdresser. Middle tier is where you go to school for 10 years and do an apprenticeship as e.g. accounting clerk or IT system specialist. The higher tier is where you get the Abitur. It's mandatory that you have this…

Just a detail to add to what you said, the school system is defined by the Bundesland, meaning there can be differences through the country.

not at the broad level that kuerbel described it. that's pretty much the same all over germany and even true in austria for the most part.

don't know about other european countries though.

Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#233

Post by fdrg »

fwn wrote: post #219
xcjones wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is very wrong, assuming that the concept of academia is to have any scientific meaning. We can see it, for example, in the GDR, the former East of Germany where social sciences basically died. At the very same time, West-Germany developed a hugely influential discourse (...with a lot of Marxists, despite all the tensions). One could say that specific individuals from academia might profit from having symbolic ca…

This is not wrong at all. Compared to other professions, university-employed academics did well.

How is it controversial that it is easier for someone who is directly employed by the state to be a socialist?

You mention Marxist discourse in West Germany. It was easy for Adorno to be a socialist, because all he could do was talk in a convoluted, content-free manner.

Celibidache (who actually did something), called him the biggest windbag of the 20th century.

Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#235

Post by limelight »

erichocean wrote: post #194

> I grew up in an area that was 99+% white and 50+% Jewish. That's logically impossible. You group in an area that was majority Jewish, and minority white.

Jews have been considered "white" for decades. In modern America, it's generally only neo-Nazis and their ilk who seek to other Jews as being non-white.

Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#236

Post by geomark »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #226
geomark wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you are correct, it's not "free". I always chuckle when I hear about "free" education, "free" healthcare, etc. Somebody is paying for it. It might not be you, at least not at this moment. But if you ever make any money you will be paying for someone else's education. And maybe you are ok with that, improving society and all, assuming you believe what they are learning in university actually does that.

> I always chuckle when I hear about "free" education, "free" healthcare, etc. Somebody is paying for it. That's because you probably choose to misinterpret what is meant. If you genuinely don't know, I find this quite astonishing, but let me explain; As someone with "free" healthcare as a citizen of an EU country, I never think it is free as in literally costs nothing and nor do my left-wing American friends advocat…

I suppose you might convince yourself to think of it that way. As long as you don't mind the fact that you are subsidizing the large number of people for whom it is literally free because they pay but a tiny portion of their actual cost. A certain amount of that would be fine with me since I do feel a duty to support the less fortunate, although being forced to do it and having it done by a large and inefficient bureaucracy makes me resist at every opportunity. I am more of a pay-my-own-way kind of person, which I do. And I prefer to put the money directly into the hands of people whom I know need it, which I do.

Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#237

Post by barry-cotter »

badpun wrote: post #178
pj_mukh wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I remember in first year our engineering professor teaching us all these abstract concepts about robot controllers and the philosophy behind them and then finishing the lecture by telling us, "Also, when you get to your first job, just read the manual to figure out how your specific controller works so you can do your job" :/. P.S: Also Waterloo grad here. Co-op FTW.

Hah. Our numerical methods professor once remarked during a lecture that programming is a technician’s job and if we want to just learn it, we should be be in a vocational school, not in univeristy learning CS. He was not wrong IMO.

But he was a judgmental snob.

Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#238

Post by yardie »

analog31 wrote: post #80
happertiger wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think the US should require all college grads to spend a year overseas in a country that speaks a different language. I got an education and then I got a real education from travel myself.

My daughter just started college, so we got our fill of the whole process of choosing a college. Virtually every college claimed to offer some sort of overseas study, either as a requirement or as a frictionless option. The exceptions are regional and commuter colleges that tend to be geared towards being more affordable.

I spent a while living abroad. Here is a nugget I found out. You don’t have to go through the schools exchange program. It’s vastly cheaper to simply apply yourself. Then make sure the credits transfer back (most will if the school isn’t particularly choosy). Most exchanges charge you standard tuition. Works out great for the foreign student but not so great for the American exchange student paying US tuition.

A colleague of mine (french) did his exchange at Stanford. He really enjoyed it. Enjoyed it even more once he found out what Stanford students were paying ($$$$) compared to what he was paying, PARIS-IX is practically free.

Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#239

Post by AnaniasAnanas »

em-bee wrote: post #224
AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30k euro per year here. I am now finishing my 4th year abroad. It is easier than you think even if you do not stop unnecessary expenses. I believe that universities should not teach marketable skills only because these are what some employers like - instead they should teach skills that are not trivial to learn by yourself (some of which might be marketable). If you have already learned Python in uni for example ther…

actually, the most important thing to teach, which not all schools are teaching is "how to learn" for example teaching multiple programming languages has the benefit of learning how the languages are related to each other. a student that learned several languages over the course of their studies will be much better at picking up yet another language when they start working. in my university each different programming…

I probably did not express myself clear enough in my previous post. I certainly support teaching different languages as long as they are very different - such as Prolog + Haskell + C for example. I simply do not see the point of teaching multiple language that are basically the same (C++ + Java + C# + Python for example).

Re: Going to university does not broaden the mind

#240

Post by devxpy »

oldboyFX wrote: post #225
devxpy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its in my opinion that people don't use the computer properly. There's very little you gain from social programs that you can't gain if you watch the right kind of content, read the right kind of articles, and just talk to people. I've met far more smart people on the internet than I could ever meet in real life. In fact most people I meet in real life are stupid.

> In fact most people I meet in real life are stupid. I've also felt like this for a long time before I grew up.

Maybe you have better peers than I do
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