231–235 of 235 posts
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How did you and your wife take German from the same professor at the same time? Was he broadcasting his lesson, were you and your wife in the same location as the teacher, was the teacher able to duplicate himself, or is "at the same time" more of a "during the same semester" and not literally at the exact same time?
Professor used "she", btw.
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Problem is many companies work off this legacy system and won't hire you without a degree. No engineering degree, no law degree, no doctor degree, no degree at all? No thanks. Of course I'm not saying there are other ways, but its very naive to think that you can get anywhere without one. Not only that, the "legacy university system" is a system that's big on research and has invented things like the very Internet yo…
Sure, but many of the best companies are deemphasizing traditional credentials, commensurate with the bloating of the the university system and the rise of other training/evaluation methods. With student debts and the rise of alternative tracks, we may be very close to a rapid tipping point, where the apparent safety of the traditional credentials – with stodgier institutions – collapses quickly. And, the university…
The problem with alternative tracks is that they bottle neck you. They often teach you a technology, they don't teach you an actual skill. Of course, its not that this isn't important, but the fundamentals take you much further because they're not tied to anything specific. Coupled with the knowledge of a technology, it can help you understand what you're doing and what the limitations are. Also, universities are pretty well rounded in terms of learning so they teach you about being a better person instead of being a coder like in a code camp.
Not only that, most popular MOOC sites are run by universities such as MIT, Coursera, and EdX. In fact the most top voted courses on https://hn.academy/ are from universities.
Sure it isn't the same generations ago, but you're highlighting problems that aren't inherent to the idea of the university itself. Costs can be reduced, bureaucracies trimmed, "lifestyle services" is basically the business of the Internet due to rampant self-help, not sure what you mean by "heavier political loads".
"What do I do if it's been ages since I took algebra?" is something you shouldn't address by going to university, you're correct. But if you expect to just learn an entire profession by reading a bunch of Internet articles, doing some exercises/projects, and expect to walk into companies, you're still a far cry, especially from the more demanding law/engineering/MD professions.
Recently on Hacker News there was a top voted article in which the economist Nassim Nicolas Taleb made the point that a lot of small bets have a higher expected value than one very large bet. But the argument has interesting implications for education. The same reasoning implies that 4 degrees of 1 year should have more payoff to society than 1 degree of 4 years. Likewise, society would benefit more if you got 12 deg…
Taleb's insight applies where there is no linkage between bets. The problem is, a 4 year degree "if done right" is building on a body of knowledge. you can't "do" year 4 without the core competencies in years 1,2 and 3. So, (and I admit I didn't read your article) I ask if you address the neccessary linkage problem. Because a chain of 4 small bets is what we call a quinella or trifecta, and in betting circles its hig…
"It's never too late" Well I would agree, but since the UK adopted the US model of university funding, it's too late, and has been for some time. I'd love to career change into something different. £27k of tuition fees and three years not earning makes it a £150k+ proposition. No matter how bored I've become with tech after 30 years that's a big ask. Open University charges the same fees now or that would have been a…
I finished my masters here, I consider the education quality reasonably good (hey, I even helped my theis advisor to publish a paper :) and I worked part-time for most of the time.
Friend of mine just finished his BCs, while supporting his partners a family and working part-time.
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Thank you for sharing this. A couple of questions: 1. Curious as to which sub-field you're currently working in 2. What was the impetus for you to make the decision to quit work full time and study again full-time? 3. When you say that you've not met anyone in your subfield that doesn't have a degree, how sure are you? I'd like to imagine that there are at least one or two that started school but didn't finish
1. Chip design 2. Prior to going to school I was a full stack web dev. I was tired of the framework of the week treadmill and didn't think it was something I could find fulfilling for the next 20-30 years until retirement. 3. I'm very sure. Hardware is a different beast than software. In order to excel as a modern hardware designer you need all of the fundamental EE knowledge and a lot of the fundamental CS/programmi…