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Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

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Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#121

Post by impendia »

robmaister wrote: post #86
boazbarak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't presume my institution is representative (nor that it isn't), but for what it's worth, most students I see are not slackers at all. Students often choose the harder courses, and many of them require a significant amount of work (a typical CS course requires 12 hours of work outside lecture and many require much more).

I wasn't a slacker until I took a computer graphics class that consumed more of my time than my other 4 classes combined, and I still failed it on a technicality (out for a job interview the day partners were assigned for the final project. Wasn't allowed to do the project alone, there were an odd number of people in the class. If you fail any "section" of the class, you fail the whole class. After back-and-forth wit…

> I still failed it on a technicality (out for a job interview the day partners were assigned for the final project. Wasn't allowed to do the project alone, there were an odd number of people in the class.

University professor here.

Perhaps it's too late now, but I would encourage you to make a strenuous effort to get your professor in as much trouble with the administration as you can. I don't know who the "class dean" is -- but contact this person's department chair, the departmental undergraduate director, the dean of engineering, the dean of students, the provost, anybody, everybody. Whoever will listen.

What you experienced is not okay. I'm sure it's not an isolated incident, but it's also not the norm.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#123

Post by anonymous5133 »

Simulacra wrote: post #3

The key problem I think, with higher education, is that we force students to take classes in the name of liberal education. If no one is required to take a class, then students might not take that class, which leads to that professor's usefulness, and perhaps career, coming into question. If anything universities are increasing not only the number of classes a student has to take, but also increasing seemingly-pointl…

100% this. I think half of my undergraduate degree simply consisted of taking waste of time classes that have absolutely zero benefit to my career. Those courses should be replaced with this: general skills (like reading skills and math skills to algebra level) and then general career skills. These are skills which your field of study specifically requires - public speaking, laboratory report writing, technical writing etc. It varies from major to major.

For the general skills stuff, that is all remedial stuff that should be obtained prior to entering formal college. Students should have mastery of those subjects before even being admitted. Have community colleges do remedial course exclusively (or some way to self-study online and test out).

For those 60 units of old "general education" replace it with 30 units of general career skills and 30 units of applied career skills. So the course track would go like this - first 30 units is exclusively your 30 general career skills then the next 60 units is the traditional academic track that most people take currently for their major. The last 30 units is exclusively used at applying those skills to various project-based work.

For all those old course that are currently considered general education, make them all optional, not required courses.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#124

Post by tfehring »

It seems like the countercultural anti-college rhetoric that’s sprung up recently is focused on the individual level, which makes sense. But I’m concerned that it misses a broader and incredibly important point as a result.

Roughly a third of American adults have at least a Bachelor’s degree. I (unsurprisingly) haven’t been able to find any hard data on this question, but does anyone want to take a guess at what percentage of innovation they’re responsible for? It’s certainly over a third - my shot in the dark is 90%. Measure innovation however you see fit.

You can explain away some of that gap with factors like parental education and wealth, but I’m not convinced you can explain away all of it. Skilled trades may be great for the individual, but they don’t really drive innovation. Neither do social media managers, of course - not every college graduate can be a unicorn CEO - but I’m still convinced that college education is a substantial net positive in expectation.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#125

Post by Gibbon1 »

impendia wrote: post #121
robmaister wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't a slacker until I took a computer graphics class that consumed more of my time than my other 4 classes combined, and I still failed it on a technicality (out for a job interview the day partners were assigned for the final project. Wasn't allowed to do the project alone, there were an odd number of people in the class. If you fail any "section" of the class, you fail the whole class. After back-and-forth wit…

> I still failed it on a technicality (out for a job interview the day partners were assigned for the final project. Wasn't allowed to do the project alone, there were an odd number of people in the class. University professor here. Perhaps it's too late now, but I would encourage you to make a strenuous effort to get your professor in as much trouble with the administration as you can. I don't know who the "class de…

Thing I learned about the two bad professors in the school of engineering I went to was the Chair was beyond sick of their shit.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#126

Post by sethherr »

BucketSort wrote: post #32
twblalock wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And we are going to collapse because of it. It's not that bad.

When we are electing the president by the same principle, I assure you that it is even worse than you can imagine. Societal collapse is imminent. Those who are comforted by their station in life always think they are living in a utopia. You are surrounded by fake smiles adorning people forced into subservience. At one time the myth that hard work and dedication would pay off in the end kept people in line, the "ameri…

I agree! Let’s all wear flannel and be slackers!

You’re doing a throw back to the nineties comment, right?

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#127

Post by mrep »

potatoyogurt wrote: post #62
egypturnash wrote: post #34

> From kindergarten on, students spend thousands of hours studying subjects irrelevant to the modern labor market. Why do English classes focus on literature and poetry instead of business and technical writing? uggggh this , this market-driven bullshit that assumes "business" should be the end goal of all human behavior English classes focus on literature and poetry because maybe you should have some sense of beauty…

I don't get it, I don't understand how the author of the article has a PhD if this is what he thinks. Like, > Why do advanced-math classes bother with proofs almost no student can follow? Because that literally _is_ mathematics, and the point of working through them is because students can actually understand them and learn to do the same thing with new problems. How does he expect anyone to create or discover anythi…

Economic signaling is a thing in economics [0] and it isn't talked about much as while they are jobs that do "require" college degrees while not really using the education taught and thus just essentially use it as a signal, most economists think lots of useful concepts taught in school are used in higher skilled jobs requiring degrees and thus aren't just used as a signal.

This guy likely just picked an economic topic that isn't talked about much and wrote a book about it to sell his brand/make money by focusing on the minority cases and using clickbait articles like this where he equates all college degrees as useless signalling and thus not worth the cost of education to promote it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#128

Post by taftster »

tfehring wrote: post #124

It seems like the countercultural anti-college rhetoric that’s sprung up recently is focused on the individual level, which makes sense. But I’m concerned that it misses a broader and incredibly important point as a result. Roughly a third of American adults have at least a Bachelor’s degree. I (unsurprisingly) haven’t been able to find any hard data on this question, but does anyone want to take a guess at what perc…

I don't know. You're making the leap to suggest that 33% of Americans are responsible for 90% of the innovation. I don't think that's the case at all. It's probably more like 0.1% of Americans are responsible for 90% of innovation. Or in other words, 32.9% of the population of Bachelor degree holders don't add any more innovative value than the 67% of non-Bachelor holders.

Or to put it another way, there isn't a direct correlation between Bachelor's holders and innovators. Sure there are some ridiculously smart people out there, and probably most of them have some formal higher education. But their education probably isn't what made them ridiculously smart; instead it was probably their education that helped shape their thinking and possibly opened some doors.

And of course there are many examples of innovations that came from people without degrees. Many technology company founders that we would today consider innovative did not necessarily hold a Bachelor's degree.

In short, I think your connection that 33% of Americans are automatically innovative just because they have a degree is quite the stretch. A degree doesn't have any correlation to ones aptitude for innovation.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#129

Post by meritt »

baroffoos wrote: post #23
justinzollars wrote: post #4

I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the wor…

Pay me enough and I will learn how to replace an escalator.

If there some sort of language barrier because half of you in this sub-thread are talking about escalators and the other half elevators.

Re: Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)

#130

Post by bsder »

justinzollars wrote: post #4

I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the wor…

> The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem.

Money IS the problem. And the root is an inability to have continuous political will.

The issue is that San Francisco never voted to schedule replacement of 10% of escalators every year.

So, San Francisco voted to go from almost zero spending on escalator maintenance to a large single burst outlay which will go back to zero after the aforementioned 7 years.

What do the escalator mechanics do when the spending goes back to zero?

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