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The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

theatlantic.com

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Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#171

Post by lodi »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #57
mikece wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the benefits of a college setting would be the gathering together of young intelligent people and exposing them not only to new ideas but how to evaluate, value, and compare ideas for their relative worth. I wonder how much open and free debate of ideas even exists anymore, having given way to the inculcation and indoctrination of "correct ideas." I have long believed that the best way to eradicate racism is t…

The “debate” on racism was lost a long time ago. I would hope it’s well understood it’s a net negative for society. I don’t think debating it over and over again as if there’s merit to racist ideas is remotely a good idea. It’s like letting the flat earthers continue to teach science classes even though we know the earth is round.

> I would hope it’s well understood... [that racism is]... a net negative for society.

Sure, but there are many racism-adjacent topics that are not so clear cut. For example, affirmative action is a "racist"--in the sense of discriminating based on race--policy, but there are serious, intellectual arguments made both for and against it. I put "racist" in quotes there because there's also presently a debate on the changing definition of racism: is it racist if a policy or stereotype is race-based but well-meaning and positive? Is "power" required, and does this immunize minorities from being racist? Is it racist to criticize a long-held cultural belief or practice such as circumcision?

I think all of these topics are worthy of open and honest debate. (Incidentally though, I think that the best way to shut down flat earthers and other conspiracy nuts is also through open debate...)

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#172

Post by bsenftner »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #83

Ya'll use University wrong. The classes, etc. ... whatever! During my time at Uni, I: * designed a demonstrator car frame to show off a bunch of new manufacturing techniques, which was actually built in the end * was part of a team who tested a new type of fiber optical vibration sensor on a sounding rocket * worked with a PhD student on developing a sensor to measure water flow through a tank to validate his simulat…

You did it right, with deep engagement. I dropped out of high school to secretly enroll in college. I felt high school was a waste of time, plus my home state is overly Christian and I'm not. I did not care about a degree, I wanted an Education. As soon as I could, I went to Boston and just started taking classes anywhere I wanted with any class of interest. I started with Harvard Summer School and continued with Boston University and MIT for a period of 5 years. I got to participate in the early 3D graphics research community, was a part of DeVanney & Mandelbrot's team that wrote Beauty of Fractals, participated in the AI research of the time, wrote my own 3D animation language, and finally graduated B.U. one semester shy of 4 more undergraduate degrees. I just did what interested me until I was forced to graduate.

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#173

Post by throwawaygh »

goblin89 wrote: post #138

I like the distinction between a university and an institution focusing on practical higher education (German “Fachhochschule” seems to convey the concept). This should not be about difficulty and prestige, but one’s mindset and what they want to do in life. Research-oriented higher education is not likely to become obsolete, and neither is applied practical education. What can (and, arguably, should) go away is expe…

> I like the distinction between a university and an institution focusing on practical higher education

The USA already has Fachhochschule. See: any non-phd-granting regional branch campus of the state's university system. Places like https://www.ucmo.edu/.

The problem is that we don't admit that our Fachhochschules are Fachhochschules, and students at our Fachhochschules therefore often don't understand that they are at a Fachhochschule. People in the US talk about university as if it's one monolith, when in fact we have at least three very different types of universities with very different purposes: elite finishing schools (top-tier LACs and the Ivy League), universities (state flagships and large R1 privates), and applied universities (low-tier LACs and state branch campuses). And then students make dumb choices because all of those universities offer the same educational programs.

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#174

Post by everdrive »

zucker42 wrote: post #157
everdrive wrote: post #14

It's hard not to be pedantic here. CDs still have their place, and a lot of streaming is terrible; either there are advertisements, or DRM, or fidelity costs, or limited libraries due to licensing problems. etc. I think the metaphor still goes the same way: the old fashioned way may not be perfect, but there is some real value there that is not necessarily replaced by steaming online courses.

All the problems with streaming you mentioned are completely artificial. They are not actual technological problems with streaming.

They're not artificial, they're inherent to the business model. So I agree that the limitations I mentioned don't have anything to do with streaming technology, they crop up time and time again because of some of the limitations apparently required by a streaming business model.

And so in that sense I think it remains a useful metaphor. What sort of business models will be profitable when it comes to streaming courses online? Will they always put the student and learning first, or will the viable business model for these impose limitations, or push things in the wrong direction.

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#175

Post by tech-historian »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #83

Ya'll use University wrong. The classes, etc. ... whatever! During my time at Uni, I: * designed a demonstrator car frame to show off a bunch of new manufacturing techniques, which was actually built in the end * was part of a team who tested a new type of fiber optical vibration sensor on a sounding rocket * worked with a PhD student on developing a sensor to measure water flow through a tank to validate his simulat…

TBH, college for me was about finding myself as a person. Being away from home for 4 years, I grew so much as a human being in numerous and incalculable ways. Being grouped with thousands of others I've never met before -- you learn "human" skills in a way that can't be taught online.

Online education is great and all, but the crowd that argues that it is the end-all-be-all of learning is missing a key element of the experience.

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#176

Post by occamschainsaw »

conjecTech wrote: post #121
Scarblac wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which university was that?

It's likely the Technical University of Munich based on the hyperloop piece. Though I had to do a double take because it sounded incredibly similar to some of my experiences at Georgia Tech. If you want to know the kinds of universities that do these kinds of things and do them well, its useful to look up some of the student design competitions and see who regularly attends. From recollection, MIT, CMU, Olin, Dolhous…

Go Jackets! Yes, technical schools (schools focussed on stem) offer a lot of such opportunities. The other side of the coin is if you don't have that inclination out of high school, you might miss out on such opportunities and vice versa.

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#177

Post by Press2forEN »

The article doesn't mention the political radicalization students are subjected to at university. Having attended a decent school for two years after the military, I never in my life saw such extremism concentrated in one place.

I believe that radicalization combined with the psychological effects of the lockdown is at least partially responsible for the social unrest we're seeing today.

And now that I have my own children, I hope there are viable alternatives by the time they turn 18.

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#178

Post by neutronicus »

> This transition is likely to appear first in technical degree programs, where it is relatively easy for students to certify their skills online

This is dangerously false. The world isn't software engineering.

Engineering disciplines are in many ways fundamentally about learning to use expensive, special-purpose equipment to design, monitor and control expensive, special-purpose, reliability-critical infrastructure. Sometimes, as in the case of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences (the topic of my undergrad degree), access to this equipment and training is regulated and restricted by the host nation-state.

Perhaps some disciplines (Mechanical, maybe Civil) are democratized enough that something like a Hackerspace membership could complement an online degree program, but for others (Aerospace, NERS, Biomedical) I just don't see how you train people and verify competence without a centralized campus and training equipment.

Also, it may not be a good assumption that Software Engineering will remain as democratized as it does today. Web Development, sure, that's in some sense inherently by-and-for consumer devices. But things like IaaS, Machine Learning, and physics / engineering simulation (this last is what I now the most about) increasingly occur on specialized hardware that's at best inconvenient and at worst impossible to learn on a typical consumer device.

Changes in consumer devices themselves are aso in some sense de-democratizing tech learning. My wife has worked in the higher education space in operations, and still does a lot of UX research there as well, and in her experience the technical competence of students with business-standard tech platforms (mainly e-mail, but also things like spreadsheets and word processing) is regressing, and COVID-19 is exposing how poorly current university infrastructure serves students whose only device is a smart phone (common among students from lower-income backgrounds).

We may have benefitted from a blip in history where a) B2B tech vendors were unusually successful at selling their budget B2B products to consumers and b) the performance requirements of a consumer product segment (i.e. games) drove the hardware innovations underlying a high-growth B2B market (ML on GPGPU)

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#179

Post by sho »

I heard a great thought experiment once: would you rather have a stanford degree without the education, or a stanford education without the degree?

20+ years of experience have taught me that anything but the first choice is utterly insane.

Re: The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

#180

Post by neutronicus »

throwlogon wrote: post #100
turbinerneiter wrote: post #83

Ya'll use University wrong. The classes, etc. ... whatever! During my time at Uni, I: * designed a demonstrator car frame to show off a bunch of new manufacturing techniques, which was actually built in the end * was part of a team who tested a new type of fiber optical vibration sensor on a sounding rocket * worked with a PhD student on developing a sensor to measure water flow through a tank to validate his simulat…

For students who arrive at a university without already knowing these opportunities exist, it's not always apparent that they do exist and may be available to them.

If you pursue a non-software-engineering major, you will at the very least be forced to use expensive equipment in a required lab class.
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