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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

#251

Post by 0xffff2 »

throwawaygh wrote: post #156
OGWhales wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is so many jobs require a college degree for no other purpose than further general education skills. I am of the opinion that public schooling needs to be extended to include these skills and then we still need higher education where the exact experiences you described are the main point. Far too many people go through college for no other reason than to get some degree, doesn’t even matter what deg…

There's an extremely old joke (like 100+ years old; I can't find the source atm) that goes something like: "US universities are the best high schools in the world". And it's true. It's not safe to assume that someone with only a high school education will be able to write well, do basic mathematics, etc. The high school grads who go on to teach themselves how to program are an extreme outlier. The entire US education…

> there's a whole class of universities you can't get into without doing the honors/ap track in high school.

Which would those be? I don't have much insight into the "traditional" admissions system since I took quite a few years off from school between high school and college, but I didn't have any trouble at all getting into a well-regarded UC without any honors/AP classes. I did go to community college first, but I'd advise that for virtually everyone who's not funded by wealthy parents and interested in the social experience as much or more than the academic. No one needs to pay for the privilege of going to $TOP_SCHOOL just to do freshman level coursework.

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

#252

Post by throwaway0a5e »

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…

Good for you. You were lucky enough to be in a program that had a firehose of resources (mostly money, but probably also high quality professors). There's only so many flagship programs at any given university. The overwhelming majority of people who get a BA or BS in a given field will not be that lucky. How many students to the top schools in a field graduate? How many do the rest graduate?

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

#253

Post by alexchantavy »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #205
itronitron wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing that for each of your bullet points listed you needed some initial set of technical skills, and that you had those skills before even arriving at University (otherwise the first semesters would not have been wasted.) I am curious whether there were any classes that you feel were more educational than these work experiences.

I went to a technical high school, so I definitely came prepared, and I also learned a lot of useful skills during all my semesters in classes. I didn't mean that the classes were a waste of time, but I wish I had started doing extracurricular stuff earlier. It is true that the clubs usually do not have a lot of use for the 1. Semester people, as they don't have a lot of skills yet, but the bigger clubs have their ow…

Dang, sounds cool. Which university is this?

Edit: saw below you said Technical University of Munich

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

#254

Post by 0d9eooo »

_curious_ wrote: post #134
0d9eooo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former tenured professor I've been watching all of this with a bit of empathy, anxiety, concern, and schaudenfreude. Many of my best friends and colleagues are at the university and it still forms a huge part of my life. In speaking with many students and colleagues, one thing has struck me, which is that many of the current undergrads are enrolled because they want to get away from home. They want some true tra…

"...where they live on their own and develop into an independent adult with a vocation and adult identity." One can see where you are coming from since these desires are pretty normal around that age right? I think that the trade-off here, however, is two fold: 1) That lifestyle is expensive and puts many young adults into debt before they've even learned and lived financial independence. 2) It delays the inevitable…

I don't disagree with these points, but I do think many individuals entering college are looking for some kind of extended [rite of] passage or something into adulthood, and I do think college provides that for many.

I don't necessarily think it has to be that way, and I don't necessarily think it's the best way, certainly not for everyone, but I think for a lot of people it provides one way. Right now I think it's a broken path, but I'm not sure what other paths there are to replace it at the moment, given that employers (for the most part, maybe not entirely) seem to be abandoning that role.

To me the bigger underlying subtext in a lot of these discussions is the vacuum that currently exists in terms of providing a safety net for people as they find their way. I think this could be provided by employers or something but I really don't think it is at the moment; colleges might also be flawed in being too expensive or not really delivering on their promises or something, and maybe we're at an inflection point. But if you think of spaces where society is ok with people figuring things out, or learning, or not really being fully developed yet, college is a major place. Outside of that it increasingly feels like people are treated as machines, interchangeable and replaceable, with little to no sense of potential or anything of that sort.

Believe me, I feel like universities are very broken at the moment in many many ways. I just don't really see them going away in the near future, even if they are remade, and I think there's a good opportunity for society to really remake them in a way that's more useful, whatever that is. It may involve restructuring what a college education entails, or paying for it with public funds, or whatever, but that opportunity is there.

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

#255

Post by brighton36 »

OGWhales wrote: post #133
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…

I think the issue is so many jobs require a college degree for no other purpose than further general education skills. I am of the opinion that public schooling needs to be extended to include these skills and then we still need higher education where the exact experiences you described are the main point. Far too many people go through college for no other reason than to get some degree, doesn’t even matter what deg…

Colleges sell prestige. That's why a harvard education is free, but their license to discriminate is coveted and charged for.

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

#256

Post by _curious_ »

0d9eooo wrote: post #254
_curious_ wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...where they live on their own and develop into an independent adult with a vocation and adult identity." One can see where you are coming from since these desires are pretty normal around that age right? I think that the trade-off here, however, is two fold: 1) That lifestyle is expensive and puts many young adults into debt before they've even learned and lived financial independence. 2) It delays the inevitable…

I don't disagree with these points, but I do think many individuals entering college are looking for some kind of extended [rite of] passage or something into adulthood, and I do think college provides that for many. I don't necessarily think it has to be that way, and I don't necessarily think it's the best way, certainly not for everyone, but I think for a lot of people it provides one way. Right now I think it's a…

Thanks for sharing your reply/viewpoint. There is no correct single answer, but it's not so binary, I believe that self employment + entrepreneurship are underrated in the dynamic.

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

#257

Post by growlist »

weston wrote: post #188
growlist wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you include anti-white racism? Because there seems to be a lot of it about at the moment.

There’s no such thing as anti-white racism. Racism is prejudice or discrimination backed by institutional, structural power. Therefore, a black person prejudiced against white people (as an example) is meaningless because black Americans have historically had very little power in the United States. Racism by white americans has historically been backed up by the power of every institution in the United States, which…

Aha! And so we stumble across the Orwellian redefinition of language: if you don't like a word, just change it's meaning until it suits your agenda.

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

#258

Post by dawg- »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #213
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did use University correctly. But your example could just as easily been prison. Some people use prison to get off drugs, get an education, learn a job skill, develop a moral code and purpose. Something that can cost so much, and require such a huge time commitment shouldn't have such a high failure rate of people who fail to "figure out how to use it".

Cool idea, prison is also cheaper and easier to get into.

I'm not so sure, the high end prisons can get pretty competitive. A lifetime of violent behavior is certainly a lot of work

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

#260

Post by gorgoiler »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #106
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…

Your specific experience is great, and I'm glad for you. The point here, however, is what University is for all people, not just for individual cases like yours where things align nicely, and where maybe your own character and personality (and some of your professors and class mates) helped you get a meaningful experience out of it. My personal opinion is that the article is mostly right about what doesn't make sense…

Few people seem to be able to cope with post 16 education. It’s amazing the number of children who try to shoe horn University into their lives. It’s not elitist, it’s just hard. It’s meant to be.
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