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The unbundling of Harvard has begun

socialstudies.substack.com

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Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#71

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

xyst wrote: post #12

~$80K per semester at Harvard. I now understand why almost every graduate of Harvard tends to bring up the fact they graduated from Harvard on nearly every conversation. I went to a public school and my 4 year tuition cost is equivalent to half the cost of single a semester at Harvard. I only graduated a couple of years ago so inflation is negligible. Guess who I work with the most and still earn the same wage (if no…

Unless your family is wealthy, you probably paid more to go to a public school than you would have paid to go to Harvard. Most people don't pay anywhere near the sticker price to go to Harvard. Families making less than 65k USD/year pay nothing.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#72

Post by Kednicma »

throwgeorge wrote: post #42
impendia wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is possible but unlikely that Harvard has Secret Math Here is an entire undergraduate course in abstract algebra, taught by retired Harvard professor Benedict Gross. http://matterhorn.dce.harvard.edu/engage/ui/index.html#/1999... I know Gross personally, and have heard him lecture several times; although I haven't watched these lectures in particular, I'm guessing that that they're just about as good as it gets.…

lol i don't understand your point "harvard doesn't have secret math - the proof is all of these publicly available math lectures from world renowned mathematicians" the value of harvard math profs isn't reaped by the undergrads, it's reaped by the grad students that work closely/directly with these profs. i'm not 100% sure of this but benedict gross probably isn't holding several hours of office hours every week for…

As somebody who's studied some advanced maths, I think that their point is that abstract algebra is effectively a sort of secret maths techniques, sitting in plain sight but somehow sprayed with repellent or maybe equipped with a Somebody Else's Problem field.

I have had more than one afternoon where I learned a concept wholly from this sort of lecture. The ability to ask the professor questions can be useful, but almost all of my questions are actually answered by being more careful about listening to what they are saying the first time.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#73

Post by enumjorge »

rajekas wrote: post #51

Any article that mentions unbundling, disruption, bubble and tipping point in less then a thousand words deserves mention in the Malcolm Gladwell hall of fame. Here's the opposite argument: universities will eat bootcamps for lunch because in the post-COVID era they will be hungry for the same dollar and I would much prefer getting a Harvard Online degree than from Fullstack Camp TM. There's no doubt that higher educ…

You bring up an interesting point. How do people feel about boot camps? I looked into them a while ago when a friend asked me for a recommendation since he was interested in switching careers. The reviews and experiences I came across were mixed. Some positive and a lot of mediocre ones. Boot camps didn’t seem like they were the disruption to 4 year degrees they were once billed as.

If online bootcamps and schools were killing it right now then I could see the argument that they’re the ones to watch. But as it stands I don’t know that there’s an obvious winner. Like you said, universities might be the ones who end up driving the change.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#74

Post by secondcoming »

watwut wrote: post #61
kingkawn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then go find that info it’s all easily available

Not really answer to "education missed this stuff". Especially since all of these are in the category of "people dont know that they dont know if they never heard of it".

But the whole premise of the post is that you don't really need to go to university to educate yourself about things. It's all out there already.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#75

Post by sylens »

enumjorge wrote: post #73
rajekas wrote: post #51

Any article that mentions unbundling, disruption, bubble and tipping point in less then a thousand words deserves mention in the Malcolm Gladwell hall of fame. Here's the opposite argument: universities will eat bootcamps for lunch because in the post-COVID era they will be hungry for the same dollar and I would much prefer getting a Harvard Online degree than from Fullstack Camp TM. There's no doubt that higher educ…

You bring up an interesting point. How do people feel about boot camps? I looked into them a while ago when a friend asked me for a recommendation since he was interested in switching careers. The reviews and experiences I came across were mixed. Some positive and a lot of mediocre ones. Boot camps didn’t seem like they were the disruption to 4 year degrees they were once billed as. If online bootcamps and schools we…

I feel like I have seen mostly negative reviews and impressions come out of them. I'm sure there are some good ones, but I remember specific claims against some of them being that they inflate their own job placement numbers by just employing previous graduates as TAs and instructors to keep the machine going.

I think a much more practical option in the long-term will be something like what Shopify is doing with their Dev Degree program - https://devdegree.ca.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#76

Post by throwgeorge »

Kednicma wrote: post #72
throwgeorge wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol i don't understand your point "harvard doesn't have secret math - the proof is all of these publicly available math lectures from world renowned mathematicians" the value of harvard math profs isn't reaped by the undergrads, it's reaped by the grad students that work closely/directly with these profs. i'm not 100% sure of this but benedict gross probably isn't holding several hours of office hours every week for…

As somebody who's studied some advanced maths, I think that their point is that abstract algebra is effectively a sort of secret maths techniques, sitting in plain sight but somehow sprayed with repellent or maybe equipped with a Somebody Else's Problem field. I have had more than one afternoon where I learned a concept wholly from this sort of lecture. The ability to ask the professor questions can be useful, but al…

>abstract algebra is effectively a sort of secret maths techniques

abstract algebra (rings, groups, fields) is taught in absolutely every undergrad math program in the country (in the world?). there's nothing unique to harvard in this aspect.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#77

Post by watwut »

secondcoming wrote: post #74
watwut wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really answer to "education missed this stuff". Especially since all of these are in the category of "people dont know that they dont know if they never heard of it".

But the whole premise of the post is that you don't really need to go to university to educate yourself about things. It's all out there already.

I did not really took stand on the post. More that I don't think that particular tweet was super crazy, althrough it was phrased in a way that baited angry reaction.

For technical people it is easier to learn and search pretty much any technology by themselves amd a bit harder to do the same with ux or psychology related things.

And it is much easier for us to distinguish crap from good resource in psychology related things, making self learning harder.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#78

Post by jimbokun »

thehappypm wrote: post #30

I always hear the argument that college/grad school is silly because you can go read the textbooks yourself. It requires an immense amount of motivation to grind away reading 80 pages of a boring CS textbook every day. The structure and motivation provided by an institution encourages people to go deeper, meet deadlines, and not just skim the boring stuff. It isn't the only way to learn, but when I did a master's deg…

> It requires an immense amount of motivation to grind away reading 80 pages of a boring CS textbook every day.

But is it worth paying 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars just to keep you motivated?

Maybe that "keep you motivated" functionality can be unbundled and offered for a much lower price?

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#79

Post by slooonz »

mennis16 wrote: post #55
throwawaybab323 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I mean they sell their same courses for like 20 bucks on coursera.

edX. But also they really are not the same courses, at least the MIT courses on edX are not the same as "real" MIT courses (or what they put on OCW). Video lectures are separately planned/recorded to be shorter duration "modules", which decreases the depth and sometimes also results in entire topics being cut out. Assignments are heavily simplified. There is no proper replacement for recitations/office hours. And so…

> Video lectures are separately planned/recorded to be shorter duration "modules", which decreases the depth and sometimes also results in entire topics being cut out

I think it depends on the course. I’m currently following "Fundamentals of Statistics" (https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:MITx+18.6501x+2T20...), and it’s clearly a recording of an IRL course. Same with "Introduction to Biology", and the whole Quantum Mechanics serie.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#80

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

214610 wrote: post #48
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that most families making under 65k USD/year pay nothing to send a child to Harvard. Families making up to 150k USD/year are expected to pay a maximum of 10% of their income. The sticker price is what Harvard charges rich people. Harvard has a massive endowment, and probably doesn't really rely too heavily on tuition anyways.

What % of students with family incomes under 65k/yr are admitted to Harvard vs the % of students with family incomes greater than that? According to: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit... “ The median family income of a student from Harvard is $168,800, and 67% come from the top 20 percent. About 1.8% of students at Harvard came from a poor family but became a rich adult.”

> What % of students with family incomes under 65k/yr are admitted to Harvard vs the % of students with family incomes greater than that?

According to Harvard, about 20% of their undergrads pay nothing. That's probably roughly the percentage of students from families making > The median family income of a student from Harvard is $168,800, and 67% come from the top 20 percent.

Then the median family should have no problem paying the ~10% of their income that Harvard will charge them, after financial aid.

The point is that almost nobody who gets into Harvard decides not to go because they can't afford it. People who really can't afford it get a full ride, and even families that make 150k/yr are paying only a small fraction of the sticker price - they're paying less than what many public universities charge.

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