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For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

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Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#41

Post by astine »

stcredzero wrote: post #22
mattmaroon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's written from that perspective because college degrees are used as a proxy for job training, and most people pursue them so they can get a better job, which makes the system broken. The other benefits of the college experience don't require college anyway, and are cost-prohibitive to a lot of people. I don't think he was arguing that nobody should do 4 years of college. Just that employers need a better vetting s…

We need to stop fooling ourselves and just flat-out have masters and apprenticeship. When the system in schools and in companies works, it boils down to this anyhow. (I'm not including prodigies that you couldn't keep from learning no matter what you did. I'm talking about those talents that wouldn't flower if they didn't fall into the right circumstance to reach their full potential.)

We have those in some industries: It's how you get to be a plumber for instance.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#42

Post by stcredzero »

astine wrote: post #41
stcredzero wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to stop fooling ourselves and just flat-out have masters and apprenticeship. When the system in schools and in companies works, it boils down to this anyhow. (I'm not including prodigies that you couldn't keep from learning no matter what you did. I'm talking about those talents that wouldn't flower if they didn't fall into the right circumstance to reach their full potential.)

We have those in some industries: It's how you get to be a plumber for instance.

We really need that in Programming!

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#43

Post by un »

azharcs wrote: post #26

I personally think college-education is over rated as of today. The only reason education worked as a good model was because there was scarcity of Information and this information could be obtained only if you paid tons of money and joined college. Today times have changed drastically, a guy sitting in remote part of Africa(with a basic internet connection) can obtain the same information which the guy in Stanford or…

I would go further to say that the current system is disadvantaging rich countries immensely. I typical person without a college degree is likely to think he shouldn't even attempt to seek work such as IT (it's for those college educated types), and instead heads into the local service economy (further depressing wages there), instead of earning money for the country in globally based economy.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#44

Post by Alex3917 »

"A passing [CPA exam] score indicates authentic competence"

This is misleading, because the word authentic has a specific meaning in psychometrics. It means that the evaluation of competence is based off of things like observations, student journals, portfolios, inquiry projects, exhibits, hands-on activities, essays, performances, etc. A standardized test score is not considered to be an authentic measure of competence.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#45

Post by stcredzero »

mattmaroon wrote: post #17
ojbyrne wrote: post #4

The column seems to be entirely from the point of view of an employer looking to screen potential employees. Like it or not, college is about more than job training. For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it, the first part of life away from parents, but still with some security, and about intellectual exploration (answering the question - what exactly do I want to be when I grow up?). Perhaps none of t…

It's written from that perspective because college degrees are used as a proxy for job training, and most people pursue them so they can get a better job, which makes the system broken. The other benefits of the college experience don't require college anyway, and are cost-prohibitive to a lot of people. I don't think he was arguing that nobody should do 4 years of college. Just that employers need a better vetting s…

From the article:

"...bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses."

So either the graduate is knowledgeable and the system did its job, or the graduate knows how to be a good member of a big bureaucratic organization and how to accomplish arbitrary things they're told to do.

Sounds like one more level of sorting, and the schools have done the job for big companies.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#46

Post by jcromartie »

un wrote: post #29
jon_dahl wrote: post #9

This is better than most "college is a waste" articles, but it repeats a common mistake: thinking that people are hired for their skills. When I'm hiring, I don't want someone with a "web design" certificate or a "Python programming" certificate, or (worse) a "sales and marketing" certificate. I want someone who is smart, passionate, loves to learn, thinks creatively, knows how to write, and is enjoyable to work with…

You could create certification tests for those as well - general knowledge test, creativity test, writing test, personality test

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not. I can see it now: "I'm a certified Awesome Dude."

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#47

Post by thomasmallen »

ojbyrne wrote: post #4

The column seems to be entirely from the point of view of an employer looking to screen potential employees. Like it or not, college is about more than job training. For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it, the first part of life away from parents, but still with some security, and about intellectual exploration (answering the question - what exactly do I want to be when I grow up?). Perhaps none of t…

I spent a year at college (freelancing at the same time to support myself) and it was a tremendous waste of time. I can say with certainty that I lost maturity being there, and left feeling stupider than when I entered in the fall.

You tell me which will teach an individual more: A sheltered, friendly environment with mostly privileged peers, or living independently? I chose the latter. I interviewed for a web design job before receiving my HS diploma, got the job, and started two days after graduation. A month later, I was out on my own, paying bills, taking care of myself. Now that was a learning experience.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#48

Post by un »

kansando wrote: post #24

College is a place where you learn to learn, or should be...

A better way to teach how to learn to learn, would be to teach a class in exactly that. The motivational speaker industry does a better job in "meta" subjects, such as "getting things done", "how to be successful", than college does. Paul Graham's essays for startups are more effective than college courses in entrepreneurship.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#49

Post by sh1mmer »

The most valuable part of college for me (in terms of my career prospects) was not the degree I got, although it was a good degree.

The most valuable thing about college for me was the support, money, facilities that the college provided to me while I was there. They enabled me to do plenty of things I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

When I was at college I worked on plenty of OSS, created a web site for Nasa, and contributed to the W3C. My school paid for me to fly to a number of W3C conferences as scholarship.

I also spent an inordinate amount of time in the university library which was many times vaster and better resourced than any library I've had at any employer since. Any technical book I wanted that they didn't have would normally turn up within a matter of weeks.

Add to that a 24hr computing campus with access to mainframes around the clock. I got to experiment because I could keep my own hours and get time on the interesting hardware at 3am when sensible people were in bed.

University is not just about a degree. As many other people here have said it's about the experience (I met my wife in college) and the learning, in an environment which allows it.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#50

Post by kingkongrevenge »

un wrote: post #43
azharcs wrote: post #26

I personally think college-education is over rated as of today. The only reason education worked as a good model was because there was scarcity of Information and this information could be obtained only if you paid tons of money and joined college. Today times have changed drastically, a guy sitting in remote part of Africa(with a basic internet connection) can obtain the same information which the guy in Stanford or…

I would go further to say that the current system is disadvantaging rich countries immensely. I typical person without a college degree is likely to think he shouldn't even attempt to seek work such as IT (it's for those college educated types), and instead heads into the local service economy (further depressing wages there), instead of earning money for the country in globally based economy.

The certification system he's talking about would massively accelerate global outsourcing of US jobs.

ISO 9000 certification in the 80s and 90s played a huge role in sending US manufacturing overseas. People were reluctant to believe that factories in various second and third world countries could be just as good. Then the certs proved pretty well that they were!

Same deal now with personnel. Employers are sometimes reluctant to believe Indians or Vietnamese are on par with a four year American college grad. Sufficiently standard tests would prove they are.

In other words, the US has coasted on reputation in a lot of ways and empirical approaches can damage that reputation.

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