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I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

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Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#541

Post by nsonha »

wolverine876 wrote: post #305
nsonha wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> College prepares people to be adults in every way, not to be a resource for corporations. Most people think college prepares them to be resource for corporation, or some other things. Your college education coincides with your formative years, but from my exp, college has nothing to do with growing as an adult. It's mainly moving out of your hometown and work your part time job and start planning your life.

> Most people think college prepares them to be resource for corporation, or some other things. They do? And if they do, is it true? Who are we talking about? High school students? People who read HN? > from my exp, college has nothing to do with growing as an adult. It's mainly moving out of your hometown and work your part time job and start planning your life. That's too bad. There is so much more going on. What a…

that's not what "adult" means, you've chosen the wrong word, and now you are changing the definition of "adult" to an activist who has to have opinions about grandiose things in the world.

Again you keep making the argument that university is the only place where you can learn how to think, which is a pretty basic human skill. If that was true, then it's a dangerous system that needs to be fixed, not something to celebrate.

I said "was true" because I didn't know that the government installed locks on books and encrypting mechanisms on the internet and public libraries so that they are only accessible from universities.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#542

Post by nsonha »

wolverine876 wrote: post #321
nsonha wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"College and university were never supposed to be about job training. They were supposed to teach one how to learn so you could become a lifelong learner" I see little benefit in discussing how things should be instead of what they are. There are clearly forces that pivoted universities towards what they are today, telling people what university should be isn't gonna fix anything. More importantly, who decided univer…

> I see little benefit in discussing how things should be instead of what they are. There are clearly forces that pivoted universities towards what they are today, telling people what university should be isn't gonna fix anything. What makes you say they are that, and for everyone, and from everyone's perception? Because lots of people say it on HN? Because lots of people say it anywhere? Does that make it true? And…

> why can't it change again?

who said it can't? It will be changed by looking into the mirror and fix the incentives or whatever that corrupted higher education. Not by preaching people how they should invest their time and efforts. Preaching only works in churchs.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#544

Post by sarchertech »

iamleppert wrote: post #515
wolverine876 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you have some knowledge that I could learn from, but it requires both of us and most of that is inflammatory and hyperbole. Let's both try curiosity and bringing valuable knowledge to the table? > 18 year olds in Bangladesh are a lot more “adult” Imagine an 18 year old in the US. They could go to college and learn more about the world, themselves, etc., or get a menial job, an apartment, and become more adul…

I never went to college, instead I got a job and worked like you say at age 18. I then worked my way into software engineering. Compared to my siblings (and virtually everyone else in my family, who took more traditional routes), I’m far more independent and have a stable career with no college debt. I’ve heard of others talk up the college experience, but I fail to see what’s so special about it. What exactly did I…

The “college experience” of living in a dorm for 4 years is probably overrated, but if you can afford it, there’s definitely a benefit to spending 4 years on directed learning. Both in subjects you’re interested and in being forced to learn subjects you would never touch on your own.

I went back to school after a decade of web development, and learned a ton. I think I’m a much better developer than I would have been had I learned only what I thought I needed for my job (could be wrong about that, but I don’t think I am). I’ve also worked with plenty of people without degrees who were better developers than me, but to a person, I think they would have greatly benefited from a broader theoretical foundation than what they built through self directed learning.

One thing you should think about is that rationalization likely applies to you just as much as it does to the college educated people you’re talking about.

I was in the college is useless boat before I went back and most of it was rationalizing my choices—plus a bit of feeling inferior.

It’s one thing to decide that college wasn’t the right decision for you (and maybe it wasn’t). It’s another entirely to write off everyone who went as suckers.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#545

Post by anaccountexists »

scaramanga wrote: post #536

This thread is like a parody of a wealthy tech-bro hot-take on any policy issue. The purpose of the debt forgiveness is precisely to transfer wealth to people who need it. Whether the institutions can be profitable or not without further government funding is practically immaterial. If the institution is doing a social good, it probably cannot be self-funding. In which case, yes, we will bail it out again. And again.…

Isn’t the actual problem that we’re sending people to 4 year institutions who… don’t actually need the education they’re getting? I have so many friends that graduated with ridiculous amounts of debt to go into escape room design or being a barista (neither of which had anything to do with their degrees). They were told a lie, like many others, that they should “choose what makes them happy” when studying and now they’re screwed for the foreseeable future finance-wise.

Debt forgiveness addresses a symptom, not the core issue. I support it because I’ve seen firsthand how much of a hole it’s left people who made bad choices as a high schooler in, but we can’t keep making the same mistakes that got us here in the first place.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#546

Post by fakethenews2022 »

beloch wrote: post #424
imgabe wrote: post #312

Higher education in the US is trying to fulfill so many roles it's unsustainable. - teaching marketable skills so people can get jobs - teaching "how to think" and learning about art and culture - Performing cutting edge research - minor league sports teams The large state schools are trying to fulfill all these conflicting roles. We should probably break them out to separate entities. If you have a physicist who's a…

One thing I was told as a grad student that I've never forgotten is, "Nobody has ever won a Nobel prize for having happy students". At the time, I was struggling to keep up with the marking demands of a new (i.e. This was the first year it was taught) course I was TA'ing. I had around a hundred students and each one was generating 10-20 pages of handwritten lab reports per week. Student writing varied from human type…

UC Berkeley CS has teaching professors who no longer do research and solely teach.

They introduced this well after I graduated but I did take classes with some professors who became teaching professors. They were research professors when I took them.

I found the experienced professors competent even if some were uninspired. On the other hand, I generally had negative experiences with the graduate assistants and new professors.

The graduate students and new professors didn't know the material as well and didn't have much experience teaching. The older professors mostly knew the material much better and had an established process.

I had Stuart Russell, Raimund Seidel, Randy Katz, John Wawryznek, and others.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#547

Post by ktln2 »

beambot wrote: post #494
mattkrause wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grants are even crazier than that. Most of the actual work is done by trainees who are a) learning how to do for the first time and b) may never actually do it again because they're going to move onto something else. The profs are, at best, managing them and even that's often a bit iffy. Everybody's obviously got to learn somewhere, but universities and research funders are oddly weird about experience and expert…

The professor job is an absurd ask: - Enterprise sales rep with a $500k-$1M annual quota (aka grants). - R&D manager of a team comprised almost entirely of junior employees - Lecturer and administration for teaching. - Administrator & volunteer within the department, chair roles for key academic conferences, and editor on major journals -- all to check the "service" box for tenure. - Because they aren't a proper CEO,…

also

- getting paid below (barely above if you are lucky) 6 figures

- requires 3+ years of postdoc training which paid even worse

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#548

Post by crackercrews »

mrjangles wrote: post #531
crackercrews wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A prominent researcher noted that the following question was tested by the ETS but never made it onto the SAT: The actor's bearing on stage seemed ______; her movements were natural and her technique _____ A. unremitting...blasé B. fluid...tentative C. unstudied...contrived D. eclectic...uniform E. grandiose...controlled Apparently 8% more black students answered this question correctly than white students, and it wa…

That made no sense so I followed your link and found that C is uncontrived not contrived, which then makes perfect sense. Every option has either 2 words that make no sense, or one word that makes no sense with "her movements were natural" and one that does. Only option C has two words which make sense with both. This question is just basic English comprehension and should be on every exam.

Sorry, I had seen this elsewhere and it was incorrectly transcribed. You are correct that the linked page shows "uncontrived" for C. That makes the question less bad though still a bit stilted.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#549

Post by wolverine876 »

judge2020 wrote: post #520
wolverine876 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not "races", it's culture. This is not much better, and is often used (without implicating the parent commenter) by racists as codeword cover. Again, I'm not implicating you, but consider for what reasons they use it. Think about it: What do you know about these 'cultures'? Have you lived in one? How do you even define the word - is there a definition outside pop politics? Is it a static thing? Over time or sp…

Nobody is making any assumptions or predeterminations about cultures, the point is that we need to recognize that it's not the color of your skin or your heritage that determines your placement, it's the environment you grow up in. Coincidentally, this does match up with your 'parental wealth' claim, since any pair of upper-middle-class parents is more likely able to afford to live in an area with schools rated at le…

> it's not the color of your skin or your heritage that determines your placement

Where could that come from? There is an enormous history of racism in the US, and plenty of it overtly, less overtly, etc. right now. You could see it in this thread, where someone literally said that race was the determining factor. You have to blind yourself not to see it over and over in our society.

And yet it somehow doesn't affect people or their educations? Instead of fighting a political battle, what can we do to end it?

> this does match up with your 'parental wealth' claim, since any pair of upper-middle-class parents is more likely able to afford to live in an area with schools rated at least 6 by GreatSchools, thus giving their child(ren) a better opportunity at education.

I wonder if the research controls for that; it would tell us a lot.

> the only thing directly hindering any integration of lower-class and higher-class kids in schools is what I said above

There is plenty of data to observe; we don't have to guess. What is your guess based on? In my non-systematic and few observations, attempts at integration are resisted aggressively by white parents, especially now. Also, remember school busing.

Over time, observe if the hypothesis that I was told - that I doubted and argued against, and that I had to admit I found true to be - see whether it is true: There is always another story, another explanation, year after year, generation after generation, but the result always consistent with racial discrimination.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#550

Post by Manuel_D »

wolverine876 wrote: post #287
Manuel_D wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 2 years of schooling and 2 years of working an becoming financially self-sufficient would better prepare people for adulthood than 4 years of schooling. Software development, electrical engineering, and plenty of other tech jobs could be taught in 2 years. Perhaps not to the level where people are contributing to cutting edge research - graduate and PhD programs still have their place. But I think many people…

> I think 2 years of schooling and 2 years of working an becoming financially self-sufficient would better prepare people for adulthood than 4 years of schooling. Software development, electrical engineering, and plenty of other tech jobs could be taught in 2 years. Engineering programs are widely considered to be difficult to complete in 4 years. Where do you get 2 years? Also, after my sophomore year in college, I…

One, eliminating a bunch of required courses not relevant to the job would make things go faster. Sure, things like humanities are fun but for many people getting an education it's not worth the cost-benefit analysis. Plenty of people taking on debt going to college to improve their future prospects would be better served

Two, I don't think someone needs a full engineering degree to become productive. Writing my own compiler was a blast, and gave me some real insight into how computers work under the hood. But if our goal is to improve the earning potential of young adults with the minimum financial burden, I wouldn't be teaching compilers. I'd be teaching how to spin up cloud services, the network stack, and modern web dev.

College is for the student. But it also costs the student a boatload of money. If we want to give the student the best bang for their buck, approaching it as a form of job training would be more effective. Sure, companies could pay for that training. But they're not and colleges fulfill this role, and insist on tacking on a bunch of other requirements that don't really do much to help the student's job prospects.

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