I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears • Hacker News Board

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

#681

Post by abdullahkhalids » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:16 AM UTC

throwoutway wrote: post #528

jhbadger wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primarily at what is known as PUIs (primarily undergraduate institutions), colleges and universities that either don't have grad students or have such a tiny graduate program that relying on them for teaching roles is unfeasible. In theory this is better for the students because the professors just care about teaching, but the down side is such institutions do little to no research and so the professors may be decade…

Not doing research doesn’t mean they are decades out of touch. What gives you that conclusion?

I am (temporarily) a prof at such an institution. Most profs in the STEM depts are getting more and more out of date with each passing year. There are no external incentive to learn the latest technical developments. And no time because the teaching load is 5 courses/year unlike 2-3/year at research institutions.

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

#682

Post by fakethenews2022 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:19 AM UTC

smugma wrote: post #600

fakethenews2022 wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Weren’t Mike Clancy (I think he only had a bachelors) and Brian Harvey (I think he got a PhD but maybe in education) around when you were there? I took both their classes and I thought Clancy was there in the 70’s and Harvey maybe 80’s?

Brian Harvey was there but I don't remember taking any of his classes. I went in the 90s. I also had Ousterhout.

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

#683

Post by shafyy » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:19 AM UTC

somethoughts wrote: post #667

crossroadsguy wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s unwise or wise per se. It’s just simply the case of - I’ve got the money, and hence I’ve got an audience, and (hence or not) I’ve got an urgent need to make random proclamations. Founder of this site does that a lot too and just like this post almost always gets a lot of attention. Some people can just afford to do and have people listen to their useless brain flatulations and on the side are often…

I'm curious what the motivation is as well. Just clicks? Like couldn't he have shown some metrics about the YC idea that is going to disrupt higher education - Lambda school - is doing better? I haven't seen as many updates recently. Or is the idea to get people to drop out early so his startup and other YC startups don't have to pay high starting salaries for college educated engineers. To be clear I don't necessari…

By now, it's clear that Lambda School is mostly a scam. They closed r/lambdaschool because it was full of people complaining, but you can find a lot of articles and accounts of former students if you search the internet. There's also this subreddit that only has negative reviews: https://www.reddit.com/r/LambdaSchoolReviews/

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

#684

Post by randomdata » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:20 AM UTC

mind-blight wrote: post #58

I'm concerned that the majority of "should we fix college or should we circumvent college" conversations don't bring up one of the scariest parts of our current economy: STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. All of the conversations I've seen implicitly assume that this is good, and that the solution to farmer workers (or other low paid workers) escaping poverty is to train them as so…

> We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty.

Do we, though? As a farmer and software developer, I struggle to find enough farm work to do. I'd take on more work if I could. Everyone and their brother wants to be farmers, though, so there is hot competition and a lot of us end up with only a small piece of the pie.

Per hour it pays more than software. There just aren't that many hours. I would likely be apporaching poverty relying on my farm income alone, but it is also very little work, so maybe that's economically rational?

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

#685

Post by wolverine876 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:21 AM UTC

synergy20 wrote: post #493

thebigman433 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> middle school kids are more keen about their gender or identities, or how awful US was in the past, or their hair color Do you genuinely believe this stuff that youre typing? I know that conservative medias say this and use it as a boogeyman to get themselves into power, but do you truly believe it? Ive worked with elementary, middle, and high school kids for the last 5 years, in an area that conservatives constant…

yes I believe it genuinely, as these are my three k-12 kids told me what's going on at school, and I got involved with school quite often, I can see those myself to some extent too. the middle school one actually told me she thinks at least 1/3 of her classmates are hard to tell their genders these days, and to greet a classmate the first sentence now should be: how should I address you? otherwise her classmates actu…

What's wrong with those things? They are different from what I (and I guess you) knew and know, but so what? We did plenty that was shocking and new to our parents, and equally mocked - do you remember? How absurdly narrow-minded our parents seemed? We were mostly right too. Are we going to do the same?

The next generation should not tether themselves at all to what is in our comfort zones; if they aren't going far beyond them, they aren't thinking for themselves. When I was young I remember thinking that the old people were jaded, corrupt, and didn't even try to address their ignorance - and now that I'm 'old', I can see I was right! With power has come all those things - not a commitment to truth, but disdain for being made to learn anything. God I hope the next generation doesn't follow or accomodate us. And to this day, some people I know in the prior generation still don't understand things that are normal to us now as adults, because we grew up with them. I know some that won't wear blue jeans because they see jeans as a symbol of a challenging culture.

They say progress happens one funeral at a time! :)

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

#686

Post by cole-k » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:21 AM UTC

somethoughts wrote: post #667

crossroadsguy wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s unwise or wise per se. It’s just simply the case of - I’ve got the money, and hence I’ve got an audience, and (hence or not) I’ve got an urgent need to make random proclamations. Founder of this site does that a lot too and just like this post almost always gets a lot of attention. Some people can just afford to do and have people listen to their useless brain flatulations and on the side are often…

I'm curious what the motivation is as well. Just clicks? Like couldn't he have shown some metrics about the YC idea that is going to disrupt higher education - Lambda school - is doing better? I haven't seen as many updates recently. Or is the idea to get people to drop out early so his startup and other YC startups don't have to pay high starting salaries for college educated engineers. To be clear I don't necessari…

I'd wager it's just to stoke his ego. If I had a megaphone through which I could reach thousands and they'd all cheer me on because they thought my ideas were great, I'd want to broadcast every good thought I had.

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

#687

Post by japanuspus » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:22 AM UTC

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #660

CodeBrad wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty similar to my experience TA'ing at a researched focused school. My first semester teaching a lab I was told "No one is remembered for being a good TA" and encouraged to do the absolute bare minimum to get paid so that I could focus on research.

;_; I remember my good TAs...

This. It might be true that nobody _in academia_ remembers a good TA, but I would claim that the TA-student relationship is one of the best ways to create a network across classes at uni. Personally I have used connections to former TA's and students in industry on multiple occasions.

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

#688

Post by erosenbe0 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:23 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #244

wolverine876 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. People repeat that but what is it based on? Most of the population, including most people who have economic stability and freedom, have not had STEM jobs and very likely will not have STEM jobs. More importantly, college is about much more than job training. College prepares people to be adults in every way, not to be a resource for corporations…

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…

Note: 4 years of college is probably 2.5 years of school, not 4. It runs 36 weeks a year and unless you are doing something rigorous, it mostly doesn't require a 40 hour week, except in short bursts.

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

#689

Post by watwut » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:23 AM UTC

synergy20 wrote: post #280

rayiner wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> College prepares people to be adults in every way, not to be a resource for corporations. Only 2% of Bangladeshis go to college. Are the rest not adults? Indeed, I’d say the opposite is true. Apart from job training, the main function of college in America seems to be extending adolescence and deferring dealing with the real world. 18 year olds in Bangladesh are a lot more “adult” than many college-educated 30-some…

college is delaying young people to become mature, we're producing giant babies these days, thanks to endless parenting, online gaming, social screen time, now probably even metaverse, you name it. on the STEM subject, teens good at math are never teacher's favorites, instead they're called nerds and some are even isolated from the rest, it's quite the opposite in Asia, or even in Europe. That's the root cause we nee…

> teens good at math are never teacher's favorites, instead they're called nerds and some are even isolated from the rest, it's quite the opposite in Asia, or even in Europe

Nah, no on is going to isolate you for being good at math. Literally, that does not happen. Isolation of kids that cant fit it does happen and some of those are good at math. But, the "being good at math" part is not what gets them isolated. It is the other stuff and behaviors, roughly in the "poor social skills" (may include "have hard time being assertive about own boundaries") that gets you isolated.

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

#690

Post by wolverine876 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 7:24 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #296

wolverine876 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. People repeat that but what is it based on? Most of the population, including most people who have economic stability and freedom, have not had STEM jobs and very likely will not have STEM jobs. More importantly, college is about much more than job training. College prepares people to be adults in every way, not to be a resource for corporations…

> People repeat that but what is it based on? Most of the population, including most people who have economic stability and freedom, have not had STEM jobs and very likely will not have STEM jobs. What generation? In my parents' generation, a secretary could get good health insurance for their family and retire with a pension. Today, someone new hired into that role would struggle to afford rent or health insurance f…

There just aren't enough STEM jobs to cover a fraction of people with financial stability.

> a secretary could get good health insurance for their family and retire with a pension. Today, someone new hired into that role would struggle to afford rent or health insurance for just themselves, and retirement is out of the question.

While I agree that wages haven't advanced outside of a the very few, secretaries aren't a good example. Computerization has made most of those skills obsolete.