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College has been oversold

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Re: College has been oversold

#111

Post by billswift »

maratd wrote: post #94
joshklein wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like we agree - my post was expressly derisive of the kid who sleeps through his poetry class. Regardless, it sounds like writing poetry suggests a romantic lark to you. To me, it was a lesson in how to convey powerfully complex ideas in concise, but meaningful, language. I didn't make a lot of money right out of school, but 3 years later I was making a boatload. Why? Because I can write the kind of email t…

> It sounds like we agree We agree in the sense that we both believe there is value in a good education. Especially a liberal arts one. I learned how to learn in college. By taking disparate subjects, I can absorb new information with ease. That is the most tangible and valuable skill I picked up. I got it by taking random subjects. The very definition of a liberal arts education. That said, the degree itself is wort…

For anyone really interested in liberal arts, you would probably be better off doing it on your own, even if college was a lot cheaper than it is. Use your money more for things that will repay the investment.

There are some really good resources out there for self-study. An easy one to start with is Ron Gross's The Independent Scholar's Handbook, http://www.amazon.com/Independent-Scholars-Handbook-Ronald-G....

But the much older (early seventies) book This Way Out is even more useful. My Amazon review:

This book is in 3 parts, the last 2 Experimental Colleges and Foreign Study are too dated to be useful.

Part one is the best book for college-level self-study I have used. I first read it in the early 1980s and have reread it several times since, it is only 135 pages but packed with useful advice. The biggest weakness for the current user is that it has nothing on computers or the internet, but some of its advice such as "Write lots of short papers. Long papers kill students and tutors alike. Write lots of short papers. It will teach you too write and that, as we will demonstrate later, is essential" could almost have been written for the Web (most books on creating web pages emphasize short, to the point writing). They also mention the absolute essential for self-education - you must love to read, if you don't, then stay in college where they will force you to read.

http://www.amazon.com/This-way-out-alternatives-traditional/...

Re: College has been oversold

#112

Post by Apocryphon »

losvedir wrote: post #93
Hyena wrote: post #80

I have a degree in art history and have been applying to graduate school in computer science. I have had ample opportunity to reflect systematically on my choices in undergrad and what I've done since graduating. While early drafts of personal statements have made claims like "mistake", those drafts never make the cut. No one ever oversold college to me. Liberal arts education went precisely as my professors describe…

I completely agree with this: > That learning curve is often too steep given our secondary education system . . . we need to redesign our education system taking this objective and the preparation of our students into account. However, I vehemently disagree with this: > If we want to increase graduation into STEM fields . . . I place the blame squarely where it belongs: on STEM departments No, no, no, no, no! This wo…

I think a quote from the thread on the article about physics education applies here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3187609

"there's a significant difference between "weeder" classes and later classes that actually focus on understanding. Calculus courses are the worst offender I can think of. They're not about imparting you with a complete understanding of the relevant mathematics, but much more about whether you can stomach being made to memorize lots of pattern-matching heuristics to do endless reams of tedious problems. Contrast this with an upper division or graduate course: they're much more focused on concepts, patterns, and understanding. The curriculum even admits this: they have the "advanced calculus" upper-division courses for actually teaching the underlying math."

Weeder classes for the sake of weeding students is not a good thing. Teaching rigorous material and expecting students to know it is not the same thing as weeding. The problem is that too many STEM departments use weeder courses.

Re: College has been oversold

#113

Post by king_jester »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #36
impendia wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you suggest a track similar to law/med school. In those progressions graduates can expect to make well into the six figures. If we doubled teachers' pay, lightened their workload, and most importantly did not require teachers to answer so stringently to administrators (and voters and homebuyers) who mainly care about test scores, I would agree this is a good idea. I have a friend who's a teacher, who works hard…

How light a workload do teachers need? As it stands now, full time teachers [1] work only 38.5 hours/week (on average). http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf I'm not sure how increasing pay, further reducing work hours, and completely eliminating accountability will do anything other than buy teacher's loyalties in an election year. Incidentally, there is also little evidence that postgraduate degrees in e…

Could you explain your source for the statistic you used on an avg. 38.5 hour work week for teachers? The only relevant information I found in the linked PDF was chart 2, which has the following footnote:

NOTE: The calculations of hours worked are based on data collected about how survey respondents spent “yesterday.” Thus, average weekly work hours are an extrapolation based on the activity for 1 day.

That footnote seems to imply that the avg. hours worked per week calculation may not be very accurate. The linked PDF also doesn't mention if the hours reported are the contracted hours for the teacher or the total hours spent working including work at home and outside of school hours.

Re: College has been oversold

#114

Post by flomo »

Hyena wrote: post #80

I have a degree in art history and have been applying to graduate school in computer science. I have had ample opportunity to reflect systematically on my choices in undergrad and what I've done since graduating. While early drafts of personal statements have made claims like "mistake", those drafts never make the cut. No one ever oversold college to me. Liberal arts education went precisely as my professors describe…

This was certainly the case back when I was studying engineering. The introductory classes were "sink or swim" and graded on a steep curve. The net effect was "Let's take the students with the highest math/science test scores and encourage half of them to drop out of STEM programs."

Meanwhile, most liberal arts coursework began with "a gentle introduction to X". I did well in the math/science classes, but the workload was enormous, and everyone recognized that the non-STEM students were having a more enjoyable time.

Re: College has been oversold

#115

Post by Eeko »

[deleted] wrote: post #109
joshklein wrote: post #27

I have a similar conclusion but slightly different reasoning. And I want to defend liberal arts majors a bit, since I'm one of them. To me, the problem is that most people don't view college as an investment in their future, but rather as a temporary place to delay choices. Certainly, it is positioned as an investment by educators, and it is probably true for science & engineering degrees, but do students approach it…

[deleted]

Where are your classmates of Dev. Studies and Philosophy right now? They all did CSE in their spare time?

Re: College has been oversold

#116

Post by rwl »

Permit wrote: post #70
rwl wrote: post #51

"Most importantly, graduates in the arts, psychology and journalism are less likely to create the kinds of innovations that drive economic growth. Economic growth is not a magic totem to which all else must bow, but it is one of the main reasons we subsidize higher education." I think this is a completely misguided assumption. Maybe this is true these days. But it wasn't always true, and it shouldn't be true. Higher…

> It's about giving them the cognitive, rhetorical, and even emotional skills required to solve the hard problems that we face as a society. I suppose the counter argument is: Do you think individuals graduating in STEM fields don't pick up these skills? And if so, why are these skills limited to liberal arts majors?

> Do you think individuals graduating in STEM fields don't pick up these skills?

That depends, I think, on what their program is. Many STEM programs leading to a Bachelor's degree are still liberal arts programs, in name and in spirit. Let's not forget that math and astronomy, at least, have been part of the conception of the "liberal arts" since antiquity. The idea that there is a sharp division between science and math, on the one hand, and the liberal arts on the other, is a recent one.

Some STEM programs, however, are purely technical programs. Their value is in a particular kind of technical training. I don't know, since I haven't gone through one of those programs myself, but I would bet that students graduating from such programs don't come away with the same kind of skills that a liberal arts education provides.

In sum, I think the STEM/liberal arts distinction is a false dichotomy. The real distinction is something like: as a student in a particular program, are you primarily training to be a citizen, or a technician? You can, of course, do both.

Re: College has been oversold

#117

Post by mattmcknight »

[deleted] wrote: post #109
joshklein wrote: post #27

I have a similar conclusion but slightly different reasoning. And I want to defend liberal arts majors a bit, since I'm one of them. To me, the problem is that most people don't view college as an investment in their future, but rather as a temporary place to delay choices. Certainly, it is positioned as an investment by educators, and it is probably true for science & engineering degrees, but do students approach it…

[deleted]

"But what I learned in those courses, being inspired by amazing faculty was more on the soft skills side: Self-confidence, critical reading, critical writing, argumentation, strong communication skills, problem-solving, strong analytical research abilities, ability to lead groups etc etc..."

But couldn't you have learned those skills with another degree as well? So, wouldn't you have been better off learning those skills in classes where you also learned about the subject matter in the area where you are working?

Re: College has been oversold

#118

Post by mikecarlucci »

losvedir wrote: post #93
Hyena wrote: post #80

I have a degree in art history and have been applying to graduate school in computer science. I have had ample opportunity to reflect systematically on my choices in undergrad and what I've done since graduating. While early drafts of personal statements have made claims like "mistake", those drafts never make the cut. No one ever oversold college to me. Liberal arts education went precisely as my professors describe…

I completely agree with this: > That learning curve is often too steep given our secondary education system . . . we need to redesign our education system taking this objective and the preparation of our students into account. However, I vehemently disagree with this: > If we want to increase graduation into STEM fields . . . I place the blame squarely where it belongs: on STEM departments No, no, no, no, no! This wo…

I don't think anyone is talking about creating "STEM-lite" grads but maybe there are qualified people who for one reason or another can't pick up calculus as fast as the school wants. Or didn't get a complete enough background in high school. Or is 18 years old and living away from home for the first time and just made a few bad decisions.

Failing a class first semester really puts pressure on changing majors. Students go into he program hearing that a lot of people will drop, do poorly, and are encouraged to drop. Someone earlier said schools should try and "weed in" students rather than weed out.

Departments need to take their fair share of blame in creating an environment that can be miserable for even the successful students. Not all the blame, but some.

Re: College has been oversold

#119

Post by achompas »

nobody31 wrote: post #91
_delirium wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a stats-heavy computer scientist, but I'd argue the opposite, that the ability to construct and evaluate a rigorous argument is the first thing lacking: one that plausibly analyzes the domain, recounts opposing arguments reasonably fairly, constructs counterarguments that are responsive to the opponents' arguments, and uses logical argumentation along with empirical evidence in a way that actually supports its po…

So on one side you run a T-test to see if the correlation is significant. On the other side you have the ability to phrase it as a question in the same language as Aristotle.

So on one side you run a T-test to see if the correlation is significant.

This is an incredibly gross simplification of applying statistical theory. I suggest you pick up some texts on inference, Bayesian stats, and probability theory to learn how stats != "running t-tests".

Re: College has been oversold

#120

Post by [deleted] »

mattmcknight wrote: post #117
[deleted] wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

"But what I learned in those courses, being inspired by amazing faculty was more on the soft skills side: Self-confidence, critical reading, critical writing, argumentation, strong communication skills, problem-solving, strong analytical research abilities, ability to lead groups etc etc..." But couldn't you have learned those skills with another degree as well? So, wouldn't you have been better off learning those sk…

[deleted]
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