Show HN: I made a cheap alternative to college-level math & physics tutoring

But I wanted to comment on some bitterness in your post:

> the school went the extra mile to ensure I don’t have the resources to learn on my own,

The things you list are department or even course-specific. For example when I did thermo (forget the course number) they had not just lecture/tutorial/office hours but handouts about things people found hard to understand ("mud" as in "clear as").

Also study groups are life saving. Would not have passed Unified without it.

> It turns out that universities succeed by being prestigious, not by teaching well.

I can't speak for other institutions, but don't think of MIT as a school (total spending on education is only ~15% of revenue and run at a slight loss). MIT is a huge government (and industry) research lab with a small school bolted on the side. Most of the staff is research staff; most of the faculty seem to resent teaching, and undergrads in general unless they can contribute to research (this somewhat overstatement ignores some faculty who love teaching and students -- but they are a minority).

You can get a fantastic education at MIT (I sure did, as did some friends) and you can get a terrible one (I have many friends who say that's what they got). The difference has nothing to do with brains or aptitude, it's just if you happen to accidentally get into the "groove". From visiting friends at other schools and looking and my kid's education I can say MIT's experience is really different, and not necessarily better.

As someone that's gone to mid schools and has lots of friends that went to top schools, I was surprised to find that I think I got more education out of my experience. BUT they certainly got far more opportunities (internships, RSUs, ability to publish, networking, etc). I could sit down and solve a problem faster than them but they had more hands on experience and had several internships and research opportunities I envied. It was kinda odd but made sense.

But it took me far too long to realize something rather obvious. Education quality __should__ saturate and likely have a bias towards the mid schools being slightly better at teaching. The reasons? Well, this is conjecture, but I'd like to hear other's thoughts.

Now I still think in general the top schools are probably better. But I think the difference is much flatter than many assume.

- There's just far more graduates per year than academic positions. Even at the Community College I started at I had a Harvard educated math professor. At my Uni (I did physics), we had a Harvard, a few MIT, a few Berkeley and others. I guess it should make sense that it should trickle down if the market is saturated. Differentiating candidates can be a messy business sometimes and can come down to nuance if all of them are top level. MIT alone graduates about 50 PhDs in physics a year and across the US there's 200 tenure track positions. Berkeley does about the same, and so 2 schools could fill half of all positions (without getting into specialty and all the nuance like living location and spouses. We're guesstimating here).

- Possible bias towards mid schools can happen when top schools are highly focusing on research. At a R1 university, professors are more judged by their research than their teaching skills, so it becomes a secondary priority. They care more about their grad students, research grants, etc. So you get graduate students teaching (which can be very hit or miss) or often checked out professors. Of course, there are also lecturer positions and those can make this fuzzier. And we all know stellar people like Gilbert Strang. Basically if you want to do the best research you're going to aim at the top schools with the top funding who will enable you to do the most. But if you're more theoretical or care more about teaching or where you live, you won't prioritize that as much.

- Does metric hacking or metric pursuit play a role too? Academics is very cut throat and competitive. There is a big publish or perish paradigm and a major focus on work being novel. You can probably imagine it can be difficult to publish work that is highly novel and successful while doing it quickly and continually. We've seen plenty of works that get through by "novelty through obscurification" as well as flat out frauds. These are far from the majority of cases, but certainly we should recognize that the system has a pressure that encourages this behavior. Which what I'm getting at is that if you want to sit down and study a long term problem or want to research unpopular ideas and teach you probably aren't going to end up at a top university either. So question is how this factors in.

Overall I think the first point is really the most critical, but I think the others are worth considering. I'm sure some other people might have thoughts and I'm very open to hearing them. I think we can do a lot for academia by destroying this notion of prestige. At the end it matters what people can do, though unfortunately that is often hard to measure (otherwise hiring would be really easy and fast). But prestige is self-reinforcing as it makes those schools more likely to get recruitment, internship opportunities for their students, and grants.

I do really think there is a big opportunity for disruption in education. I do love remote and online education, but I still do not think it is a substitute for what can be done in person. But I think this disruption is much harder and requires a cultural shift. Assuming the premise is true. But some of that cultural shift can be things like taking interns from lower schools, because those networks need to be formed.

That's okay. Most TAs/professors will still help. Unfortunately some are assholes and if you get those, sorry. But the best way to deal with this is by asking them how to get started with a problem. Or to also ask about problems you've already solved. Here's some templated questions, modify for your specifics

  I've been struggling solving this problem, can you help me get started? I tried {x,y,z} but that doesn't seem to work because {a,b,c}. 

  I solved this problem, but it took me longer than I think it should have. Can we walk through it together so I can see how you would approach it? 

  I'm having a hard time starting problems, not even knowing where to begin. Do you have any advice? 

  Can we do more problems in class?

In physics, the first thing I'd always start with is a force diagram and writing down my knowns and unknowns. This way I could do a form of dimensional analysis and then I had to just figure out how to convert. I then took these skills to CS and found a similar avenue. Your professors saying to write pseudo code aren't just trying to get you to do more work. This is your map.

I take this same approach when I program. I write mostly in python so this works real well. I use vim and so will have one pane open to my file and another to an ipython terminal. I can test my logic in the terminal and write code side by side. So I try to write something quick first (think "write drunk, edit sober"). Then I start writing my function and I start by writing a small description and the arguments. As I'm writing this, I find my mind often finds edge cases that I can account for. A few minutes of back and forth, and I got a pretty good function. Essentially, I am using documentation as a rubber ducky or the Feynman Method[0].

I also highly suggest working with other students. There's a lot of good reasons for this. They'll see things in a different way than you, and one of the most important tools you can build is getting these different viewpoints/perspectives. Another is you're growing your network. These are very important for jobs. And probably most importantly, you need friends and a social life. If you're kicking yourself when you're down too much, you're gonna be slower at solving problems. Sometimes the best thing to do is get up, take a walk, and come back (that's the hard part).

Also, ask questions in class. Don't worry about what other students think. You're paying for the professor. In today's age you can probably find better lectures online. So get your money's worth and ask in class. Most professors actually will be happy because when lecturing we hate having just blank stares and silence. We all dread the "does this make sense?" question and the absolutely unconvincing murmur of "yeah". Make your time count. I know it can be hard to be engaged, but also asking questions will help with that. And absolutely do not be afraid to interrupt or ask them to slow down. You're paying way to much to just sit in an in-person YouTube lecture.

[0] https://fs.blog/feynman-technique/