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I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

blog.alyxandria.org

21–30 of 145 posts

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#21
post #9

So. Instead of paying a bunch of money and spending a lot of time on something that didn't feel right, you struck out on your own and self-educated yourself. Own that decision! Having a fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system you invented will just make you seem like you're defensive about it or trying to pull one over on people or something. It just feels weird.

What's so fake about it?

Completing a list of criteria and scoring well on standardized tests is pretty much all that qualifies somebody for a "degree" from any one of our current post secondary insitutions.

When you wrote "fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system" I assumed you were talking about the Universities and Colleges of the world.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#23

Opening an accrediting agency is the wrong first move. There's lots of space to work within the system that's already being opened up to you easily and cheaply. Try these two accredited schools that will award degrees entirely by examination, remote classes, independent study, project-based learning, and other proven study that matches a rigorous college program: http://www.wgu.edu http://www.excelsior.edu Excelsior…

Just looking briefly at excelsior, they don't even have a true CS degree. It looks like mostly IT, network admin, and technician kind of stuff. I don't think this really fulfills the need he was discussing.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#24
post #9

So. Instead of paying a bunch of money and spending a lot of time on something that didn't feel right, you struck out on your own and self-educated yourself. Own that decision! Having a fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system you invented will just make you seem like you're defensive about it or trying to pull one over on people or something. It just feels weird.

What's so fake about it? Completing a list of criteria and scoring well on standardized tests is pretty much all that qualifies somebody for a "degree" from any one of our current post secondary insitutions. When you wrote "fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system" I assumed you were talking about the Universities and Colleges of the world.

What's so fake about buying 100,000 followers on twitter? It means you're famous, right?

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#25

do you have an estimate of the cost for a full first degree? even one that's very broad will help me understand your idea better.

I sure do. As things stand right now, the cost of a bachelor's degree from start to finish will be capped at around $20,000 (hopefully less) if a student were to pay to take complete courses with a professor in a live-web conference, 1-1 tutoring, or in-person setting. Professors charging less than the maximum amount allowed, plus the opportunity to take competency exams administered by a professor (which have a much…

How much would you say the cap for a professor to teach would be. Also why would they want to do this instead of teach a real course at their university

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#26
post #9

So. Instead of paying a bunch of money and spending a lot of time on something that didn't feel right, you struck out on your own and self-educated yourself. Own that decision! Having a fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system you invented will just make you seem like you're defensive about it or trying to pull one over on people or something. It just feels weird.

I don't think there is a need to be condescending here. I actually like this persons idea and I want to see how it pans out.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#27
This blog post seems like a jumble of ideas that are neither consistent or connected.

It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?).

It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each major is limited.

He talks about how administrators are unnecessary, then suggests a similarly labor intensive accreditation system that requires experts, committees and other logistics that requires significant manpower and time/energy.

There are many flaws with the educational system, of which convenience, rigor, equality, and cost are a few the OP mentions, however his solution doesn't seem to solve many of the challenges he mentions. I doubt that accreditation is a major cost to running a university - there are simply many other market forces (wanting facilities, a good football team, strong researchers that might not put teaching first) that causes the cost/benefit relationship to be the status quo. He finds it unconscionable that adjunct faculty don't make enough money, then hopes to solve it with a free market - where honestly the things he values might not be the things many others value. He wants rigor - then critiques current accreditation processes that largely does what he suggests.

Each of the major MOOCs already are trying to accredite/build reputation/be rigorous. What OP is essentially doing is describing the idea of Udacity, Coursera, etc without the technical backend, the users to attract such a marketplace, connections, support, or actually being able to do a MOOC.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#28
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so fake about it? Completing a list of criteria and scoring well on standardized tests is pretty much all that qualifies somebody for a "degree" from any one of our current post secondary insitutions. When you wrote "fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system" I assumed you were talking about the Universities and Colleges of the world.

What's so fake about buying 100,000 followers on twitter? It means you're famous, right?

[deleted]

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#29

Personally, I think this idea is awesome. My off the top of my head suggestion would be to open source the requirements for accrediting a specific course. For example, it's determined that students from the "Intro to Calculus for Programmers" course need to meet certain qualifications to pass. If they finish the course on their own, with no help from an instructor, then they only need pay an Instructor to oversee an…

Monday evening beers ---> check in on Hacker News.

A winning combo.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#30

This blog post seems like a jumble of ideas that are neither consistent or connected. It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?). It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each…

Agreed, it is almost as if he needs a BA in English Lit
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