61–70 of 74 posts
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> rampant party culture This greatly depends on the particular university. I really doubt there's much of a party at places like Cal Poly, Georgia Tech, or MIT when you compare them to FSU or a place like the University of Arizona.
Ah. Ha. Ha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFbDZyHxL2g
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What are you talking about? That free market is why colleges "Club-Med" their facilities. It's what the high schoolers (and importantly, their parents) see when they're touring the school, deciding who to sign a decade of future earnings to.
Who owns the student loans of Americans? It's not the free market.
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Ah. Ha. Ha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFbDZyHxL2g
That's what you chose to demonstrate that MIT is a party school?
Apart from the aspects of privilege, acts of drunkenness, and social schmoozing, I think what is special about the "college years" is these are some of the rare moments where young people have a chance to live relatively worry free: no worries about one's mission in life, no worries about financial subsistence (for the privileged students, not the ones holding two part-time jobs in parallel), and relatively less social anxiety (when you're young, everyone likes you).
IMHO, it is only within such prolonged worry-free moments that people can learn vast amounts of science and go on to make scientific discoveries. As adults, it is much more difficult to learn at this pace---we pick up experience and can better plan our learning, but we rarely have vast amounts of time to dedicate to learning.
Why don't employers let their employees go on sabbaticals? Imagine you can work for four years receiving 80% of your pay and then you earn a year of your free time to travel and study full-time.
Ah and the plug is about my math & physics textbook for adults, which manages to reproduce the first-year of college experience (calculus and mechanics) in a very affordable manner. Available on lulu: http://www.lulu.com/shop/noBSguide/product-21899015.html (use coupon code DGY5 for 30% off, via lulu.com/home)
"Adult Education" has this nagging stigma associated with it (though, thankfully, that's changing due to MOOCs and such). But still -- even when the major universities offer it, it's seen with a skewed tilt by much of the rest of the world. Ask anyone who graduated from Harvard (undergrad), HBS, HLS, etc. about the Harvard Extension School and you'll get the eye-roll I'm talking about. I think in cases like this it's…
Cynicism alert. The purpose of widespread college education is socioeconomic. People simply wouldn't throw so much money and time after this game (starting, in some places, with preschool admissions, and often totaling near the half-million mark) if it weren't. The leaders of our society don't value culture or education that much; they do value tradition, pedigree, and position. Our colleges actually do a pretty good…
Going to need some evidence of that. Seems like bullshit.
Cynicism alert. The purpose of widespread college education is socioeconomic. People simply wouldn't throw so much money and time after this game (starting, in some places, with preschool admissions, and often totaling near the half-million mark) if it weren't. The leaders of our society don't value culture or education that much; they do value tradition, pedigree, and position. Our colleges actually do a pretty good…
I am not aware of any evidence that these motivations were the conscious intent behind the creation of the post-World War II university complex (except to the extent that avoiding mass post-war unemployment was a motivation for the GI bill in particular). Nor does it seem like it was the subconscious or institutional intent either. Do you have any evidence for these statements?
In my understanding, the post-war college system was created because the nation's leadership believed in the goals of training people for the workforce and the Utopian goal of educating every person as a philosophe. The people in charge of the system at the time were academics themselves, who were true believers. As the university industry grew, there is a big incentive to cater to the whims of the students in order to attract students, so universities have made themselves a very pleasant and sheltered playground for 18-22 year olds.
The subconcious, adaptive motivation for the creation of the university system, is that the idea of a university education is a self-replicating adaptive fiction. Whether or not the education is useful, the more people who have the education, the more people who are indoctrinated to believe that said education is useful, so the more the belief replicates.
"Adult Education" has this nagging stigma associated with it (though, thankfully, that's changing due to MOOCs and such). But still -- even when the major universities offer it, it's seen with a skewed tilt by much of the rest of the world. Ask anyone who graduated from Harvard (undergrad), HBS, HLS, etc. about the Harvard Extension School and you'll get the eye-roll I'm talking about. I think in cases like this it's…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> rampant party culture This greatly depends on the particular university. I really doubt there's much of a party at places like Cal Poly, Georgia Tech, or MIT when you compare them to FSU or a place like the University of Arizona.
Can't speak for Cal Poly, but there's a lot of binge drinking at the other two on the list for sure. The parties might just be a little less fun , but just as drunk...
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That's what you chose to demonstrate that MIT is a party school?
Well there's that, and there's the fraternities. MIT, in my experience of having lived in Cambridge, is very much "work hard, play hard" for its undergrads.