The Slow Death of the University
chronicle.com
The Slow Death of the University
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Re: The Slow Death of the University
#2Descriptions of certain ancient centers of learning (I am thinking of Nalanda[1]) seem to convey an atmosphere of open-to-all-and-sundry and free sharing of knowledge, ideas and interpretation amongst the entire community. We can at least look for that online.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#3This is only mildly related to the article, but does anyone else have difficulty imagining what others' jobs are? For example, I'm just young enough to remember a time when I thought a programmer was someone who hid in a closet to slam at a keyboard for nine hours a day, but that notion was only corrected by entering the workforce. What about my other misconceptions? There's no way to learn about all of them firsthand. I figure plumbers just travel between job sites to hit pipes for nine hours a day, managers just scream into phones and reply to emails for nine hours a day, and literary theorists ... sit ... in their offices ... for nine hours ...
That's the problem; I'm not possessed of a sufficiently creative (or informed) mind to fill in the blanks here. Dangerously, due to that programming knowledge, I also have the incorrect notion that everyone else could be replaced by either a handful of code and some lightly trained workers, or wholesale by mechanization. Clearly this isn't the case (or the market is doing a very poor job of finding exploitable niches), so what gives? What do people _do_? Because I'm at a loss and need to educate myself.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#4> It is true that only about 5 percent of the British population attended university in my own student days, and there are those who claim that today, when that figure has risen to around 50 percent, such liberality of spirit is no longer affordable. Yet Germany, to name only one example, provides free education to its sizable student population.
... Yes, they have, and from what I've heard it consists substantially of very large seminar classes and an expectation of self-directed, self-motivated study from its students: hardly the paradigm the author has been mourning where faculty might expect that
> the undergraduate would simply drop round to their rooms when the spirit moved him for a glass of sherry and a civilized chat about Jane Austen or the function of the pancreas.
(Also available in Germany, just to note: immigration opportunities for international students, a premise the UK (and the US) have been shying away from.)
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#5It's a big, complex problem.
There is of course the change over the last few decades by which universities have become a third stage of standard education rather than a voluntary pursuit of possibly esoteric learning. This has been brought about by a number of factors, but has (I think) led to more education, which is a good thing. Of course, to offset the cost of 4 years of school and 4 "lost" years of productivity, students want degrees that will improve their odds of getting a job. That pretty much explains the shift towards professional training.
Bringing the universities to everyone also means broadening the offerings — originally when it was only the erudition-inclined or well-to-do, a university could get away with having a great deal of humanities and other fields that do not generate grants or jobs. It was learning for learning's sake, which few could afford.
I do think we're approaching an inflection point in the future at which some major universities will fight back against this trend. But because this will be expensive to them and their students, I don't think it will happen soon. We need a time of extraordinary prosperity in which money can be lavished on social services and education, and that's not today or the next ten years.
It's sad, but I'm hoping it's a transitional phase, not a final one.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#6This is only mildly related to the article, but does anyone else have difficulty imagining what others' jobs are? For example, I'm just young enough to remember a time when I thought a programmer was someone who hid in a closet to slam at a keyboard for nine hours a day, but that notion was only corrected by entering the workforce. What about my other misconceptions? There's no way to learn about all of them firsthan…
I understand your thinking here. Maybe we need something like Dirty Jobs but for non-dirty jobs too.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#7Descriptions of certain ancient centers of learning (I am thinking of Nalanda[1]) seem to convey an atmosphere of open-to-all-and-sundry and free sharing of knowledge, ideas and interpretation amongst the entire community. We can at least look for that online. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda
finland.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#8Isn't this part of a larger, global trend of turning public institutions into private businesses?
It happened to the American prision system, it's happening to healthcare, education, and higher education.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#9It's a big, complex problem. There is of course the change over the last few decades by which universities have become a third stage of standard education rather than a voluntary pursuit of possibly esoteric learning. This has been brought about by a number of factors, but has (I think) led to more education, which is a good thing. Of course, to offset the cost of 4 years of school and 4 "lost" years of productivity,…
There's something of a shift toward professional training, but there still seem to be a glut of students entering college without a clear idea of what they're getting out of it or what it will cost them. Pressured to attend by the social expectation that everyone should go to college, the now-foolish guidance many in my generation received of "do what you love," and the ready supply of student loans, students are still throwing themselves into the gaping maw of debt and degrees that are not useful to them in the workforce. (I am very lucky that, for me, "do what you love" ended up meaning the field of computer science).
What we need is to break out of this idea that everyone must attend university "or else you'll be a garbageman" or whatever they were telling us in school growing up.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#10This is only mildly related to the article, but does anyone else have difficulty imagining what others' jobs are? For example, I'm just young enough to remember a time when I thought a programmer was someone who hid in a closet to slam at a keyboard for nine hours a day, but that notion was only corrected by entering the workforce. What about my other misconceptions? There's no way to learn about all of them firsthan…
...but... that's what literary theorists literally do, isn't it? Read books and articles and write about them, and attend meetings. Having spent a reasonably long time in the University system (as a student, mind), I have a general idea of what everyone does and why.
On the other hand, I really don't understand what a lot people in the tech industry do. I have a friend who works for some kind of 'data analysis' company. He makes $80K a year, and he tells me on a bad day he has to do 2 hours of 'real' work: the rest of the time is spent on reddit or taking classes. It's gotten so bad (or good) for him that he is taking 3 evening classes in the University he graduated from while working full-time. He says he spends most of his worktime doing assignments and readings anyway, so he's more prepared for classes than he was ever in college.
I understand why a game company might need 50+ developers working on the same game. I understand why Google might need all those engineers. I really don't understand what 50+ 'data engineer's at what is essentially an SEO company with 100+ employees do... Like you say, I am really confused : is the market REALLY that bad at finding exploitable niches?
And then there's another friend of mine, who says the most difficult part of his Google engineering job by far was getting it. Go figure!