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The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

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Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#11

Post by dahart »

ren_engineer wrote: post #3

this is all the same rehashed Boomer garbage defending college. Reality is that all of these benefits could easily be replicated at a fraction of the cost. Cultural inertia is the only thing keeping the current university system alive, everything about the tenure track and how graduate students have to work is broken as well. The current system in the US was not created as a program to efficiently educate a modern wo…

> The current system in the US was not created as a program to efficiently educate a modern workforce to maintain a modern economy , so it fails miserably

By what metric is it failing? Why do you think it wasn’t created to educate the workforce? What is your emphasis on “modern” referring to? You clearly have strong feelings about this, and I’m curious why, but your comment doesn’t clearly communicate why you feel this way, nor give much evidence to back up the belief that education is broken and that fixing it is easy. Where is the evidence that education could be more efficient? What does more efficient mean? Are you talking about financial cost, or time & effort spent learning, or something else? If it’s “easily replicated” more efficiently then why hasn’t it already happened?

Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#12

Post by wiremine »

xcom86 wrote: post #9
wiremine wrote: post #5

I really value my undergrad degree. I'm 20+ years out of college, and am thankful I went that route, for many of the reasons outlined in this post. I feel like most HN conversations about degrees downplay these sorts of benefits. That said, I'm now at the point where I'm close to looking at colleges with my oldest. Value/cost is very much on my radar. 20 years ago, you could go to college to "find yourself." You coul…

I'd be interested in hearing if parents are increasingly having a say in where children go to college. Seems like with inflation, need for graduate studies, dating markets etc. that adolescence is lengthening. Whereas you would have been kicked out of the house to figure it out at 18 now we stay with parents longer... (I have a 4 and 2 yr old myself)

I had a long conversation with a coworker the other day. He has a 20 year old, and he's allowing this son to stay at home, but is charging rent and forcing him to start paying for more and more things.

Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#13

Post by vehemenz »

_8j50 wrote: post #10

If you like college good for you. But the first two years are bullshit. The last two, you should be able to learn them on the job for many career tracks and test them out. Articulate for me exactly why biology, chemistry, philosophy,etc... are neccesary for a Compsci or IT degree? Because the british said so many centuries ago is not a good reason. Neither is "what about the profits of colleges". We put up with 12 ye…

Anyone making an argument against the value of philosophy usually fails because they don't have the analytical/argumentative toolkit to construct a good argument. Precisely because they didn't study philosophy. And if they had, they probably wouldn't be making the argument in the first place.

Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#14

Post by tedheath123 »

_8j50 wrote: post #10

If you like college good for you. But the first two years are bullshit. The last two, you should be able to learn them on the job for many career tracks and test them out. Articulate for me exactly why biology, chemistry, philosophy,etc... are neccesary for a Compsci or IT degree? Because the british said so many centuries ago is not a good reason. Neither is "what about the profits of colleges". We put up with 12 ye…

Was it the British that said so? AFAIK most British undergraduate courses don't have general education requirements

Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#15

Post by linuxftw »

ren_engineer wrote: post #3

this is all the same rehashed Boomer garbage defending college. Reality is that all of these benefits could easily be replicated at a fraction of the cost. Cultural inertia is the only thing keeping the current university system alive, everything about the tenure track and how graduate students have to work is broken as well. The current system in the US was not created as a program to efficiently educate a modern wo…

The pro college crowd has a tool the anti-college crowd doesn't: They understand that the masses respond emotionally rather than rationally. If there is to be meaningful change in society, we need to make people feel embarrassed for attending college.

Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#16

Post by lordnacho »

I think it's basically right. Go to college, see the outline of what people have figured out, and what they think you need to know. Also what the dead ends are eg broken window fallacy.

That's about it, though. You actually can learn all those things yourself, you just have to be pretty disciplined about following some sort of course or text, including the weird things that you have quite figured out are reasonably big.

You also won't actually know anything other than the outline once you're done. They throw so much at you and it seems detailed while you're studying, but you need to actually work with a field for a while to really understand it. You'll have the index though, and that's pretty useful for future reference.

Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#17

Post by legalcorrection »

wiremine wrote: post #12
xcom86 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in hearing if parents are increasingly having a say in where children go to college. Seems like with inflation, need for graduate studies, dating markets etc. that adolescence is lengthening. Whereas you would have been kicked out of the house to figure it out at 18 now we stay with parents longer... (I have a 4 and 2 yr old myself)

I had a long conversation with a coworker the other day. He has a 20 year old, and he's allowing this son to stay at home, but is charging rent and forcing him to start paying for more and more things.

I find that people who do that kind of thing just don't get it. Things have changed. It's a much more high-stakes world for young adults than it was when they were that age. It's very easy for middle class kids to now end up poorer than their parents, which was much rarer for the boomers and early gen x. Give your kid every advantage you can.

Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#19

Post by verall »

_8j50 wrote: post #10

If you like college good for you. But the first two years are bullshit. The last two, you should be able to learn them on the job for many career tracks and test them out. Articulate for me exactly why biology, chemistry, philosophy,etc... are neccesary for a Compsci or IT degree? Because the british said so many centuries ago is not a good reason. Neither is "what about the profits of colleges". We put up with 12 ye…

There are tons of schools that have weak gen-ed requirements, which can often be tested out of either with high school AP's or as a college student with CLEPs. My undergrad was about 3.5 years of rigorous engineering education with roughly a semester of gen-eds spread over it. You should try to research the school and program before attending.

Re: The Value of an Undergraduate Degree

#20

Post by yonaguska »

_8j50 wrote: post #10

If you like college good for you. But the first two years are bullshit. The last two, you should be able to learn them on the job for many career tracks and test them out. Articulate for me exactly why biology, chemistry, philosophy,etc... are neccesary for a Compsci or IT degree? Because the british said so many centuries ago is not a good reason. Neither is "what about the profits of colleges". We put up with 12 ye…

I learned enough in the first two years to start working as far as compsci was concerned. Everything after that was supplemental. Depending on what you are studying and where you are studying, the first two years absolutely aren't bullshit.

Yes, I had to take a bunch of classes that I wasn't interested in, but there's also no way that I would have been able to cram in all the math and compsci that I wanted to into 2 years. Especially as not everything can be learned concurrently. Like I said, I could have started working after the first two years, but I would have never gotten the depth that I did if I had stopped there.

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