121–130 of 148 posts
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> … Most undergraduate students do not go to office hours, try to get to know their instructors, ask follow-up questions This was actively discouraged by the instructors in the school I attended. Not by policy, but by behavior - passive-aggressively belittling students for not “getting” the subject matter, showing a complete lack of interest in reciprocating any amount of getting to know the instructor. > … ask follo…
I was talking with a professor yesterday who claimed his students don't ask questions any more on Piazza. They used to, but now they go to ChatGPT which is always perky and ready to answer. Plus, there's no shame in asking a dumb question as there can be in class or on Piazza. He says it's only a matter of time before the students realize they don't need him. Or need to pay tuition.
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This resonates with me. BS in Computer Science starting when 18. All very overwhelming. Graduated with 3.0 GPA. Twenty years later. More experienced, working as a software and systems engineer. Masters in Systems Engineering and achieved 4.0 GPA. College was easier.
Similar experience. Two things I think: 1. you figure out the system your first go-around, 2. you want it more the second time through.
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On this particular issue, i think all parties that reach power want the same thing: more educated people, cheaper (because let's be honest, a "left-wing" party in Europe that conquer power in Europe is at most a "third way"-type party, sometime with a green tint), and are all equally at fault for the situation. The meaningfull difference between right-wing and left-wing parties is how the University should be organiz…
LOL no. Here right wingers just want to defund higher ed and control what they do. None of which will help with quality of output. (and those rankings are largely useless anyway) they don’t want more educated ppl, because they blame education for what they see wrong with society and would undermine their base. (Like how there’s claims that unis make people leftist or similar )
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I was talking with a professor yesterday who claimed his students don't ask questions any more on Piazza. They used to, but now they go to ChatGPT which is always perky and ready to answer. Plus, there's no shame in asking a dumb question as there can be in class or on Piazza. He says it's only a matter of time before the students realize they don't need him. Or need to pay tuition.
Most people don’t go to the university to learn, they go to get a diploma. If you don’t pay tuition they will not give you a diploma.
Within at least the last 15 years, the paper provided by a school is no guarantee of better pay - but that’s how high schoolers are convinced to go into excessive debt for attending post-secondary schools.
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> You were given opportunities you refused to engage with That's not what I read at all. They went to a good university and got good grades. They did what they were supposed to do. Then they later realized how little of value the actual education was. The university missed an opportunity to educate them, not the other way around. The student is not responsible for having a bad teacher.
They got good grades by panic cramming the night before exams. I've had lots of students like that (I've even been a student like that) and in every case one thing is true: they would have accomplished more with less effort if they'd focused on learning to understand rather than trying to treat everything as a memorisation task.
Not going to university was not an option. It would have been the only way to guarantee work in my region.
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> … Most undergraduate students do not go to office hours, try to get to know their instructors, ask follow-up questions This was actively discouraged by the instructors in the school I attended. Not by policy, but by behavior - passive-aggressively belittling students for not “getting” the subject matter, showing a complete lack of interest in reciprocating any amount of getting to know the instructor. > … ask follo…
I was talking with a professor yesterday who claimed his students don't ask questions any more on Piazza. They used to, but now they go to ChatGPT which is always perky and ready to answer. Plus, there's no shame in asking a dumb question as there can be in class or on Piazza. He says it's only a matter of time before the students realize they don't need him. Or need to pay tuition.
Im not a huge defender of college and lean towards it being mostly a waste, but the other extreme is problematic.
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Most people don’t go to the university to learn, they go to get a diploma. If you don’t pay tuition they will not give you a diploma.
And we’ve all been sold a bill of goods on the necessity of diplomas and degrees. Because businesses have been sold a bill of goods on the quality of employees with diplomas and degrees. Within at least the last 15 years, the paper provided by a school is no guarantee of better pay - but that’s how high schoolers are convinced to go into excessive debt for attending post-secondary schools.
Perhaps not, but the lack of that paper IS a guarantee of worse pay.
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> University gave me the opportunity to talk to world-class researchers during office hours Neither world-class researchers or office hours exist in most Universities. "Office hours" is entirely an American (and maybe British?) thing.
That’s not true. Source: University of Warsaw. Poland. Not Illinois. I’ve had office hours with world-class mathematicians. Those office hours were required of every lecturer and TA.
"Office hours" did not exist, but TAs attend scheduled labs/exercises.
Professors were even under instruction to not engage with students outside of scheduled and budgeted time.
I am always astonished by the range of people who claim their college degree was useless, citing rote memorization and bad classes. I had an entirely different experience and so did most people I know. University gave me the opportunity to talk to world-class researchers during office hours, to discuss ideas with my peers and have them either validated or critiqued by experts. Sure, all the information is available o…
Just a few years ago my husband had all of his tuition refunded (and degree cancelled) because the school was so bad and so scammy that the government had to step in and force them to refund everyone.
The reality is that higher education in the USA is a for-profit venture, and like all for-profit ventures in the US, the number one explicit goal is to extract as much profit as possible by any means possible. Providing quality education and world-class faculty is completely disjoint and incompatible with that goal.
Most people in this country are not so privileged as you to attend one of our dwindling number of good schools. Everyone else has a predatory institution that technically meets the requirements to offer the degrees they claim. Usually, anyway.