Bulldoze the business school • Hacker News Board

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#151

Post by throwawayjava » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 3:42 AM UTC

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #53

throwawayjava wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely you shouldn't need to struggle in the dark so much to learn. You have it all wrong, IMO. Successfully clawing their way out of the dark is by far the most important skill they're learning.

That seems to me a bold claim to me - don't actually teach anything, just demand stuff! And behold, by pure magic (and LOTS of selection) we get a handful of successful students who manage to pass, validating this "teaching" style. Is that really what you have in mind? I'm actually someone who did and does not have a problem with that style. It suits me very well. At university I mostly learned from non-university so…

> Is that really what you have in mind?

Well... obviously not! But:

1. learning to struggle successfully is far more important than mastering the chain rule.

2. If you start with excellent students, then you can set those students up to struggle on much harder and deeper questions.

My point, really, is that a curriculum that manages to not "lose" anyone will also fail to strike a good balance between "struggle" and "hand-hold" if 90% of your students start off as "Excellent".

The hardest part about designing a course is figuring out when students should struggle, and when to hold their hands. The answer will vary depending upon the quality of the students. Excellent teaching aimed at excellent students looks very different from excellent teaching aimed at mediocre students. Differentiating instruction is Teaching 101, and differentiation in universities often happens at the institutional or program level.

E.g., are Khan Academy's descriptions of the product rule better than Chicago's Math 160? For certain students, yes. For others, emphatically not! Neither option is "better" in an absolute sense, but each is definitely "better" for any given student.

There is nothing wrong with a course of study that's designed for the top 1% of high school graduates. And admissions mistakes do not equal bad teaching. On the contrary, torpedo'ing the entire curriculum to make sure that every student makes it through would be grossly irresponsible.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#152

Post by Bekwnn » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 3:45 AM UTC

bkohlmann wrote: post #3

I graduated from business school last spring. It’s not that they need to be bulldozed, but rather, treated as a trade school. Our highest rated classes were taught by practitioners - those in the Arena, leading men and women, making the difficult ethical choices, then posing them to us to wrestle through. These were the classes we all wanted to take, but were deeply oversubscribed and only a fraction of us got to tak…

My experience even in computer science was that peers potentially offer more potential than lectures. I would be surprised if that were NOT the case for any degree.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#153

Post by throwawayjava » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 4:05 AM UTC

flyingcircus3 wrote: post #89

throwawayjava wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen something similar at other institutions. The School of Engineering, in this case, is trying to teach something more than just domain knowledge about engineering disciplines. The goal is to take those "18 year-old polyglots" and turn them into world-class problem solvers. You see this is every elite educational program. Mathematics at Chicago. Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. Engineering at MIT. Their pr…

You've simply recited the fallacy. You've framed the very debate in terminology that assumes you are correct. But that's what all entrenched interests do. Schools of technology are not simply teaching baseline competence. They teach the theory of the same subjects, with a more hands on approach emphasized. They are showing up to civil war reenactments with tanks and planes. The old timers are in a huff about it, but…

> You've simply recited the fallacy. You've framed the very debate in terminology that assumes you are correct.

I'm not sure what this means.

My claim is that educational programs designed for the top 1% of students are not well-suited to educating the next 10%. And vice-versa. (E.g.: A Chicago math student is often not well-served by the sort of "calculus for engineers" courses you'll find at state college branch campuses. Also, a college senior struggling through their Calculus requirement is not at all well-served by Chicago's honors mathematics program. Neither approach is better in an absolute sense; but in each case, one is clearly better relative to the particular student.)

This is not some sort of tautology. It's a serious pedagogical hypothesis with decades of empirical research probing its truth value.

> They are showing up to civil war reenactments with tanks and planes.

I can't speak to Purdue specifically. In the cases I know about, the very explicit purpose of these alternative degree programs is to build a department by admitting students that the name-brand program rejects, or who fail out of the weeder courses. The "old timers" aren't in a huff about it, because they had no interest in admititng those students to their existing programs in the first place.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#154

Post by throwawayjava » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 4:07 AM UTC

paulie_a wrote: post #60

throwawayjava wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen something similar at other institutions. The School of Engineering, in this case, is trying to teach something more than just domain knowledge about engineering disciplines. The goal is to take those "18 year-old polyglots" and turn them into world-class problem solvers. You see this is every elite educational program. Mathematics at Chicago. Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. Engineering at MIT. Their pr…

While those are big name schools. When I review a resume I never even look at the education section. I will never be impressed by that.

I'm not sure I understand how this is relevant.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#155

Post by LargeWu » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #141

gaius wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No respectable business school should admit people without substantial existing work experience into any graduate course. All the top US MBA programmes are stuffed with people with 2-3 years investment banking or management consulting as their sole experience. The concept of a management consultant is possibly even more ridiculous to begin with

At least the school my fiancée is currently attending (Kellogg) is decidedly not stuffed with people 2-3 years in investment banking. A lot of people here are exactly the same graduating class (2011) because of the almost mandatory 5 years. There are exceptions, but a large portion of the people I've met during these past two years are exactly my fiancée's age.

The skewed distribution of grad students who have reached the minimum requirement of job experience suggests, to me, that they are there primarily to advance their careers through credentialing, and not because of the knowledge a Kellogg MBA imparts. Is there really a substantive difference between a school stuffed with 2-3 years out of undergrad, and one stuffed with students 5 years out? I doubt it.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#156

Post by heedlessly3 » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #73

heedlessly3 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average entering MBA student is 28 years old the top universities. 23 year MBAs probably went to an no-name online degree program

> The average entering MBA student is 28 years old the top universities. That sounds about right for the mean, with the median a few years younger, and then a smattering spread out of a larger range above the median than below. > 23 year MBAs probably went to an no-name online degree program No, they are probably younger tier, direct entry from undergrad students at conventional insitutions. No name online MBAs Targe…

>No, they are probably younger tier, direct entry from undergrad students at conventional insitutions. No name online MBAs Target mid-career people, and are probably much older.

Name 1 reputable MBA program which directly accepts undergrad students in this decade.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#157

Post by Mauricio_ » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

amoorthy wrote: post #4

I'm a Stanford business school grad and harbour no fanatical love for it. I penned a public letter to my Dean [1] five years ago suggesting changes to a curriculum I saw as myopic. But this article strikes me as a diatribe against capitalism rather than business school alone. And the author's track record of railing against an industry he taught in for years sounds a bit like a publicity effort. Fwiw, my experience a…

>this article strikes me as a diatribe against capitalism rather than business school Exactly the same reaction I got.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#158

Post by flyingcircus3 » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #153

flyingcircus3 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've simply recited the fallacy. You've framed the very debate in terminology that assumes you are correct. But that's what all entrenched interests do. Schools of technology are not simply teaching baseline competence. They teach the theory of the same subjects, with a more hands on approach emphasized. They are showing up to civil war reenactments with tanks and planes. The old timers are in a huff about it, but…

> You've simply recited the fallacy. You've framed the very debate in terminology that assumes you are correct. I'm not sure what this means. My claim is that educational programs designed for the top 1% of students are not well-suited to educating the next 10%. And vice-versa. (E.g.: A Chicago math student is often not well-served by the sort of "calculus for engineers" courses you'll find at state college branch ca…

I suppose I would argue that in the evolutionary sense, a university accumulates it's marketable value in units of accomplishment by it's people. To the extent that any one person can unequivocally demonstrate exceptional value through their own accomplishments, by inventing and commercializing valuable goods and services that improve the overall well being of humanity, the particular buildings those people occupied 30 years prior, and the particular people that educated them for those few months, are of no particular interest to the university. The university wants prestige because it attacts more prestige, which they can monetize.

I can agree that in the sense that the people best positioned to become the most educated should be paired with the best equipped to effect that teaching. However, at some point we're arguing over what is the best position to be in, which is not in anyway objective.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#159

Post by diminoten » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #155

diminoten wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the school my fiancée is currently attending (Kellogg) is decidedly not stuffed with people 2-3 years in investment banking. A lot of people here are exactly the same graduating class (2011) because of the almost mandatory 5 years. There are exceptions, but a large portion of the people I've met during these past two years are exactly my fiancée's age.

The skewed distribution of grad students who have reached the minimum requirement of job experience suggests, to me, that they are there primarily to advance their careers through credentialing, and not because of the knowledge a Kellogg MBA imparts. Is there really a substantive difference between a school stuffed with 2-3 years out of undergrad, and one stuffed with students 5 years out? I doubt it.

A large part of the Kellogg "experience" is what the other students bring into the classroom. 2 years may not seem like a lot, but it's a world of difference apparently in what stories/examples students can provide one another for the concepts being taught in class.

I don't have a direct understanding of any of this, but that's how my fiancée and our friends explain it when I ask. Take that for what you will!

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#160

Post by ataturk » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 8:12 PM UTC

Every time Ritz Crackers shrinks its packaging size I shake my fist at the completely un-original MBAs who keep taking "one more pickle out of the jar." Idiots. I stopped buying crackers completely. I hope they fucking choke on them. 13.7 ounces and falling from what was once a 16oz. box.