How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning • Hacker News Board

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#21

Post by nradov » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:11 AM UTC

HenryKissinger wrote: post #14

In some countries, like France and the United kingdom, the educational pyramid is even more skewed. In the United kingdom, graduates of Oxford University and Cambridge University are in a class of their own. Oxbridge alumni are overrepresented in politics, business, and the media. In France, the same phenomenon is at work with the École Polytechnique, the Écoles Normales Supérieures, and a few others. This creates sh…

In complex legal issues involving lots of money, clients have a strong incentive to hire the very best lawyers. Even if a lawyer charges >$1000 per hour that's a drop in the bucket relative to the overall stakes. Thus top law firms play it safe and recruit from only top schools instead of taking a risk on lower tier candidates. So a winner-take-all outcome is completely rational and expected.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#22

Post by DubiousPusher » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:11 AM UTC

mnouquet wrote: post #15

DubiousPusher wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very troubled by this. Because humanities degree holders are the true carriers of our cultures. Local history, news and art you won't find on the internet. You can't read about my town's coal history on wikipedia. A local historian does that. These people are the ones that work with the primary sources, sifitng them and passing on the highlights. As we squeeze these people down we lose our own selves. We need a…

> Because humanities degree holders are the true carriers of our cultures. Do you mean by putting themselves on a pedestal without having experienced life _at_all_ and living in nothing but theories. Yeah, sure. > These people are the ones that work with the primary sources, sifitng them and passing on the highlights. These days, they are more the people re-writing history to fit a narrative, against any hard evidenc…

Yeah, the lone lady that works at my local town's historical society: mapping death certificates to grave stones, reading old articles from our town paper and studying census records is a real revisionist.

If anything, the kind of people I'm talking about are the least political information workers you'll find. And honestly, there's a chance that the decimation of paying positions in their fields is contributing to the problem of badly research clickbait books. When you have to making yourself into an internet phenomena to sell your self published book rather than take a salary job at a local institution, your incentives are all aligned to do something sensational.

Edit: Just out of curiosity because I so often bump into complaints of this variety, what in your opinion is good history? Which historians or academic periods have produced "good history"? What techniques set those periods apart from today's historians?

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#23

Post by gundmc » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

sashavegas wrote: post #13

Consider old Russian system After 8 years of school there were exams (written and spoken) where person would be selected to go to 2 more years of school (equivalent of hi school) or if he performs poorly on exam, he can go to professional school for associated degree. The person who goes to 2 more years of hi school, take exam again, and receive diploma. Then the person can apply to any university, but to get there i…

> For example, if person decided to go to math/physics, it was required to pass 4 exams (2 for math, written and spoken) and 2 for physics.

I don't mean to derail, but what is a "spoken" math exam like? It sounds like my nightmare and I graduated with a STEM degree in a competitive program.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#24

Post by Dah00n » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:14 AM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #19

sashavegas wrote: post #13

Consider old Russian system After 8 years of school there were exams (written and spoken) where person would be selected to go to 2 more years of school (equivalent of hi school) or if he performs poorly on exam, he can go to professional school for associated degree. The person who goes to 2 more years of hi school, take exam again, and receive diploma. Then the person can apply to any university, but to get there i…

It's a little bit of a desperate attempt at meritocracy however. Affluent parents will still be able to generate systems where their kids get better scores. And 'better scores on exams' might be a very crude predictor of future skills, it's not remotely all encompassing. So 'selecting' for your elite on the basis of a few exams at age 18 is probably a bad idea. Macron just announced the closure of the 'Grand Ecole' o…

Elite schools are worthwhile if it isn't in it for the money like most (all?) elite schools in the US. In that regard the Soviet system were far superior.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#25

Post by HenryKissinger » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:14 AM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #19

sashavegas wrote: post #13

Consider old Russian system After 8 years of school there were exams (written and spoken) where person would be selected to go to 2 more years of school (equivalent of hi school) or if he performs poorly on exam, he can go to professional school for associated degree. The person who goes to 2 more years of hi school, take exam again, and receive diploma. Then the person can apply to any university, but to get there i…

It's a little bit of a desperate attempt at meritocracy however. Affluent parents will still be able to generate systems where their kids get better scores. And 'better scores on exams' might be a very crude predictor of future skills, it's not remotely all encompassing. So 'selecting' for your elite on the basis of a few exams at age 18 is probably a bad idea. Macron just announced the closure of the 'Grand Ecole' o…

> the notion that 'all the power goes to kids from those schools' is a little ridiculous as well.

It's really not.

"As of November 2020, of the 55 prime ministers to date, 28 were educated at the University of Oxford (including 13 at Christ Church), and 14 at the University of Cambridge (including six at Trinity College)."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_t...

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#26

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

sashavegas wrote: post #13

Consider old Russian system After 8 years of school there were exams (written and spoken) where person would be selected to go to 2 more years of school (equivalent of hi school) or if he performs poorly on exam, he can go to professional school for associated degree. The person who goes to 2 more years of hi school, take exam again, and receive diploma. Then the person can apply to any university, but to get there i…

But how do you get to bribe school officials so your kid, who obviously is entitled to go to MIT, gets in? You're telling me they have to actually work!?

What's sad actually about that is it was far more meritocratic than the current system in the US. Now it's just an extension of high school that honestly has become just as easy as most high school classes depending on where you go.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#27

Post by sashavegas » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

gundmc wrote: post #23

sashavegas wrote: post #13

Consider old Russian system After 8 years of school there were exams (written and spoken) where person would be selected to go to 2 more years of school (equivalent of hi school) or if he performs poorly on exam, he can go to professional school for associated degree. The person who goes to 2 more years of hi school, take exam again, and receive diploma. Then the person can apply to any university, but to get there i…

> For example, if person decided to go to math/physics, it was required to pass 4 exams (2 for math, written and spoken) and 2 for physics. I don't mean to derail, but what is a "spoken" math exam like? It sounds like my nightmare and I graduated with a STEM degree in a competitive program.

A spoken math exam was the following:

There were printed tickets that contains different question (typically 3) from all math coursed tough in school.

A person randomly picks the ticket (that were present, and questions unknow before you pick it) and was given time to answer the questions. After that he sit face to face with person who take the exam (typically if was the professor form university) and explain him your answer, while examiner can ask you additional questions related to your answer, etc. Based on your answer he grades you. In this system you cannot cheat the exam, since examiner will quickly realize if your answer were from cheat or you knew the subject.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#28

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #6

A lot of invention and innovation in the past few decades is focused around doing more with less - e.g IKEA furniture made out of wood shavings vs. real wood years ago, apartments made more efficient and compact vs. big houses years ago, more biking and public transit vs. enough roads to fit everyone years ago. My theory is that on a macro level, the world keeps getting more competitive because we keep on churning ou…

The data very clearly shows the opposite: economic development and rising income levels are very strongly associated with decreasing number of children per mother.

Birth rates in nearly all the high income nations are below replacement. Most of the middle and low income countries are on the same path, with central Africa being a notable exception.

Before his dead Hans Rosling did some great talks about this sort of thing. I'd suggest watching at least one of them on youtube or such.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#29

Post by obviouslynotme » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:21 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #21

HenryKissinger wrote: post #14

In some countries, like France and the United kingdom, the educational pyramid is even more skewed. In the United kingdom, graduates of Oxford University and Cambridge University are in a class of their own. Oxbridge alumni are overrepresented in politics, business, and the media. In France, the same phenomenon is at work with the École Polytechnique, the Écoles Normales Supérieures, and a few others. This creates sh…

In complex legal issues involving lots of money, clients have a strong incentive to hire the very best lawyers. Even if a lawyer charges >$1000 per hour that's a drop in the bucket relative to the overall stakes. Thus top law firms play it safe and recruit from only top schools instead of taking a risk on lower tier candidates. So a winner-take-all outcome is completely rational and expected.

It's not the best lawyers you want. It's the most connected. You want to hire the firm your likely judge was in before he got on the bench.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#30

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:21 AM UTC

planet-and-halo wrote: post #10

Anatole_maarika wrote: post #4

Something that keeps me up at night is my fear that I only studied computer science and became a programmer because of economic and status reasons. I do feel incredibly lucky to have the job and freedom I do, but it drains me. And now I feel it's such a specialized education and I didn't explore enough to know anything else, and so I have no idea if I would have liked something completely different.

You may not be in school any more, but you can still study whatever you want. I went the other direction: studied humanities in school, taught myself programming once I was working as a professional because I found it intriguing, and now I do this for a living. You have a whole lifetime. If you want to learn something, you can do it. Even Einstein got started in his spare time.

For instance, I started re learning guitar and sax after almost a decade of playing neither. And unlike being a loser kid in band, as an adult, I fully recognize they're cool skills many people actually appreciate which makes it extra rewarding to practice in my free time.