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Universities should be more than toll gates

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Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#21

Post by general1465 »

artemonster wrote: post #15

I get my blood pressure to dangerous levels each time I stumble upon some high quality video lectures on youtube that explain some topics that were totally fucked in university, like PID control. 30 Minute video made by some amateur with cool animations explains basically 95% of everything you need to know vs old lifeless dork professor at "elite" university mumbling some nonsense and throwing walls of formulas with…

> throwing walls of formulas with zero context, explanation or examples

This rings so true for me. Lot of teachers has this ass backwards style of teaching where they will come up with final formula like deus-ex machina. Why? To buy his text book where it is explained the way he wants it.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#22

Post by general1465 »

pythonic_hell wrote: post #3

This is also true for universities in Europe and America.

For private universities in Europe it is true. For public (state owned) universities much less so. This is simply because public university does not look on student like on a customer who put some good money on the table to get the final paper. While private universities do.

This is also a reason why in Europe when you have a diploma from private university, nobody really takes that seriously and looks at you like you would be showing him diploma from University of McDonalds.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#23

Post by baq »

tiku wrote: post #16

I'm so glad I studied something other than programming, because I taught myself coding. College taught me important life lessons, especially one involving lawyers. I was already working as a freelance programmer and it was my second study (first one was sys admin on a practical level, because I was lazy at school because of gaming haha).

Coding is something you can’t learn at the university, you have to do it yourself. Uni classes just make you do it.

Software engineering however is so vast there is very profound wisdom to be learned that you won’t discover much later in your career that would make your solutions so much better had you known them (dear undergrads, pay attention at systems 101, it’s worth it) and you also have an opportunity to learn subjects that would otherwise be very expensive to self-teach (eternally grateful for the fully equipped ethernet laboratory, it’s been almost two decades and the knowledge is still very relevant.)

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#24

Post by danielfalbo »

I spent my high school afternoons on github.com/ossu/computer-science ; years later during my actual bachelor’s in computer science I just had a good time with the people around me. I’m grateful for the internet, life is good, universities are mostly for credential and the fun part is the best.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#25

Post by QQ00 »

Igrom wrote: post #10
QQ00 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is literally everywhere.

It's not "literally" everywhere, but sometimes students do enter college without the mentality of study as exploration of your own interests. Sometimes the university professors don't know how to foster it either.

in my opinion it's still the dominant, that university is just a place to get a paper that say you studied for x years in x university in x subject. a certification.

unless you are a passionate about the subject of study.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#26

Post by kazen44 »

keiferski wrote: post #12

Well, they used to be, but the modern industrial age needed institutions that could train workers - and universities fit the bill. I don’t think it’s possible to detach the credential aspect from universities without a parallel work-focused system existing, and even then, the prestige of universities will still mean that the wealthy and privileged will prefer universities, which means that that prestige will trickle…

I think this is also a specific difference between germanic education and english/us education.

Does the US not have something like a fachhochschule? A institute where peoeple are trained for specific fields/jobs? This systems seems to exist in most european countries that i know of, and it is specifically focussed on education related to a specific field or career. (this is also is there for different levels of practicality) for instance, you have also have schools for things like construction workers, hairdressers, etc etc.

University's are more seem as a very high level of education, but which does not train one for a specific job.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#27

Post by anonzzzies »

They used to be; I got my first master in that environment; academic rigor was the goal and purpose and my second one what it became after and is now; something to get a job with. The former was free and very hard the latter was loans, pressure but very easy. This happened in about 15 years in the Netherlands, between around 1990 and 2004; from excellent to shite as far as I am concerned. I was 'teaching' (assistant) and teaching for a bunch of those years and it really became quite shitty. My alma mater math & cs faculty is a joke now compared to the well deserved suffering of the 1990s rigor we had to endure. I wouldn't want to have lived the current fluff party. But sure, it's more practical as most we were taught was not practical and was not supposed to be; it was to teach us how to think.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#28

Post by tgv »

In contrast to many comments, I had a great time studying. Sure, the staff didn't have great teaching skills (classical prof with an unruly hairdo reading from the syllabus in a large hall), but after the first year, classes became smaller and teaching was --while not passionate-- certainly inspired in many cases. It was a period in which students could still pick an academic topic and write a (small) thesis for graduation, or do some internship and write a report about that. I had a supervisor who was into some of the newer stuff and gave me practically free reign with regular feedback.

That was in 80s. I stuck around, changed faculty (AI, cogsci, neuro), and saw university change. It became very financially oriented. The number of students kept rising, norms kept dropping (2nd year student asking: what does this symbol √ mean?), students participating in real research became rarer and rarer, even PhDs shifted towards more and more teaching, and 20 years later, the most influential member of a university's board was the one doing real estate, and an academic career was based on the amount of funding obtained.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#29

Post by keiferski »

kazen44 wrote: post #26
keiferski wrote: post #12

Well, they used to be, but the modern industrial age needed institutions that could train workers - and universities fit the bill. I don’t think it’s possible to detach the credential aspect from universities without a parallel work-focused system existing, and even then, the prestige of universities will still mean that the wealthy and privileged will prefer universities, which means that that prestige will trickle…

I think this is also a specific difference between germanic education and english/us education. Does the US not have something like a fachhochschule? A institute where peoeple are trained for specific fields/jobs? This systems seems to exist in most european countries that i know of, and it is specifically focussed on education related to a specific field or career. (this is also is there for different levels of prac…

There are schools like this, called various things like “technical schools” or “vocational schools.” But they tend to be looked down upon by the American middle class and higher; e.g., the average parent wants their kid to go to college, any college, over a vocational school. In other words, vocational schools are (unfortunately) associated with people that don’t do well in traditional school.

From what I understand Germany is much less classist in this regard.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#30

Post by Almondsetat »

general1465 wrote: post #21
artemonster wrote: post #15

I get my blood pressure to dangerous levels each time I stumble upon some high quality video lectures on youtube that explain some topics that were totally fucked in university, like PID control. 30 Minute video made by some amateur with cool animations explains basically 95% of everything you need to know vs old lifeless dork professor at "elite" university mumbling some nonsense and throwing walls of formulas with…

> throwing walls of formulas with zero context, explanation or examples This rings so true for me. Lot of teachers has this ass backwards style of teaching where they will come up with final formula like deus-ex machina. Why? To buy his text book where it is explained the way he wants it.

Many formulas you use are the apex of months of research from the best minds of the last centuries. Every explanation is a deus-ex machina ordeal
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