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The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

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Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#281

Post by WalterBright »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #200
WalterBright wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4-year outdated programs A good STEM program teaches you how to think, and that never gets outdated. Colleges offer a smorgasbord of courses to take. If you select courses for the easiest route to a degree, you won't be that employable. If you select courses that will give you the best foundation for your chosen career, that'll do much better. For example, although I got a degree in engineering, I made sure I also…

If you select courses for the easiest route to a degree, you won't be that employable. I've never seen evidence that specific courses matter much for employment post college. Do you have data on this?

No, I have done no research on this. But if you went for a degree in EE, and took only the minimum of electronics courses, then you'd have a skill deficit compared with a person who took every advanced EE course he could stuff into his schedule? For example, he layered on analog electronics, and you took only digital, that you'd have a problem when faced with a job that needed a bit of analog?

And yes, I've seen EEs flummoxed when faced with a bit of noise in their digital circuit, when a guy who knew some analog had it fixed pronto. Which engineer was more employable?

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#282

Post by WalterBright »

kitsune_ wrote: post #148
lordlicorice wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to overstate the value of a university education... Why are you so vehement? Never went to college?

In Switzerland, which traditionally has seen a low rate in college degrees, and has relied on its apprenticeship system for a long time, we have seen an explosion in new college titles with the bologna reform. You want to be a janitor? Congratulations, you can now get a master in "facility management". Teaching special needs children? You better get started on that degree! You want to be a librarian? Well, what about…

I recently saw a TV show about employment problems college graduates had. One person interviewed had a master's degree. The show was extolling the virtues of a program to assist these people in finding jobs, and a big part of their help was showing people how to write a resume.

I was astonished that someone with a master's degree would need help putting together a resume. Something is terribly wrong.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#283

Post by tmh88j »

gfodor wrote: post #160

The author is right about some things, wrong about others. He's right that student debt is a timebomb. Anyone who knows a student struggling with it realizes this. The amount of debt students are saddled with is astronomical, and has turned this generation into a one of indentured servitude to their financiers. Something is going to have to give. He's wrong, at least somewhat, on what the future holds. There are mult…

>It's easy to imagine an undergraduate education in engineering or mathematics being delivered and certified completely through the internet.

Mathematics, yes. Engineering, no. Am I one of the outliers that feels labs are essential to solidify what you've learned that week in class? Sure you can learn EE basics such as mesh analysis, but when you start to venture into logic design courses where software alone won't cut it things get tricky. For the majority of people, debugging a robot in even the most introductory courses would be a nightmare without an experienced person or even someone to look over it with.. How about chemistry students. Good luck setting up a lab at home. How ME classes dealing with material properties and testing?

There are plenty of courses that do work out well online, but some cannot simply stand alone.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#284

Post by WalterBright »

aplusbi wrote: post #234
yummyfajitas wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you select courses for the easiest route to a degree, you won't be that employable. I've never seen evidence that specific courses matter much for employment post college. Do you have data on this?

I don't think Walter Bright meant that listing the courses you took on your resume is going to make you more (or less) employable. I think the point was that taking difficult classes will better prepare your for work. I slightly disagree with this position, difficult doesn't mean better (depending on your definition of better). For example, I would have been better served to take a class on databases rather than a cl…

I didn't mean necessarily taking hard classes. I meant taking classes that would provide a foundation for your career, rather than selecting classes based solely on how easy they are.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#285

Post by snowwrestler »

crasshopper wrote: post #252
pilom wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what krschultz is saying is that if you have the skills to be successful without a college degree, you also are likely to have the skills to get a scholarship to a decent school. They are a somewhat similar skillset and going to college allows you to check the checkbox on an application.

Do you think Mark Cuban was a scholarly book-learner? Or that the top Latin student from your secondary school had a successful exit? 0 < correl(school chops, business chops) < 1

How many people in the U.S. do you think follow a career path like Mark Cuban's? Don't use an extreme outlier to make a general point.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#286

Post by agumonkey »

stalcottsmith wrote: post #177
impendia wrote: post #16

I am in my first year as a mathematics professor at the University of South Carolina. Having moved here from Stanford, I've noticed several things. (1) Many students are woefully underprepared. In my calculus classes I have found that a great many of the students have not mastered high school algebra. And these are the students who pass our placement exam, and aren't obliged to take one of our many algebra and precal…

Do not underestimate your importance and the impact you can have for the category 3) students. My first year Calculus professor 20 years ago had very similar feelings and frustrations, but through his passion he connected with some of us. Lots of great students don't apply to the best schools and for whatever reason end up stuck somewhere close to home. He eventually encouraged me to take his Modern Algebra class and…

There should be a facebook for those teachers.

One math teacher managed to bring a group of lazy failing monkeys to volunteer for supplementary classes on saturday morning. So much passion, inspiration, and efforts towards us .. there's a threshold above which `bad students` will start to surrender and bring good will into the game.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#287

Post by rayiner »

yashchandra wrote: post #237
wtvanhest wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of undergrad programs that are less than $10k per year. Big state schools which will give you all the social experiences you need and some of the learning. No HR department can interview people without a degree when there are so many people with degrees. A degree doesn't get you in the door, but is a minimum standard for just about any job. It is too bad school is too expensive, but it doesn't matter.

"It is too bad school is too expensive, but it doesn't matter." It does matter. The schools that are worth anything are too expensive (exceptions are there of course) while the cheap ones (read cheap schools.

I think it's a bit more these days, but I spent about $60k on my aerospace engineering degree from Georgia Tech. That's a decent amount of money, but if you're a self-starter with some programming chops, there is no reason you can't work during the summers and the year to save up $10-15k or so for school.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#288

Post by rayiner »

mkramlich wrote: post #104
jellicle wrote: post #43

Mark Cuban writes: "As an employer I want the best prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper." So, I suppose I could be wrong, but I would be willing to bet a great deal of money that Mark Cuban d…

Fuck college. It's not the only way to learn, to meet people, or to show your expertise, capabilities and accomplishments anymore. We have this thing called the Internet now. Write a book. Put a PDF online. Record a video of yourself giving an intelligent speech or showing some useful talent. Put it on YouTube. Write software. Put on GitHub. Answer technical questions well on StackExchange (or whatever for your parti…

I taught myself to program (which I have no degree in). There was no way I could've taught myself aerospace engineering (which my degree is in).

Not everything is like the software industry. Indeed, most things aren't.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#289

Post by rayiner »

jmathai wrote: post #162
earl wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, I agree. In practice, college is a very useful signal. And it's not just the coursework from the college major. College demonstrates a variety of soft skills: time management, the ability to plan and meet deadlines, the ability to work on what's necessary when it's necessary, a willingness to suck it up and do some unglamorous but necessary drudge work, etc. I've worked with a variety of people that haven'…

4 years and $50-100k of debt is in no way an efficient way to surface those signals. I agree that some things like research can't be done online. But I don't think those will remain at the university either. Graduate/research degrees must represent such a small % of a university's revenue that when the majority goes away they simply won't be able to survive. Just ask the RIAA if they can survive by selling mp3s when…

At research universities, undergraduate tuition represents a very small %-age of the university's revenue.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#290

Post by snowwrestler »

Domenic_S wrote: post #247
WalterBright wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4-year outdated programs A good STEM program teaches you how to think, and that never gets outdated. Colleges offer a smorgasbord of courses to take. If you select courses for the easiest route to a degree, you won't be that employable. If you select courses that will give you the best foundation for your chosen career, that'll do much better. For example, although I got a degree in engineering, I made sure I also…

> A good STEM program teaches you how to think, and that never gets outdated. Honest question: does one not learn to think before college? Where are the parents? What happened in high school?

Everyone learns to think one way or another, and it continues well past 18. The human brain is still physically developing at 18.

So since you're going to learn to think after 18, a good college education provides the shortest cut to learning to think WELL, based on the accumulated experience of thousands of years of human history.

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