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Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

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Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#31

Post by bartonfink »

joshhart wrote: post #26
tokenadult wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAT and ACT score interquartile ranges for Linfield College, according to Common Data Set reporting: http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.j...

Pitiful. 75% of the students made below a 26 on the ACT. I scored at that level in 7th grade!

What's the point of bringing it up as if that's somehow a personal failure on their part? Surely you've done something with your life since then and have better things to do than put down those less fortunate than you.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#32

Post by jnhnum1 »

This seems highly over-dramatized: "The stakes are high, higher even than most of us realize. Our answer to this question holds the very roots of our salvation… and our demise."

From my own experience (I'm a sophomore studying computer science, physics, and math at MIT), nobody assumes that their brand-name degree will automatically get them a job. The most lucrative jobs for CS involve interviews that grill you relentlessly regardless of what your educational background is. For the most part, people are here to learn about science and engineering that interests them, while at the same time hoping to get a job with what they've learned.

MIT helps a lot with this by being very flexible about what classes you can take. Prerequisites are all soft, and there is no credit limit. A lot of this may not generalize, but for a motivated student I think college is absolutely not a waste of time.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#33

Post by arohner »

shii wrote: post #25

These kinds of posts always pop up in a row, like a volley of arrows. Bemoaning education as failing students, falling in value, rising in cost, etc etc etc. What actual concrete alternatives are there for alarmed students (such as myself) that read these types of posts, jump through all the hoops, and still face a massive bill from Podunk U to get a BS or BA? Most of you all here have already gone through the rites…

The current system is completely broken for people who don't get useful degrees, but only annoying for people who do get useful degrees.

1) Have a plan. Go into college with a measurable goal. Say "I'm going to get a degree in X, because that will help me get into my desired profession". Don't say "I'm going to go to become a well rounded person".

2) Get a useful degree. Generally, a useful degree is something that is technical, pays well after school, and doesn't require a masters / pHD. Things like Engineering, CS, Physics. Law and Medicine used to be good career paths, but I wouldn't recommend them anymore.

3) Don't assume the school will teach you everything you need to know. Instead, treat it as one source of knowledge among many. Learn about your major outside of school. Build things on your own. Get internships. Test out of easy classes. Intentionally take harder classes, or classes that would be harder to learn on your own after you've graduated.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#34

Post by cheeferate »

Tycho wrote: post #13

I was thinking about this today. I remember I used to think 'well, if you do a degree, at least you'll be an expert in something , even if you can't find a good job with it.' When I think of it now, the notion is almost laughable. University students don't become experts in anything. For a non-technical subject, the knowledge gained isn't really going to beat a normal member of the public with an interest in the subj…

I'm at school for a technical subject, and I feel the same way. I'd say 80% of what I've learned is from my free time/various jobs I've worked. School only provided me with the atmosphere where I could explore these things easier. I don't think I'd be doing as much with what I learn if I didn't have access to the labs.

So, when it comes to getting a job, I don't think school has really given me any advantage over someone self educated, because I feel largely self educated anyway.

As a side note, one of my professors used to be in charge of hiring at a fairly large company and started refusing to hire (for the most part) anyone with a 4.0, claiming all the good engineers were in the 2.8/3.8 range. He found that GPA was a metric for jumping through hoops, and not engineering ability/critical thinking/creative planning etc. I agree. Of course, I'm one of those 2.8/3.8 students, but I've seen so many cases where the best in class cheats, sucks up, or memorizes the material for the test and immediately forgets it. There's actually a kid famous for being a dumbass in my school, but he's head of IEEE, and has a cushy IBM job lined up, even though nearly everyone agrees he knows nothing about his major.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#35

Post by Tycho »

WalterBright wrote: post #24
Tycho wrote: post #13

I was thinking about this today. I remember I used to think 'well, if you do a degree, at least you'll be an expert in something , even if you can't find a good job with it.' When I think of it now, the notion is almost laughable. University students don't become experts in anything. For a non-technical subject, the knowledge gained isn't really going to beat a normal member of the public with an interest in the subj…

I've seen very, very few people able to learn calculus outside of a school system. Most will just go to elaborate lengths to avoid using calculus and justify why they don't need to learn it.

Fair enough. What examples did you have in mind of people trying to avoid the use of calculus (where it would be the best solution)?

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#36

Post by joshhart »

bartonfink wrote: post #31
joshhart wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pitiful. 75% of the students made below a 26 on the ACT. I scored at that level in 7th grade!

What's the point of bringing it up as if that's somehow a personal failure on their part? Surely you've done something with your life since then and have better things to do than put down those less fortunate than you.

How do you equate poor performance on a standardized test with being less fortunate? It's my opinion that university admissions are way to lenient and that we'd do well to ratchet them up a major notch.

Let community colleges serve their purpose. University studies should be for serious students capable of academic work.

I brought up my score in this because it's the comparison most relevant to me.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#37

Post by hugh3 »

joshhart wrote: post #36
bartonfink wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of bringing it up as if that's somehow a personal failure on their part? Surely you've done something with your life since then and have better things to do than put down those less fortunate than you.

How do you equate poor performance on a standardized test with being less fortunate? It's my opinion that university admissions are way to lenient and that we'd do well to ratchet them up a major notch. Let community colleges serve their purpose. University studies should be for serious students capable of academic work. I brought up my score in this because it's the comparison most relevant to me.

How do you equate poor performance on a standardized test with being less fortunate?

I'm sorry, are you under the impression that you were a smart twelve-year-old for some reason other than that you happened to draw some good cards from the gene pool? Feeling superior to others for being smarter is like feeling superior to others for being better-looking or having richer parents. It's just dickish. (edit: or perhaps I should say it's normal, but best kept to yourself lest folks think you're a dick)

It's my opinion that university admissions are way to lenient

If you are going to play the game where you mock those whom you consider to be intellectually inferior it's best to master the difference between "to" and "too" first.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#38

Post by bartonfink »

joshhart wrote: post #36
bartonfink wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of bringing it up as if that's somehow a personal failure on their part? Surely you've done something with your life since then and have better things to do than put down those less fortunate than you.

How do you equate poor performance on a standardized test with being less fortunate? It's my opinion that university admissions are way to lenient and that we'd do well to ratchet them up a major notch. Let community colleges serve their purpose. University studies should be for serious students capable of academic work. I brought up my score in this because it's the comparison most relevant to me.

I say that because there are so many factors outside of the tester's control that "fortunate" is the best word I can think of to describe success/failure. Someone could have been born without whatever genetic pedigree would help them score better, which is pure chance. Someone could have been born into a family situation which precluded them from a serious academic regimen which would enable them to score better, which is pure chance. Someone could have taken the test at a location where some asshole flushed a cherry bomb that morning and blew up the one toilet available for test takers (that happened when I took the SAT), and the resulting distraction could have impacted their score. Because of this, I don't believe performance on a standardized test correlates with anything meaningful. I certainly don't believe your ACT score in 7th grade is meaningful in any way. I think you're really just starting a pissing contest with the unfortunate side effect that everybody here has to get wet. Don't do that.

From the provided citation, it seems that the 75% SAT score is 1200 without the new writing section. That would be 200 points above the standardized average, which means that your point that most of the school exhibits poor academic performance is patent bullshit. It may not be MIT, but Linfield College surely has its place and it is certainly not your place to throw your weight around like you're Scott Aaronson and claim that the college is incapable of academic work. Go out and do something worthwhile instead of insulting strangers.

For the record, I have not taken the ACT but I have taken the SAT, the GRE and the Stanford-Binet IQ test. My scores on each were high enough that they render the tests virtually meaningless when it comes to measuring my "intelligence." They have no more measure of "intelligence" than my golf handicap or mile time have of my "athleticism."

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#39

Post by ebiester »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #19

Without acceptance criteria -- some neutrally-given test that yields a yes or no -- you can't really measure the function of something. Education has been notorious for refusing to create or abide by acceptance criteria. So it becomes a brand-name game. You pay for the brand, you spend some time getting indoctrinated (most likely to how important this particular brand is) and you get your piece of paper. Somebody sai…

It's not that education doesn't want acceptance criteria; rather, any criteria that could be defined could easily be gamed.

To nearly every professor I've met, the criteria should be something similar to this: A student is introduced to a wide variety of subjects and challenged by a variety of views outside of the cultural bubble in which the student was born; such so that an undergraduate student leaves better prepared to participate in educated society and make wise decisions in civic and public discourse. Secondly, a student has been immersed in a discipline to the extent that they can read and understand literature in the field, and that student can apply the training in learning one field to conquer further fields in their future life outside of academia.

In other words, the goal of college is to create a "well-rounded" individual who has "learned how to learn" and has "seen the world past the one in which they were raised."

Now, how do we operationalize this? Note that Doctoral students have comprehensive exams and dissertations. Colleges are obviously not averse to testing. A multiple choice exam isn't going to cut it here, though.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#40

Post by kenjackson »

cj wrote: post #29
enjo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, a massive generalization that you quite frankly don't have a bit of data to support.

I'm a college student. I make my claims based on experience. Do you disagree with my claim? It may be a generalization, but by no means an overgeneralization.

Most people I know who get a degree actually study a fair bit and learn a fair bit. For most people I know college is the first time they've ever really been pushed. Not to say this is the case for everyone, but I just want to point out that opinions can vary.
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