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How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

theatlantic.com

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Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#31

Post by vmarsy »

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.

Not familiar with old Russian system but there are oral exams for math in France when you apply to "École d'ingénieurs" (engineering school), and it still exists today:

It's basically like a coding whiteboard interview, but instead of being asked to invert a binary tree, you're asked a math question (proof of something, etc)

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#32

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #5
hnzix wrote: post #2

This has become so culturally ingrained that people will casually shame a person for studying an Arts or Humanities degree. "Have fun working at McDonalds you idiot!" An economy is not a society.

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…

No they aren't. They hold worthless knowledge that literally anybody capable of reading and writing can do. They aren't some sort of priestly class that are only allowed to read and edit Wikipedia pages. They just wasted time getting a degree in something that people only do for fun to satisfy they're curiosity. There is absolutely no skill in being able to read and write about something if everyone else is capable of reading and writing.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#33

Post by adventured »

At least in the US, the university system has become another enormous mid upper-class handout scheme, much like healthcare. It's governed and protected much as a cartel might protect its turf.

Again as with healthcare, all you have to do is look at who got all the money from the cost of education hikes - where did it all go - over the past two decades. We know where it went, we know who got that money. There is nobody willing to do anything about it, the latest proposals are to just throw more money at the disaster (which will send the cost of education even higher), more de facto welfare handouts for an already well-off class of white collar parasites.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#34

Post by edgyquant »

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.

I went the opposite, initially wanted humanities (history) but went into CS/Math for money. I ended up quitting after two years and just taking an associates (started at a community college,) but I wish I’d have stuck with humanities. I already knew programming from doing web design as a kid and trying to start a dozen companies so I didn’t learn much and I passed all my classes with flying colors despite hardly ever showing up and never paying attention. Not because I’m a genius but because I already knew CS 1&2 + data structures and I did Kham Academy up to Calc 2 as I was just interested in it personally (this I think aids your point that you don’t need school) but the one history class I took really had me. It’s the only place where I could talk about all the history I read and listen to where people knew some stuff to debate. Only time get to discuss history outside of Reddit these days is with “WW2 history buffs” which is like the Saturday morning cartoons of history.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#35

Post by altcognito »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #26
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.

Oh yes, absolutely no corruption was ever found in the old Soviet system.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#36

Post by qzw »

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…

China also has an education system that’s supposed to be based on exam results, yet funny how the scions of high-level officials and billionaires usually end up at the most elite schools. Of course, it’s possible that they all got there on pure merit...

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#37

Post by ardit33 »

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.

Like coding interviews in whiteboards for programmers... questions about math/physics/etc... and you have to answer them, and then write in the blackboard your solution. You get graded by solution + the way you explained things.

Written, are just like that, written tests, usually not multiple choice, (that is an american invention), but you have to show the work you did to get the result of the problem.

They can be easy or brutal, it very depends on how hard is the teach doing the 'interrogation' on you....

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#38

Post by biinui »

edgyquant wrote: post #34
planet-and-halo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I went the opposite, initially wanted humanities (history) but went into CS/Math for money. I ended up quitting after two years and just taking an associates (started at a community college,) but I wish I’d have stuck with humanities. I already knew programming from doing web design as a kid and trying to start a dozen companies so I didn’t learn much and I passed all my classes with flying colors despite hardly ever…

If you don't mind, what are you doing for a living now?

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#39

Post by vmarsy »

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.

MOOCs are really great for appeasing your FOMO in that area and giving you a more well-rounded education!

You can basically take 101 intro course of any field from great universities. And if you want to go deeper, the advances courses on a university's page usually have syllabus, with recommended readings etc.

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