361–370 of 447 posts
This thread is a good example of one of the perhaps overlooked reasons it can be hard to discuss education in our societies - any attempt at making a general point, or a meta-observation of some kind, quickly gets swallowed in a massive influx of personal anecdotes about things that happened to people during their education. Maybe there are other topics where the same phemonen exists. I'm not sure if off the top of m…
The stories of mathematicians like Srinivasa Ramanujan, who claimed to have derived complex partitions and identities in dreams, have always captivated me. It's as if their minds were tapping into some hidden reservoir of knowledge. I'm curious what drives these intuitive leaps. Was Ramanujan's brain quietly processing patterns during sleep, leveraging its default mode network in ways we're still struggling to unders…
I am also intrigued by this question: What was different for guys like Ramanujan, and how were they able to tap in to this hidden reservoir of knowledge. And how can we replicate it One guy able to tap into this knowledge in dreams is an indication that it is possible. Now, how do we make this the default for everyone is the question I wonder about The way we found one variant of wheat in Mexico that was resistant to…
This thread is a good example of one of the perhaps overlooked reasons it can be hard to discuss education in our societies - any attempt at making a general point, or a meta-observation of some kind, quickly gets swallowed in a massive influx of personal anecdotes about things that happened to people during their education. Maybe there are other topics where the same phemonen exists. I'm not sure if off the top of m…
I think there is another force at play here - the assumption that there is a platonic ideal good education system that works at every scale of population. Attempting to scale something that large forces people into boxes that fit inside the framework - one must necessarily ignore little detailed differences between humans. But from the perspective of those individual humans, ignoring those little details doesn't real…
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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/380483-congress-bans-arms...
No one has time to follow your random links. If you can't put what you have to say about a topic in your own words -- then you don't have anything to say.
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The admissions process to universities in the province of Ontario in Canada has a direct solution for this, which applies to well-known universities in the global technology industry, such as the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo. Most of these universities look at an applicant's grades for just six courses. After looking at the courses required for certain programs (such as calculus and physics fo…
In 2024 you are not getting into Waterloo CS with anything less than a 99% in your top6. And that's the entry level. If you really want to get in, you have to grind math competitions, clubs, etc. I go to a mid-tier university (Toronto Metropolitan University) and the admissions average for CS was 97% last year. The admissions process for universities in Ontario is a joke at this point. Imagine if students going to Ha…
This would also help the case of people like Ramanujan, he might score perfectly on the math portion of the standardized tests, and despite poor scores on everything else, he'd be distinguished.
I love the Humility and Kindness in Hardy's statement.
That was a fun read. What really stuck out to me was how R failed in a bunch of other subjects except math because he wasn’t interested in them. I know society and norms expect students to learn all these other subjects. But what if those just aren’t interesting to someone? I wonder how many geniuses we skip on because doing the chores of homework and getting through boring classes is busywork and memorization for th…
IMO, you're thinking about this backwards. It's good that public school exposes children to many subjects - hopefully most of them. So that they can discover if they click with one of them. The real danger is that someone never gets exposed to a subject at all. College is the place to specialize in a subject.
Unless they are born wealthy or find a benefactor so they can go to private school or a gifted person school, that caters to their specific needs, it's the best we can do to serve everyone.
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I think there is another force at play here - the assumption that there is a platonic ideal good education system that works at every scale of population. Attempting to scale something that large forces people into boxes that fit inside the framework - one must necessarily ignore little detailed differences between humans. But from the perspective of those individual humans, ignoring those little details doesn't real…
There's another potentially missed point. There is no education system, nor any amount of effort which could have granted me the genius of Ramanjuan. He had something I never will. It would be like dream to run faster than Usain Bolt.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In 2024 you are not getting into Waterloo CS with anything less than a 99% in your top6. And that's the entry level. If you really want to get in, you have to grind math competitions, clubs, etc. I go to a mid-tier university (Toronto Metropolitan University) and the admissions average for CS was 97% last year. The admissions process for universities in Ontario is a joke at this point. Imagine if students going to Ha…
Imo school grades should be disregarded entirely. We should bring back standardized testing, but make the ceiling much higher. Most people should score fairly low on it. This way, you can really see how good people are. At this point, people just get weeded out in university. This would also help the case of people like Ramanujan, he might score perfectly on the math portion of the standardized tests, and despite poo…
My education prepared me to make millions of dollars by the time I was in my mid-forties. I learned that if I take every task seriously and strive to do the absolute best I can on that task, no exceptions, regardless of how I personally felt about a subject or an assignment, I would end up being an employee that saw to it that anything I did, I did to the absolute best of my ability. Not every task ended up being wor…