Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Universities should be more than toll gates

waliddib.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 148 posts

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#41

Post by HK-NC »

keiferski wrote: post #29
kazen44 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I read a book about post WW2 England that talked about Germany and the fachhochschules, and that England had nothing like it until the 70s(?) whereas they'd been in Germany for over fifty years already at least. It also talked aboit the different cultures within coal mines between the countries and the impact that had on coal production. The English worker had an "us and them" attitude between the labourer and the site manager, whereas the germans saw themselves as parts of a larger machine altogether. Guessing whatever this attitude is, is why these schools are looked down on in the UK. This shitty attitude could very well be a remnant of the Norman invasion of Britain. We still have a north south divide and I naturally find myself "code switching" and replacing words with more cumbersome ones of French origin when speaking to southerners. Apologies for this comment being so loose and rambling.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#42

Post by [deleted] »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #38
raincole wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> here’s no real reason why someone can’t start a student-operated (to keep costs down) university that focuses on the liberal arts, classics, mathematics, etc that is affordable enough for the average person. ... so a book club?

I've never been to a book club which discusses partial differential equations. But maybe that's just me.

[deleted]

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#43

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

Makes me think of the "The purpose of a system is what it does" axiom. Universities were always about credentials whether professional or just to indicate social class. They can at the same time be places of learning, and many still are in some disciplines.

The problem is that value of the credential is now worth more (to most people) than the value of the learning/knowledge. So universities adapted to the that model. Its more profitable and university presidents can now earn millions of dollars, further intrenching the problem as it now attracts exactly the kind of people into those positions who only care about money (and themselves).

The true blame for this situation, (IMHO), are the employers across the economy who require applicants have 'university degrees' for jobs that in no way need those skillsets. Bullshit requirements then led to the demand for bullshit degrees which the universities changed to supply.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#44

Post by matheusmoreira »

tgv wrote: post #28

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 grad…

> It became very financially oriented.

> The number of students kept rising, norms kept dropping

All due to the student loans scam.

https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-first-myth...

https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-second-myt...

https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/myth-3-college...

https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-last-myth....

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#45

Post by jokoon »

Bourdieu covers this

I am able to write C++, I worked as a C++ dev, and in france I cannot get a job because I failed to validate the degree for personal reasons 15 years ago, so I don't have a degree, yet I have excellent senior C++ tests. French companies want degrees. Many recruiters say that it's a problem.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#46

Post by owisd »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #38
raincole wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> here’s no real reason why someone can’t start a student-operated (to keep costs down) university that focuses on the liberal arts, classics, mathematics, etc that is affordable enough for the average person. ... so a book club?

I've never been to a book club which discusses partial differential equations. But maybe that's just me.

Could try looking into MathsJam or Math Circles to see if there’s something in your area.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#47

Post by eastbound »

baq wrote: post #23
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…

> Coding is something you can’t learn at the university, you have to do it yourself

Yes, but I have a great divide with people who can’t draw UML on a whiteboard. Same length of studies, and yet it takes double the time to agree on what’s to build.

They start, and after 3 code reviews I ask them “So where is this abstraction we’ve talked about?” and they say “It’s planned, I’ll do it at the end” and that’s when I know they’ve understood nothing.

The first two employees caught me off guard with implementing the instances instead of the pattern, but for the third, I made it a requirement to start with this.

Lack of abstraction and lack of UML language to express it, is definitely an impediment for a good developer.

(Come the “but you said same length of studies”, so, for those guys: Imagine slaving away with a 5-year bootcamp with no sleep where, at the end, you think you know coding, but you can’t write a treeview where every node is of a different type and calls different implementations — it’s that simple, but in the end, it’s not done).

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#48

Post by renewiltord »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #44
tgv wrote: post #28

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 grad…

> It became very financially oriented. > The number of students kept rising, norms kept dropping All due to the student loans scam. https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-first-myth... https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-second-myt... https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/03/myth-3-college... https://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-last-myth....

Yes, these organizations adapt to taking government money. The ideal flow for universities:

1. Set tuition high

2. Advocate for student loan systems

3. Advocate for loan forgiveness

In this way, universities can simply allocate government money to themselves. That's why "everyone must be educated" campaigns always argue for government loan forgiveness and full tuition coverage.

Students are a device to acquire money from the government. No more.

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#49

Post by chamomeal »

tgv wrote: post #28

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 grad…

Tangential, but I also loved studying and learned way more from textbooks than I ever did from class/lectures. I even went to a small school where there might only be 10 people in the class (the physics department was especially teensy), and I still just could absolutely never pay attention in class with any success.

When exams were coming up, I would start skipping class just to read textbooks and work through practice problems, and it was a lifesaver!! The professors were great for getting me unstuck with a concept, but 90% of the time I just needed to be studying alone

Re: Universities should be more than toll gates

#50

Post by imtringued »

general1465 wrote: post #22
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 yo…

Yes, German universities don't do entrance exams, there is also no grading on a curve to artificially weed out students. What they do instead is just simply have really difficult exams with a failure rate of 30% and higher for first semester students. The linear algebra exam I passed had a 50% failure rate and most passing students got something equivalent to a D in the American system.
Post reply on HN