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The unbundling of Harvard has begun

socialstudies.substack.com

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Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#51

Post by rajekas »

Any article that mentions unbundling, disruption, bubble and tipping point in less then a thousand words deserves mention in the Malcolm Gladwell hall of fame.

Here's the opposite argument: universities will eat bootcamps for lunch because in the post-COVID era they will be hungry for the same dollar and I would much prefer getting a Harvard Online degree than from Fullstack Camp TM.

There's no doubt that higher education will be transformed by the COVID19 crisis but it's extremely unlikely (in my view) that the shifts will go along the lines predicted by Silicon Valley 'product thinkers.' There's a reason why Universities have lasted longer than civilizations.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#52

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

This blog post is self-contradictory. On one hand it says "people aren't going to pay full price for just online college", and then in the other "people will be able to learn from 'influencers' just as well as they do from colleges."

The reason people don't want to pay full price for online learning is because they know it has much lower value than in-person instruction.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#53

Post by esrauch »

throwawaybab323 wrote: post #40
paulgb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't get a Harvard degree on Coursera though. To get the degree you have to be accepted to a degree program, and being accepted to a Harvard degree program is much of what the degree signals.

Well actually you can. The degree is listed as from harvard along with the program. Getting accepted is a joke all you need is a undergraduate gpa of a 3.0.

Are you saying that all you need to get accepted to Harvard is to have a B highschool GPA? That ... doesn't sound right.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#54

Post by diarrhea »

thehappypm wrote: post #30

I always hear the argument that college/grad school is silly because you can go read the textbooks yourself. It requires an immense amount of motivation to grind away reading 80 pages of a boring CS textbook every day. The structure and motivation provided by an institution encourages people to go deeper, meet deadlines, and not just skim the boring stuff. It isn't the only way to learn, but when I did a master's deg…

My master's degree was essentially thermodynamics, all the various aspects of it, and I have never met anyone self-taught in that area. You just do not sit down and just learn about the physics of energy (storage, conversion, transmission, ...).

Part of the reason is that at least in mechanical engineering, the curricula are more or less well-curated and grew over many decades, if not centuries. You learn maths, electrical engineering, mechanics, fluids etc. all at the same time, and they all intertwine. Sometimes one is the basis to learn about the next (mechanics lays the foundation for fluids mechanics; maths is simply the foundation of everything you do and learn). Other times you discover meta-connections that elevate your understanding of everything in combination (voltage, pressure and temperature as potentials, current, mass flow and heat flow as flows resulting from that potential; each with their respective resistances: ohm (or impedance), friction, heat transfer coefficient).

It all comes together beautifully and forms a new, elevated whole.

I am willing to bet I will go through life without ever meeting someone self-taught, in my field. Computer science might be different, but people confuse computer science and coding. Coding you can self-teach easily, computer science not so much. That is more on the level of self-teaching maths, and I have never met such a person, either.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#55

Post by mennis16 »

throwawaybab323 wrote: post #23
hatmatrix wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Harvard online education is worth not much You're typically paying for three things: 1. The education 2. The network 3. The brand Even if 1 is not many times greater at Harvard than another institution, 2 and 3 are. Even without 2, a Harvard degree will send a signal that will open doors that might otherwise be closed.

Well I mean they sell their same courses for like 20 bucks on coursera.

edX. But also they really are not the same courses, at least the MIT courses on edX are not the same as "real" MIT courses (or what they put on OCW). Video lectures are separately planned/recorded to be shorter duration "modules", which decreases the depth and sometimes also results in entire topics being cut out. Assignments are heavily simplified. There is no proper replacement for recitations/office hours. And so on.

Also, there are sites like HMX which is more in the realm of $1000 per class, and still not "the real thing". These classes are solid but they are just not comparable to actual classes at Harvard Medical School. My experience with taking classes versus trying out mass online learning has repeatedly resulted in "this is a nice amenity to have, but it is not a substitute for a proper course".

Does Harvard have a monopoly on undergraduate math, philosophy, etc. materials? No. But there is a huge difference between doing challenging problem sets/having complicated debates with a high quality peer group (+ access to top profs), and doing the most basic "understanding checks" with a random sampling of college students. I think it is silly to pretend the only value top schools provide beyond random U is the value of building up a network/credentials. That is part of it, but it is also actually much easier to get a better education at these schools.

I think there are two main problems with higher ed: 1) the top schools do not do a good enough job of admitting talented students across socioeconomic lines and 2) students are taking out debt to go to mid tier schools at unsustainable levels [especially because some of these students do not actually have a plan for college but feel pressured to rush into it]. There are also probably a bunch of lower tier private schools that should not exist.

Anyway, for some reason I get the sense HN takes these 2 problems and somehow comes to the complaint that "elite schools are a waste of money". Given the generous financial aid, the greater availability of classes and rigor of coursework, the career building resources, etc. I don't think you will find better value per dollar at any US schools than from the HYPSM+ cohort.

Students for whom it is at all feasible should just take a gap year this year IMO.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#56

Post by eplanit »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #29
secondcoming wrote: post #5

"I'm Brett... and Twitter power user" I can't believe a grown adult considers this some sort of qualification. As for "education-based communities on the backs of (social) media empires"... what a horrible thought. Imagine getting your education from a Twitterati or Fox News-backed organisation. "Psychology is the most underrated major in tech." Maybe for someone with a psychology degree who's looking for a "Silicon…

Even worse: "Twitter is where all the action happens in the tech industry"

Yeah, I stopped reading at that one.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#57

Post by Noos »

secondcoming wrote: post #5

"I'm Brett... and Twitter power user" I can't believe a grown adult considers this some sort of qualification. As for "education-based communities on the backs of (social) media empires"... what a horrible thought. Imagine getting your education from a Twitterati or Fox News-backed organisation. "Psychology is the most underrated major in tech." Maybe for someone with a psychology degree who's looking for a "Silicon…

about as worthwhile as Harvard is, to be blunt. It's really all about chasing what your target audience thinks is cool, isn't it? Some of us could really mock the kind of people our elites are, and find them just as distasteful as you find twitter power users.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#58

Post by Item_Boring »

thehappypm wrote: post #30

I always hear the argument that college/grad school is silly because you can go read the textbooks yourself. It requires an immense amount of motivation to grind away reading 80 pages of a boring CS textbook every day. The structure and motivation provided by an institution encourages people to go deeper, meet deadlines, and not just skim the boring stuff. It isn't the only way to learn, but when I did a master's deg…

Also when it comes to applying what one learned by solving exercises or doing proofs feedback is so crucial and helpful. Firstly, one sees the parts one didn’t fully understand yet and secondly your way might be correct even if it isn’t the same way the provided solution approached the problem.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#59

Post by throwawaybab323 »

esrauch wrote: post #53
throwawaybab323 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well actually you can. The degree is listed as from harvard along with the program. Getting accepted is a joke all you need is a undergraduate gpa of a 3.0.

Are you saying that all you need to get accepted to Harvard is to have a B highschool GPA? That ... doesn't sound right.

Its the same with other mooc programs undergraduate gpa of a 3.0 gets you in.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#60

Post by thehappypm »

diarrhea wrote: post #54
thehappypm wrote: post #30

I always hear the argument that college/grad school is silly because you can go read the textbooks yourself. It requires an immense amount of motivation to grind away reading 80 pages of a boring CS textbook every day. The structure and motivation provided by an institution encourages people to go deeper, meet deadlines, and not just skim the boring stuff. It isn't the only way to learn, but when I did a master's deg…

My master's degree was essentially thermodynamics, all the various aspects of it, and I have never met anyone self-taught in that area. You just do not sit down and just learn about the physics of energy (storage, conversion, transmission, ...). Part of the reason is that at least in mechanical engineering, the curricula are more or less well-curated and grew over many decades, if not centuries. You learn maths, elec…

Thank you, diarrhea.
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