Universities should be more than toll gates(waliddib.com)
waliddib.com
Universities should be more than toll gates
https://www.waliddib.com/posts/universities-should-be-more-than-toll-gates/
147 comments
I am always astonished by the range of people who claim their college degree was useless, citing rote memorization and bad classes. I had an entirely different experience and so did most people I know. University gave me the opportunity to talk to world-class researchers during office hours, to discuss ideas with my peers and have them either validated or critiqued by experts. Sure, all the information is available online (which is a miracle into itself) but without frequent contact with professors and mentors I wouldn’t have even known where to look or what existed in the field. University, for me, was a place where I was apprenticing full-time under highly experienced people, surrounded by people my age who also were doing the same. Years of self-teaching didn’t get me anywhere close to what a few semesters of expert mentorship got me. I never felt I had to memorize anything: exams consisted of system design or long programming projects or optimization challenges. I loved it, and I’m not sure if people went to different universities or just didn’t take advantage of the opportunities presented to them.
> … world-class researchers …
These people can’t possibly be at every university, let alone colleges, community colleges, or technical schools.
> … rote memorization and bad classes …
Not every school will be good. There are at least three post-secondary schools within driving of me that take the minimum required curricula as a script and offer nothing more than the bare minimum required to get certification, accreditation, and receive that sweet state and federal budget money.
I can’t imagine how someone with a good or great post-secondary education is confused that this would be the situation for millions of students.
These people can’t possibly be at every university, let alone colleges, community colleges, or technical schools.
> … rote memorization and bad classes …
Not every school will be good. There are at least three post-secondary schools within driving of me that take the minimum required curricula as a script and offer nothing more than the bare minimum required to get certification, accreditation, and receive that sweet state and federal budget money.
I can’t imagine how someone with a good or great post-secondary education is confused that this would be the situation for millions of students.
Thank you; I feel similarly and wish I could go back as an adult to take even more advantage of all the incredible opportunities. Having four years to dedicate to learning new things in depth -- with zero pressure to take shortcuts so that the lessons become economically useful sooner -- was more of a privilege than I understood at the time.
And then of course, the people I met there have shaped my life and career in wonderful ways ever since. The sheer level of diversity among students and faculty is unlike anything I've experienced elsewhere. Many of them are still my lifelong friends (or in one case my wife :)) and others have opened professional doors to me 15 years later and counting.
But also, I went to a very well known and respected university with sufficient endowment and financial aid that it shouldn't be functioning as a "toll gate" regardless. I know things are not this rosy at a lot of universities.
And then of course, the people I met there have shaped my life and career in wonderful ways ever since. The sheer level of diversity among students and faculty is unlike anything I've experienced elsewhere. Many of them are still my lifelong friends (or in one case my wife :)) and others have opened professional doors to me 15 years later and counting.
But also, I went to a very well known and respected university with sufficient endowment and financial aid that it shouldn't be functioning as a "toll gate" regardless. I know things are not this rosy at a lot of universities.
Did you learn about selection bias in university? Maybe you went to a good one, but there are far, far more dogshit schools than good ones.
Just a few years ago my husband had all of his tuition refunded (and degree cancelled) because the school was so bad and so scammy that the government had to step in and force them to refund everyone.
The reality is that higher education in the USA is a for-profit venture, and like all for-profit ventures in the US, the number one explicit goal is to extract as much profit as possible by any means possible. Providing quality education and world-class faculty is completely disjoint and incompatible with that goal.
Most people in this country are not so privileged as you to attend one of our dwindling number of good schools. Everyone else has a predatory institution that technically meets the requirements to offer the degrees they claim. Usually, anyway.
Just a few years ago my husband had all of his tuition refunded (and degree cancelled) because the school was so bad and so scammy that the government had to step in and force them to refund everyone.
The reality is that higher education in the USA is a for-profit venture, and like all for-profit ventures in the US, the number one explicit goal is to extract as much profit as possible by any means possible. Providing quality education and world-class faculty is completely disjoint and incompatible with that goal.
Most people in this country are not so privileged as you to attend one of our dwindling number of good schools. Everyone else has a predatory institution that technically meets the requirements to offer the degrees they claim. Usually, anyway.
Some for-profit companies build better education than schools. And I don't think it's about profit since public schools are bad too
> or just didn’t take advantage of the opportunities presented to them.
It's this. Most undergraduate students do not go to office hours, try to get to know their instructors, ask follow-up questions, pursue independent research, or do anything approaching "apprenticeship". Most American students matriculate into college/uni not even having ingrained behaviors that make any of these things obvious or approachable, so yes, it's understandable why many would consider higher ed the same as secondary ed: rote memorization and "bad" classes.
It's this. Most undergraduate students do not go to office hours, try to get to know their instructors, ask follow-up questions, pursue independent research, or do anything approaching "apprenticeship". Most American students matriculate into college/uni not even having ingrained behaviors that make any of these things obvious or approachable, so yes, it's understandable why many would consider higher ed the same as secondary ed: rote memorization and "bad" classes.
> … Most undergraduate students do not go to office hours, try to get to know their instructors, ask follow-up questions
This was actively discouraged by the instructors in the school I attended. Not by policy, but by behavior - passive-aggressively belittling students for not “getting” the subject matter, showing a complete lack of interest in reciprocating any amount of getting to know the instructor.
> … ask follow-up questions, pursue independent research, or do anything approaching "apprenticeship". Most American students matriculate into college/uni not even having ingrained behaviors that make any of these things obvious or approachable …
A failure of secondary education and students’ families.
This was actively discouraged by the instructors in the school I attended. Not by policy, but by behavior - passive-aggressively belittling students for not “getting” the subject matter, showing a complete lack of interest in reciprocating any amount of getting to know the instructor.
> … ask follow-up questions, pursue independent research, or do anything approaching "apprenticeship". Most American students matriculate into college/uni not even having ingrained behaviors that make any of these things obvious or approachable …
A failure of secondary education and students’ families.
I was talking with a professor yesterday who claimed his students don't ask questions any more on Piazza. They used to, but now they go to ChatGPT which is always perky and ready to answer. Plus, there's no shame in asking a dumb question as there can be in class or on Piazza.
He says it's only a matter of time before the students realize they don't need him. Or need to pay tuition.
He says it's only a matter of time before the students realize they don't need him. Or need to pay tuition.
We're already there with the "do my own research" crowd.
Im not a huge defender of college and lean towards it being mostly a waste, but the other extreme is problematic.
Im not a huge defender of college and lean towards it being mostly a waste, but the other extreme is problematic.
Most people don’t go to the university to learn, they go to get a diploma. If you don’t pay tuition they will not give you a diploma.
And we’ve all been sold a bill of goods on the necessity of diplomas and degrees. Because businesses have been sold a bill of goods on the quality of employees with diplomas and degrees.
Within at least the last 15 years, the paper provided by a school is no guarantee of better pay - but that’s how high schoolers are convinced to go into excessive debt for attending post-secondary schools.
Within at least the last 15 years, the paper provided by a school is no guarantee of better pay - but that’s how high schoolers are convinced to go into excessive debt for attending post-secondary schools.
> the paper provided by a school is no guarantee of better pay
Perhaps not, but the lack of that paper IS a guarantee of worse pay.
Perhaps not, but the lack of that paper IS a guarantee of worse pay.
My experience has been there is no correlation between skill at teaching and skill at research; maybe the two are even anti-correlated. To some extent, this is an artifact of the selection process for professors, but I think it's partly because there's a real tradeoff between spending effort on research vs teaching.
In some cases, an excellent researcher even has cogent papers but is absolutely abysmal at lecturing and in person teaching skills.
Peers are very important, but from talking to others, it's harder to know where you will get good peers than you would think. Even 1st tier universities will have majors dominated by students whose primary interest is in maximum grades with minimum work and where cheating is rampant. You've got to either get lucky (I did) or put in some leg work to find smart students who are actually interested in learning and doing things right.
I think how much rote memorization is encouraged or required is strongly dependent on the field. Pre-med students will sometimes memorize their way through calculus; a professor I knew once described it as "grimly impressive".
In some cases, an excellent researcher even has cogent papers but is absolutely abysmal at lecturing and in person teaching skills.
Peers are very important, but from talking to others, it's harder to know where you will get good peers than you would think. Even 1st tier universities will have majors dominated by students whose primary interest is in maximum grades with minimum work and where cheating is rampant. You've got to either get lucky (I did) or put in some leg work to find smart students who are actually interested in learning and doing things right.
I think how much rote memorization is encouraged or required is strongly dependent on the field. Pre-med students will sometimes memorize their way through calculus; a professor I knew once described it as "grimly impressive".
Teaching is a skill like any other. While I don't think the two are anti-correlated, you're going to find good teachers and bad teachers, no matter how good they may be at their other duties.
And I would gather you find more bad teachers than good, but that's true of many spaces from IT to sports.
And I would gather you find more bad teachers than good, but that's true of many spaces from IT to sports.
> University gave me the opportunity to talk to world-class researchers during office hours
Neither world-class researchers or office hours exist in most Universities.
"Office hours" is entirely an American (and maybe British?) thing.
Neither world-class researchers or office hours exist in most Universities.
"Office hours" is entirely an American (and maybe British?) thing.
If you’re in an American University, then the professors will most likely be top researchers in some particular niche, and they will likely have office hours. I think the “college is a toll” argument specifically applies to American universities that are essentially pay to play.
That’s not true. Source: University of Warsaw. Poland. Not Illinois. I’ve had office hours with world-class mathematicians. Those office hours were required of every lecturer and TA.
At a top university in Scandinavia, lecturers will rarely respond (or even read) emails from students.
"Office hours" did not exist, but TAs attend scheduled labs/exercises.
Professors were even under instruction to not engage with students outside of scheduled and budgeted time.
"Office hours" did not exist, but TAs attend scheduled labs/exercises.
Professors were even under instruction to not engage with students outside of scheduled and budgeted time.
[deleted]
[deleted]
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 graduation, or do some internship and write a report about that. I had a supervisor who was into some of the newer stuff and gave me practically free reign with regular feedback.
That was in 80s. I stuck around, changed faculty (AI, cogsci, neuro), and saw university change. It became very financially oriented. The number of students kept rising, norms kept dropping (2nd year student asking: what does this symbol √ mean?), students participating in real research became rarer and rarer, even PhDs shifted towards more and more teaching, and 20 years later, the most influential member of a university's board was the one doing real estate, and an academic career was based on the amount of funding obtained.
That was in 80s. I stuck around, changed faculty (AI, cogsci, neuro), and saw university change. It became very financially oriented. The number of students kept rising, norms kept dropping (2nd year student asking: what does this symbol √ mean?), students participating in real research became rarer and rarer, even PhDs shifted towards more and more teaching, and 20 years later, the most influential member of a university's board was the one doing real estate, and an academic career was based on the amount of funding obtained.
I loved my time at a big Canadian uni in the 90's and smaller one in early 2000's. Grad school a few years later was kind of disappointing; I thought everyone would be smarter. Still some good profs and the best students were awesome and inspiring, but I watched a shift towards distance education & foreign students that meant way more adminstrators and way less of the environment that made uni so great. I suspect it's even worse in the US
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
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
> 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....
> 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.
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.
not in Canada. Funding & allowed price increases has mostly been capped for a very long time at many schools/programs, so they've had to find new revenue streams. This is mostly foreign students and continuing education / executive programs, or "professional" degrees (MBA, law, medicine). None of these moves encourages deeper academic research.
In the US perhaps, but it happened in Western Europe too, even where there weren't student loans. Simplistic explanation: the right wing parties were in favor of "austerity" measures, i.e. budget cuts, and the left-wing ones of getting as many people through college as possible. Unfortunately, both got what they wished for.
On this particular issue, i think all parties that reach power want the same thing: more educated people, cheaper (because let's be honest, a "left-wing" party in Europe that conquer power in Europe is at most a "third way"-type party, sometime with a green tint), and are all equally at fault for the situation.
The meaningfull difference between right-wing and left-wing parties is how the University should be organized, with right-wing party pushing for centralized, more powerful unis that can reach international "power rankings", and left-wing parties usually push for a decentralization (that's how you get university branches in small towns usually). Also most right-wing/third way parties seems to want the admin staff to have power over the education staff, that there's that shift too (the exact same stuff is happening in hospitals).
The meaningfull difference between right-wing and left-wing parties is how the University should be organized, with right-wing party pushing for centralized, more powerful unis that can reach international "power rankings", and left-wing parties usually push for a decentralization (that's how you get university branches in small towns usually). Also most right-wing/third way parties seems to want the admin staff to have power over the education staff, that there's that shift too (the exact same stuff is happening in hospitals).
>
On this particular issue, i think all parties that reach power want the same thing: more educated people
I don't think so: educated people are much harder to control that uneducated masses.
I don't think so: educated people are much harder to control that uneducated masses.
LOL no. Here right wingers just want to defund higher ed and control what they do. None of which will help with quality of output. (and those rankings are largely useless anyway) they don’t want more educated ppl, because they blame education for what they see wrong with society and would undermine their base. (Like how there’s claims that unis make people leftist or similar )
Yeah, but it's recent, and it's something europe imported from the US.
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.
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.
> employers across the economy who require applicants have 'university degrees'
Somebody from HR admitted to me that they often do it to simply trim the applicant pool to a more manageable size.
Somebody from HR admitted to me that they often do it to simply trim the applicant pool to a more manageable size.
This is true across literally millions of HR people across the whole country. Every one trying to make their job a little bit easier and thus creating an externality with the monstrous negative effect on the entire education system and years of people lives pursuing pointless degrees at great cost and debt that may take some lifetimes to pay off. Absolute madness.
>> pursuing pointless degrees at great cost and debt
Maybe if you require a liberal arts degree and immediately cut someone who's just "well read" but this is not my experience in technical and engineering focused roles.
Maybe if you require a liberal arts degree and immediately cut someone who's just "well read" but this is not my experience in technical and engineering focused roles.
This is definitely part of it, but after working - and hiring - in the software industry for several decades I can say that a university grad has probably at least heard of relational algebra or taken a course that covered costing algorithms. Do they use this every day or ever? Definitely not, but when I interview non-uni grads the odds they can write (let alone explain) a modest SQL query are lower. There's very little causation between uni grad and good developer, but IME the best uni grads are better than the best non-uni grads. There's some signal in there.
Wonder if this problem would be reduced by some mechanism of incurring cost on job positions that advertise for more requirements. (A heavy handed approach would be to charge an additional fee/tax if you require university educated persons for a position not requiring one)
I agree with your general assessment, but not sure if the blame could be placed on employers mostly/entirely. They're also limited by bounded rationality and cannot (or should not) dictate what the purpose of an education should be. There's such diffusal of accountability that no one is really designing the system, just reacting to it. To your point, the system just do what it does. The ultimate unaccountability machine, per Dan Davies [1].
I think we're witnessing the collapse of the university value proposition. In the decades post WW2, the attendance/competition within universities was quite modest compared to today. Relatively fewer people went, and it was essentially a social class sorter, with a liberal education sprinkled throughout. This actually creates a better learning environment, as once you're "in", you can focus on the experience. Nowadays, the university is just another hamster wheel in the grind, in a never-ending arms race against the sea of other students/degrees/credentials. Failure to deliver results means you didn't consume enough, and must consume more. Eventually this dilutes the value of the degree, both from a signaling and a financial perspective. It seems like we're in the peak enshitification stage of higher ed.
For employers, requiring a degree doesn't cost them anything. So they're happy to keep piling on the requirements. I guess the question is what type of employers would actually be the first to decouple their recruiting/hiring from credentialism and rely on other metrics of competency?
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unaccountability_Machine
I think we're witnessing the collapse of the university value proposition. In the decades post WW2, the attendance/competition within universities was quite modest compared to today. Relatively fewer people went, and it was essentially a social class sorter, with a liberal education sprinkled throughout. This actually creates a better learning environment, as once you're "in", you can focus on the experience. Nowadays, the university is just another hamster wheel in the grind, in a never-ending arms race against the sea of other students/degrees/credentials. Failure to deliver results means you didn't consume enough, and must consume more. Eventually this dilutes the value of the degree, both from a signaling and a financial perspective. It seems like we're in the peak enshitification stage of higher ed.
For employers, requiring a degree doesn't cost them anything. So they're happy to keep piling on the requirements. I guess the question is what type of employers would actually be the first to decouple their recruiting/hiring from credentialism and rely on other metrics of competency?
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unaccountability_Machine
You are correct, but the fact that employers are being rational doesn't make them blameless. To answer your question is that I don't see any employers decoupling from credentialism because why would they? So I think any solution to that would require there has to be a cost associated with university requirements for job positions. A fee maybe? Unless the job legally requires the credential (e.g. engineer, lawyer, nurse, etc.), then any other position you have to pay a fee to include that requirement? I know, not great, but what else could be done?
But this is just a tacit admission that a lot of jobs need the credential.
And it's a slippery slope. Should, for instance, a chemist have the credential? It's easy to say, "No". Until you get another Bhopal.
Basically you would start getting more and more fields demanding credentials for liability purposes over time. Some would be entirely justified, like chemist and biologist. Some would be tenuous in the extreme, like c# or javascript monkey.
And it's a slippery slope. Should, for instance, a chemist have the credential? It's easy to say, "No". Until you get another Bhopal.
Basically you would start getting more and more fields demanding credentials for liability purposes over time. Some would be entirely justified, like chemist and biologist. Some would be tenuous in the extreme, like c# or javascript monkey.
There are absolutely jobs that require credentials and for good reasons that I fully support. I'm not talking about these jobs. It's the ones that require a credential, but the job duties do not involve the skillsets associated with that credential. An easy way to spot these is if the requirement is something like a 'bachelors degree'. Doesn't matter what field, you just have to have gone to university. This is BS requirement.
It's an interesting conundrum, where everyone knows the system is bs but no one wants to take the first step. Hypothetically, some possible scenarios:
1) An external event, like a war, that stress test the credentials and to force selection based on outcomes. 2) Some sort of monetary benefit for employers, like extended internships for high schoolers. Assuming it's cheaper/more effective for an employer to train their workforce from scratch than pay the full salary of a recent grad. 3) A new field, where credentials haven't been established yet.
There are obv caveats to all of these. And they don't address the question of what a formal education is supposed to accomplish. At some point, it was supposed to be to train "better citizens". And that shouldn't be dictated by employers, imo. But nowadays it seems like the purpose is to get a job and survive.
1) An external event, like a war, that stress test the credentials and to force selection based on outcomes. 2) Some sort of monetary benefit for employers, like extended internships for high schoolers. Assuming it's cheaper/more effective for an employer to train their workforce from scratch than pay the full salary of a recent grad. 3) A new field, where credentials haven't been established yet.
There are obv caveats to all of these. And they don't address the question of what a formal education is supposed to accomplish. At some point, it was supposed to be to train "better citizens". And that shouldn't be dictated by employers, imo. But nowadays it seems like the purpose is to get a job and survive.
[deleted]
> "The purpose of a system is what it does"
Conversely, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...
Conversely, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...
To blame are employers but also politicians and Uni admin staff enabling the narrative that a degree should always be about employable skills. First employers often eintreten know what they need and in general this focus on practice is exactly what promotes roteness imo
This was exactly like my experience, although mine was in the UK maybe 15 years earlier. I went to university and studied a particular subject so that I'd be employable and didn't enjoy what I was learning. (It's debatable whether I learnt much at all, though.) Like the author, many years later I also came across computer science and found it exciting and engrossing, but I have a slightly different take on that:
Perhaps I needed to grind out a dull degree as it ultimately set me on a path to a time/place/subject that I really do enjoy. My interests now have been shaped by my journey and if you'd tried to teach me computer science at 18 I'm sure I would've hated that, too.
> Absolute joy turned into anger, and anger into resentment, as I wondered how different my life might have been if I’d been taught subjects I actually cared about by professors who cared too.
Perhaps I needed to grind out a dull degree as it ultimately set me on a path to a time/place/subject that I really do enjoy. My interests now have been shaped by my journey and if you'd tried to teach me computer science at 18 I'm sure I would've hated that, too.
Same. I didn't know how to express my passions, and I didn't know that I didn't know. I've since been (re?)discovering this. I'm still working on it.
I wish that we didn't talk down to kids to teach them, and instead approached them as equals, so that they wouldn't think that their passions and interests are below that of "grown ups". I recently learned that there's a term for that. Well sort of. It's "andragogy", which directly translates as education for adults, contrasting with "pedagogy" which is education for kids.
I wish that we didn't talk down to kids to teach them, and instead approached them as equals, so that they wouldn't think that their passions and interests are below that of "grown ups". I recently learned that there's a term for that. Well sort of. It's "andragogy", which directly translates as education for adults, contrasting with "pedagogy" which is education for kids.
Historically universities began as church schools, and (more or less) existed to educate priests in persuasion and nobility in leadership.
You might think that's archaic, but that's still the primary purpose of the Ivy League in the US and the older equivalents around the world. The caste system works slightly differently, with priests (persuaders and marketers) replaced by economists, lawyers, and politicians, and nobility (doers with financial/political agency) by CEOs, financiers, and oligarchs. But it's recognisably the same idea.
There are also supporting castes - the military, which has its own pipeline, and researchers/technicians, which are a weird hybrid caste. Some have limited political agency - which peaked around fifty years ago, and has been declining since - but most are just worker bees.
The idea that universities are there for personal and cultural intellectual development is relatively recent, and much more tentative. There's still a lot of hostility to it because the primary purpose of the system is to maintain power differentials, not to erode them.
The point being that the modern system is the vector sum of at least four different competing trends. There's political hierarchy, there's increasing financialisation of assets and processes (which actually conflicts with research and education), there's a need for workers who are accredited and educated enough, but not too educated and independent-minded, and there are the personal expectations of students, which depend on personality, talent, and acculturation.
There isn't a stable solution for this problem.
A recent trend is the availability of university-level teaching outside of universities. Textbook piracy, YouTube videos, and AI are all making it much easier for motivated people to learn - pretty much anything.
I'm not convinced the formal system is sustainable. But it's clear current ideas about employment aren't sustainable either. So there's going to be a period of complete chaos, and - at best - some new system of semi-formal self-motivated open education is going to replace what we have now, perhaps with some kind of external testing and accreditation for specific skills and abilities.
You might think that's archaic, but that's still the primary purpose of the Ivy League in the US and the older equivalents around the world. The caste system works slightly differently, with priests (persuaders and marketers) replaced by economists, lawyers, and politicians, and nobility (doers with financial/political agency) by CEOs, financiers, and oligarchs. But it's recognisably the same idea.
There are also supporting castes - the military, which has its own pipeline, and researchers/technicians, which are a weird hybrid caste. Some have limited political agency - which peaked around fifty years ago, and has been declining since - but most are just worker bees.
The idea that universities are there for personal and cultural intellectual development is relatively recent, and much more tentative. There's still a lot of hostility to it because the primary purpose of the system is to maintain power differentials, not to erode them.
The point being that the modern system is the vector sum of at least four different competing trends. There's political hierarchy, there's increasing financialisation of assets and processes (which actually conflicts with research and education), there's a need for workers who are accredited and educated enough, but not too educated and independent-minded, and there are the personal expectations of students, which depend on personality, talent, and acculturation.
There isn't a stable solution for this problem.
A recent trend is the availability of university-level teaching outside of universities. Textbook piracy, YouTube videos, and AI are all making it much easier for motivated people to learn - pretty much anything.
I'm not convinced the formal system is sustainable. But it's clear current ideas about employment aren't sustainable either. So there's going to be a period of complete chaos, and - at best - some new system of semi-formal self-motivated open education is going to replace what we have now, perhaps with some kind of external testing and accreditation for specific skills and abilities.
I agree with all of what you said, and my personal twist is that this weird, archaic, self-preserving hierarchy is a slightly-lagging expression of our collective mindset. We're changing how we think, and that is indirectly eroding away at this status quo. I see this most vividly with how we treat kids and how fast that's changing: every generation has a much better relationship with their kids than the previous generation.
The elephant in the room here is that perhaps the biggest difference between the two learning experiences that OP is describing is himself.
He might just have discovered he is more mature at 30 than he was at 18...
He might just have discovered he is more mature at 30 than he was at 18...
There is a difference between learning about things that you find interesting at your own pace, and learning about things that interest other people with tight deadlines. Even if I enjoy learning, there were absolutely courses that were just a waste of time.
> Even if I enjoy learning, there were absolutely courses that were just a waste of time.
My university experience is somewhat different, and I believe whether this holds true or not depends a lot on the degree course:
- In mathematics, there are barely any "filler courses". Basically all of them were interesting in their own right (even though because of your own interests, you will likely find some more exciting than others).
- On the other hand, computer science more felt like every professor had their own opinion how the syllabus should be, and the hodgepodge that came out of it was adopted as syllabus (design by committee). Thus, there were quite a lot of interesting things to learn, but also "filler courses". Additionally, the syllabus did not feel like a "consistent whole" with a clear vision, but rather like lots of isolated courses that you had to pass.
My university experience is somewhat different, and I believe whether this holds true or not depends a lot on the degree course:
- In mathematics, there are barely any "filler courses". Basically all of them were interesting in their own right (even though because of your own interests, you will likely find some more exciting than others).
- On the other hand, computer science more felt like every professor had their own opinion how the syllabus should be, and the hodgepodge that came out of it was adopted as syllabus (design by committee). Thus, there were quite a lot of interesting things to learn, but also "filler courses". Additionally, the syllabus did not feel like a "consistent whole" with a clear vision, but rather like lots of isolated courses that you had to pass.
[deleted]
I suspect even many math majors probably believe "general ed" required classes to be a waste of time. Point well taken, though: there are some subjects that do not lend themselves to editorializing or opinion. I majored in history & comparative religion as an undergrad and most of my lower level courses I'd consider to be "fact retention" efforts. Lots of reading, but not a lot of analysis or synthesis. I took mostly graduate level courses because of this for most of my last two years (and this was at a top 5 public university).
>
I suspect even many math majors probably believe "general ed" required classes to be a waste of time.
In the German university system, there are in general no required "general ed" classes. :-)
(it is typically only required that you do some often prescribed classes in a minor subject that you can commonly choose from a typically pre-defined list by the faculty (but if you hate all of the suggestions from this pre-defined list, it is sometimes possible to choose other minor subject or classes, but this will typically involve more bureacracy). For example, when stuying mathematics, it is common to choose physics, computer science, economics or some engineering science as minor).
Any further general education classes (in particular foreign language courses) are completely optional - and it is not an uncommon complaint of students who have very broad interests that during a typical degree course, you have barely any time to attend classes outside of the prescribed syllabus.
In the German university system, there are in general no required "general ed" classes. :-)
(it is typically only required that you do some often prescribed classes in a minor subject that you can commonly choose from a typically pre-defined list by the faculty (but if you hate all of the suggestions from this pre-defined list, it is sometimes possible to choose other minor subject or classes, but this will typically involve more bureacracy). For example, when stuying mathematics, it is common to choose physics, computer science, economics or some engineering science as minor).
Any further general education classes (in particular foreign language courses) are completely optional - and it is not an uncommon complaint of students who have very broad interests that during a typical degree course, you have barely any time to attend classes outside of the prescribed syllabus.
> ...there were absolutely courses that were just a waste of time.
How? Surely over 15 weeks each course taught you something about either the world or yourself.
I just looked back over my undergrad transcript to double check my experience. I took something away from every single class. It wasn't always the material itself.
How? Surely over 15 weeks each course taught you something about either the world or yourself.
I just looked back over my undergrad transcript to double check my experience. I took something away from every single class. It wasn't always the material itself.
100%. Learning with autonomy and choice is much more enjoyable (and there is lots of research to show it's more effective).
My neighbour was telling me about how his 18-yr-old daughter was taking a liberal arts degree at a new-style sounding school. For a kid out of HS it sounded terrible, but to 40 yr-old me it sounded amazing as a second degree!
This resonates with me. BS in Computer Science starting when 18. All very overwhelming. Graduated with 3.0 GPA.
Twenty years later. More experienced, working as a software and systems engineer. Masters in Systems Engineering and achieved 4.0 GPA. College was easier.
Twenty years later. More experienced, working as a software and systems engineer. Masters in Systems Engineering and achieved 4.0 GPA. College was easier.
Similar experience. Two things I think: 1. you figure out the system your first go-around, 2. you want it more the second time through.
I wouldn’t say I wanted it more the second time. I was much more comfortable in my life seeing as I came from a single mother household and had no money. Now I make six figures and don’t really need the degree so I was able to enjoy it. It helps at work to have a masters but it’s not required.
The annoying thing is that: when universities aren't toll gates and you actually learn something, then people don't believe you and you have "0 work experience".
So often, I've had the experience with work that it just feels like a long elaborate lab and there really is not much of a difference. Whether I make Jupyter notebooks analyzing things in a computer lab or for colleagues, I still use the same skills. Whether I present in front of classmates or colleagues, same skill.
So often, I've had the experience with work that it just feels like a long elaborate lab and there really is not much of a difference. Whether I make Jupyter notebooks analyzing things in a computer lab or for colleagues, I still use the same skills. Whether I present in front of classmates or colleagues, same skill.
Nah it's completely different and experience in a workplace isn't really about proving what you're describing it's about knowing someone else trusted this person to be able to deliver in a professional context which is very different from what is considered delivering in an academic context.
Also you have to keep in mind just how oversubscribed academic qualifications are now so you're more just placing yourself at the starting line and whats more important is what you did outside that institution.
Also you have to keep in mind just how oversubscribed academic qualifications are now so you're more just placing yourself at the starting line and whats more important is what you did outside that institution.
> it's about knowing someone else trusted this person to be able to deliver in a professional context which is very different from what is considered delivering in an academic context.
How is it different? When you work in motivated groups at uni you split the work and rely on each other to do your part at a high quality. That’s also true for real work. Often enough you depend on certain things that your team mate does like finishing some part of a codebase while you worked on the theoretical underpinnings of an exploit and drafted that code. And now you can place your code into her code and rowhammer via JS works now.
I just don’t see the difference. Oh, and my performance reviews are “we are really happy with your work”. I used to work as a SWE and now as a data analyst. It all feels like school to me.
> Also you have to keep in mind just how oversubscribed academic qualifications are now so you're more just placing yourself at the starting line and whats more important is what you did outside that institution.
I see that it’s oversubscribed.
How is it different? When you work in motivated groups at uni you split the work and rely on each other to do your part at a high quality. That’s also true for real work. Often enough you depend on certain things that your team mate does like finishing some part of a codebase while you worked on the theoretical underpinnings of an exploit and drafted that code. And now you can place your code into her code and rowhammer via JS works now.
I just don’t see the difference. Oh, and my performance reviews are “we are really happy with your work”. I used to work as a SWE and now as a data analyst. It all feels like school to me.
> Also you have to keep in mind just how oversubscribed academic qualifications are now so you're more just placing yourself at the starting line and whats more important is what you did outside that institution.
I see that it’s oversubscribed.
Well, they used to be, but the modern industrial age needed institutions that could train workers - and universities fit the bill. I don’t think it’s possible to detach the credential aspect from universities without a parallel work-focused system existing, and even then, the prestige of universities will still mean that the wealthy and privileged will prefer universities, which means that that prestige will trickle down to everyone else.
The only real solution IMO is to support institutions like St. John’s [1] and others that are explicitly not career-focused, and work on making similar institutions affordable and accessible. There’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. I suspect the main problem is the lack of prestige and precariousness of the economy at large.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(Annapoli...
The only real solution IMO is to support institutions like St. John’s [1] and others that are explicitly not career-focused, and work on making similar institutions affordable and accessible. There’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. I suspect the main problem is the lack of prestige and precariousness of the economy at large.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(Annapoli...
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 practicality) for instance, you have also have schools for things like construction workers, hairdressers, etc etc.
University's are more seem as a very high level of education, but which does not train one for a specific job.
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 practicality) for instance, you have also have schools for things like construction workers, hairdressers, etc etc.
University's are more seem as a very high level of education, but which does not train one for a specific job.
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 Germany is much less classist in this regard.
From what I understand Germany is much less classist in this regard.
I recently talked with a German exchange student who is attending our local high school for a year. She said that German students take an exam that sorts them into different levels of high schools. If this is the case, then it would be very hard to prevent the same sorting from taking on a social class dimension.
But I also think we mythologize the trades. I can't remember a HN thread about higher education that didn't extol the virtues of trade school while dismissing college education as a scam. But are the trades really that wonderful? The tradespeople I've met, if they're my age, their bodies have been destroyed, or they've gotten out of the trades.
Many of the trades are cyclic, tied to the construction cycle. Many involve mostly small family-owned businesses that on the one hand greatly favor family members, and on the other, are exempt from certain labor laws such as OSHA reporting. Most are "not on the radar" of EEOC etc. The good things about the trades are if you're lucky enough to get into one of the bigger employers, that tend to be more highly regulated.
My knee jerk reaction is that we could get more people into the trades if we addressed real issues that affect the working class: Health care, retirement, workplace safety, and so forth.
But I also think we mythologize the trades. I can't remember a HN thread about higher education that didn't extol the virtues of trade school while dismissing college education as a scam. But are the trades really that wonderful? The tradespeople I've met, if they're my age, their bodies have been destroyed, or they've gotten out of the trades.
Many of the trades are cyclic, tied to the construction cycle. Many involve mostly small family-owned businesses that on the one hand greatly favor family members, and on the other, are exempt from certain labor laws such as OSHA reporting. Most are "not on the radar" of EEOC etc. The good things about the trades are if you're lucky enough to get into one of the bigger employers, that tend to be more highly regulated.
My knee jerk reaction is that we could get more people into the trades if we addressed real issues that affect the working class: Health care, retirement, workplace safety, and so forth.
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.
People always say these schools are “looked down on” and rightly so they are mostly scams. Virtually all tradespeople like this have relatives in that trade. The idea these school would actually be equivalent to a college is laughable.
For us in Poland we have normal high schools, technikum - which is similar, but year longer and you are trained in a job, and zawodówka - which is vocational.
And issue with them is not the school itself, but the type of teenagers that attend them. As much as it pains me, for zawodówka schools - you will get the most demotivated people. And even if you really just want to be trained, you will get into an environment that will destroy you.
I wonder how Germans are faring with this.
And issue with them is not the school itself, but the type of teenagers that attend them. As much as it pains me, for zawodówka schools - you will get the most demotivated people. And even if you really just want to be trained, you will get into an environment that will destroy you.
I wonder how Germans are faring with this.
A Fachhochschule (Wikipedia calls them "university of applied sciences") in Germany is very similar to a university but as they're less research oriented and usually (with some notable exceptions) don't have the ability to grant doctoral degrees. AFAIK none have the permission to grant the ability to become professor (Habilitation). They also usually have a limited selection of subjects.
There are also Technische Universitäten (Technical University) which are "proper" universities with the ability to grant doctorates and the ability to become professor.
So Fachhochschulen are a separate thing from both Berufsschule (vocational school) and universities.
There are also Technische Universitäten (Technical University) which are "proper" universities with the ability to grant doctorates and the ability to become professor.
So Fachhochschulen are a separate thing from both Berufsschule (vocational school) and universities.
Sorry, I wrote it in a confusing way because I thought of something else - so that's on me for confusion.
I was thinking of high school, not uni itself. I'm myself also from a technical university equivalent in Poland.
I was thinking of high school, not uni itself. I'm myself also from a technical university equivalent in Poland.
The trades are changing, there’s such a lack of workers that the old school nepotism in skilled trades can’t supply enough bodies to fill the demand so unions are recruiting more widely, there are first year electrical apprentices who have never used a drill, for instance. There are also a ton of public contracts that have labor force participation goals for women and minorities, who are being actively recruited. In the old days, getting an apprenticeship was more of a ‘who you know’ kind of thing (which still exists, of course, I know multiple people who have sat on the local apprenticeship interview committee), and two years of trade school was what you did prior to starting.
Today, there’s a shortage of labor in all of the skilled trades, so the unions have taken it on themselves to provide the trade school education concurrently with the apprenticeship. In the electrical union (IBEW), apprentices go to school one day a week for twenty weeks a year, for five years. Pipefitters, sheet metal workers, and plumbers have similar programs. This benefits both the apprentice, who doesn’t get paid to go to school by the union but they also don’t have to pay for their education, and the union, which is able to filter and train candidates directly instead of relying on a third party to do it.
I’m an electrical project manager who has never been an electrician and I never went to trade school so it’s definitely possible to work in the industry without any formal training, but I’m definitely the exception at my employer.
Today, there’s a shortage of labor in all of the skilled trades, so the unions have taken it on themselves to provide the trade school education concurrently with the apprenticeship. In the electrical union (IBEW), apprentices go to school one day a week for twenty weeks a year, for five years. Pipefitters, sheet metal workers, and plumbers have similar programs. This benefits both the apprentice, who doesn’t get paid to go to school by the union but they also don’t have to pay for their education, and the union, which is able to filter and train candidates directly instead of relying on a third party to do it.
I’m an electrical project manager who has never been an electrician and I never went to trade school so it’s definitely possible to work in the industry without any formal training, but I’m definitely the exception at my employer.
You can start a group with people who pursue the same topics and hire a teacher, that’s the easiest and most affordable way IMO.
> 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?
... so a book club?
I've never been to a book club which discusses partial differential equations.
But maybe that's just me.
But maybe that's just me.
Could try looking into MathsJam or Math Circles to see if there’s something in your area.
[deleted]
Seeing the comments here, I thought I'd quickly share my experience at Matfyz (Charles University in Prague), specifically the computer science programme:
I applied for admission and was accepted based on having not-too-terrible grades from an optional high school exit test, but later all admission tests were cancelled due to COVID. The idea is to admit hundreds of applicants and keep those who pass the nontrivial first semester, which I much prefer to hard exams.
Despite some missteps caused by COVID and just me being me, I really enjoyed my years of study and am now continuing in the masters programme.
Some lectures were great, and most were at least decent. I learned to check who taught what class and ask around for feedback, and I'll shamelessly admit to choosing my specialisation based mostly on that feedback and personal experiences.
I almost never felt that rote memorisation was being asked of me, or that it was the key to success. The vast majority of issues I had could be solved by understanding more, not just knowing more. Some examiners even allowed small cheatsheets (and plenty of people still didn't pass, so no free exams).
I know that not all university students in the Czech Republic have had such a good experience. I've heard about plenty of problems with stubborn teachers or unfriendly bureaucracy, but on the whole I'd say it's about more than the degree.
I applied for admission and was accepted based on having not-too-terrible grades from an optional high school exit test, but later all admission tests were cancelled due to COVID. The idea is to admit hundreds of applicants and keep those who pass the nontrivial first semester, which I much prefer to hard exams.
Despite some missteps caused by COVID and just me being me, I really enjoyed my years of study and am now continuing in the masters programme.
Some lectures were great, and most were at least decent. I learned to check who taught what class and ask around for feedback, and I'll shamelessly admit to choosing my specialisation based mostly on that feedback and personal experiences.
I almost never felt that rote memorisation was being asked of me, or that it was the key to success. The vast majority of issues I had could be solved by understanding more, not just knowing more. Some examiners even allowed small cheatsheets (and plenty of people still didn't pass, so no free exams).
I know that not all university students in the Czech Republic have had such a good experience. I've heard about plenty of problems with stubborn teachers or unfriendly bureaucracy, but on the whole I'd say it's about more than the degree.
> Absolute joy turned into anger, and anger into resentment, as I wondered how different my life might have been if I’d been taught subjects I actually cared about by professors who cared too. Then I caught myself, realizing I was being melodramatic about a decade-old grievance.
This is incredibly self-indulgent. You were given opportunities you refused to engage with and are now continuing that pattern by blaming everyone else for your failures.
University has no value beyond credentialism only if you don't put any in.
This is incredibly self-indulgent. You were given opportunities you refused to engage with and are now continuing that pattern by blaming everyone else for your failures.
University has no value beyond credentialism only if you don't put any in.
> You were given opportunities you refused to engage with
That's not what I read at all. They went to a good university and got good grades. They did what they were supposed to do.
Then they later realized how little of value the actual education was.
The university missed an opportunity to educate them, not the other way around. The student is not responsible for having a bad teacher.
That's not what I read at all. They went to a good university and got good grades. They did what they were supposed to do.
Then they later realized how little of value the actual education was.
The university missed an opportunity to educate them, not the other way around. The student is not responsible for having a bad teacher.
They got good grades by panic cramming the night before exams. I've had lots of students like that (I've even been a student like that) and in every case one thing is true: they would have accomplished more with less effort if they'd focused on learning to understand rather than trying to treat everything as a memorisation task.
I think there's a misunderstanding on your behalf. My chief complaint was about the poor educational quality of universities in my country (Jordan). Forcing students to study 5 years instead of the standard 4, or teaching you mandatory subjects irrelevant to your major are not things where I could have accomplished more with less.
Not going to university was not an option. It would have been the only way to guarantee work in my region.
Not going to university was not an option. It would have been the only way to guarantee work in my region.
> I had some of the highest grades in my class, but this came at the expense of learning very little about my actual courses. Getting good grades exclusively depended on your rote memorization skills the night before an exam. Not only do I remember nothing from what I studied, I detested every minute of every subject I took there. Passing subjects was significantly more important than understanding them.
I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything; you've been very clear. This is not a description of someone who was let down, but of someone who never had any interest in learning.
I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything; you've been very clear. This is not a description of someone who was let down, but of someone who never had any interest in learning.
I think this is the lack of accountability that I find frustrating in the education system. If the student gets a bad experience, they are always blamed first and the role of the teacher/professor/university is never questioned.
I wish I could upvote you more.
This is the problem with the current generation. They are addicted to their phones, and want fast dopamine triggers, without actually putting the hard work.
This is the problem with the current generation. They are addicted to their phones, and want fast dopamine triggers, without actually putting the hard work.
> University has no value beyond credentialism
Could have stopped there.
Nothing, absolutely nothing I learned at university was because of the university. What I did learn was that the whole thing was a crock of shit when I had to buy the same book 3 times for calc 1/2/3 because each semester the author, who also taught the class and used the same book for all 3 topics, put out a new version with different problem sets each semester. Gulick or gulic was her name. Her husband also taught there. I think they were in cahoots.
I guess I did learn something: it was a crock of shit.
Could have stopped there.
Nothing, absolutely nothing I learned at university was because of the university. What I did learn was that the whole thing was a crock of shit when I had to buy the same book 3 times for calc 1/2/3 because each semester the author, who also taught the class and used the same book for all 3 topics, put out a new version with different problem sets each semester. Gulick or gulic was her name. Her husband also taught there. I think they were in cahoots.
I guess I did learn something: it was a crock of shit.
I know someone who started uni at 24, after 7 year of working as line cook then chef. She seems to have the opposite experience that you have. She has had a lot of support from the professors in her first year, and only wanted to reach bachelor. Then the seocnd year came, she started to really understand biology, and changed her goals from nutrition to pharmaco/biochemistry, changing her courses with the help of the admin. Then in Master 1, she once again pivoted towards genetics (therapeutic engineering to be exact), and it seems her M2 will push her toward a doctorate in genetics and anthropology, which is yet another pivot.
For myself uni wasn't a success, and maybe we whould require children to work before getting to uni if they don't know what they wat to do yet, but at least for some, Uni is great and function exactly as it should.
For myself uni wasn't a success, and maybe we whould require children to work before getting to uni if they don't know what they wat to do yet, but at least for some, Uni is great and function exactly as it should.
> maybe we whould require children to work before getting to uni if they don't know what they wat to do yet
You can easily get lots of information about various jobs using some magic technology called the "world wide web", so there is basically no need to work before university to get an informed opinion. If you are incapable of doing this, you likely simply don't "belong" into a university.
Looking back at my life, the problem is rather that the only kind of internships from which you really "profit" because they extend your perspective, are basically "unreachable" if you don't have parents or friends who are insanely well-connected in upper circles.
Also, if you worked in some "practical" area before going to a university, you will in my opinion become a much more misanthropic and arrogant person because you have seen how "stupid" the people were at that job. The university bubble helps you to avoid a lot of contact to "ordinary" people, and instead puts you into an environment where most people around you are much smarter, and you have to "fight hard for survival" (passing a class; passing a class with a decent mark; ...). Because this experience is very humbling (intendedly so), this makes you a much a much more humble person in your defining years.
You can easily get lots of information about various jobs using some magic technology called the "world wide web", so there is basically no need to work before university to get an informed opinion. If you are incapable of doing this, you likely simply don't "belong" into a university.
Looking back at my life, the problem is rather that the only kind of internships from which you really "profit" because they extend your perspective, are basically "unreachable" if you don't have parents or friends who are insanely well-connected in upper circles.
Also, if you worked in some "practical" area before going to a university, you will in my opinion become a much more misanthropic and arrogant person because you have seen how "stupid" the people were at that job. The university bubble helps you to avoid a lot of contact to "ordinary" people, and instead puts you into an environment where most people around you are much smarter, and you have to "fight hard for survival" (passing a class; passing a class with a decent mark; ...). Because this experience is very humbling (intendedly so), this makes you a much a much more humble person in your defining years.
There’s a vast gulf between “reading about a job online” and “doing a job”. Of course college bound kids know that jobs exist, but they don’t know what it’s like to do them for any extended amount of time. And I’m guessing that one of the main reasons that they don’t know what it’s like is that their parents and every other adult guiding them has been telling them, implicitly or explicitly, “you’re a college bound kid, jobs like this are beneath you. Just focus on school”
The human brain doesn't stop maturing until 25. You can't rent a car until that age in the US.
I would have gotten much more if I'd attended university starting at 25. However, it would have set me much farther behind in my career, by 25 I was already deep into my career. That would not have happened if I'd been still in school.
I would have gotten much more if I'd attended university starting at 25. However, it would have set me much farther behind in my career, by 25 I was already deep into my career. That would not have happened if I'd been still in school.
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.
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.
They’re so much more, sad the comments aren’t seeing it. Making lifelong friends, learning independence, true freedom to explore topics and interests, higher challenge and opportunity for scholars. The toll gate function only makes sense from a Birds Eye view.
If anything community colleges are more like toll gates. Pay a small fee to use a locally shared resource to then get your job.
If anything community colleges are more like toll gates. Pay a small fee to use a locally shared resource to then get your job.
You don't need universities to make lifelong friends or finding your learning independence
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 subjects that would otherwise be very expensive to self-teach (eternally grateful for the fully equipped ethernet laboratory, it’s been almost two decades and the knowledge is still very relevant.)
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 subjects that would otherwise be very expensive to self-teach (eternally grateful for the fully equipped ethernet laboratory, it’s been almost two decades and the knowledge is still very relevant.)
> 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).
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).
I suspect a lot of people on HN have similar stories. College is always in conflict between rote memorization (easiest to grade, therefore cheaper) and actual understanding (best outcome, therefore increases college ranking).
Rote memorization often gets a bad wrap.
It shouldn’t be the sole purpose of a class, but sometimes you have to drill people to memorize a bunch of stuff so they’re able to deal with the higher level material.
Imagine doing math if you never had somebody force you to learn multiplication tables. Or if you were doing medical programs but hadn’t been forced to learn the names of all the bones/organs.
It shouldn’t be the sole purpose of a class, but sometimes you have to drill people to memorize a bunch of stuff so they’re able to deal with the higher level material.
Imagine doing math if you never had somebody force you to learn multiplication tables. Or if you were doing medical programs but hadn’t been forced to learn the names of all the bones/organs.
Also in admissions, between quality and quantity.
I spent my high school afternoons on github.com/ossu/computer-science ; years later during my actual bachelor’s in computer science I just had a good time with the people around me. I’m grateful for the internet, life is good, universities are mostly for credential and the fun part is the best.
There is a good essay with a similar theme under the title of "The Nearly-Free University" at https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-nearly-fre...
As someone with two degrees (B.A. English, followed after I caught on a bit, by a B.S. in physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry), I can say that I would not take that route again. Mostly a waste.
"What you can accomplish in the real world will rapidly become more valuable than a credential such as a conventional college degree. The credentialing gatekeepers are protecting an 'asset'--the college diploma--that is largely a phantom asset for the vast majority of students."
I wish.
As someone with two degrees (B.A. English, followed after I caught on a bit, by a B.S. in physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry), I can say that I would not take that route again. Mostly a waste.
"What you can accomplish in the real world will rapidly become more valuable than a credential such as a conventional college degree. The credentialing gatekeepers are protecting an 'asset'--the college diploma--that is largely a phantom asset for the vast majority of students."
I wish.
I get my blood pressure to dangerous levels each time I stumble upon some high quality video lectures on youtube that explain some topics that were totally fucked in university, like PID control. 30 Minute video made by some amateur with cool animations explains basically 95% of everything you need to know vs old lifeless dork professor at "elite" university mumbling some nonsense and throwing walls of formulas with zero context, explanation or examples to help you understand. And in the end, your uni knowledge is at most 5% applicable in your work, you are still totally unprepared to enter the workforce and your first employer carries the burden to teach you.
> throwing walls of formulas with zero context, explanation or examples
This rings so true for me. Lot of teachers has this ass backwards style of teaching where they will come up with final formula like deus-ex machina. Why? To buy his text book where it is explained the way he wants it.
This rings so true for me. Lot of teachers has this ass backwards style of teaching where they will come up with final formula like deus-ex machina. Why? To buy his text book where it is explained the way he wants it.
Many formulas you use are the apex of months of research from the best minds of the last centuries. Every explanation is a deus-ex machina ordeal
You can summarize years or even centuries of research into a some digestible steps with length of less than a average lesson. Months of research does not mean that I need to read your whole research journal from start to finish to understand what research was about and what it reached.
But that often expects that the person explaining a thing knows what they are talking about. I.e. people on high school does not like logarithms because they don't understand what it is for. I would bet that's because teachers themselves have absolutely 0 clue what in essence is a logarithm and why did it came to be. It was centuries of research, which you can summarize with one sentence - to make multiplication as simple as addition with lookup tables, because at 15th century they did not have calculators so multiplication was a hard laborious process. 135+265 is simple. 135*265 is difficult.
But that often expects that the person explaining a thing knows what they are talking about. I.e. people on high school does not like logarithms because they don't understand what it is for. I would bet that's because teachers themselves have absolutely 0 clue what in essence is a logarithm and why did it came to be. It was centuries of research, which you can summarize with one sentence - to make multiplication as simple as addition with lookup tables, because at 15th century they did not have calculators so multiplication was a hard laborious process. 135+265 is simple. 135*265 is difficult.
Many people have hard won ideas, that doesn't make them valuable though.
Given a flood of results, you look at the most promising results and then figure out how they work, not the other way around.
Almost all successes are built on having knowledge of a desirable outcome first and foremost, rather than the means to obtain them.
Given a flood of results, you look at the most promising results and then figure out how they work, not the other way around.
Almost all successes are built on having knowledge of a desirable outcome first and foremost, rather than the means to obtain them.
My experience is the opposite. The 30 Minute videos often give a very hollow outline of a subject, but fail to integrate it into any context. Almost always the formulas are more useful than the false intuitions you get from fancy animations.
> old lifeless dork professor at "elite" university mumbling some nonsense and throwing walls of formulas with zero context
"Oh, you have a PhD in Chemistry? I hated orgo in college..." I heard it often enough to suspect some kind of a collusion. But no, there is no collusion, just old crummy dudes gatekeeping knowledge to preserve their status, and the departments allowing them to do so.
"Oh, you have a PhD in Chemistry? I hated orgo in college..." I heard it often enough to suspect some kind of a collusion. But no, there is no collusion, just old crummy dudes gatekeeping knowledge to preserve their status, and the departments allowing them to do so.
Everyone learns differently.
Lectures were all over the place for me - some useful, some awful. Professors really vary a lot in skill here. Same with tests - some helped me learn, some were rote memorization.
Labs were incredibly, incredibly useful. 4 years of practice doing coding problems made me a way better programmer.
I feel I got value out of the degree, even if there were some silly games to play.
Lectures were all over the place for me - some useful, some awful. Professors really vary a lot in skill here. Same with tests - some helped me learn, some were rote memorization.
Labs were incredibly, incredibly useful. 4 years of practice doing coding problems made me a way better programmer.
I feel I got value out of the degree, even if there were some silly games to play.
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 you would be showing him diploma from University of McDonalds.
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 you would be showing him diploma from University of McDonalds.
Yup - I'm Polish, and vast majority of people faced with a diploma from private university would think "You bought your degree because you were too dumb to get into public university."
There are some good private ones; but most of them are degree mills.
There are some good private ones; but most of them are degree mills.
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.
To be fair: if you're doing a Masters degree the grade you end up getting on your Bachelors degree is pretty unimportant and Masters usually isn't graded that harshly.
But yeah, we had exams with 70% failing.
But yeah, we had exams with 70% failing.
> 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.
Even 10 years ago, this used to be the case in Poland. But now, with demographic decline (current generation of students significantly smaller than previous ones), universities are desperate to fill the seats. If they don't, they lose public funding, which means layoffs - and no one wants that (the university, as any institution, first and foremost serves its employees).
One approach used is to attract foreigners (mostly students from Asia and, to lesser degree, Africa - the main draw is the EU visa), another one is to keep lowering expectations.
Even 10 years ago, this used to be the case in Poland. But now, with demographic decline (current generation of students significantly smaller than previous ones), universities are desperate to fill the seats. If they don't, they lose public funding, which means layoffs - and no one wants that (the university, as any institution, first and foremost serves its employees).
One approach used is to attract foreigners (mostly students from Asia and, to lesser degree, Africa - the main draw is the EU visa), another one is to keep lowering expectations.
this is literally everywhere.
It's not "literally" everywhere, but sometimes students do enter college without the mentality of study as exploration of your own interests. Sometimes the university professors don't know how to foster it either.
in my opinion it's still the dominant, that university is just a place to get a paper that say you studied for x years in x university in x subject. a certification.
unless you are a passionate about the subject of study.
unless you are a passionate about the subject of study.
Everyone has a different path.
I ran out of money, dropped out of college and self taught myself straight to 6 figures.
Thank you Brendan Eich for JavaScript. Without it I'd probably still be making minimum wage, or working in a Java shop which might be worse.
I finished my useless BA just to hang it on my wall.
College should not be a job training program. It's valuable on its own merits, but the loop of you need a degree to get a job, and you need money to get a degree, so you can get a job to pay off your loans is stupid.
If anything, and this is an American perspective, high school has failed.
You should be able to read and write to a point of employability.
If you want to go to college, it should be optional. Do it after work or part time.
Outside of maybe medicine, law( which is debatable, you can technically just take the bar after a clerkship in a few states), and maybe a few other careers, college isn't needed.
Why in God's name would you get a Masters in Art, the loan payments will make it impossible to survive.
Just make the art!
Draw.
Write poems!
Want to make games, make games!
Knowledge is basically free, we're still adapting to this.
I ran out of money, dropped out of college and self taught myself straight to 6 figures.
Thank you Brendan Eich for JavaScript. Without it I'd probably still be making minimum wage, or working in a Java shop which might be worse.
I finished my useless BA just to hang it on my wall.
College should not be a job training program. It's valuable on its own merits, but the loop of you need a degree to get a job, and you need money to get a degree, so you can get a job to pay off your loans is stupid.
If anything, and this is an American perspective, high school has failed.
You should be able to read and write to a point of employability.
If you want to go to college, it should be optional. Do it after work or part time.
Outside of maybe medicine, law( which is debatable, you can technically just take the bar after a clerkship in a few states), and maybe a few other careers, college isn't needed.
Why in God's name would you get a Masters in Art, the loan payments will make it impossible to survive.
Just make the art!
Draw.
Write poems!
Want to make games, make games!
Knowledge is basically free, we're still adapting to this.
I think it is fair to say universities lean heavily on credentialing, but calling them only toll gates is too harsh. They also provide exposure to new fields, access to labs and mentors, and peer networks that are hard to replicate outside.
That being said, the essay itself wanders and sometimes repeats points instead of driving the metaphor home. Tightening the structure would make the message stronger.
That being said, the essay itself wanders and sometimes repeats points instead of driving the metaphor home. Tightening the structure would make the message stronger.
They used to be; I got my first master in that environment; academic rigor was the goal and purpose and my second one what it became after and is now; something to get a job with. The former was free and very hard the latter was loans, pressure but very easy. This happened in about 15 years in the Netherlands, between around 1990 and 2004; from excellent to shite as far as I am concerned. I was 'teaching' (assistant) and teaching for a bunch of those years and it really became quite shitty. My alma mater math & cs faculty is a joke now compared to the well deserved suffering of the 1990s rigor we had to endure. I wouldn't want to have lived the current fluff party. But sure, it's more practical as most we were taught was not practical and was not supposed to be; it was to teach us how to think.
"The Controversial Exam Carl Sagan Gave His Students"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pc3IuVNuO0
Today, most students would fail this class. Note, the reading list is still relevant decades later. =3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pc3IuVNuO0
Today, most students would fail this class. Note, the reading list is still relevant decades later. =3
Oh, youtube videos. Five minutes into the video, still just a looooooooooooooooong introduction, no example from the exam yet.
That's what we get when we pay video producers per minute.
That's what we get when we pay video producers per minute.
The YT summary text contains the reading list. These printed books are on indigo, abebooks, and amazon.
Could always increase the playback speed to 1.25X for slow-talkers. lol =3
Could always increase the playback speed to 1.25X for slow-talkers. lol =3
[deleted]
University is what >you< make of it. If you don’t like it, you have the choice to not go.
[deleted]
Well, if you actually want to learn, there is always the vast swaths of the Internet. Virtually everything here is free, and nobody will care until you do something impressive with your knowledge.
As for universities, they will likely stay as signaling mechanisms until society finds a more efficient way to signal the things that universities do. This is a worldwide pattern that has emerged, and to the extent you see deviations from it it's usually situations like e.g. getting into Tokyo University is already so incredibly difficult that some employers will just accept your letter of admission itself as a sufficient signal of your value to the firm and hire you and let you skip the whole getting a degree thing.
What does university graduation signal? Some combination of raw intelligence, conscientiousness, and ability to conform (not against the "I have beef with the standard model of physics" nonconformance, so much as the "I will not physically assault the professor for telling me I'm wrong in class" nonconformance). Admission to a selective university signals you had these traits even earlier and with greater strength than your peers.
I'm going to underline something from your own article here, which is that you went to an excellent university and got near the top of your class despite hating it. It is an incredibly rare psychological profile in the wild to be able to war-of-attrition your way through so many elite classes, while having virtually zero interest in the material themselves. Any employer would be drooling at the mouth to hire you because you sound reliable even in a pinch. Alas they cannot tell you apart from the ultranerd who gets all As because she genuinely finds all knowledge presented to her endlessly fascinating - but she's probably a good hire too, for different reasons!
But, almost by definition, you can't really signal that kind of ability if you only ever do things you want to do... And most of the things most people in the world want to do most of the time aren't very economically valuable from the doer's perspective. Everyone wants to eat, nobody wants to grow crops, etc.
As for universities, they will likely stay as signaling mechanisms until society finds a more efficient way to signal the things that universities do. This is a worldwide pattern that has emerged, and to the extent you see deviations from it it's usually situations like e.g. getting into Tokyo University is already so incredibly difficult that some employers will just accept your letter of admission itself as a sufficient signal of your value to the firm and hire you and let you skip the whole getting a degree thing.
What does university graduation signal? Some combination of raw intelligence, conscientiousness, and ability to conform (not against the "I have beef with the standard model of physics" nonconformance, so much as the "I will not physically assault the professor for telling me I'm wrong in class" nonconformance). Admission to a selective university signals you had these traits even earlier and with greater strength than your peers.
I'm going to underline something from your own article here, which is that you went to an excellent university and got near the top of your class despite hating it. It is an incredibly rare psychological profile in the wild to be able to war-of-attrition your way through so many elite classes, while having virtually zero interest in the material themselves. Any employer would be drooling at the mouth to hire you because you sound reliable even in a pinch. Alas they cannot tell you apart from the ultranerd who gets all As because she genuinely finds all knowledge presented to her endlessly fascinating - but she's probably a good hire too, for different reasons!
But, almost by definition, you can't really signal that kind of ability if you only ever do things you want to do... And most of the things most people in the world want to do most of the time aren't very economically valuable from the doer's perspective. Everyone wants to eat, nobody wants to grow crops, etc.
There is definitely a lot of information on the internet, but I wouldn’t undervalue the benefits of being in a classroom with a small group of bright people focusing on the same topic every week.
Probably the best class I took for my philosophy degree was a 3 hour metaphysics course, held once every Wednesday. There were maybe 6-7 people in the class, and the discussions we got into were incredibly educational.
I don’t think reading a bunch of books and web pages about metaphysics would have been 10% as insightful. Maybe with talking to an AI, you could get that up to 20%…but still, it’s not the same.
Probably the best class I took for my philosophy degree was a 3 hour metaphysics course, held once every Wednesday. There were maybe 6-7 people in the class, and the discussions we got into were incredibly educational.
I don’t think reading a bunch of books and web pages about metaphysics would have been 10% as insightful. Maybe with talking to an AI, you could get that up to 20%…but still, it’s not the same.
I don't think I'm undervaluing it, I think it's just low expected value in the first place. Just because you had 36-40 hours of a good experience over a 3 or 4 year degree doesn't actually mean the median or even the 90th percentile classroom experience is better than self-education.
…I had more than one good class in my four years of college. It was an example.
Self-education is great but is also leads to a kind of idiosyncratic blindness, because no one really forces themselves to study anything that they aren’t already interested in.
Self-education is great but is also leads to a kind of idiosyncratic blindness, because no one really forces themselves to study anything that they aren’t already interested in.
I agree. I would even go so far as to suggest there is far more information availiable on the internet than you can get in a degree. Mostly it's inside pirated textbooks and academic papers.
I've been self-teaching cryptography since I graduated with an engineering degree, and it's amazing how woefully unequipped a degree program alone leaves you compared to the information that's just out there
I've been self-teaching cryptography since I graduated with an engineering degree, and it's amazing how woefully unequipped a degree program alone leaves you compared to the information that's just out there
[deleted]
The university system is a titanic waste of resources. Let's switch to a trusted testing system. Basically, have a thorough knowledge and skill test for any career (doctor, engineer, lawyer, etc) that anyone can pay to take and pass.
From my experience at a German university, it was very clear that every student with a desire to learn would learn relevant skills and have no trouble passing any exam. The exams never were easy and studying was required,but if you understood the subject you would definitely pass.
The experience the author describes seems totally disconnected what I have ever experienced in university. The author believes (which I think is unlikely) that the university had nothing to teach to him, in my experience this always was the fault of the student. Often blaming "esoteric" and "irrelevant" subjects such as linear algebra for their lack of success, while not understanding that it is a vital course for any engineer.
The experience the author describes seems totally disconnected what I have ever experienced in university. The author believes (which I think is unlikely) that the university had nothing to teach to him, in my experience this always was the fault of the student. Often blaming "esoteric" and "irrelevant" subjects such as linear algebra for their lack of success, while not understanding that it is a vital course for any engineer.
The poster was achieved success in all metrics he was exposed to.
Did you read the article? The author laments that he did not learn anything relevant to him during his degree.
He graduated with "some of the highest grades" in his class.
How is that at all relevant to what I am saying. The author explicitly said that it wasn't.
> Often blaming "esoteric" and "irrelevant" subjects such as linear algebra for their lack of success, while not understanding that it is a vital course for any engineer.
The author was successful in his particular environment. It was only much later he understood that the content of his education wasn't valuable in itself.
He is not blaming linear algebra, rather complaining that he was graded on memorisation rather than understanding.
The author was successful in his particular environment. It was only much later he understood that the content of his education wasn't valuable in itself.
He is not blaming linear algebra, rather complaining that he was graded on memorisation rather than understanding.
And? How is that relevant at all to anything I or the author said?
His success, as the author makes explicit, has nothing to do with his university education.
His success, as the author makes explicit, has nothing to do with his university education.
The argument you started off making was that his "lack of success" was because he didn't have the desire to learn and thus wasted the opportunity.
But - he achieved some of the highest grades, so by all accounts he was successful in his education.
Much later, he understood that the contents of his education lacked intrinsic value and the only effective value it offered him was an opened "toll gate".
But - he achieved some of the highest grades, so by all accounts he was successful in his education.
Much later, he understood that the contents of his education lacked intrinsic value and the only effective value it offered him was an opened "toll gate".