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If you have not joined the university you are not part of the "in" group. There is a perception among people that if you attend a "prestigious" university that

If you have not joined the university you are not part of the "in" group. There is a perception among people that if you attend a "prestigious" university that you are smarter than someone who attends a community college. I find that crazy. Both teach basically the same thing. If they are both accredited, then it is almost indistinguishable. Who would you think is smarter off the cuff, a Harvard graduate, or someone who attended an accredited community college and followed it with a masters from an accredited online school? I'm sad to say that I've been programmed to assume that the Harvard graduate is smarter. It is just a bias that we are all taught as we are young.

tedmiston 11y ago
> I find that crazy. Both teach basically the same thing. If they are both accredited, then it is almost indistinguishable. Speaking just on computer science here, but the depth of CS courses varies radically across universities. Sure they all might follow the ACM model curriculum, but how much of the book you're actually reading (and which book you're using in the first place), the number and difficulty of practice problems you're assigned, etc. is definitely not basically the same. I went to an average engineering school, and also took a handful of grad classes. Many of the assignments in Master's classes were a similar difficulty level to the assignments in undergrad MIT classes on OCW. Not all of the courses were this way, but many were.
- enjo 11y ago
  It's not just the depth, but the breadth as well. Better universities do an amazing job of teaching their students how to learn. The curriculum is thoughtfully designed to produce well rounded students who are capable of achieving expertise in their chosen field (they don't leave college as experts by any stretch.. and THAT is the disconnect surrounding education these days). The big difference between someone coming out of a higher-end school and a community college isn't (necessarily) intelligence or even knowledge, it's that the university educated ones have been prepared to reason about the world in a more complete way. Which is comforting for me to know when I'm hiring. I should note: I didn't finish college (I made it through three years). My wife on the other hand went on to a PhD. At 24 I was convinced that I had missed nothing. It wasn't until about a decade later that I began to understand that she was capable of seeing so much more nuance and detail than I was. Partly because she's smarter, but partly because she had so much more substance to her education. It gives her a basis to reason from that I don't have. It's a gap I'm feverishly trying to close through completing my own education... but it sure would have been easier to have done it in my 20's...
  - dhimes 11y ago
    For someone who can't see nuance, this is a remarkably perceptive comment.
  - ScottBurson 11y ago
    > it sure would have been easier to have done it in my 20's Not necessarily. It might have required less determination to go along with what others around you were doing, but a lot of people who try learning subjects like calculus as adults report that it seems easier. They have better focus, and most important, they understand why they are doing it. In short: it's never too late! Study on!
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  An interesting thing about OCW and some of the moocs is that they allow us to see what different schools are like, to some extent. Even with the semi-watered-down versions of classes from Stanford and MIT, I definitely feel those schools in particular are more challenging than most others. Other ivy league schools, not so much, at least from the watered down versions, and with some exceptions from notables (Financial Markets taught by Robert Shiller, for example) Most schools, at least in the mooc versions, tend to be about the same level, regardless of prestige.
  - tedmiston 11y ago
    That's really cool. It would be interesting to see a list that highlights those courses that are the notable exceptions.
paulojreis 11y ago
I'm not U.S. based, so I don't have a total understanding of the whole "prestigious" university vs. community college debate. However, I find it hard to believe that they teach basically the same thing. I'd believe that their curricula are essentially the same, but that's what's "on paper", so to speak. Even if they're both accredited, wouldn't better faculty lead to better teaching? Or better research programs and partnerships with industry? Even stricter requirements and evaluation criteria. If at least some of these aspects are true when talking about "prestigious" universities, then the bias you describe isn't that bad of a heuristic.
- Amezarak 11y ago
  > Even if they're both accredited, wouldn't better faculty lead to better teaching? No. Generally, at research institutions, faculty are not chosen for their teaching ability. They are chosen for their research background. They are often horrifically bad teachers, if they even teach the class at all and don't just assign it to a TA. It also doesn't take a world-renowned genius to teach an undergraduate or even a Master's program. It takes someone with a very solid grounding in the subject, which should be any graduate, who also happens to be a great (preferably enthusiastic) communicator.
  - gravypod 11y ago
    > No. Generally, at research institutions, faculty are not chosen for their teaching ability. They are chosen for their research background. They are often horrifically bad teachers, if they even teach the class at all and don't just assign it to a TA. I will have to say that I have had a few, select few, of those few bad teachers. As a TA, I can also say that I am thankful that my professor doesn't stick the load of our lecture work on me, but I have heard from many other TAs that this does happen. From what I understand, I'm VERY lucky that I am working with am amazing teacher.
  - paulojreis 11y ago
    I can see your point, but I believe this roughly depends on the education level we're talking about. I did my degree quite a few years ago, but finished my PhD last year. At least in the higher-level, when "learning" isn't exactly the classroom-like experience, I'd rather have a brilliant researcher but lousy teacher as a professor (instead of the opposite).
wfo 11y ago
Intro courses are the same (calculus and basic chemistry are calculus and basic chemistry) but once you get past anything more difficult than 101 you see a wild disparity in difficulty across different universities (some universities will have material as junior-level undergrad that others have as graduate). Community colleges don't even try to teach the vast majority of courses taught at the smallest least prestigious 4-year university.
- nostrebored 11y ago
  I went to two different state schools. 4000 level courses at one were 2000 level classes at the other, and vice versa. I lost 30+ hours transferring, because courses didn't meet the rigor, or they weren't even courses at the better university. For instance, a 4000 level linear algebra course counted as half of a calc 2 credit.
  - rtkwe 11y ago
    That in and of itself is a weird equivalence to draw. Calc 2 and Linear Algebra are radically different courses...
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  >Intro courses are the same (calculus and basic chemistry are calculus and basic chemistry) I went to a tech school. I also went to community college over my first summer for some basic classes. The community college classes were laughably easy and most certainly weren't anywhere near college level, and this was considered a "good" community college. I hear that in state schools they pack 100+ people in a lecture hall for biology 101 or whatever. That seems like it would be difficult to learn that way. I went to a private school and there was no giant classes.
hackaflocka 11y ago
I would assume the Harvard person was smarter (unless their father also went there AND they have a building named after them there), simply because anyone can get into the Community College but not Harvard. That, in and of itself, is a filter. So it's not biased to think that.
jsprogrammer 11y ago
>Who would you think is smarter off the cuff, a Harvard graduate, or someone who attended an accredited community college and followed it with a masters from an accredited online school? "Smarter off the cuff"? After reading about Harvard's interview and admissions process, combined with their 98% 6-year graduation rate, I wouldn't think much about a Harvard graduate without speaking to them. >I'm sad to say that I've been programmed to assume that the Harvard graduate is smarter. Programmed by who? >It is just a bias that we are all taught as we are young. Whom are "we"?
Nimitz14 11y ago
> Both teach basically the same thing. They should, but they don't. Teachers make a difference. I'm at a mediocre university and watching MIT lectures has made me realize I'm missing out on literally mountains of knowledge. Never mind the qualification process, spending several years with intelligent people (both students and faculty) makes a huge difference.
- ghaff 11y ago
  Keep in mind that any videos you're seeing are out there because they're mostly very good examples of lectures. Any large research university has lots of classes with very poor lectures. Not to say that the material isn't in depth and peer/TA interactions aren't valuable but don't assume YouTube and OCW are representative of lecture quality.
st3v3r 11y ago
Someone attending MIT has the opportunity to expose themselves to far, far more than someone who went to community college. MIT has far more resources, and cutting edge research is taking place there.
- hackuser 11y ago
  Don't forget access to the faculty and your peers.
  - tzs 11y ago
    When I was at Caltech there was an informal weekly thing where students in the freshman physics class who wanted some help or wanted to discuss some things from class in more depth could go as a group and get help from or discuss things with Richard Feynman. (One of my regrets is that I did reasonably well in freshman physics and was not smart enough to realize that spending time chatting about physics with Feynman would have been worthwhile even if I did not need it to pass the class).

tedmiston 11y ago

> I find that crazy. Both teach basically the same thing. If they are both accredited, then it is almost indistinguishable. Speaking just on computer science here, but the depth of CS courses varies radically across universities. Sure they all might follow the ACM model curriculum, but how much of the book you're actually reading (and which book you're using in the first place), the number and difficulty of practice problems you're assigned, etc. is definitely not basically the same. I went to an average engineering school, and also took a handful of grad classes. Many of the assignments in Master's classes were a similar difficulty level to the assignments in undergrad MIT classes on OCW. Not all of the courses were this way, but many were.

enjo 11y ago
It's not just the depth, but the breadth as well. Better universities do an amazing job of teaching their students how to learn. The curriculum is thoughtfully designed to produce well rounded students who are capable of achieving expertise in their chosen field (they don't leave college as experts by any stretch.. and THAT is the disconnect surrounding education these days). The big difference between someone coming out of a higher-end school and a community college isn't (necessarily) intelligence or even knowledge, it's that the university educated ones have been prepared to reason about the world in a more complete way. Which is comforting for me to know when I'm hiring. I should note: I didn't finish college (I made it through three years). My wife on the other hand went on to a PhD. At 24 I was convinced that I had missed nothing. It wasn't until about a decade later that I began to understand that she was capable of seeing so much more nuance and detail than I was. Partly because she's smarter, but partly because she had so much more substance to her education. It gives her a basis to reason from that I don't have. It's a gap I'm feverishly trying to close through completing my own education... but it sure would have been easier to have done it in my 20's...
- dhimes 11y ago
  For someone who can't see nuance, this is a remarkably perceptive comment.
- ScottBurson 11y ago
  > it sure would have been easier to have done it in my 20's Not necessarily. It might have required less determination to go along with what others around you were doing, but a lot of people who try learning subjects like calculus as adults report that it seems easier. They have better focus, and most important, they understand why they are doing it. In short: it's never too late! Study on!
waterlesscloud 11y ago
An interesting thing about OCW and some of the moocs is that they allow us to see what different schools are like, to some extent. Even with the semi-watered-down versions of classes from Stanford and MIT, I definitely feel those schools in particular are more challenging than most others. Other ivy league schools, not so much, at least from the watered down versions, and with some exceptions from notables (Financial Markets taught by Robert Shiller, for example) Most schools, at least in the mooc versions, tend to be about the same level, regardless of prestige.
- tedmiston 11y ago
  That's really cool. It would be interesting to see a list that highlights those courses that are the notable exceptions.

paulojreis 11y ago

I'm not U.S. based, so I don't have a total understanding of the whole "prestigious" university vs. community college debate. However, I find it hard to believe that they teach basically the same thing. I'd believe that their curricula are essentially the same, but that's what's "on paper", so to speak. Even if they're both accredited, wouldn't better faculty lead to better teaching? Or better research programs and partnerships with industry? Even stricter requirements and evaluation criteria. If at least some of these aspects are true when talking about "prestigious" universities, then the bias you describe isn't that bad of a heuristic.

Amezarak 11y ago
> Even if they're both accredited, wouldn't better faculty lead to better teaching? No. Generally, at research institutions, faculty are not chosen for their teaching ability. They are chosen for their research background. They are often horrifically bad teachers, if they even teach the class at all and don't just assign it to a TA. It also doesn't take a world-renowned genius to teach an undergraduate or even a Master's program. It takes someone with a very solid grounding in the subject, which should be any graduate, who also happens to be a great (preferably enthusiastic) communicator.
- gravypod 11y ago
  > No. Generally, at research institutions, faculty are not chosen for their teaching ability. They are chosen for their research background. They are often horrifically bad teachers, if they even teach the class at all and don't just assign it to a TA. I will have to say that I have had a few, select few, of those few bad teachers. As a TA, I can also say that I am thankful that my professor doesn't stick the load of our lecture work on me, but I have heard from many other TAs that this does happen. From what I understand, I'm VERY lucky that I am working with am amazing teacher.
- paulojreis 11y ago
  I can see your point, but I believe this roughly depends on the education level we're talking about. I did my degree quite a few years ago, but finished my PhD last year. At least in the higher-level, when "learning" isn't exactly the classroom-like experience, I'd rather have a brilliant researcher but lousy teacher as a professor (instead of the opposite).

wfo 11y ago

Intro courses are the same (calculus and basic chemistry are calculus and basic chemistry) but once you get past anything more difficult than 101 you see a wild disparity in difficulty across different universities (some universities will have material as junior-level undergrad that others have as graduate). Community colleges don't even try to teach the vast majority of courses taught at the smallest least prestigious 4-year university.

nostrebored 11y ago
I went to two different state schools. 4000 level courses at one were 2000 level classes at the other, and vice versa. I lost 30+ hours transferring, because courses didn't meet the rigor, or they weren't even courses at the better university. For instance, a 4000 level linear algebra course counted as half of a calc 2 credit.
- rtkwe 11y ago
  That in and of itself is a weird equivalence to draw. Calc 2 and Linear Algebra are radically different courses...
nommm-nommm 11y ago
>Intro courses are the same (calculus and basic chemistry are calculus and basic chemistry) I went to a tech school. I also went to community college over my first summer for some basic classes. The community college classes were laughably easy and most certainly weren't anywhere near college level, and this was considered a "good" community college. I hear that in state schools they pack 100+ people in a lecture hall for biology 101 or whatever. That seems like it would be difficult to learn that way. I went to a private school and there was no giant classes.

hackaflocka 11y ago

I would assume the Harvard person was smarter (unless their father also went there AND they have a building named after them there), simply because anyone can get into the Community College but not Harvard. That, in and of itself, is a filter. So it's not biased to think that.

jsprogrammer 11y ago

>Who would you think is smarter off the cuff, a Harvard graduate, or someone who attended an accredited community college and followed it with a masters from an accredited online school? "Smarter off the cuff"? After reading about Harvard's interview and admissions process, combined with their 98% 6-year graduation rate, I wouldn't think much about a Harvard graduate without speaking to them. >I'm sad to say that I've been programmed to assume that the Harvard graduate is smarter. Programmed by who? >It is just a bias that we are all taught as we are young. Whom are "we"?

Nimitz14 11y ago

> Both teach basically the same thing. They should, but they don't. Teachers make a difference. I'm at a mediocre university and watching MIT lectures has made me realize I'm missing out on literally mountains of knowledge. Never mind the qualification process, spending several years with intelligent people (both students and faculty) makes a huge difference.

ghaff 11y ago
Keep in mind that any videos you're seeing are out there because they're mostly very good examples of lectures. Any large research university has lots of classes with very poor lectures. Not to say that the material isn't in depth and peer/TA interactions aren't valuable but don't assume YouTube and OCW are representative of lecture quality.

st3v3r 11y ago

Someone attending MIT has the opportunity to expose themselves to far, far more than someone who went to community college. MIT has far more resources, and cutting edge research is taking place there.

hackuser 11y ago
Don't forget access to the faculty and your peers.
- tzs 11y ago
  When I was at Caltech there was an informal weekly thing where students in the freshman physics class who wanted some help or wanted to discuss some things from class in more depth could go as a group and get help from or discuss things with Richard Feynman. (One of my regrets is that I did reasonably well in freshman physics and was not smart enough to realize that spending time chatting about physics with Feynman would have been worthwhile even if I did not need it to pass the class).