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Yet another helpful individual mistaking university for some kind of career training centre... Universities are not there to get you a career, a high paying jo

by swombat 17y ago

Yet another helpful individual mistaking university for some kind of career training centre... Universities are not there to get you a career, a high paying job, etc. I'll grant you that they've been mis-represented to many people, often by greedy people who wanted to boost the ranks of students to make money (another good reason why universities shouldn't be for-profit). There are many purposes served by universities, and one of them may occasionally, as an added bonus, to help you in landing a great job. But the primary purposes of universities, and degrees, are: - Research/Academic study - To train the next generation of researchers/academics - To give people who want to study a subject in a formal setting the opportunity to do so - Allow 18-ish teenagers to mature into quasi-adults in an environment, surrounded by smart people, that will expand their minds and make them better people. "Getting you a job" is not, and should not be, an objective of university. Most jobs should not require a degree, either. The fact that unrelated degrees are being used as a front-line filtering system is tragic. If universities themselves are to blame for this failure of perception management, it is doubly tragic - it may destroy their primary reasons for existence in the end.

umjames 17y ago
I'd say universities are to blame. My alma mater's main selling point is its co-op program. Instead of 4 years of straight classes, you have 5 years total split up as follows: - freshman year as normal - the next 3 years are spent with 6 month classes/6 months co-op with some local company - senior year as normal My alma mater is not alone in this kind of marketing though. How many commercials do you see (especially during noon and in the late evening) about going back to school so you can make more money/land a better job?
- fnid2 17y ago
  And a lot of those commercials are for trade schools teaching welding, health care instrument management (mri, phlebotomy, nuclear)... Not traditional universities, so the unis, which are much more expensive than those schools, are really hurting right now. People are going to the University of Phoenix online to learn vb.net instead of Harvard to learn "computer science".
  - ericd 17y ago
    I really doubt Harvard or any of the other top schools are hurting for applicants. When I was entering school, Harvard and MIT were taking <15% of their applicants, which leaves quite a bit of wiggle room.
    - fnid2 17y ago
      Havard, in this case, is a metaphor for "traditional universities"
      - ericd 17y ago
        I realize, could you point to an article about university admissions dropping? I haven't happened across anything saying that universities are in trouble, for any reason other than their endowments getting decimated due to the financial crisis.
        fnid2 17y ago
        Simple as a google search: http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22declining%20enrollment%22%20%2Buniversities&hl=en&ned=ca&tab=nw http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22declining%20enrollment%...
- jff 17y ago
  My university does a similar thing, however while they sell the co-op pretty hard, they don't advertise on afternoon TV. I look at the co-op as an opportunity to get out, enjoy a break from classes while making money and gaining experience. I've spent 9 months of my co-op time at a national lab, doing research. As of now, it looks like I could go back there as soon as I've graduated. However, while it's very nice to have a job waiting, I'd say it's equally important that I had the opportunity to get out and do real research, get paid, and get published.
fnid2 17y ago
Universities are there to get you a job. In fact, it's part of their marketing strategy. In technical curricula, nearly every decision they make is based around predictions of future job growth. It is a very real problem right now, because technical jobs are changing so fast. The universities don't know what to teach kids. Corporations aren't hiring people to write Fortran or C++. They hire them to write .NET and Java, so students are going to universities who are teaching them those languages instead of the universities who concentrate on the primary purposes you state. It's very hard to sell students on the principles you describe. They'll get that at ANY university, so what distinguishes programs among different universities, essentially comes down to ROI for the tuition.
- robryan 17y ago
  This is true, otherwise why would the first thing taught be Java? (what happens at my uni). The ordering that follows seems to much more promote churning out a Java/C++ programmer who knows how to use and create detailed UML documentation. You don't do any assembly or VHDL type close to the metal stuff unless your doing a 4 year degree that incorporates EE classes. There is a class called computer systems architecture that's in 3rd year I think. I've seen people in this class just not get it, so in a sense they have been learning to program for years in an abstract way and don't have a clue what the computer does with their program. Thankfully there isn't to much .NET which I feel would be even more of a specialization than java, especially if it were VB.NET
  - makmanalp 17y ago
    Not all unis are like that. We start with functional programming and programming essentials in general with Scheme (lisp derivative), and then do some object oriented stuff with java, and then some systems programming with C. None of the classes are related to the specific language, the language is a tool to illustrate the concepts. These are all in the first and second years. After that, there are more advanced classes in each topic. Maybe some schools are just doing it wrong?
    - robryan 17y ago

by swombat 17y ago

umjames 17y ago

I'd say universities are to blame. My alma mater's main selling point is its co-op program. Instead of 4 years of straight classes, you have 5 years total split up as follows: - freshman year as normal - the next 3 years are spent with 6 month classes/6 months co-op with some local company - senior year as normal My alma mater is not alone in this kind of marketing though. How many commercials do you see (especially during noon and in the late evening) about going back to school so you can make more money/land a better job?

fnid2 17y ago
And a lot of those commercials are for trade schools teaching welding, health care instrument management (mri, phlebotomy, nuclear)... Not traditional universities, so the unis, which are much more expensive than those schools, are really hurting right now. People are going to the University of Phoenix online to learn vb.net instead of Harvard to learn "computer science".
- ericd 17y ago
  I really doubt Harvard or any of the other top schools are hurting for applicants. When I was entering school, Harvard and MIT were taking <15% of their applicants, which leaves quite a bit of wiggle room.
  - fnid2 17y ago
    Havard, in this case, is a metaphor for "traditional universities"
    - ericd 17y ago
      I realize, could you point to an article about university admissions dropping? I haven't happened across anything saying that universities are in trouble, for any reason other than their endowments getting decimated due to the financial crisis.
      - fnid2 17y ago
        Simple as a google search: http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22declining%20enrollment%22%20%2Buniversities&hl=en&ned=ca&tab=nw http://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22declining%20enrollment%...
jff 17y ago
My university does a similar thing, however while they sell the co-op pretty hard, they don't advertise on afternoon TV. I look at the co-op as an opportunity to get out, enjoy a break from classes while making money and gaining experience. I've spent 9 months of my co-op time at a national lab, doing research. As of now, it looks like I could go back there as soon as I've graduated. However, while it's very nice to have a job waiting, I'd say it's equally important that I had the opportunity to get out and do real research, get paid, and get published.

fnid2 17y ago

Universities are there to get you a job. In fact, it's part of their marketing strategy. In technical curricula, nearly every decision they make is based around predictions of future job growth. It is a very real problem right now, because technical jobs are changing so fast. The universities don't know what to teach kids. Corporations aren't hiring people to write Fortran or C++. They hire them to write .NET and Java, so students are going to universities who are teaching them those languages instead of the universities who concentrate on the primary purposes you state. It's very hard to sell students on the principles you describe. They'll get that at ANY university, so what distinguishes programs among different universities, essentially comes down to ROI for the tuition.

robryan 17y ago
This is true, otherwise why would the first thing taught be Java? (what happens at my uni). The ordering that follows seems to much more promote churning out a Java/C++ programmer who knows how to use and create detailed UML documentation. You don't do any assembly or VHDL type close to the metal stuff unless your doing a 4 year degree that incorporates EE classes. There is a class called computer systems architecture that's in 3rd year I think. I've seen people in this class just not get it, so in a sense they have been learning to program for years in an abstract way and don't have a clue what the computer does with their program. Thankfully there isn't to much .NET which I feel would be even more of a specialization than java, especially if it were VB.NET
- makmanalp 17y ago
  Not all unis are like that. We start with functional programming and programming essentials in general with Scheme (lisp derivative), and then do some object oriented stuff with java, and then some systems programming with C. None of the classes are related to the specific language, the language is a tool to illustrate the concepts. These are all in the first and second years. After that, there are more advanced classes in each topic. Maybe some schools are just doing it wrong?
  - robryan 17y ago