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I graduated from business school last spring. It’s not that they need to be bulldozed, but rather, treated as a trade school. Our highest rated classes were t

I graduated from business school last spring. It’s not that they need to be bulldozed, but rather, treated as a trade school. Our highest rated classes were taught by practitioners - those in the Arena, leading men and women, making the difficult ethical choices, then posing them to us to wrestle through. These were the classes we all wanted to take, but were deeply oversubscribed and only a fraction of us got to take. The practitioners were sidelined by the academics. The theorists and mere paper-writers - many of whom either utterly failed at business or never spent a day outside the university environment. Not one of my MBA classmates planned to teach - yet we spent most of our required class time being taught by those in power with the least relevance to the real world. The real revolution in business education will occur when the academics relinquish control, and let those who’ve learned through hard fought experience take the reins. My experience was incredible - my classmates were the most impressive folks I’ve ever met. And the value there was incalculable. But the education was easily replicable, aside from the phenomenal courses taught by practitioners.

flyingcircus3 8y ago
This is largely the duality between a school of engineering, and a school of technology as well. Purdue University has both. Engineering is this 150 year tradition that literally made Indiana the crossroads of America. Top 5 in most of it's disciplines year after year. But that consistency has brought the hordes. Thus, freshman engineering is this gauntlet to run. Profressors are busy with reasearch, TAs are just reciting teleprompters. If you make it through, it's because you were self sufficient, and didn't rely on the university for much of anything. The school of technology, on the other hand, requires professors have 15 years experience in industry. No research is performed. Every single core class has a lab section. It is literally disrupting the school of engineering by taking the students who aren't yet polyglots at 18, and actually teaching them to be engineers. It is effectively a bypass to the same destination of becoming an Engineer. But there's more lanes, better signage,its well lit, more efficient maintenance, and I arrive at my destination refreshed, instead of frazzled because of all that big city gridlock.
- dhimes 8y ago
  Is there someplace I can learn more about this? Any writeups or articles you know of?
  - flyingcircus3 8y ago
    This is all anecdotal. I've found though from simply asking around, that most Engineering schools, as well as other fields, have weed out classes. They aren't technically labelled as such, but there is no better description, given their passing rates. They are curved grading, so by simple distribution of scores, large numbers of people will fail. There are so many students per teacher, the scarcity of resources demands a competition. I suppose on the larger scale though, as universities compete for students, and their money, it makes sense economically to let in anyone with the base level of aptitude, because there are plenty of other programs you can switch to from engineering. But the easiest time to lock in your customer base is when they are making the decision to buy for the very first time. Almost like a car salesman. Just keep them on the lot long enough to convince them to buy something, in lieu of the thing they wanted when they first showed up.
    - dhimes 8y ago
      My focus is on the student who gets to college and has all of the aptitude but simply doesn't know how to learn. In engineering, they go to class, listen to the theory, work the problems, and hope for the best on the test. They don't understand that there is a way to learn abstract concepts or even what an abstract concept is- what they are good for, and so on. They need to be taught that consistent review is essential- and how to do it. So the idea that Purdue has a back-channel for students who may not be as academically gifted, meaning they don't learn well in the manner that traditional courses are taught, is interesting. This happens outside of E-school and the sciences though. A helluvalotta students are showing up not being able to "do" college. High school was so easy they never had to learn how to learn.
      - flyingcircus3 8y ago
jadedhacker 8y ago
I appreciate your experience, but your comment does not engage with the criticisms that are in the article. The author discusses how people are taught greed and top down control in the service of shareholders at all costs. People are taught to diffuse the responsibility for their actions to the organization etc. Another way of organizing production would be through democratic workplaces with the people that work there being the shareholders for instance.
Bekwnn 8y ago
My experience even in computer science was that peers potentially offer more potential than lectures. I would be surprised if that were NOT the case for any degree.

flyingcircus3 8y ago

This is largely the duality between a school of engineering, and a school of technology as well. Purdue University has both. Engineering is this 150 year tradition that literally made Indiana the crossroads of America. Top 5 in most of it's disciplines year after year. But that consistency has brought the hordes. Thus, freshman engineering is this gauntlet to run. Profressors are busy with reasearch, TAs are just reciting teleprompters. If you make it through, it's because you were self sufficient, and didn't rely on the university for much of anything. The school of technology, on the other hand, requires professors have 15 years experience in industry. No research is performed. Every single core class has a lab section. It is literally disrupting the school of engineering by taking the students who aren't yet polyglots at 18, and actually teaching them to be engineers. It is effectively a bypass to the same destination of becoming an Engineer. But there's more lanes, better signage,its well lit, more efficient maintenance, and I arrive at my destination refreshed, instead of frazzled because of all that big city gridlock.

dhimes 8y ago
Is there someplace I can learn more about this? Any writeups or articles you know of?
- flyingcircus3 8y ago
  This is all anecdotal. I've found though from simply asking around, that most Engineering schools, as well as other fields, have weed out classes. They aren't technically labelled as such, but there is no better description, given their passing rates. They are curved grading, so by simple distribution of scores, large numbers of people will fail. There are so many students per teacher, the scarcity of resources demands a competition. I suppose on the larger scale though, as universities compete for students, and their money, it makes sense economically to let in anyone with the base level of aptitude, because there are plenty of other programs you can switch to from engineering. But the easiest time to lock in your customer base is when they are making the decision to buy for the very first time. Almost like a car salesman. Just keep them on the lot long enough to convince them to buy something, in lieu of the thing they wanted when they first showed up.
  - dhimes 8y ago
    My focus is on the student who gets to college and has all of the aptitude but simply doesn't know how to learn. In engineering, they go to class, listen to the theory, work the problems, and hope for the best on the test. They don't understand that there is a way to learn abstract concepts or even what an abstract concept is- what they are good for, and so on. They need to be taught that consistent review is essential- and how to do it. So the idea that Purdue has a back-channel for students who may not be as academically gifted, meaning they don't learn well in the manner that traditional courses are taught, is interesting. This happens outside of E-school and the sciences though. A helluvalotta students are showing up not being able to "do" college. High school was so easy they never had to learn how to learn.
    - flyingcircus3 8y ago

jadedhacker 8y ago

I appreciate your experience, but your comment does not engage with the criticisms that are in the article. The author discusses how people are taught greed and top down control in the service of shareholders at all costs. People are taught to diffuse the responsibility for their actions to the organization etc. Another way of organizing production would be through democratic workplaces with the people that work there being the shareholders for instance.

Bekwnn 8y ago

My experience even in computer science was that peers potentially offer more potential than lectures. I would be surprised if that were NOT the case for any degree.