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Funny I started in electrical engineering and eventually got a degree in physics; don't remember any "wild equipment" -I remember a few diodes, some breadboards
by scottlocklin 8y ago
Funny I started in electrical engineering and eventually got a degree in physics; don't remember any "wild equipment" -I remember a few diodes, some breadboards and some oscilloscopes from WW-2 era. Pretty sure you could buy all the 'wild stuff' I ever saw as an undergraduate for less than a year's salary and use it for the whole school forever.
Most of the money goes to salaries, and at this point, most of the salaries go to administrators who add no value. There's also a lot of duplication and nonsense in modern curricula; someone could easily do a better job.
It's bad enough the Thiel Fellowship looks pretty good; you have to assume modern college has nothing to do with actually educating people; seems to be more of a codpiece than anything else.
- triviatise 8y agoat my school EE had a full semiconductor fab, nuclear engineering had a nuclear reactor, CS had a full networked computer system with 512x512 UI that predated the internet, super computers, astronomy had an observatory etc. Currently I think they have an offsite particle accelerator in physics, but Im sure they had sensitive measuring equipment of all kinds when I was there.
- usrusr 8y agoBut that's still consistent with what GP was writing: that expensive stuff is research, not teaching, funded by grants, not tuition. Some students will take a role in experiments running at those facilities, but many will never see those places from the inside. There is a simple thought experiment to tell research facilities from teaching facilities: if they increased the number of admissions, would they need another particle accelerator?
- selimthegrim 8y agoGrinnell?