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> Colleges should be about learning. While I agree in spirit, I disagree in reality. The fact of the matter is, "higher level education" has been co-opted by

by qudat 8y ago

> Colleges should be about learning. While I agree in spirit, I disagree in reality. The fact of the matter is, "higher level education" has been co-opted by industry to train employees. I think overall it's a round-about way to train employees and we should break apart the concept of higher education/training into discrete parts: apprenticeships and academics. The problem for me is that college is a one-size-fits-all solution for the US and I think we are starting to see it burst at the seams. I mean we can't even agree on the purpose of college, how can we possibly optimize the institution if we cannot answer that question?

pmart123 8y ago
I agree that there are two distinct segments, one which is more vocational, and one that is more academic, modeled off a classic liberal arts education. Perhaps on the vocational side, it is easier to determine exit level salaries and trajectories. However, I am not quite sure that is the same case with an institution offering a liberal arts education. For instance, when I graduated from Dartmouth, 20% of the student body majored in Economics or Government, and in less than 10 years, 20% of major are either CS of Engineering. I don't think it is that easy to extrapolate the likely salaries and career outcomes in these cases.
- zrobotics 8y ago
  How many people in a CS or engineering program aren't treating the education as vocational? Or someone taking a poly-Sci or philosophy bachelor's with plans of law school? Those are all students who are taking what is, in effect, a vocational course. They need a particular set of skills for a particular job, and they DGAF about broadening themselves. There were definitely students in my CS classes who were genuinely interested in the academic topics, but most of the people in my compilers class seemed to think it was just something to suffer through.
  - username223 8y ago
    > How many people in a CS or engineering program aren't treating the education as vocational? In my experience at an R1 university (not an Ivy, but still respectable), even before the latest tech bubble, very few undergrad and master's CS students saw it as anything but vocational. However, they were a nice source of profit for the department, especially the international ones, so everyone went along.

by qudat 8y ago

pmart123 8y ago

I agree that there are two distinct segments, one which is more vocational, and one that is more academic, modeled off a classic liberal arts education. Perhaps on the vocational side, it is easier to determine exit level salaries and trajectories. However, I am not quite sure that is the same case with an institution offering a liberal arts education. For instance, when I graduated from Dartmouth, 20% of the student body majored in Economics or Government, and in less than 10 years, 20% of major are either CS of Engineering. I don't think it is that easy to extrapolate the likely salaries and career outcomes in these cases.

zrobotics 8y ago
How many people in a CS or engineering program aren't treating the education as vocational? Or someone taking a poly-Sci or philosophy bachelor's with plans of law school? Those are all students who are taking what is, in effect, a vocational course. They need a particular set of skills for a particular job, and they DGAF about broadening themselves. There were definitely students in my CS classes who were genuinely interested in the academic topics, but most of the people in my compilers class seemed to think it was just something to suffer through.
- username223 8y ago
  > How many people in a CS or engineering program aren't treating the education as vocational? In my experience at an R1 university (not an Ivy, but still respectable), even before the latest tech bubble, very few undergrad and master's CS students saw it as anything but vocational. However, they were a nice source of profit for the department, especially the international ones, so everyone went along.