5 ms·

Reminder: People who think of themselves as getting prestige from their college education may view something that challenges the prestige of college as an atta

by Eliezer 16y ago

Reminder: People who think of themselves as getting prestige from their college education may view something that challenges the prestige of college as an attack on their hard-won status. Reminder 2: College is broken. It needs challenging.

TomOfTTB 16y ago
Your point is well taken but I'd offer one caveat which is the people in Reminder #1 are a big part of the problem that creates Reminder #2. I recently attended a meeting between educators and future California Governor Jerry Brown. At that meeting I watched a woman with a doctorate in English scream at the future (and former) Mayor of California because he was telling her they'd have to cut her six figure salary. Even though she admitted her students test scores were abysmal and everyone in the room knows she couldn't go anywhere else and get paid the same rate she still felt she was entitled to the money on her degree alone. Bottom line (IMHO): If society is to move forward people who deify the degree need to be relieved of that delusion even if it's painful to them.
- enjo 16y ago
  My bet is that her expertise in English <whatever> is vast and noteworthy. I don't deify the degree, but I certainly deify the accomplishment of earning a PhD. The fact that as an English PhD she was able to even get a job, much less a high paying one certainly implies that she's an expert in her field. I'm not arguing about her pay, that's up to the market. However, the condescending tone of your post shows that you have zero inkling of what's involved in the PhD process (no worries, most people don't even when they think they do). I've lived through my wifes years in PhD school (accounting). It was as intense a 5 years as I could imagine anyone enduring.
  - nkassis 16y ago
    "PhD school (accounting)" that's an interesting choice. What kind of research or work does she do?
    - enjo 16y ago
      She studies behavioral accounting issues. Her dissertation was on the effect of internet stock message boards and their influence on investor decision making. In her case she overlaps very heavily with behavioral economics (think freakonomics, predictably irrational, etc...). It can be pretty amusing watching these academics fight over what is in the realm of behavioral accounting and what is within economics. No one really knows;) There is a capital markets side of accounting research which is much more focused on the analysis of accounting in the wild. It is hard to sort of put your finger on what accounting research is. It does exist tho:)
      - pjscott 16y ago
        > It can be pretty amusing watching these academics fight over what is in the realm of behavioral accounting and what is within economics. No one really knows;) If they have to argue about this, then they've probably drawn the dividing lines between their categories wrong, and they're trying to shoehorn new ideas into an ill-fitting taxonomy rather than making the taxonomy accurate. (Related: where the hell does computer science fit? Is it a science, or a branch of applied math, or a craft, or an engineering discipline? Or perhaps an exotic species of potato? Sometimes I think we need the ghost of Alfred Korzybski to rise from the grave and harangue people.)
  - TomOfTTB 16y ago
    It doesn't matter what goes into a PHD process. In the real world you get respect for what you can do not the process by which you obtained skills. As I said the woman I was referring to admitted her students test scores were poor (though she blamed it on external factors) So I'm absolutely condescending of people who think because they went through a process of any kind they are automatically entitled to respect and high pay. I respect people who prove their worth to society.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    Should all difficult accomplishments be rewarded? Or should only useful accomplishments be rewarded?
    - apsurd 16y ago
      A very good question! My answer: A difficult accomplishment should be its own reward irrespective of the outside world. A useful difficult accomplishment will be rewarded by the outside world.
johnrob 16y ago
College might suit some people better than others. What are your life goals: are you trying to fit in, or trying to stand out? You could argue that college is doing a decent job of the former, but failing at the latter. If you want to stand out then dropping out is probably a good idea (assuming it's done in pursuit of something ambitious).
bbarthel 16y ago
I don't see anything in the article to suggest he is attaching special prestige to his education, instead he seems to be stating that Mr. Thiel would better serve entrepreneurship by simply focusing on all young entrepreneurs and helping them achieve their ideas as opposed to artificially limiting it to teenagers so that he can condition the money on them dropping out of school. As an example, when I was in college, I received a grant from the Kauffman Foundation( 1 ) to pursue an idea myself and some friends had for a new type of 3-d visualization device. In the end we determined our idea was infeasible as a commercial technology (technical limitations based on our design), but through an arrangement between the Foundation and my college, we were able to work on the prototype and still receive credit so that all of us graduated on time (we were required to use the prototype and lessons learned as a senior project, paper and presentation, along with intermediate documentation to prove we were progressing and continuing our education). Had we been forced to drop out, we would have failed and not even had a degree to show for it. Had we chosen to drop out, it would have been our decision based on our belief in the idea, instead of as a requirement for pursuing it. ( 1 ) http://www.kauffman.org/about-foundation/foundation-overview.aspx http://www.kauffman.org/about-foundation/foundation-overview... [edit] formatting.
mithaler 16y ago
I really resent the unexplained blanket assertion that "college is broken". If it's hard-hitting enough for you to post as a rebuttal, it's hard-hitting enough for you to explain your reasoning for. I had a useful, fulfilling, transformative college experience that challenged my preconceptions and taught me how to reason and appreciate complexity; I will readily admit to the financial privilege I enjoyed going in, but I couldn't have done it without financial aid and I knew plenty of other people who went in with much weaker financial backgrounds than me who did just fine (i.e. without debilitating debt afterwards). So please, explain to me how "college is broken". I don't mind challenging it, and I would certainly agree on an anecdotal basis at least that some colleges and external systems surrounding them are broken (e.g. SAT), but asserting "college is broken" without further explanation isn't a meaningful challenge--it's a provocation, and one I will gladly take.
- pjscott 16y ago
  Would you prefer the term "blatantly sub-optimal" in place of "broken"? Let's list off a few ways: * Big lecture classes, where a professor delivers canned lectures to enormous crowds of people as though we still lived before the invention of online video and the printing press. As far as I can tell, this is strictly inferior to having a really good teacher record lectures, then put them online. Preferably with an option to play them at 1.4--2x speed. This would also free up time and resources to focus on the parts of the educational experience where college can be better than online lecture videos plus a textbook. * Often, a whole class of people has to proceed through a set list of topics in lock-step. Some people will find this too slow, and others too fast, for any given topic. What if you want some time to really think through a particular topic? There's no time; you've got to go on to the next thing. And then at the end of the semester, there's a flurry of activity as people finish up final projects and study for exams, and then BAM! It's over! * The workload tends to be heavily skewed to the end of the semester, so people seldom have enough time to devote to finishing projects properly. This has caused no end of frustration. * People are crazy-focused on grades, often at the expense of their education. Grades are a clumsy proxy for learning. It's like trying to measure someone's happiness by how much they smile: there's a correlation, sure, but telling someone to smile more is not the best way to make them happier. I could list more, but that should be enough for starters. Would you dispute the claim that such a system is at least a little broken? Or, if you prefer, blatantly sub-optimal?

by Eliezer 16y ago

TomOfTTB 16y ago

Your point is well taken but I'd offer one caveat which is the people in Reminder #1 are a big part of the problem that creates Reminder #2. I recently attended a meeting between educators and future California Governor Jerry Brown. At that meeting I watched a woman with a doctorate in English scream at the future (and former) Mayor of California because he was telling her they'd have to cut her six figure salary. Even though she admitted her students test scores were abysmal and everyone in the room knows she couldn't go anywhere else and get paid the same rate she still felt she was entitled to the money on her degree alone. Bottom line (IMHO): If society is to move forward people who deify the degree need to be relieved of that delusion even if it's painful to them.

enjo 16y ago
My bet is that her expertise in English <whatever> is vast and noteworthy. I don't deify the degree, but I certainly deify the accomplishment of earning a PhD. The fact that as an English PhD she was able to even get a job, much less a high paying one certainly implies that she's an expert in her field. I'm not arguing about her pay, that's up to the market. However, the condescending tone of your post shows that you have zero inkling of what's involved in the PhD process (no worries, most people don't even when they think they do). I've lived through my wifes years in PhD school (accounting). It was as intense a 5 years as I could imagine anyone enduring.
- nkassis 16y ago
  "PhD school (accounting)" that's an interesting choice. What kind of research or work does she do?
  - enjo 16y ago
    She studies behavioral accounting issues. Her dissertation was on the effect of internet stock message boards and their influence on investor decision making. In her case she overlaps very heavily with behavioral economics (think freakonomics, predictably irrational, etc...). It can be pretty amusing watching these academics fight over what is in the realm of behavioral accounting and what is within economics. No one really knows;) There is a capital markets side of accounting research which is much more focused on the analysis of accounting in the wild. It is hard to sort of put your finger on what accounting research is. It does exist tho:)
    - pjscott 16y ago
      > It can be pretty amusing watching these academics fight over what is in the realm of behavioral accounting and what is within economics. No one really knows;) If they have to argue about this, then they've probably drawn the dividing lines between their categories wrong, and they're trying to shoehorn new ideas into an ill-fitting taxonomy rather than making the taxonomy accurate. (Related: where the hell does computer science fit? Is it a science, or a branch of applied math, or a craft, or an engineering discipline? Or perhaps an exotic species of potato? Sometimes I think we need the ghost of Alfred Korzybski to rise from the grave and harangue people.)
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  It doesn't matter what goes into a PHD process. In the real world you get respect for what you can do not the process by which you obtained skills. As I said the woman I was referring to admitted her students test scores were poor (though she blamed it on external factors) So I'm absolutely condescending of people who think because they went through a process of any kind they are automatically entitled to respect and high pay. I respect people who prove their worth to society.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Should all difficult accomplishments be rewarded? Or should only useful accomplishments be rewarded?
  - apsurd 16y ago
    A very good question! My answer: A difficult accomplishment should be its own reward irrespective of the outside world. A useful difficult accomplishment will be rewarded by the outside world.

johnrob 16y ago

College might suit some people better than others. What are your life goals: are you trying to fit in, or trying to stand out? You could argue that college is doing a decent job of the former, but failing at the latter. If you want to stand out then dropping out is probably a good idea (assuming it's done in pursuit of something ambitious).

bbarthel 16y ago

I don't see anything in the article to suggest he is attaching special prestige to his education, instead he seems to be stating that Mr. Thiel would better serve entrepreneurship by simply focusing on all young entrepreneurs and helping them achieve their ideas as opposed to artificially limiting it to teenagers so that he can condition the money on them dropping out of school. As an example, when I was in college, I received a grant from the Kauffman Foundation( 1 ) to pursue an idea myself and some friends had for a new type of 3-d visualization device. In the end we determined our idea was infeasible as a commercial technology (technical limitations based on our design), but through an arrangement between the Foundation and my college, we were able to work on the prototype and still receive credit so that all of us graduated on time (we were required to use the prototype and lessons learned as a senior project, paper and presentation, along with intermediate documentation to prove we were progressing and continuing our education). Had we been forced to drop out, we would have failed and not even had a degree to show for it. Had we chosen to drop out, it would have been our decision based on our belief in the idea, instead of as a requirement for pursuing it. ( 1 ) http://www.kauffman.org/about-foundation/foundation-overview.aspx http://www.kauffman.org/about-foundation/foundation-overview... [edit] formatting.

mithaler 16y ago

I really resent the unexplained blanket assertion that "college is broken". If it's hard-hitting enough for you to post as a rebuttal, it's hard-hitting enough for you to explain your reasoning for. I had a useful, fulfilling, transformative college experience that challenged my preconceptions and taught me how to reason and appreciate complexity; I will readily admit to the financial privilege I enjoyed going in, but I couldn't have done it without financial aid and I knew plenty of other people who went in with much weaker financial backgrounds than me who did just fine (i.e. without debilitating debt afterwards). So please, explain to me how "college is broken". I don't mind challenging it, and I would certainly agree on an anecdotal basis at least that some colleges and external systems surrounding them are broken (e.g. SAT), but asserting "college is broken" without further explanation isn't a meaningful challenge--it's a provocation, and one I will gladly take.

pjscott 16y ago
Would you prefer the term "blatantly sub-optimal" in place of "broken"? Let's list off a few ways: * Big lecture classes, where a professor delivers canned lectures to enormous crowds of people as though we still lived before the invention of online video and the printing press. As far as I can tell, this is strictly inferior to having a really good teacher record lectures, then put them online. Preferably with an option to play them at 1.4--2x speed. This would also free up time and resources to focus on the parts of the educational experience where college can be better than online lecture videos plus a textbook. * Often, a whole class of people has to proceed through a set list of topics in lock-step. Some people will find this too slow, and others too fast, for any given topic. What if you want some time to really think through a particular topic? There's no time; you've got to go on to the next thing. And then at the end of the semester, there's a flurry of activity as people finish up final projects and study for exams, and then BAM! It's over! * The workload tends to be heavily skewed to the end of the semester, so people seldom have enough time to devote to finishing projects properly. This has caused no end of frustration. * People are crazy-focused on grades, often at the expense of their education. Grades are a clumsy proxy for learning. It's like trying to measure someone's happiness by how much they smile: there's a correlation, sure, but telling someone to smile more is not the best way to make them happier. I could list more, but that should be enough for starters. Would you dispute the claim that such a system is at least a little broken? Or, if you prefer, blatantly sub-optimal?