4 ms·

The cost is incredibly justifiable, it's just you are paying for access to future opportunities not an education.

by fullshark 6y ago

tinyhouse 6y ago
No it's not. Knowledge should provide access to future opportunities, not prestige. The system is the problem.
- asdff 6y ago
  With any knowledge worker job posting, there are hundreds of perfectly qualified candidates, maybe thousands. The knowledge taught at Harvard is already disseminated. You don't learn anything different with an undergraduate degree at Harvard than you would with a degree at directional state. The difference is now you know professor X, who lets you work on his super cool project Y, then employer Z sees you did project Y with well known professor X, who wrote a letter with nothing but high praise of your intimate accomplishments on project Y and why you are therefore extremely qualified, and you get a great job. To break the system would be to snap your fingers and will more knowledge worker jobs into existence to meet the oversupply of qualified candidates, but given our free market society and increasing disfavor of public engineering and public research, that just isn't ever going to happen. So you try and play the game as it is the best you can, and apply to schools like Harvard with faculty who can push your life forward.
- fullshark 6y ago
  In a world of imperfect information, how do you prove to a stranger that you are knowledgable, in less than a full day of interaction? That remains the problem, and credentials/prestige remain our best way of dealing with it. In other fields you develop portfolios (e.g. github repos) perhaps that's what education will evolve to, developing a student work portfolio to prove you are knowledgable.
bdcravens 6y ago
It's not (or at least, doesn't have to be) a binary question; it's a sliding scale of ROI.
- tinyhouse 6y ago
  A programming course on coursera might have a higher return than a degree in History from Harvard. (assuming return=money)
  - bdcravens 6y ago
    As someone without a degree and making market rate or better, I agree (and I started when there weren't so many online options) Of course the hard part is getting hired without that rubber stamp, but there are many options (many have an idealized idea of what your career will look like, but that's often disconnected from reality)

The cost is incredibly justifiable, it's just you are paying for access to future opportunities not an education.

tinyhouse 6y ago

No it's not. Knowledge should provide access to future opportunities, not prestige. The system is the problem.

asdff 6y ago
With any knowledge worker job posting, there are hundreds of perfectly qualified candidates, maybe thousands. The knowledge taught at Harvard is already disseminated. You don't learn anything different with an undergraduate degree at Harvard than you would with a degree at directional state. The difference is now you know professor X, who lets you work on his super cool project Y, then employer Z sees you did project Y with well known professor X, who wrote a letter with nothing but high praise of your intimate accomplishments on project Y and why you are therefore extremely qualified, and you get a great job. To break the system would be to snap your fingers and will more knowledge worker jobs into existence to meet the oversupply of qualified candidates, but given our free market society and increasing disfavor of public engineering and public research, that just isn't ever going to happen. So you try and play the game as it is the best you can, and apply to schools like Harvard with faculty who can push your life forward.
fullshark 6y ago
In a world of imperfect information, how do you prove to a stranger that you are knowledgable, in less than a full day of interaction? That remains the problem, and credentials/prestige remain our best way of dealing with it. In other fields you develop portfolios (e.g. github repos) perhaps that's what education will evolve to, developing a student work portfolio to prove you are knowledgable.

bdcravens 6y ago

It's not (or at least, doesn't have to be) a binary question; it's a sliding scale of ROI.

tinyhouse 6y ago
A programming course on coursera might have a higher return than a degree in History from Harvard. (assuming return=money)
- bdcravens 6y ago
  As someone without a degree and making market rate or better, I agree (and I started when there weren't so many online options) Of course the hard part is getting hired without that rubber stamp, but there are many options (many have an idealized idea of what your career will look like, but that's often disconnected from reality)