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What is it about this subject that encourages such hyperbole and overgeneralization? For what it's worth, I looked it up (thanks linkedin) and the author of th

by hugh3 16y ago

What is it about this subject that encourages such hyperbole and overgeneralization? For what it's worth, I looked it up (thanks linkedin) and the author of this piece spent four years at some place called Linfield College in McMinville, Oregon, getting a BA in History, Philosophy, French and German. It's possible that her personal experiences may not generalize.

grandalf 16y ago
Hah. I was wondering that myself. I think it's sort of a sacred cow that higher education is good and beyond reproach, and that obtaining more formal education is usually a good idea.
gammarator 16y ago
For what it's worth, nothing in the article discusses her personal experiences or generalizes from them.
- hugh3 16y ago
  You're right -- she skips the discussion of her personal experiences and jumps straight into the generalizations. "Our higher education system largely fails to educate... It’s nothing less than a deep institutional, cultural, societal and indeed humanitarian crisis." Really? I could have sworn that I learned a bunch of stuff about physics and pure mathematics in my four years of intensively studying physics and pure mathematics, but maybe I'm just crazy.
  - cj 16y ago
    The vast majority of graduates do not leave college having intensively studied anything as rigorous as physics or mathematics. Most leave college with a degree that they didn't work very hard to earn. College offers the opportunity to do what you did and work your ass off, but most have no such desire.
    - enjo 16y ago
      Again, a massive generalization that you quite frankly don't have a bit of data to support.
      - cj 16y ago
        I'm a college student. I make my claims based on experience. Do you disagree with my claim? It may be a generalization, but by no means an overgeneralization.
        kenjackson 16y ago
        Most people I know who get a degree actually study a fair bit and learn a fair bit. For most people I know college is the first time they've ever really been pushed. Not to say this is the case for everyone, but I just want to point out that opinions can vary.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        entangld 16y ago
        Your generalization applies to just about everyone. Most people don't have higher educations at all. And only a percentage of those get through the classes that weed weaker students out. But are those classes actually teaching or just cutting grades? Hacker News users aren't exactly a representative sample of the population anyway (generally educated, probably middle class or higher and if not middle class, we probably have above average drive ambition). Secondly, just because someone passes classes doesn't mean they're educated. I had friends who pumped and dumped for tests and couldn't remember any of it the next semester. Other people learn outside of school and we have no way to measure or give credit for that. Clayton Christensen talks about the disruption of Harvard Business school in his book -> http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustaining-Successful/dp/1578518520 http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustainin... You can't compare everyone to an 'elite' anyway. It's statistically unfeasible. We need critical thinkers who have a thirst for knowledge. Some people don't have the latter. Especially people who think they are already educated. Those are things we need in our society and a degree doesn't guarantee that people have them. Although we wish it did.
  - ddkrone 16y ago
    What is it about math and physics majors that makes them think they somehow learn things more 'real' or relevant to the real world? Funny thing is this kind of attitude is way too common among the science majors. For some reason they think their degree is more real than the next guy's. Must have something to do with lack of emphasis on the humanitarian subjects. Before people jump the gun I should mention I have a graduate degree in mathematics and I paid for it what it was worth: 0 dollars.
brandall10 16y ago
Hyperbole = $$ (tuition/living expenses/opportunity costs) + 4-8 years of youth. Valuable stuff that inspires hand waving. Overgeneralization = The source of this ire seems to me to come from the idea of "hey, it wasn't long ago that a degree could guarantee me a job. Now not so much. Let's posit why." Although, I seem to remember that was the tone of the movie Reality Bites some two decades ago. So clearly, this isn't the first education bubble.
jasonyyun 16y ago
Expanding on grandalf's thought, I suspect that the alternative--that is, opting out of school to pursue a career or other business opportunity--can come off as overly selfish or capitalistic. Education is still often considered to have some sort of intrinsic value (though, of course, this is changing as students are increasingly viewing college for its instrumental value toward finding jobs); jumping straight into a career, on the other hand, is often associated (perhaps unfairly) with generating money, which has only instrumental value. This might be an unfair representation; there is, of course, intrinsic value to many people in pursuing a career that they're passionate about, and it's becoming increasingly the case that college is seen as having instrumental value. In the minds of many, though, college is still seen as more inherently valuable, and the arguments against going to college are just making us more and more capitalistic, at the expense of culture, education, and whatnot.
crikli 16y ago
From TFA: "What does it mean to be educated?" Observing the dialogues over the last few weeks it seems that the participants all define being "educated" differently. But they are not establishing their perspective before stating their cases. In other words, folks aren't declaring and initializing the variable before proceeding with their functional logic.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  You mean to say they didn't reset their registers, cascading down an undefined potentially metastable state?
tokenadult 16y ago
SAT and ACT score interquartile ranges for Linfield College, according to Common Data Set reporting: http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1485&profileId=6 http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.j...
- joshhart 16y ago
  Pitiful. 75% of the students made below a 26 on the ACT. I scored at that level in 7th grade!
  - bartonfink 16y ago
    What's the point of bringing it up as if that's somehow a personal failure on their part? Surely you've done something with your life since then and have better things to do than put down those less fortunate than you.
    - joshhart 16y ago
      How do you equate poor performance on a standardized test with being less fortunate? It's my opinion that university admissions are way to lenient and that we'd do well to ratchet them up a major notch. Let community colleges serve their purpose. University studies should be for serious students capable of academic work. I brought up my score in this because it's the comparison most relevant to me.
      - hugh3 16y ago
        How do you equate poor performance on a standardized test with being less fortunate? I'm sorry, are you under the impression that you were a smart twelve-year-old for some reason other than that you happened to draw some good cards from the gene pool? Feeling superior to others for being smarter is like feeling superior to others for being better-looking or having richer parents. It's just dickish. (edit: or perhaps I should say it's normal, but best kept to yourself lest folks think you're a dick) It's my opinion that university admissions are way to lenient If you are going to play the game where you mock those whom you consider to be intellectually inferior it's best to master the difference between "to" and "too" first.
entangld 16y ago
Are you attempting to attack her credibility or can you address her point? Steve Jobs never graduated college. I would still take his opinion on education. This is an argument that can be logically debated without having to go to credentials. Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory. -- Leonardo da Vinci
- gruseom 16y ago
  Considering that da Vinci very likely never said that, your invocation of his authority is ironic. http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argument+authority+inauthor:%22leonardo+da+vinci%22&num=100 http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argumen... http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci Edit: I retract that last bit. Quoting someone isn't necessarily arguing from their authority. But it almost certainly isn't Leonardo.
  - entangld 16y ago
    I could care less who said what. I have thousands of quotes. The quotes help me learn whose books I should read. I copied and pasted that quote because I had it. The words are more important than where they came from. I don't have much respect for authority in the first place. I would just rather spend more time debating actual arguments than arguing about credentials. RE: Leonardo - Well until we find out who said it, I'm attributing it to him. I don't throw away theories until they're disproven.
    - billybob 16y ago
      "I don't have much respect for authority in the first place." Really? Let me ask you a few questions, then. When was the American Revolution? What are the electrically charged parts of an atom? How does central banking work? How do red blood cells bind to oxygen? If you will only accept as fact information that you have personally verified, you will know a very small collection of facts. The sensible thing to do in many cases is to appeal to authority: the collective opinion of experts in a field. Heck, even in one's own area of specialty, one can't know everything. I can't personally evaluate every possible programming language or database in the world before choosing something; I take a clue from common opinion and narrow my search from there. Really, this is one of the things that makes civilization possible.
ddkrone 16y ago
How's her degree relevant other than the fact that it lends even more credibility to the fact that the piece is very well written.
roc 16y ago
Education reflects a major life decision, one which people feel strongly about. As such, it's very easy for emotion to trump a sober analysis of the situation and for the conversation to descend into the flinging of heated justifications. All sides are just as vulnerable to this.

by hugh3 16y ago

grandalf 16y ago

Hah. I was wondering that myself. I think it's sort of a sacred cow that higher education is good and beyond reproach, and that obtaining more formal education is usually a good idea.

gammarator 16y ago

For what it's worth, nothing in the article discusses her personal experiences or generalizes from them.

hugh3 16y ago
You're right -- she skips the discussion of her personal experiences and jumps straight into the generalizations. "Our higher education system largely fails to educate... It’s nothing less than a deep institutional, cultural, societal and indeed humanitarian crisis." Really? I could have sworn that I learned a bunch of stuff about physics and pure mathematics in my four years of intensively studying physics and pure mathematics, but maybe I'm just crazy.
- cj 16y ago
  The vast majority of graduates do not leave college having intensively studied anything as rigorous as physics or mathematics. Most leave college with a degree that they didn't work very hard to earn. College offers the opportunity to do what you did and work your ass off, but most have no such desire.
  - enjo 16y ago
    Again, a massive generalization that you quite frankly don't have a bit of data to support.
    - cj 16y ago
      I'm a college student. I make my claims based on experience. Do you disagree with my claim? It may be a generalization, but by no means an overgeneralization.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        Most people I know who get a degree actually study a fair bit and learn a fair bit. For most people I know college is the first time they've ever really been pushed. Not to say this is the case for everyone, but I just want to point out that opinions can vary.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - entangld 16y ago
        Your generalization applies to just about everyone. Most people don't have higher educations at all. And only a percentage of those get through the classes that weed weaker students out. But are those classes actually teaching or just cutting grades? Hacker News users aren't exactly a representative sample of the population anyway (generally educated, probably middle class or higher and if not middle class, we probably have above average drive ambition). Secondly, just because someone passes classes doesn't mean they're educated. I had friends who pumped and dumped for tests and couldn't remember any of it the next semester. Other people learn outside of school and we have no way to measure or give credit for that. Clayton Christensen talks about the disruption of Harvard Business school in his book -> http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustaining-Successful/dp/1578518520 http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustainin... You can't compare everyone to an 'elite' anyway. It's statistically unfeasible. We need critical thinkers who have a thirst for knowledge. Some people don't have the latter. Especially people who think they are already educated. Those are things we need in our society and a degree doesn't guarantee that people have them. Although we wish it did.
- ddkrone 16y ago
  What is it about math and physics majors that makes them think they somehow learn things more 'real' or relevant to the real world? Funny thing is this kind of attitude is way too common among the science majors. For some reason they think their degree is more real than the next guy's. Must have something to do with lack of emphasis on the humanitarian subjects. Before people jump the gun I should mention I have a graduate degree in mathematics and I paid for it what it was worth: 0 dollars.

brandall10 16y ago

Hyperbole = $$ (tuition/living expenses/opportunity costs) + 4-8 years of youth. Valuable stuff that inspires hand waving. Overgeneralization = The source of this ire seems to me to come from the idea of "hey, it wasn't long ago that a degree could guarantee me a job. Now not so much. Let's posit why." Although, I seem to remember that was the tone of the movie Reality Bites some two decades ago. So clearly, this isn't the first education bubble.

jasonyyun 16y ago

Expanding on grandalf's thought, I suspect that the alternative--that is, opting out of school to pursue a career or other business opportunity--can come off as overly selfish or capitalistic. Education is still often considered to have some sort of intrinsic value (though, of course, this is changing as students are increasingly viewing college for its instrumental value toward finding jobs); jumping straight into a career, on the other hand, is often associated (perhaps unfairly) with generating money, which has only instrumental value. This might be an unfair representation; there is, of course, intrinsic value to many people in pursuing a career that they're passionate about, and it's becoming increasingly the case that college is seen as having instrumental value. In the minds of many, though, college is still seen as more inherently valuable, and the arguments against going to college are just making us more and more capitalistic, at the expense of culture, education, and whatnot.

crikli 16y ago

From TFA: "What does it mean to be educated?" Observing the dialogues over the last few weeks it seems that the participants all define being "educated" differently. But they are not establishing their perspective before stating their cases. In other words, folks aren't declaring and initializing the variable before proceeding with their functional logic.

sliverstorm 16y ago
You mean to say they didn't reset their registers, cascading down an undefined potentially metastable state?

tokenadult 16y ago

SAT and ACT score interquartile ranges for Linfield College, according to Common Data Set reporting: http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1485&profileId=6 http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.j...

joshhart 16y ago
Pitiful. 75% of the students made below a 26 on the ACT. I scored at that level in 7th grade!
- bartonfink 16y ago
  What's the point of bringing it up as if that's somehow a personal failure on their part? Surely you've done something with your life since then and have better things to do than put down those less fortunate than you.
  - joshhart 16y ago
    How do you equate poor performance on a standardized test with being less fortunate? It's my opinion that university admissions are way to lenient and that we'd do well to ratchet them up a major notch. Let community colleges serve their purpose. University studies should be for serious students capable of academic work. I brought up my score in this because it's the comparison most relevant to me.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      How do you equate poor performance on a standardized test with being less fortunate? I'm sorry, are you under the impression that you were a smart twelve-year-old for some reason other than that you happened to draw some good cards from the gene pool? Feeling superior to others for being smarter is like feeling superior to others for being better-looking or having richer parents. It's just dickish. (edit: or perhaps I should say it's normal, but best kept to yourself lest folks think you're a dick) It's my opinion that university admissions are way to lenient If you are going to play the game where you mock those whom you consider to be intellectually inferior it's best to master the difference between "to" and "too" first.

entangld 16y ago

Are you attempting to attack her credibility or can you address her point? Steve Jobs never graduated college. I would still take his opinion on education. This is an argument that can be logically debated without having to go to credentials. Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory. -- Leonardo da Vinci

gruseom 16y ago
Considering that da Vinci very likely never said that, your invocation of his authority is ironic. http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argument+authority+inauthor:%22leonardo+da+vinci%22&num=100 http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argumen... http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci Edit: I retract that last bit. Quoting someone isn't necessarily arguing from their authority. But it almost certainly isn't Leonardo.
- entangld 16y ago
  I could care less who said what. I have thousands of quotes. The quotes help me learn whose books I should read. I copied and pasted that quote because I had it. The words are more important than where they came from. I don't have much respect for authority in the first place. I would just rather spend more time debating actual arguments than arguing about credentials. RE: Leonardo - Well until we find out who said it, I'm attributing it to him. I don't throw away theories until they're disproven.
  - billybob 16y ago
    "I don't have much respect for authority in the first place." Really? Let me ask you a few questions, then. When was the American Revolution? What are the electrically charged parts of an atom? How does central banking work? How do red blood cells bind to oxygen? If you will only accept as fact information that you have personally verified, you will know a very small collection of facts. The sensible thing to do in many cases is to appeal to authority: the collective opinion of experts in a field. Heck, even in one's own area of specialty, one can't know everything. I can't personally evaluate every possible programming language or database in the world before choosing something; I take a clue from common opinion and narrow my search from there. Really, this is one of the things that makes civilization possible.

ddkrone 16y ago

How's her degree relevant other than the fact that it lends even more credibility to the fact that the piece is very well written.

roc 16y ago

Education reflects a major life decision, one which people feel strongly about. As such, it's very easy for emotion to trump a sober analysis of the situation and for the conversation to descend into the flinging of heated justifications. All sides are just as vulnerable to this.