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Your first point is definitely something I experienced in university a few times. Mostly in STEM classes. Your second point is very interesting because in gene

Your first point is definitely something I experienced in university a few times. Mostly in STEM classes. Your second point is very interesting because in general, the highest-tier schools tend to hire professors that are mostly academic researchers where teaching is more of a “side gig”. It seems this would directly translate to a worse learning experience. I definitely had experiences where a CS professor at the local community college was a better teacher than the equivalent professor at my university. The community college teacher worked as a software engineer in the real world. Had to onboard people, train junior devs, explain concepts to stakeholders, etc… From what I understand from reading this thread, most elite schools provide less in terms of instruction. The cheaper schools provide more “hand holding”. Just an interesting thought. Edit: clarification

r_hoods_ghost 5y ago
It's really interesting when you look at the UK system. Here we have former polytechnic universities that are equivalent to US community colleges and are more teaching focussed. Then you have your red brick and Russell group universities that are research focussed and where the teaching is often a bit shoddy as the academics see it as a distraction. Finally you have Oxford and Cambridge, which are very research focussed, the two most prestigious universities in the country, and also have a very intensive form of 2 or 3 to 1 tutorial teaching that is generally highly regarded, even if it does come perilously close to spoon feeding sometimes. So you can have high quality teaching at research focussed universities, but it certainly doesn't seem to be the norm. I'm more and more convinced that the research and teaching sides of a university should be separated out at this point for most subjects, at least for undergrads.
larrik 5y ago
The highest-tier schools are not a place to learn, but a place to pay to get their fancy name on your resume/transcript. Actually learning anything is your problem, not theirs.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Going to prestigious schools is about signaling and making connections, not receiving better instruction. One of my coworkers teaches cs at a community college, I've sat in on a class. The stuff he teaches is so much more useful than the stuff that was taught at my top 10 cs school it isn't even funny. He puts way more effort into teaching than almost any of my professors did, because to them, teaching was a nuisance. It's not what they signed up for. It's not why they're at the university. They're at the university to do research, the quality of instruction follows.

r_hoods_ghost 5y ago

It's really interesting when you look at the UK system. Here we have former polytechnic universities that are equivalent to US community colleges and are more teaching focussed. Then you have your red brick and Russell group universities that are research focussed and where the teaching is often a bit shoddy as the academics see it as a distraction. Finally you have Oxford and Cambridge, which are very research focussed, the two most prestigious universities in the country, and also have a very intensive form of 2 or 3 to 1 tutorial teaching that is generally highly regarded, even if it does come perilously close to spoon feeding sometimes. So you can have high quality teaching at research focussed universities, but it certainly doesn't seem to be the norm. I'm more and more convinced that the research and teaching sides of a university should be separated out at this point for most subjects, at least for undergrads.

larrik 5y ago

The highest-tier schools are not a place to learn, but a place to pay to get their fancy name on your resume/transcript. Actually learning anything is your problem, not theirs.

colinmhayes 5y ago

Going to prestigious schools is about signaling and making connections, not receiving better instruction. One of my coworkers teaches cs at a community college, I've sat in on a class. The stuff he teaches is so much more useful than the stuff that was taught at my top 10 cs school it isn't even funny. He puts way more effort into teaching than almost any of my professors did, because to them, teaching was a nuisance. It's not what they signed up for. It's not why they're at the university. They're at the university to do research, the quality of instruction follows.