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Yeah, all those arts graduates filling prisons with dissidents. There are already calls in the comments for a similar system in other countries. Why should univ

Yeah, all those arts graduates filling prisons with dissidents. There are already calls in the comments for a similar system in other countries. Why should university be about getting a job? Shouldn't university be about learning, and being recognised for learning. A history major or a poetry degree may not be the best way to get a job but I would prefer to live in a society with poets and historians. Jobless, educated young people are copping a lot of flak from the media everywhere at the moment. They are a drain on the economy, "they are the 99%", they are having Arab springs where spring lasts all year, they are making molotovs in Greece. They are agents for changing society. The underlying current of this idea in education is that we should all be happy little workers. Universities have been commercialised away from being the places that brought about the Enlightenment to places for turning out more advanced labourers. Universities are becoming (some have already become) an extension of the standard school system. I found university to be a cacophony of ideas and viewpoints that until that point I had never really experienced. It introduced me to thoughts and ideas I may have never of experienced if I stayed in a small country town. Degree-mills rarely ever have this sort of environment and if all universities are reduced to churning out technical apprentices the world will be a worse place for it.

GHFigs 15y ago
The problem is not (e.g.) poets and historians, but that the supply of people-qualified-to-be-poets and people-qualified-to-be-historians exceeds the demand for them. (Full disclosure: I am a high school dropout, so I'm not qualified to do anything.)
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Agreed. I have a history degree, and program professionally. Universities are about expanding your mind, not turning into Good Employee.
- ColdAsIce 15y ago
  Well hey there mate, I have a BA in History and program professionally too. JavaEE at work, and python on GNU/Linux all the way at home.
- mahyarm 15y ago
  I don't need a university to expand my mind.
- SeanLuke 15y ago
  This feels like the anecdote. I suspect you're far from the typical history major case. How about all those history majors now working at McDonalds: were they well served by their mind-expansion experience?
Radim 15y ago
I didn't see any mentions of banning "poets and historians" in the article (though I just skimmed to be fair). What I saw was China cutting public funding for some majors. If someone wants to be a poet, or a historian, or anything else, more power to him. Why on everyone else's money, though? To be honest, if your calling to become a poet is stopped by a government's funding decision, you wouldn't have made much of a poet anyway.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ceol 15y ago
  How do you quantify the importance of a major compared to another? Certainly poets, historians, artists, and writers have more than a monetary importance in society. How do you measure the inspiration a great writer generates? How do you objectively compare the societal benefit of a mathematician versus a historian so that you can mete their funding accordingly? I see a lot of "bootstraps" comments in the tech field— specifically about the liberal arts— and it's a shame. I wouldn't be in this field if it weren't for some of those "worthless" degrees like English (great writing helps the learning process) and Design (people are attracted to good-looking websites). My apologies if I got a little ranty. It just irks me to see someone putting down another field of study as though they're a drain on society.
  - GHFigs 15y ago
    How do you objectively compare the societal benefit of a mathematician versus a historian so that you can mete their funding accordingly? From the article:The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which less than 60% of graduates fail for two consecutive years to find work. Setting aside the question of whether that is a particularly good method, I'd like to suggest that it's at least more objective and quantifiable than just presuming that a degree in any given subject is equally the cause of or prerequisite to greatness in a given field, and therefore of equal value. Great art doesn't depend on art degrees to the same extent that great science depends on science degrees.
est 15y ago
> Why should university be about getting a job? Shouldn't university be about learning, and being recognised for learning. Chinese university has a different definition. It's like vocational schools rather than college. Chinese vocational schools are like dirty work training camp.
justlearning 15y ago
I agree, although in theory. It would a different set of priorities for a single child whose parents toiled in government factories (or even to till land - often migrating across countries to work just because they were 'transferred'). The culture of aspiring to be an artist or a 'non-professional' (defined locally as not one who brings a pay check every month; not the freelancer kind) has yet to be cultivated. (The irony is - pre communism era was the opposite; it was artists all around)
jmilloy 15y ago
I don't think that cancelling a major automatically means that all liberal arts classes are nonexistent. I majored in math and cs, but went to France for a term, and took philosophy, drawing, music, history, and comparative literature. I don't think my school would become a degree mill just because it didn't offer a complete degree for history.
- fmota 15y ago
  On a global scale, a liberal arts curriculum is the exception, not the rule. I highly doubt that Chinese universities have liberal arts curricula.
- Tsagadai 15y ago
  I majored in CS and maths too and like you I also took advantage of various electives (psychology, philosophy, anatomy, genetics, public health). I spent a lot of my time attending friends lectures as well because you could just walk in and join the discussion without enrolling in the course. At university I would talk to people (students, academics, university staffers and researchers, hangers on) who specialised in an amazing array of topics. I would get interested in the practicalities of structural engineering for abstract architecture or plant sucrose transport channel manipulation simply by finding someone and talking to them about it. If a school doesn't offer an entire history program, the chances of meeting someone really interested and specialised in history go down dramatically. A program isn't cut in isolation, courses are dropped, academics are fired, research programs are ended and opportunities are lost. Some universities have cut back to only offering first year courses in humanities (which you could probably learn everything from such courses with wikipedia, Khan Academy and an understocked library). You are unlikely to find people with more than a passing interest in a field if it isn't available for research at a university. Cut enough programs (or only offer a few to start with) and the school is a degree mill. Highly specialised universities are often dead ends socially. They aren't fun places to visit, people are only there for that piece of paper that gets them a job. I've worked in a technical campus that was completely silent at night. The students would go across town to another university because "the music was better" or "it's more fun there". If there are no bands forming in an Engineering department there is something seriously wrong with the creative environment of the school or with the people who attend it. If you really want to find out why this is such a terrible idea go somewhere that has already done it.
potatolicious 15y ago
> "Shouldn't university be about learning, and being recognised for learning." Not when it costs six figures and puts people neck-deep in debt. I want to live in your utopian world, where people get educations just because. We would all be better off. But the truth of the matter is, for a lot of people there are two choices after high school: A - Pay $[bignum] for education that has high employability and will give them the knowledge and qualifications necessary to find work, which is absolutely necessary if they ever hope to repay said debt. B - Pay $[bignum] for education that has low employability and will not give them any of the qualifications sought for in in-demand jobs. They will still owe $[bignum] which will compromise all other aspects of their lives. I see your line of argument a lot whenever this topic comes up. My challenge to you is: besides a lot of feel-good platitudes, how will your system work? How will people feed themselves, clothe themselves, and put a roof over their head - their head full of wonderful perspectives and understanding but no job? The "we can all get comprehensive" education idea died when education became expensive. It died when globalization squeezed the American middle class to become more desperate and ever more critically reliant on continued employment. Far from being the norm, the age of comprehensive college education was a brief blip in thousands of years of human civilization lasting no more than a few decades. The gravy train has come to a full and complete stop, and it's time for industrialized nations to clue into something: life is tough. You scramble to survive. High-minded ideology comes second to the survival of yourself and your loved ones. If, in this topsy-turvy struggle you can find time to fit in a comprehensive education. Good for you - you won. The rest of the world isn't so lucky.
- bandushrew 15y ago
  Education plus time to think drives innovation. In your 'real' world where everyone must frantically scamble to survive, civilization never leaves the caves. We have massive surpluses across the world, 98%R of the wealth is owned by a tiny fraction of the people, food is piled up and wasted to protect markets, and yet there are still idiots claiming that we just cannot afford to educate everyone. We cannot afford not to, if we want to survive into the 22nd century and beyond. Its not a gravy train, our surpluses drove our technological advantages, which in turn drove our surpluses.

GHFigs 15y ago

The problem is not (e.g.) poets and historians, but that the supply of people-qualified-to-be-poets and people-qualified-to-be-historians exceeds the demand for them. (Full disclosure: I am a high school dropout, so I'm not qualified to do anything.)

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

Agreed. I have a history degree, and program professionally. Universities are about expanding your mind, not turning into Good Employee.

ColdAsIce 15y ago
Well hey there mate, I have a BA in History and program professionally too. JavaEE at work, and python on GNU/Linux all the way at home.
mahyarm 15y ago
I don't need a university to expand my mind.
SeanLuke 15y ago
This feels like the anecdote. I suspect you're far from the typical history major case. How about all those history majors now working at McDonalds: were they well served by their mind-expansion experience?

Radim 15y ago

I didn't see any mentions of banning "poets and historians" in the article (though I just skimmed to be fair). What I saw was China cutting public funding for some majors. If someone wants to be a poet, or a historian, or anything else, more power to him. Why on everyone else's money, though? To be honest, if your calling to become a poet is stopped by a government's funding decision, you wouldn't have made much of a poet anyway.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ceol 15y ago
How do you quantify the importance of a major compared to another? Certainly poets, historians, artists, and writers have more than a monetary importance in society. How do you measure the inspiration a great writer generates? How do you objectively compare the societal benefit of a mathematician versus a historian so that you can mete their funding accordingly? I see a lot of "bootstraps" comments in the tech field— specifically about the liberal arts— and it's a shame. I wouldn't be in this field if it weren't for some of those "worthless" degrees like English (great writing helps the learning process) and Design (people are attracted to good-looking websites). My apologies if I got a little ranty. It just irks me to see someone putting down another field of study as though they're a drain on society.
- GHFigs 15y ago
  How do you objectively compare the societal benefit of a mathematician versus a historian so that you can mete their funding accordingly? From the article:The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which less than 60% of graduates fail for two consecutive years to find work. Setting aside the question of whether that is a particularly good method, I'd like to suggest that it's at least more objective and quantifiable than just presuming that a degree in any given subject is equally the cause of or prerequisite to greatness in a given field, and therefore of equal value. Great art doesn't depend on art degrees to the same extent that great science depends on science degrees.

est 15y ago

> Why should university be about getting a job? Shouldn't university be about learning, and being recognised for learning. Chinese university has a different definition. It's like vocational schools rather than college. Chinese vocational schools are like dirty work training camp.

justlearning 15y ago

I agree, although in theory. It would a different set of priorities for a single child whose parents toiled in government factories (or even to till land - often migrating across countries to work just because they were 'transferred'). The culture of aspiring to be an artist or a 'non-professional' (defined locally as not one who brings a pay check every month; not the freelancer kind) has yet to be cultivated. (The irony is - pre communism era was the opposite; it was artists all around)

jmilloy 15y ago

I don't think that cancelling a major automatically means that all liberal arts classes are nonexistent. I majored in math and cs, but went to France for a term, and took philosophy, drawing, music, history, and comparative literature. I don't think my school would become a degree mill just because it didn't offer a complete degree for history.

fmota 15y ago
On a global scale, a liberal arts curriculum is the exception, not the rule. I highly doubt that Chinese universities have liberal arts curricula.
Tsagadai 15y ago
I majored in CS and maths too and like you I also took advantage of various electives (psychology, philosophy, anatomy, genetics, public health). I spent a lot of my time attending friends lectures as well because you could just walk in and join the discussion without enrolling in the course. At university I would talk to people (students, academics, university staffers and researchers, hangers on) who specialised in an amazing array of topics. I would get interested in the practicalities of structural engineering for abstract architecture or plant sucrose transport channel manipulation simply by finding someone and talking to them about it. If a school doesn't offer an entire history program, the chances of meeting someone really interested and specialised in history go down dramatically. A program isn't cut in isolation, courses are dropped, academics are fired, research programs are ended and opportunities are lost. Some universities have cut back to only offering first year courses in humanities (which you could probably learn everything from such courses with wikipedia, Khan Academy and an understocked library). You are unlikely to find people with more than a passing interest in a field if it isn't available for research at a university. Cut enough programs (or only offer a few to start with) and the school is a degree mill. Highly specialised universities are often dead ends socially. They aren't fun places to visit, people are only there for that piece of paper that gets them a job. I've worked in a technical campus that was completely silent at night. The students would go across town to another university because "the music was better" or "it's more fun there". If there are no bands forming in an Engineering department there is something seriously wrong with the creative environment of the school or with the people who attend it. If you really want to find out why this is such a terrible idea go somewhere that has already done it.

potatolicious 15y ago

> "Shouldn't university be about learning, and being recognised for learning." Not when it costs six figures and puts people neck-deep in debt. I want to live in your utopian world, where people get educations just because. We would all be better off. But the truth of the matter is, for a lot of people there are two choices after high school: A - Pay $[bignum] for education that has high employability and will give them the knowledge and qualifications necessary to find work, which is absolutely necessary if they ever hope to repay said debt. B - Pay $[bignum] for education that has low employability and will not give them any of the qualifications sought for in in-demand jobs. They will still owe $[bignum] which will compromise all other aspects of their lives. I see your line of argument a lot whenever this topic comes up. My challenge to you is: besides a lot of feel-good platitudes, how will your system work? How will people feed themselves, clothe themselves, and put a roof over their head - their head full of wonderful perspectives and understanding but no job? The "we can all get comprehensive" education idea died when education became expensive. It died when globalization squeezed the American middle class to become more desperate and ever more critically reliant on continued employment. Far from being the norm, the age of comprehensive college education was a brief blip in thousands of years of human civilization lasting no more than a few decades. The gravy train has come to a full and complete stop, and it's time for industrialized nations to clue into something: life is tough. You scramble to survive. High-minded ideology comes second to the survival of yourself and your loved ones. If, in this topsy-turvy struggle you can find time to fit in a comprehensive education. Good for you - you won. The rest of the world isn't so lucky.

bandushrew 15y ago
Education plus time to think drives innovation. In your 'real' world where everyone must frantically scamble to survive, civilization never leaves the caves. We have massive surpluses across the world, 98%R of the wealth is owned by a tiny fraction of the people, food is piled up and wasted to protect markets, and yet there are still idiots claiming that we just cannot afford to educate everyone. We cannot afford not to, if we want to survive into the 22nd century and beyond. Its not a gravy train, our surpluses drove our technological advantages, which in turn drove our surpluses.