4 ms·

This is funny and true. The competition and prices all originate from elite institutions. I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could y

This is funny and true. The competition and prices all originate from elite institutions. I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? Down to the coursework? Or alternatively - force elite schools to license and manage franchisees? I'd vote for you.

dudeinjapan 4y ago
Alright! Every vote counts! > is it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Gray area. I'm no lawyer but AFAIK professor's syllabus/tests/etc. (being written documents) are subject to automatic copyright, I imagine the university is the holder of the copyright given that the prof is an employee. That being said, how many profs clone their syllabus/coursework directly from textbooks? The content of most online universities (Khan Academy, Coursera, etc.) is already superior to Ivy League based on first-hand experience of both. The bigger problem IMHO is that very little of the overall $$$ and energy at Ivy League is actually spent on course content. For many profs, esp. in STEM, teaching undergrad courses is a "chore" / distraction from their research work. I think there is opportunity to make a "lean-and-mean" physical university (perhaps online hybrid) with minimal admin overhead, which a degree could be on-par with MIT in terms of prestige. Is anyone doing this?
- 2snakes 4y ago
  Check out Minerva.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? MIT will do that for you themselves. https://ocw.mit.edu/ https://ocw.mit.edu/ Schools don't compete on curriculum. Nobody pays for it. Nobody cares about it. And in one particular case, I think the "conventional wisdom" has it right - the lectures don't really matter. You can record a lecture and then play it for any number of people, very cheaply. I recently watched a Chinese drama in which a minor plot element was a character (in the 80s) getting a degree from "the TV university", lectures available to the television-viewing public. (Having your own TV was out of the question, so she and her "classmates" would make long commutes to places that had a TV showing the lectures. This educational format has been very affordable for a very long time.) That format is not as good as actually having a lecturer, or a TA, who you can ask questions of. If you lose track of a recorded lecture, it will not help you find the thread. All a recorded lecture can ever do is repeat itself. A lecturer versus a lecture is the difference between moving forward and getting stuck.
- heisenbit 4y ago
  There is value in learning to get unstuck by yourself. Possibly more than in progressing along a paved road.
mdmglr 4y ago
Didn't everyone read Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al? It doesn't matter if the curriculum is the same between University of $STATE and MIT. From Amazon, Meta, Palantir, Microsoft etc will always choose candidates from the main elite schools first.
capitalsigma 4y ago
I've taken classes at a number of institutions of varying rigor. My experience is that less well ranked schools just do not expect the same quantity and quality of academic work as more prestigious schools, and the students at these schools are not interested in changing that. It's especially striking in math, where I saw e.g. cross listed masters level courses start off with a disclaimer that we won't be writing any proofs.
- hmmmmmm111 4y ago
  This is a misconception. In western Europe and Asia all college education is more rigorous than American college. And yet I don’t have the overall impression that the international bachelor’s people I know got something correlated out of the difference in rigor. It would be as obvious as the difference in rigor itself. It’s not.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    The rigor drives the signal. Biggest one is rigor of acceptance screening. It is about measuring and screening students, not educating them.

dudeinjapan 4y ago

Alright! Every vote counts! > is it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Gray area. I'm no lawyer but AFAIK professor's syllabus/tests/etc. (being written documents) are subject to automatic copyright, I imagine the university is the holder of the copyright given that the prof is an employee. That being said, how many profs clone their syllabus/coursework directly from textbooks? The content of most online universities (Khan Academy, Coursera, etc.) is already superior to Ivy League based on first-hand experience of both. The bigger problem IMHO is that very little of the overall $$$ and energy at Ivy League is actually spent on course content. For many profs, esp. in STEM, teaching undergrad courses is a "chore" / distraction from their research work. I think there is opportunity to make a "lean-and-mean" physical university (perhaps online hybrid) with minimal admin overhead, which a degree could be on-par with MIT in terms of prestige. Is anyone doing this?

2snakes 4y ago
Check out Minerva.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> I wonder if it legal to completely clone a curriculum? Like could you clone an MIT EECS education? MIT will do that for you themselves. https://ocw.mit.edu/ https://ocw.mit.edu/ Schools don't compete on curriculum. Nobody pays for it. Nobody cares about it. And in one particular case, I think the "conventional wisdom" has it right - the lectures don't really matter. You can record a lecture and then play it for any number of people, very cheaply. I recently watched a Chinese drama in which a minor plot element was a character (in the 80s) getting a degree from "the TV university", lectures available to the television-viewing public. (Having your own TV was out of the question, so she and her "classmates" would make long commutes to places that had a TV showing the lectures. This educational format has been very affordable for a very long time.) That format is not as good as actually having a lecturer, or a TA, who you can ask questions of. If you lose track of a recorded lecture, it will not help you find the thread. All a recorded lecture can ever do is repeat itself. A lecturer versus a lecture is the difference between moving forward and getting stuck.

heisenbit 4y ago
There is value in learning to get unstuck by yourself. Possibly more than in progressing along a paved road.

mdmglr 4y ago

Didn't everyone read Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al? It doesn't matter if the curriculum is the same between University of $STATE and MIT. From Amazon, Meta, Palantir, Microsoft etc will always choose candidates from the main elite schools first.

capitalsigma 4y ago

I've taken classes at a number of institutions of varying rigor. My experience is that less well ranked schools just do not expect the same quantity and quality of academic work as more prestigious schools, and the students at these schools are not interested in changing that. It's especially striking in math, where I saw e.g. cross listed masters level courses start off with a disclaimer that we won't be writing any proofs.

hmmmmmm111 4y ago
This is a misconception. In western Europe and Asia all college education is more rigorous than American college. And yet I don’t have the overall impression that the international bachelor’s people I know got something correlated out of the difference in rigor. It would be as obvious as the difference in rigor itself. It’s not.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  The rigor drives the signal. Biggest one is rigor of acceptance screening. It is about measuring and screening students, not educating them.