4 ms·

The key differences: 1. if you aren't Stanford, trust is hard to gain, easy to lose, and nearly impossible to gain back once lost. One bad placement raises ala

The key differences: 1. if you aren't Stanford, trust is hard to gain, easy to lose, and nearly impossible to gain back once lost. One bad placement raises alarms and more than one poisons the well for an entire degree program. There aren't many regional employers per degree program, and national/global employers are a "reach job" for most students. This is something that non-elite institutions know in a visceral and painful way. They are so careful with the few regionally well-regarded degree programs they manage to build. The folly of VC world was obvious to those faculty, and their students (such as me), from the start. 2. if you aren't Stanford, most of your students probably really do need a couple years (at least) of in-person instruction before they are ready for the labor force. Again, anyone who has taught at one of these institutions just knows! Once every 10 years you get the type who didn't really need the degree to learn the material, and you do your best to elevate them past the institution's typical bar for outcomes. But the other 9 years, 100% of students require a lot of real work before they are ready. In other words, most institutions cannot afford to signal without that signal being extremely accurate. AND they don't have the type of students who don't really need the education. So they educate students and then signal the value of hose students not just through grades but also especially through things like referrals, letters, and so on. But, again, I wouldn't expect a Stanford or UIUC or Michigan grad to understand this world.

HDThoreaun 4y ago
You again seem to be caught up in thinking “learning the material” is why employers want employees to have degrees. The material is worthless to them. I agree that most students do learn a lot from college, but it’s stuff like “how manage your time” and “how to succeed with minimal oversight” not calculus 2.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  > You again seem to be caught up in thinking “learning the material” is why employers want employees to have degrees. Because it is. I'm not bullshitting. I talk with a lot of our top employers. They care about the actual skills and knowledge students bring. They can find plenty of people with good temperaments to promote into those roles if they only need warm bodies with good time management skills. > I agree that most students do learn a lot from college, but it’s stuff like “how manage your time” and “how to succeed with minimal oversight” not calculus 2. This simply isn't true for most students in most regional economies. No one is paying a premium for a piece of paper anymore.
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    It sounds like you are a math teacher, so I suspect your experience is because you are speaking to employers who are looking to hire math students. In that case I agree, calculus is important. For students outside of STEM it’s a different story in my experience.
    - thwayunion 4y ago
      I am not a math teacher. I have not taught professionally in a long time, and even then it was temporary and not in math. But I know Calc II in particular is an interesting crucible in terms of students' abilities to learn from an internet module. I work in the software industry and serve on committees/boards for several schools with which I have various affiliations. I speak with all types of employers for all types of students, in my capacity as a member of those committees/boards. Ranging from high school dropouts finishing their high school diploma later in life to masters students. My comments here are mostly about traditional undergraduate students, though.
      - clpm4j 4y ago
        It has long been a tradition of Wall Street to hire Ivy grads with name-your-social-studies major (History, Government, English, Philosophy) into investment banking analyst roles. These kids then proceed to live in Excel and Powerpoint for 2+ years. They get hired for the reasons that the parent commenter stated. It's different out here in the tech/startup world - you truly need the skillset beforehand to step into the role, but I imagine there are plenty of other industries similar to Wall St where they just want someone young and smart who they can train to do the job. The core curriculum gets thrown out the window - it's about time management, self motivation to be successful, smart enough to deal with ambiguity, etc.
        thwayunion 4y ago
        Yes, I understand. I think the last ten years of Ed Tech startups are people from that class losing huge amounts of LP money because they don't understand that this is not how the other 99% of higher education works.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

You again seem to be caught up in thinking “learning the material” is why employers want employees to have degrees. The material is worthless to them. I agree that most students do learn a lot from college, but it’s stuff like “how manage your time” and “how to succeed with minimal oversight” not calculus 2.

thwayunion 4y ago
> You again seem to be caught up in thinking “learning the material” is why employers want employees to have degrees. Because it is. I'm not bullshitting. I talk with a lot of our top employers. They care about the actual skills and knowledge students bring. They can find plenty of people with good temperaments to promote into those roles if they only need warm bodies with good time management skills. > I agree that most students do learn a lot from college, but it’s stuff like “how manage your time” and “how to succeed with minimal oversight” not calculus 2. This simply isn't true for most students in most regional economies. No one is paying a premium for a piece of paper anymore.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  It sounds like you are a math teacher, so I suspect your experience is because you are speaking to employers who are looking to hire math students. In that case I agree, calculus is important. For students outside of STEM it’s a different story in my experience.
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    I am not a math teacher. I have not taught professionally in a long time, and even then it was temporary and not in math. But I know Calc II in particular is an interesting crucible in terms of students' abilities to learn from an internet module. I work in the software industry and serve on committees/boards for several schools with which I have various affiliations. I speak with all types of employers for all types of students, in my capacity as a member of those committees/boards. Ranging from high school dropouts finishing their high school diploma later in life to masters students. My comments here are mostly about traditional undergraduate students, though.
    - clpm4j 4y ago
      It has long been a tradition of Wall Street to hire Ivy grads with name-your-social-studies major (History, Government, English, Philosophy) into investment banking analyst roles. These kids then proceed to live in Excel and Powerpoint for 2+ years. They get hired for the reasons that the parent commenter stated. It's different out here in the tech/startup world - you truly need the skillset beforehand to step into the role, but I imagine there are plenty of other industries similar to Wall St where they just want someone young and smart who they can train to do the job. The core curriculum gets thrown out the window - it's about time management, self motivation to be successful, smart enough to deal with ambiguity, etc.
      - thwayunion 4y ago
        Yes, I understand. I think the last ten years of Ed Tech startups are people from that class losing huge amounts of LP money because they don't understand that this is not how the other 99% of higher education works.