5 ms·

I hope so. You can learn from youtube same as a professors lecturing.

Arainach 4y ago
Most people cannot. Not only are retention and learning radically different, the vast majority of people do not have the self discipline to go through the same amount of content. If a class isn't something you're immediately interested in and no one's forcing you to go, most people end up abandoning or skipping it. Watching only the fun parts or only the parts that seem to you to be immediately relevant to your current goal is not an education.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  Most people can’t even do what you are proposing. They just load up before a test and dump it afterwards because they haven’t created any sustainable system for remembering it past their exam.
- swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
  I agree with a lot of what you say except when you say "only the parts that seem to you to be immediately relevant to your current goal is not an education" I think this sort of learning can, for somebody who is motivated, exceed the knowledge gained at a university. College is meant to give you a holistic, comprehensive overview of your major. But you can get that from sheer experience and from continuing to learn from a variety of sources. Books are also great at providing holistic knowledge on topics.
  - throw6969away 4y ago
    > But you can get that from sheer experience and from continuing to learn from a variety of sources. Books are also... Learning is inherently painful. You are encoding boring new information into your brain, and most of it will be useless. From personal experience, 95% of the things you need to learn in CS or mathematics are boring. It is extremely difficult for most people to find motivation to do this. Schools (with grades, etc.) provide a structure to incentivize this.
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      It hurts me to read this. Because actually learning is inherently fun, or used to be. Why do kids have fun playing? Because they learn this way. Playing is learning. Or it used to, until the philosophy settled in, that playing is meant for wasting time (and you surely can waste time playing as most modern games are made for time killing) and learning has to be intentionally hard. The most effective way to learn new things for me, is still to play around with them. Whether it is compilers or a new graphical framework. And then systematically move on and read documentation about it. People can do this alone, but you are right that for most, including myself - a structured class can be very helpful. But it does not have to be a pain. The most I learned was in classes where the tutor understood how to teach in a fun and easy way.
      - throw6969away 4y ago
        > The most effective way to learn new things for me, is still to play around with them. Whether it is compilers or a new graphical framework. Compilers and UI APIs are easy to learn. I did it too. Education is the problem of teaching people much harder things. > It hurts me to read this Hey man, look, I was a great student and graduated from a good college with a 4.0 GPA with a math and CS degree, and now I've made a lot of money in industry. I am a huge proponent of the U.S. educational system and of the freedom of the individual to become educated. But there are hard things you have to do in life; unless your name is Erdős, who, btw, was on speed the whole time. It was relatively easy for me, but learning something real is something that is hard for all humans. The subjective experience of encoding millennia of information into your fleshy brain. Just like working out. The best way to work out is with a coach or buddy. There's a reason humans evolved to be social. Same is true with educational structures. Play-based learning is a fad designed to satisfy liberal white women. Real, practical results come from overcoming challenge.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        throw6969away 4y ago
        > Play-based learning is a fad designed to satisfy liberal white women. After more research about the history of alternative education, I don't think this was accurate. I feel bad for resorting to stereotype. "Liberal" is absolutely correct here, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_education https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_education "White" is iffy. In my experience in the U.S., thinking about alternative education is a luxury that only some can afford to do. Therefore, it is an issue of affluence. "Women" was out of line. This is not an issue of gender, not role, and I think it was harmful to reinforce certain traditional roles here. I lied about my GPA btw, it was around 3.8. Math is hard. And I only went to a mid-tier state school. It was only "good" in that I enjoyed it and learned a lot. It was difficult for me to find a job even in the bull market of 2009-2020. But even though my personal outcome wasn't completely ideal, I still believe in the value of structured education with its grades, sorting, ranking, etc. because, at its best, it drives you to separate the learning from the intrinsic reward (which is necessary to learn the boring things you need to), and to simply be accountable for yourself. I don't think another human (besides Thoreau), or play, can provide that; these lessons must come from the heartless industrial machine.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >Watching only the fun parts or only the parts that seem to you to be immediately relevant to your current goal is not an education. The vast majority of tech nerds turned IT professionals self-taught themselves how computers work by being concerned only on what interested them at the time.
throw6969away 4y ago
The learning happens via the subsequent homework and exams. In order to learn, you must be tested.
tmhn2 4y ago
Feedback is critical, though. I imagine many folks who have watched a lot of videos on, say, economics or history or physics or whatever else hugely overestimate what they understand since they get no expert feedback to test their understanding. Programmers tend to like self-teaching since it's very easy to get that feedback--write the code and see if it works! But not every subject is that way.
lithos 4y ago
Returning to college, YouTube videos are far higher quality and ability than most lecturers. It's nearly impossible for for a "speech" to beat someone with unlimited retakes/recuts/similar anyways. The places where professors should beat a YouTuber is being able to use experience from past classes (which they kinda don't seem to, since there's always a video for common misconceptions). And cases where it's impossible to "watch" with classes that need a high level of participation. Of course something like grades are a good driver to get students to cover every topic, instead of grazing the ones they like. (Again not something impossible to get gamified a different way).

Most people cannot. Not only are retention and learning radically different, the vast majority of people do not have the self discipline to go through the same amount of content. If a class isn't something you're immediately interested in and no one's forcing you to go, most people end up abandoning or skipping it. Watching only the fun parts or only the parts that seem to you to be immediately relevant to your current goal is not an education.

birdyrooster 4y ago
Most people can’t even do what you are proposing. They just load up before a test and dump it afterwards because they haven’t created any sustainable system for remembering it past their exam.
swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
I agree with a lot of what you say except when you say "only the parts that seem to you to be immediately relevant to your current goal is not an education" I think this sort of learning can, for somebody who is motivated, exceed the knowledge gained at a university. College is meant to give you a holistic, comprehensive overview of your major. But you can get that from sheer experience and from continuing to learn from a variety of sources. Books are also great at providing holistic knowledge on topics.
- throw6969away 4y ago
  > But you can get that from sheer experience and from continuing to learn from a variety of sources. Books are also... Learning is inherently painful. You are encoding boring new information into your brain, and most of it will be useless. From personal experience, 95% of the things you need to learn in CS or mathematics are boring. It is extremely difficult for most people to find motivation to do this. Schools (with grades, etc.) provide a structure to incentivize this.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    It hurts me to read this. Because actually learning is inherently fun, or used to be. Why do kids have fun playing? Because they learn this way. Playing is learning. Or it used to, until the philosophy settled in, that playing is meant for wasting time (and you surely can waste time playing as most modern games are made for time killing) and learning has to be intentionally hard. The most effective way to learn new things for me, is still to play around with them. Whether it is compilers or a new graphical framework. And then systematically move on and read documentation about it. People can do this alone, but you are right that for most, including myself - a structured class can be very helpful. But it does not have to be a pain. The most I learned was in classes where the tutor understood how to teach in a fun and easy way.
    - throw6969away 4y ago
      > The most effective way to learn new things for me, is still to play around with them. Whether it is compilers or a new graphical framework. Compilers and UI APIs are easy to learn. I did it too. Education is the problem of teaching people much harder things. > It hurts me to read this Hey man, look, I was a great student and graduated from a good college with a 4.0 GPA with a math and CS degree, and now I've made a lot of money in industry. I am a huge proponent of the U.S. educational system and of the freedom of the individual to become educated. But there are hard things you have to do in life; unless your name is Erdős, who, btw, was on speed the whole time. It was relatively easy for me, but learning something real is something that is hard for all humans. The subjective experience of encoding millennia of information into your fleshy brain. Just like working out. The best way to work out is with a coach or buddy. There's a reason humans evolved to be social. Same is true with educational structures. Play-based learning is a fad designed to satisfy liberal white women. Real, practical results come from overcoming challenge.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - throw6969away 4y ago
        > Play-based learning is a fad designed to satisfy liberal white women. After more research about the history of alternative education, I don't think this was accurate. I feel bad for resorting to stereotype. "Liberal" is absolutely correct here, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_education https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_education "White" is iffy. In my experience in the U.S., thinking about alternative education is a luxury that only some can afford to do. Therefore, it is an issue of affluence. "Women" was out of line. This is not an issue of gender, not role, and I think it was harmful to reinforce certain traditional roles here. I lied about my GPA btw, it was around 3.8. Math is hard. And I only went to a mid-tier state school. It was only "good" in that I enjoyed it and learned a lot. It was difficult for me to find a job even in the bull market of 2009-2020. But even though my personal outcome wasn't completely ideal, I still believe in the value of structured education with its grades, sorting, ranking, etc. because, at its best, it drives you to separate the learning from the intrinsic reward (which is necessary to learn the boring things you need to), and to simply be accountable for yourself. I don't think another human (besides Thoreau), or play, can provide that; these lessons must come from the heartless industrial machine.
Dalewyn 4y ago
>Watching only the fun parts or only the parts that seem to you to be immediately relevant to your current goal is not an education. The vast majority of tech nerds turned IT professionals self-taught themselves how computers work by being concerned only on what interested them at the time.

throw6969away 4y ago

The learning happens via the subsequent homework and exams. In order to learn, you must be tested.

tmhn2 4y ago

Feedback is critical, though. I imagine many folks who have watched a lot of videos on, say, economics or history or physics or whatever else hugely overestimate what they understand since they get no expert feedback to test their understanding. Programmers tend to like self-teaching since it's very easy to get that feedback--write the code and see if it works! But not every subject is that way.

lithos 4y ago

Returning to college, YouTube videos are far higher quality and ability than most lecturers. It's nearly impossible for for a "speech" to beat someone with unlimited retakes/recuts/similar anyways. The places where professors should beat a YouTuber is being able to use experience from past classes (which they kinda don't seem to, since there's always a video for common misconceptions). And cases where it's impossible to "watch" with classes that need a high level of participation. Of course something like grades are a good driver to get students to cover every topic, instead of grazing the ones they like. (Again not something impossible to get gamified a different way).