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You appear to be conflating a few different things here. The primary thesis of your original post appears to be universities' shift toward getting people ready
by danaris 3y ago
You appear to be conflating a few different things here.
The primary thesis of your original post appears to be universities' shift toward getting people ready for careers that require advanced knowledge (and away from pure learning/research).
That has very little to do with research freedom and the race to publications. Those are both real phenomena, but a) it is arguable whether the former is actually a problem, and b) they are only very loosely connected.
The number of grad students being trained, by contrast, is much more likely to be related to the degree to which universities still value and practice learning for learning's sake—although I think it is somewhat less so than vkou wished to imply, since there are, in fact, plenty of non-academic jobs that do require or prefer a Masters or even a PhD.
- KuriousCat 3y agoYour premise is that if universities are training more grad students they are valuing independent exploration and encouraging learning for the sake of learning. I don't think it is true. If I am training 100 people to think alike, it is not valuing independent research and exploration. It is herding. Current grad students are "trained" to align with interests of few research labs/few personalities with lot less eccentricity and originality.
- danaris 3y agoI think you may be mixing me up with vkou...? My premise is, purely and simply, that you are conflating multiple things that are not the same.
- KuriousCat 3y agoThe point I was trying to make is this, the fear driven conformal behavioral training or we can even call it draining in this case during the formative years is making many people lean towards their zombie mode and is killing their critical questioning faculty. Even simple decisions like what phone I would use are shaped by the green tick marks and peer perception.