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Doesn't really add up for me, because it's very obvious that university is definitely not purely about learning, and even if that was the case why does self-tea

Doesn't really add up for me, because it's very obvious that university is definitely not purely about learning, and even if that was the case why does self-teaching from open university courses tend to have zero weight with employers? Because the degree itself has status/signal/meaning. In reality the benefits are far closer to purely financial gain than purely learning, and personally I found that the structure of university severely limited the amount I could learn.

xandrius 2y ago
The trick is to break through the self-imposed constraints and go audit/listen to whatever class/course you like, even if outside your program (in less modern/flexible universities, make sure to ask for permission, especially if the number of students is low.) If the time doesn't allow that, make friends with people in those courses/classes and ask them to forward to you the slides/presentations of their classes (or trade yours for their if they want to). Contact professors working on projects you are interested in, regardless of whether they are your professors and/or if it is your major. Since you'd be generally unpaid, you might have lots of freedom to modify the project as you need/please, or join what they are already doing. Check out facilities/available materials and other tools that the university provides. If you do that, you'll learn several orders of magnitude more than most students there. I did that pretty much at every uni I went to, and still managed to do some good amount of partying and part-time job.
- ZephyrBlu 2y ago
  Everything has opportunity cost and therefore constraints. I feel like you are oblivious to this. If I'm going to audit whatever classes I want, why would I even enroll in the university? Chances are if I asked nicely I could sit in, talk to the professors and even use some facilities. Part of the package with university is the structure. If you're saying people should throw that away, why are they even going to university? University is almost always "worth it" in terms of absolute gain, but I think its alpha over other approaches is very dubious when it comes to how much you will learn and improve your skillset. Depending on your goals, it can be a very poor learning environment.

xandrius 2y ago

The trick is to break through the self-imposed constraints and go audit/listen to whatever class/course you like, even if outside your program (in less modern/flexible universities, make sure to ask for permission, especially if the number of students is low.) If the time doesn't allow that, make friends with people in those courses/classes and ask them to forward to you the slides/presentations of their classes (or trade yours for their if they want to). Contact professors working on projects you are interested in, regardless of whether they are your professors and/or if it is your major. Since you'd be generally unpaid, you might have lots of freedom to modify the project as you need/please, or join what they are already doing. Check out facilities/available materials and other tools that the university provides. If you do that, you'll learn several orders of magnitude more than most students there. I did that pretty much at every uni I went to, and still managed to do some good amount of partying and part-time job.

ZephyrBlu 2y ago
Everything has opportunity cost and therefore constraints. I feel like you are oblivious to this. If I'm going to audit whatever classes I want, why would I even enroll in the university? Chances are if I asked nicely I could sit in, talk to the professors and even use some facilities. Part of the package with university is the structure. If you're saying people should throw that away, why are they even going to university? University is almost always "worth it" in terms of absolute gain, but I think its alpha over other approaches is very dubious when it comes to how much you will learn and improve your skillset. Depending on your goals, it can be a very poor learning environment.