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I don't know about India, but having spent many years on university, first as a student, later as a research director and representative at all levels from the

I don't know about India, but having spent many years on university, first as a student, later as a research director and representative at all levels from the department to the university board, and the later as I watched my own children move through the process, I have seen dramatic changes in higher ed turning university ever more into highschool. In the 'old' days it was basically up yo you. Assignments during the academic year were few and far between. Each course resulted in an exam at the end of the year. How you passed that was up to you. This meant you were modtly free gor 90% of your time to attend classes or not. You could use the university as a knowledge buffet attending interesting lectures outside of your own field of study, get straight into the specialization topics that were the real reason you were attracted to field in the first place (AI in my case which was a very niche subject in those days) instead of just slogging through the generalist foundation courses (80% math in those days, physics, economics and some CS). These days students are bombarded with assignmments all year, with exams pepered throughout. This inflicts nearly full class attendance requirement and constant deadline pressures. Yes, it makes it so credit can be acquired piecemeal instead of pass/failing in one massive shot, but it reduces autonomy to near 0.

gsf_emergency_2 2y ago
Tangentially, this means there's an entirely non-niche market for AI-based uh ... nonautonomous aids. With closed-book pen & paper exams (e.g. in India), not so much.
HPsquared 2y ago
For me, personally, I don't think I'd have coped with the constant stress of all these obligations and assignments throughout the year. Much better to have a couple of weeks intense focus at the end of the year, I can manage that.
- dijit 2y ago
  Yeah, I’m also like that. Infinitely curious and motivated when there’s a vague and nebulous problem in the future, as long as I can sorta see my improvements along the way. But assignments, idk, I don’t put as much of my curiosity on it. I was terrible at coursework and wonderful at tests largely for this reason.
mattjhall 2y ago
> In the 'old' days it was basically up yo you. Assignments during the academic year were few and far between. Each course resulted in an exam at the end of the year. How you passed that was up to you. Interestingly I think is exactly what the article is arguing against and is saying India is too much like. > You could use the university as a knowledge buffet attending interesting lectures outside of your own field of study, get straight into the specialization topics that were the real reason you were attracted to field in the first place (AI in my case which was a very niche subject in those days) instead of just slogging through the generalist foundation courses (80% math in those days, physics, economics and some CS). This sounds great for making academics, but terrible for educating a work force. Sadly, university is now the latter due to it being seen as a way to get ahead. One of the worst things to happen UK in my lifetime is tuition fees.
- collingreen 2y ago
  It is a great way for a few to excel and a terrible way to build a brand around the value of your diploma.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nonrandomstring 2y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with you. 30+ years in academia, I've taught all around the northern hemisphere at all kinds of universities and have written dozens of articles in Times Higher documenting the regress of higher learning institutions into kindergartens. It's not just that universities are no longer fit places for teaching, learning and research, but something bigger is at play, which I see as "the death of adulthood". HE institutions are leaders in this 'infantilisation' which is toxic to self-development and personal responsibility. A big factor is the aggressive intrusion of US BigTech; Turnitin, Grammarly etc... violating "proctoring" software, just a pathological and pointless quest systematise and lock-down absolutely everything. Another reason universities have been morally upended is putting vanity and appearance before substance. They care more about how they are seen, in league tables and in social media, than they care about their students. Self-deluding PR has made universities worse than some of the most cringe corporations. As a recovered "academic" prof (they are not really academies any longer but holding-pens and "degree vendors") I absolutely would not want my own kids to waste their time or money there.
- miningape 2y ago
  I had a very permissive highschool experience (nonetheless academically rigorous) so it was a complete system shock to be dropped into a university system which infantilised every step and process - it was like being back in middle school except I expected autonomy and to be held accountable for my (lack of) actions / knowledge / learning. And don't get me started on the administration which felt its need to weasel into every crevice, only to add unnecessary complexity and difficulty to otherwise simple processes (need to swap exam days with another student? - well, be prepared to start discussing it with admin months in advance with prepared letters from all stakeholders). Seemingly university administration only exists for the sake of having a university administration - and seems to be populated with the utter dregs of what that university put out that the market wouldn't hire (in other words: admin is where you go when you're too far up your own ass for a real business to get value from you). As a result, after a while most classmates didn't or couldn't think for themselves about anything. It was overall an extremely frustrating experience and I couldn't get out fast enough. I actually landed in hot water because I skipped too many classes (in my last year I only went to uni about 5 times, each for 1 of my 5 exams) but my grades were so much higher than the rest of the cohort they decided to allow me to graduate so as to improve their overall GPA for the class.
ghaff 2y ago
That wasn't at all my experience in either undergrad or grad school in the US. There were midterms and finals but also various problem sets and projects, whether individual or group.

gsf_emergency_2 2y ago

Tangentially, this means there's an entirely non-niche market for AI-based uh ... nonautonomous aids. With closed-book pen & paper exams (e.g. in India), not so much.

HPsquared 2y ago

For me, personally, I don't think I'd have coped with the constant stress of all these obligations and assignments throughout the year. Much better to have a couple of weeks intense focus at the end of the year, I can manage that.

dijit 2y ago
Yeah, I’m also like that. Infinitely curious and motivated when there’s a vague and nebulous problem in the future, as long as I can sorta see my improvements along the way. But assignments, idk, I don’t put as much of my curiosity on it. I was terrible at coursework and wonderful at tests largely for this reason.

mattjhall 2y ago

> In the 'old' days it was basically up yo you. Assignments during the academic year were few and far between. Each course resulted in an exam at the end of the year. How you passed that was up to you. Interestingly I think is exactly what the article is arguing against and is saying India is too much like. > You could use the university as a knowledge buffet attending interesting lectures outside of your own field of study, get straight into the specialization topics that were the real reason you were attracted to field in the first place (AI in my case which was a very niche subject in those days) instead of just slogging through the generalist foundation courses (80% math in those days, physics, economics and some CS). This sounds great for making academics, but terrible for educating a work force. Sadly, university is now the latter due to it being seen as a way to get ahead. One of the worst things to happen UK in my lifetime is tuition fees.

collingreen 2y ago
It is a great way for a few to excel and a terrible way to build a brand around the value of your diploma.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nonrandomstring 2y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with you. 30+ years in academia, I've taught all around the northern hemisphere at all kinds of universities and have written dozens of articles in Times Higher documenting the regress of higher learning institutions into kindergartens. It's not just that universities are no longer fit places for teaching, learning and research, but something bigger is at play, which I see as "the death of adulthood". HE institutions are leaders in this 'infantilisation' which is toxic to self-development and personal responsibility. A big factor is the aggressive intrusion of US BigTech; Turnitin, Grammarly etc... violating "proctoring" software, just a pathological and pointless quest systematise and lock-down absolutely everything. Another reason universities have been morally upended is putting vanity and appearance before substance. They care more about how they are seen, in league tables and in social media, than they care about their students. Self-deluding PR has made universities worse than some of the most cringe corporations. As a recovered "academic" prof (they are not really academies any longer but holding-pens and "degree vendors") I absolutely would not want my own kids to waste their time or money there.

miningape 2y ago
I had a very permissive highschool experience (nonetheless academically rigorous) so it was a complete system shock to be dropped into a university system which infantilised every step and process - it was like being back in middle school except I expected autonomy and to be held accountable for my (lack of) actions / knowledge / learning. And don't get me started on the administration which felt its need to weasel into every crevice, only to add unnecessary complexity and difficulty to otherwise simple processes (need to swap exam days with another student? - well, be prepared to start discussing it with admin months in advance with prepared letters from all stakeholders). Seemingly university administration only exists for the sake of having a university administration - and seems to be populated with the utter dregs of what that university put out that the market wouldn't hire (in other words: admin is where you go when you're too far up your own ass for a real business to get value from you). As a result, after a while most classmates didn't or couldn't think for themselves about anything. It was overall an extremely frustrating experience and I couldn't get out fast enough. I actually landed in hot water because I skipped too many classes (in my last year I only went to uni about 5 times, each for 1 of my 5 exams) but my grades were so much higher than the rest of the cohort they decided to allow me to graduate so as to improve their overall GPA for the class.

ghaff 2y ago

That wasn't at all my experience in either undergrad or grad school in the US. There were midterms and finals but also various problem sets and projects, whether individual or group.