5 ms·

If students went to college only to learn, colleges wouldn't bother giving diplomas. Compare: My piano teacher doesn't give diplomas because none of her studen

If students went to college only to learn, colleges wouldn't bother giving diplomas. Compare: My piano teacher doesn't give diplomas because none of her students would care, her students actually want to learn. When my piano teacher cancels class, I am disappointed because I wanted to learn. My piano teacher doesn't need to threaten me with bad grades to get me to practice outside of class (analogous to homework), because I actually want to learn. There are many college students for whom none of these tests would pass. They would not attend if there was no diploma, they're relieved when their professors cancel class, and they need to be bullied into studying outside of class. What made us think these students were ever interested in learning in the first place? Instead, it seems more likely that they just want a degree because they believe that a degree will give them an advantage in the job market. Many people will never use the information that they supposedly learn in college, and they're aware of this when they enroll. Personally, the fact that they can now get a degree with even less wasted effort than before doesn't bother me one bit. People who want to learn still have every opportunity to.

Suppafly 1y ago
I don't think that's a good comparison. I went college to learn and was also relieved occasionally when professors canceled class and still had to force myself to study. I'm sure plenty of your piano teachers students don't enjoy practicing the same notes over and over but do so because they want to know how to play piano.
MengerSponge 1y ago
This is, famously, why nobody gets a degree in fine arts. (/s) Your piano teacher does not give a diploma because she is not offering a university education. If she worked with a few other experts and they designed a coordinated curriculum and shepherded students through it over the course of two to four years, and documented that process to the point where they could file with an accrediting agency, then she could issue a degree in piano.
- godelski 1y ago
  > then she could issue a degree in piano. It's worth noting, plenty of universities do this. You can get a degree "in piano".
  - aniforprez 1y ago
    Yes they did actually say that. They go into the process of accreditation that would result in a person or institute being able to give a degree "in piano"
    - godelski 1y ago
      Not every reply is written to disagree.
  - TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
    You can get a BMus in Piano Performance, which is a standard music degree with a piano performance specialisation. It's not a special thing of its own kind, and it's normal for performers in music college to specialise in one instrument, usually with a second as an elective. Being able to play moderately hard pieces from dots and sight-reading are the entry level requirement. It's taken for granted you can already do that. The degree part means learning music history, theory, and performance styles, working on performance projects, solo and with other musicians. The analogy with ChatGPT is that it's taking over the entry-level part of the process. You can't expect to get onto a music degree if you only know how to prompt ChatGPT to produce a MIDI file for your entrance exam. And in CS, you can't produce good code if you barely know what a server is. It's all very Dunning Kruger. If you use an LLM to produce course work to get your piece of paper at the end, you don't even know what prompts you should use to do an unfamiliar job, never mind having the skills to do it yourself.
rohansood15 1y ago
Students want the diploma because it has value. It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed.
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  Soon? I hire people now and where they went to school means little to me. The first priority is “can they do the work?” which is a niche programming. After that is established, I barely take note of school. I don’t personally count a CS degree as an indication the person is a good programmer, or thinks logically, or has good work ethic.
  - ozim 1y ago
    Problem is you most likely don’t have that big operation. For company I work for we hire 1 dev per year and I believe last year we did not even hire a single person. So I do have time to check up the candidate do 3 rounds each 1 hr so that candidates can see what company are we and what person is the candidate. We also are small company so we don’t get that many applicants anyway. I cannot imagine how it goes when someone needs to hire 20 devs in one quarter. Especially for a company that is any way known and they can get 1000CVs for a single position. They need to filter somehow.
    - betterThanTexas 1y ago
      You could just as easily filter by having a github repo. It doesn't even need to be active or very full. Hell, that would also filter out a lot of people with college degrees! Might even save you time. In my experience, only very large and bureaucratic institutions (governments, schools) really demand degrees and certifications.
  - 6510 1y ago
    HR seems a lot like real estate appraisal as~in appraisers know nothing about construction. One could in theory establish the value of a thing or person by comparing it with similar things but if everyone does that the process becomes senseless. If a working car is worth 5000, the same car from the same year with a defect that costs 1000 to fix should be worth 4000. If the repair costs 6000 there is no car.
sublinear 1y ago
Yes, but piano lessons are not a music degree. Similarly, vocational programs or apprenticeships are not a formal education either. I find a lot of these comments more disturbing than the concerns about AI.
- dmazzoni 1y ago
  But if your goal is to be a musician, a music degree is basically useless. Whether you want to play in an orchestra, perform in a rock band, or compose video game soundtracks, nobody cares whether you have a degree or not - they want to hear you perform.
  - dragonmost 1y ago
    Not only is that not true at all. There are many other jobs you can land other than performing with a formal music degree. Of course with the right experience you might get away with not getting that formal education but you open so many doors by going through school and getting the "useless" piece of paper.
  - dontTREATonme 1y ago
    Case in point: Rachel “Raygun” Gunn. She had all the credentials in the world but single-handedly became the reason break dancing is no longer in the Olympics.
    - dwighttk 1y ago
      Slight overstatement… break dancing was one of the locally picked sports and the next Olympics had already selected different sports before she performed… But she is a good example of degrees not equaling skill
      - thugthrasher 1y ago
        It should also be noted that she doesn't have a degree in "performing," as far as I'm aware, she has a degree in "studying the culture" of break dancing. So, we (or at least any of us who haven't read her work) don't actually know if she's good at what her degree is in. We just know that she's not good at performing.
dmazzoni 1y ago
Consider that there is some in-between. Some college students may be genuinely interested in one particular subject, but they're required to take a bunch of other courses, and consider those to just be hurdles. I still think they're better off at least making an effort and trying to learn something, but I do think it's important to note that just because a student has no interest in one particular class, doesn't mean they have no interest in any class.
- inanutshellus 1y ago
  There is no in-between here. Consider: The course I'm interested in gets kinda hard, and my "just pull up an LLM" muscle is very, very strong, (and besides, I'm not used to struggling! and why should I get used to it in the classes i like?! I can't afford a C in my major!) so ... I use LLMs on my "I'm interested in it" class too and... we're back to the original argument.
ijidak 1y ago
Absolutely. Also, the level of cheating in college, even pre-AI is often overlooked in these articles. For the exact reasons you state, pre-AI homework was often copied and then individuals just crammed for the tests. AI is not the problem for these students, it's that many students are only in it for the diploma. If it wasn't AI it would just be copying the assignment from a classmate or previous grad. And I imagine the students who really want to learn are still learning because they didn't cheat then, and they aren't letting AI do the thinking for them now.
Moru 1y ago
There are jobs that turns you down if you don't have that diploma. No amount of real world experience will get you past that bar. If it's not there, they wont even look at the rest of your application.
ascorbic 1y ago
Most people don't go to college to learn for the sake of learning – that would be a very expensive luxury. They go for the opportunities that it opens up. The learning itself helps with that, but so does being able to prove that they've learned it. That what the diploma is meant to be for.
- simonask 1y ago
  That's a US-centric view. A huge number of people in the world have access to high level education free of charge.
  - garygatory 1y ago
    Opportunity cost is cost.
  - ascorbic 1y ago
    I'm not American. I said most people, and most people in the world don't have free university education.
tayo42 1y ago
> students went to college only to learn, colleges wouldn't bother giving diplomas. You have this option with things like mits open courseware. Some colleges are OK with you just wanting to learn
johnnyanmac 1y ago
I think several orthogonal concepts are touched in this. 1. Students given bad incentives to be thrown into a system with a completely different purpose than their main goal. Then those jobs turning face to suddenly say "schools teach you nothing" and even refuse to hire the newest generation. 2. Students in general not being stimulated by primary school and given direction and vision on what to do in life. Simply being pushed by parents to "be successful". 3. The crippling reality as of late that a job doesn't even guarantee keeling a roof over your head anymore. Leading to discouragement to even bother trying. 4. Connected to #2, the decline of various apprenticeships, internships (which are now a college recruiting pipeline), and other ways to invest in employees. Even if they complain about new grad output, they are still content outsourcing such training instead of investing in their employees for a career. There's a lot of systems failing which can arguably cause an entire collapse in the country. Then no one will get an opportunity to properly learn.
eptcyka 1y ago
Sure, if we can agree that there exist courses for which we can agree that using an LLM to pass is a reasonable thing to do, would we also not agree that the course should be nuked from orbit?
importantbrian 1y ago
I'm not sure this is entirely fair. When I was in college I genuinely enjoyed learning and now that I'm out of school I still spend time learning about the subjects of my major and minor in my free time, but this would have described me pretty well in school, "they're relieved when their professors cancel class, and they need to be bullied into studying outside of class." I love to learn, but something about being forced to do it makes me rebel against it. In some ways offering the diploma and all the requirements that go with that take the joy out of the learning for me.

Suppafly 1y ago

I don't think that's a good comparison. I went college to learn and was also relieved occasionally when professors canceled class and still had to force myself to study. I'm sure plenty of your piano teachers students don't enjoy practicing the same notes over and over but do so because they want to know how to play piano.

MengerSponge 1y ago

This is, famously, why nobody gets a degree in fine arts. (/s) Your piano teacher does not give a diploma because she is not offering a university education. If she worked with a few other experts and they designed a coordinated curriculum and shepherded students through it over the course of two to four years, and documented that process to the point where they could file with an accrediting agency, then she could issue a degree in piano.

godelski 1y ago
> then she could issue a degree in piano. It's worth noting, plenty of universities do this. You can get a degree "in piano".
- aniforprez 1y ago
  Yes they did actually say that. They go into the process of accreditation that would result in a person or institute being able to give a degree "in piano"
  - godelski 1y ago
    Not every reply is written to disagree.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  You can get a BMus in Piano Performance, which is a standard music degree with a piano performance specialisation. It's not a special thing of its own kind, and it's normal for performers in music college to specialise in one instrument, usually with a second as an elective. Being able to play moderately hard pieces from dots and sight-reading are the entry level requirement. It's taken for granted you can already do that. The degree part means learning music history, theory, and performance styles, working on performance projects, solo and with other musicians. The analogy with ChatGPT is that it's taking over the entry-level part of the process. You can't expect to get onto a music degree if you only know how to prompt ChatGPT to produce a MIDI file for your entrance exam. And in CS, you can't produce good code if you barely know what a server is. It's all very Dunning Kruger. If you use an LLM to produce course work to get your piece of paper at the end, you don't even know what prompts you should use to do an unfamiliar job, never mind having the skills to do it yourself.

rohansood15 1y ago

Students want the diploma because it has value. It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed.

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
Soon? I hire people now and where they went to school means little to me. The first priority is “can they do the work?” which is a niche programming. After that is established, I barely take note of school. I don’t personally count a CS degree as an indication the person is a good programmer, or thinks logically, or has good work ethic.
- ozim 1y ago
  Problem is you most likely don’t have that big operation. For company I work for we hire 1 dev per year and I believe last year we did not even hire a single person. So I do have time to check up the candidate do 3 rounds each 1 hr so that candidates can see what company are we and what person is the candidate. We also are small company so we don’t get that many applicants anyway. I cannot imagine how it goes when someone needs to hire 20 devs in one quarter. Especially for a company that is any way known and they can get 1000CVs for a single position. They need to filter somehow.
  - betterThanTexas 1y ago
    You could just as easily filter by having a github repo. It doesn't even need to be active or very full. Hell, that would also filter out a lot of people with college degrees! Might even save you time. In my experience, only very large and bureaucratic institutions (governments, schools) really demand degrees and certifications.
- 6510 1y ago
  HR seems a lot like real estate appraisal as~in appraisers know nothing about construction. One could in theory establish the value of a thing or person by comparing it with similar things but if everyone does that the process becomes senseless. If a working car is worth 5000, the same car from the same year with a defect that costs 1000 to fix should be worth 4000. If the repair costs 6000 there is no car.

sublinear 1y ago

Yes, but piano lessons are not a music degree. Similarly, vocational programs or apprenticeships are not a formal education either. I find a lot of these comments more disturbing than the concerns about AI.

dmazzoni 1y ago
But if your goal is to be a musician, a music degree is basically useless. Whether you want to play in an orchestra, perform in a rock band, or compose video game soundtracks, nobody cares whether you have a degree or not - they want to hear you perform.
- dragonmost 1y ago
  Not only is that not true at all. There are many other jobs you can land other than performing with a formal music degree. Of course with the right experience you might get away with not getting that formal education but you open so many doors by going through school and getting the "useless" piece of paper.
- dontTREATonme 1y ago
  Case in point: Rachel “Raygun” Gunn. She had all the credentials in the world but single-handedly became the reason break dancing is no longer in the Olympics.
  - dwighttk 1y ago
    Slight overstatement… break dancing was one of the locally picked sports and the next Olympics had already selected different sports before she performed… But she is a good example of degrees not equaling skill
    - thugthrasher 1y ago
      It should also be noted that she doesn't have a degree in "performing," as far as I'm aware, she has a degree in "studying the culture" of break dancing. So, we (or at least any of us who haven't read her work) don't actually know if she's good at what her degree is in. We just know that she's not good at performing.

dmazzoni 1y ago

Consider that there is some in-between. Some college students may be genuinely interested in one particular subject, but they're required to take a bunch of other courses, and consider those to just be hurdles. I still think they're better off at least making an effort and trying to learn something, but I do think it's important to note that just because a student has no interest in one particular class, doesn't mean they have no interest in any class.

inanutshellus 1y ago
There is no in-between here. Consider: The course I'm interested in gets kinda hard, and my "just pull up an LLM" muscle is very, very strong, (and besides, I'm not used to struggling! and why should I get used to it in the classes i like?! I can't afford a C in my major!) so ... I use LLMs on my "I'm interested in it" class too and... we're back to the original argument.

ijidak 1y ago

Absolutely. Also, the level of cheating in college, even pre-AI is often overlooked in these articles. For the exact reasons you state, pre-AI homework was often copied and then individuals just crammed for the tests. AI is not the problem for these students, it's that many students are only in it for the diploma. If it wasn't AI it would just be copying the assignment from a classmate or previous grad. And I imagine the students who really want to learn are still learning because they didn't cheat then, and they aren't letting AI do the thinking for them now.

Moru 1y ago

There are jobs that turns you down if you don't have that diploma. No amount of real world experience will get you past that bar. If it's not there, they wont even look at the rest of your application.

ascorbic 1y ago

Most people don't go to college to learn for the sake of learning – that would be a very expensive luxury. They go for the opportunities that it opens up. The learning itself helps with that, but so does being able to prove that they've learned it. That what the diploma is meant to be for.

simonask 1y ago
That's a US-centric view. A huge number of people in the world have access to high level education free of charge.
- garygatory 1y ago
  Opportunity cost is cost.
- ascorbic 1y ago
  I'm not American. I said most people, and most people in the world don't have free university education.

tayo42 1y ago

> students went to college only to learn, colleges wouldn't bother giving diplomas. You have this option with things like mits open courseware. Some colleges are OK with you just wanting to learn

johnnyanmac 1y ago

I think several orthogonal concepts are touched in this. 1. Students given bad incentives to be thrown into a system with a completely different purpose than their main goal. Then those jobs turning face to suddenly say "schools teach you nothing" and even refuse to hire the newest generation. 2. Students in general not being stimulated by primary school and given direction and vision on what to do in life. Simply being pushed by parents to "be successful". 3. The crippling reality as of late that a job doesn't even guarantee keeling a roof over your head anymore. Leading to discouragement to even bother trying. 4. Connected to #2, the decline of various apprenticeships, internships (which are now a college recruiting pipeline), and other ways to invest in employees. Even if they complain about new grad output, they are still content outsourcing such training instead of investing in their employees for a career. There's a lot of systems failing which can arguably cause an entire collapse in the country. Then no one will get an opportunity to properly learn.

eptcyka 1y ago

Sure, if we can agree that there exist courses for which we can agree that using an LLM to pass is a reasonable thing to do, would we also not agree that the course should be nuked from orbit?

importantbrian 1y ago

I'm not sure this is entirely fair. When I was in college I genuinely enjoyed learning and now that I'm out of school I still spend time learning about the subjects of my major and minor in my free time, but this would have described me pretty well in school, "they're relieved when their professors cancel class, and they need to be bullied into studying outside of class." I love to learn, but something about being forced to do it makes me rebel against it. In some ways offering the diploma and all the requirements that go with that take the joy out of the learning for me.