4 ms·

I will make this comment only because I perceive that it is mostly people who are much older than me and left education a while ago that are commenting. To me

by Ardit20 18y ago

I will make this comment only because I perceive that it is mostly people who are much older than me and left education a while ago that are commenting. To me personally ( I have not read the article imply replying to the comments) seems that people are generalising excessively and most importantly being very simplistic. Education is a very very very big thing, education almost encompasses life itself and everything that life entails. As such it is not very easy to find the right answer to the question of: how can we best develop the youngsters of today for the skills of tomorrow. For me personally I believe that the only way we can improve our educational system is by listening to the students and their criticisms or compliment for afterall it is them who are going through the day to day experiences of being taught. This approach is not perfect of course, but then hey nor is life. I simply think it is a much better aproach than allowing those who have been in a classroom 30 years ago dictating the order of the day although the posibilities are rather high that they have lost touch with the educational system. That is only one part but then academia is so uterly complex as to take into consideration the hierarchical society that we find ourselves in and maybe conciously or uncoinciously upper the standart for some places while lowering it for others.Maybe against even this taking students view into consideration can counterbalance it.

pmjordan 18y ago
I (relatively recently) studied at a UK university (among the top 10 according to league tables: a classic "oxford reject" university) so I'm not sure how transferrable my experiences are to the US education system. The UK's isn't quite as expensive ("only" about 1/5 to 1/6 of median gross income in tuition), but I certainly did notice that the majority of students seemed to be there primarily because their parents wanted them to, and/or because their secondary school teachers had basically tuned them towards university. Not because they were genuinely seeking the cerebral stimulation of their studies. The open days, etc. were also geared towards that attitude: parents, your kid will be safe here and is practically guaranteed a respectable middle class job after graduating; kids, it won't be so bad, look at all the non-studying activites you can do! I'd actually have to include myself into that group: I was basically pressured into studying physics by my parents and my physics teacher. Studying CompSci or EE or whatever never was on the table in the first place, after all that would've been an investment into the stuff that was causing me to go to bed late and doze at school, not for what I was winning prizes at school and beyond. Equally out of the question was not attending university: that's not what upper middle class kids do. Now halfway through my degree, I became self-aware and figured out that it was all crazy and it was all just leading me into the rat race, so I decided to try to make the best of the remaining time, but most students never did - they graduated and applied for jobs at companies that were recruiting at the university or they followed in their parents' footsteps. (FWIW I discovered I loved maths almost as much as programming, so I ended up taking as many mathsy modules as possible - unfortunately the university weren't flexible about this so I mostly did them without getting credit) I have to say I doubt asking the students is going to make much of a difference. You might get better bars and sports facilities at the universities, that's about it.
- zandorg 18y ago
  I took an AI course because I wanted to learn. I learned other technologies in the non-AI modules. I learned Lisp (aka Scheme), SQL, Prolog, CORBA, Java (I already knew C++), and Business (etc). My grades aren't good enough to get a job (I got a 2:2) but it doesn't matter - I can run my own business with what I know.
  - pmjordan 18y ago
    My point is that people like yourself are the exception.

by Ardit20 18y ago

pmjordan 18y ago

I (relatively recently) studied at a UK university (among the top 10 according to league tables: a classic "oxford reject" university) so I'm not sure how transferrable my experiences are to the US education system. The UK's isn't quite as expensive ("only" about 1/5 to 1/6 of median gross income in tuition), but I certainly did notice that the majority of students seemed to be there primarily because their parents wanted them to, and/or because their secondary school teachers had basically tuned them towards university. Not because they were genuinely seeking the cerebral stimulation of their studies. The open days, etc. were also geared towards that attitude: parents, your kid will be safe here and is practically guaranteed a respectable middle class job after graduating; kids, it won't be so bad, look at all the non-studying activites you can do! I'd actually have to include myself into that group: I was basically pressured into studying physics by my parents and my physics teacher. Studying CompSci or EE or whatever never was on the table in the first place, after all that would've been an investment into the stuff that was causing me to go to bed late and doze at school, not for what I was winning prizes at school and beyond. Equally out of the question was not attending university: that's not what upper middle class kids do. Now halfway through my degree, I became self-aware and figured out that it was all crazy and it was all just leading me into the rat race, so I decided to try to make the best of the remaining time, but most students never did - they graduated and applied for jobs at companies that were recruiting at the university or they followed in their parents' footsteps. (FWIW I discovered I loved maths almost as much as programming, so I ended up taking as many mathsy modules as possible - unfortunately the university weren't flexible about this so I mostly did them without getting credit) I have to say I doubt asking the students is going to make much of a difference. You might get better bars and sports facilities at the universities, that's about it.

zandorg 18y ago
I took an AI course because I wanted to learn. I learned other technologies in the non-AI modules. I learned Lisp (aka Scheme), SQL, Prolog, CORBA, Java (I already knew C++), and Business (etc). My grades aren't good enough to get a job (I got a 2:2) but it doesn't matter - I can run my own business with what I know.
- pmjordan 18y ago
  My point is that people like yourself are the exception.