8 ms·

And the pendulum swings back. While there are differences, fundamentally the proposition of mentors, internship-based learning, and living on site is not that

And the pendulum swings back. While there are differences, fundamentally the proposition of mentors, internship-based learning, and living on site is not that different from apprenticeships. There's a wider exposure to ideas, perhaps (because maybe you jump between internships instead of staying with one), but at its most basic level the proposed idea is training people to do jobs instead of trying to expand their thinking minds. Yes, there's lip service given to seminars, but it's evident in the quote (“Traditional universities… list the Nobel laureates… ours… would list the… entrepreneurs, inventors, and executives”) that academics are held in a certain amount of contempt. Let me be clear: I don't think there's anything wrong with this vision. This approach would probably be a success. It may be needed. The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job. I think we benefit from having more people being educated at a university level, but that benefit is not purely practical. I don't think the point of getting higher education is getting a job. I think it's an extension of the same reason we go to school: because an educated population drives knowledge further. Because when a large part of the population gets a Bachelors of some sort, they can reason better. And because when there are more people at that knowledge level, a larger part than before gets a Ph.D. And that helps society and humanity move forward faster. There's a tension right now between the university as a place to expand your mind and learn for the sake of learning and the university as a place where you prepare for a job. I think it's a good idea to play with that tension and that balance, and see what balance leads to better results in what way. But I think there is absolutely a place for universities as they are today, and I think their existence is part of what has driven us forward at the frenetic pace that we have seen the last several decades.

sridhar_vembu 14y ago
Let me be clear: I don't think there's anything wrong with this vision. This approach would probably be a success. It may be needed. The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job. I think we benefit from having more people being educated at a university level, but that benefit is not purely practical. I don't think the point of getting higher education is getting a job. -- I think the vast majority of us (I include myself) would be better off focusing on learning and finding meaning through work. I have learned to appreciate the finer things of life (literature, philosophy, art, music) outside the context of formal education, as I gained life experience and learned to reflect on that experience. I don't believe I could ever have appreciated philosophy as a 19 year old. I just did not have the life experiences to appreciate the questions it tries to ask. No professor can supply those experiences, and the best the system can do is to simulate it. So the traditional University, seeking truth, would continue to exist, but people would go there when their life experience propels them towards it. In crass business terms, we unbundle training in specific skills, the important task of earning a paycheck, from the abstract pursuit of truth. In that sense, the University becomes closer to how a religious institution operates today. Commercial job skills get to be imparted by commercially driven entities, with employers playing a prominent role. This could dramatically alter the economics of providing those skills, as we have found out from Zoho University. We not only don't charge students, we actually pay them from day one, and yet, over a 3 or 4 year period, their dramatic gain in productivity effectively pays for the investment in skill building. Yes, this is not the "abstract pursuit of truth" but that needs to be unbundled.
esharef 14y ago
>> I don't think the point of getting higher education is getting a job. This may be true for traditional students (18 year olds going right to college from High School who need to learn about life/ the world). But for lots of people, the goal of going to college is 100% to get a better job. 40% of college students today are non-traditional (older, single parent, works part time more than 35 hours per week, etc). These students aren't going to college for any other reason than getting hard skills they can use to get a job. Khan's vision is much better suited than the community colleges that primarily serve this segment now. There's a bigger discussion here about whether you should need a college degree to get a job/ pay raise and there are lots of arguments that suggest that a college degree is overvalued. However, right now most jobs do require a degree so candidates need one to get hired (e.g., we were helping a company hire for admins -- some of the candidates had been admins for 20 years but the recruiters wouldn't look at their resume because they didn't have a college degree). Some professions also get a pay raise when they earn a degree (I believe teachers and police are among them but may be wrong).
- aidenn0 14y ago
  Hmm, I know many non-traditional students who went to college because it was something on their bucket-list, not because they wanted a better job (they were happy with their career). On the other-hand, for nearly every person I know who went to college straight out of highschool it was with the intention of improving job prospects.
drd 14y ago
"...they can reason better..." I think one of the results of going to university is that people learn critical thinking. Obviously, increasing the ratio of critical thinkers to the intuitive people in a society puts that society in a much better position.
drumdance 14y ago
...somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job Yes, and universities have been complicit in this, and the result is that the personal economic consequences of not getting a job are considerable.
captobvious 14y ago
I agree that having a population highly capable of reasoning and critical thinking is a good thing. But I do think this vision of an enlightened society is a little bit of an ivory tower fantasy. We don't live in a society where people have a large amount of freedom and exist as free independent agents. Most people need to be employees. And if you are an employee you will exist in a dictatorship with a military-like structure, and doing critical thinking and proper reasoning will be downright dangerous. "Um excuse me Mr. Manager, but your proposal for the future of the division has a logical error in the reasoning, and your conclusion is actually false" Nope, Mr Manager is always right. Because you have to play the game of corporate politics if you want any chance of success, and avoid being labeled as difficult and abrasive. As long as the large majority of job postings and companies are looking for obedient workers of a certain skill, most people will want an education to become an obedient worker of a certain skill. And universities need to adapt to demand in order not to have a decrease in applicants..
- saraid216 14y ago
  > We don't live in a society where people have a large amount of freedom and exist as free independent agents. But should we? And if so, why may we not work towards it? > And if you are an employee you will exist in a dictatorship with a military-like structure, and doing critical thinking and proper reasoning will be downright dangerous. This is complete bullshit. You understand neither the military nor corporations, both of which can and do permit and encourage back talk.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    Corporations only permit or encourage "back talk" when employees know what not to say or question. You are free to question policy or management decisions; you are not free to question certain organizational goals or the hierarchical structure of the corporation unless you happen to be in a high-level position (which most people will never be in).
    - saraid216 14y ago
      That's true in every human organization. If you're constantly questioning our societal decision not to eat other people, you're not going to make any friends.
jfarmer 14y ago
Caveat: I'm a co-founder of Dev Bootcamp (http://devbootcamp.com http://devbootcamp.com), so I have strong opinions. :D "The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job." No, I don't think that's fair. There's no "we." Everyone -- students and institutions -- have a different answer to "what is the purpose of an education?" In the US, we've been experimenting with the full spectrum of answers for the last 150 years. For some students "an education" is the promise of livelihood, for others it's about needs higher up on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Some reasons people "go to school": * Access to expertise and high-quality curriculum * Ability to connect with similarly-motivated people over an extended period of time (think: MBAs) * Credentialing, or in general access to a certificate valued by the market * Cultivating their own internal or external life, becoming a better person, citizen, etc. None of these are better or worse than others, however these mandates often contradict each other. I studied mathematics and linguistics at the University of Chicago and the thing I loved most about the university was that it had a very strong opinion about how to answer “What is an education?” That answer wasn’t for everyone, but the school was comfortable not being “for everyone.” In my mind, by taking care of a small subset of those mandates, Dev Bootcamp helps free universities to have a strong opinion about that question again. Sal Khan wants to call it a "new kind of college," which confuses things a bit. To me it's about understanding all the ways people answer the question "What is an education?" and unbundling those needs.
- therandomguy 14y ago
  "The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job."... That is indeed fair. The parent I assume is talking about the current general perception about universities in US.
  - jfarmer 14y ago
    The "current general perception?" My point was more that if you ask 20 people, "What is the purpose of an education?" you'll get 20 different answers -- everything from "to get a job" to "cultivate the life of the mind."
svachalek 14y ago
You're forgetting the university as a place to get drunk, get high, get laid, and play football which appear to be pretty high priorities for many if not most students. You're also forgetting the university as a rubber-stamp credential, an exclusive mark of membership into a particular subgroup of people we like to allow into our other particular subgroups, which from my anecdotal experience is the #1 reason parents want their kids to go to college. The university as a "place of higher learning" was created back when monks copied every book by hand. I think the way we've managed to gold-plate all of the more modern and typical reasons for college with this lofty image thousands of years later is pretty impressive. By now I think we can probably come up with much better/cheaper forms of "higher learning" but I suspect too much of society depends on keeping it where it is.
- ISL 14y ago
  > You're also forgetting the university as a rubber-stamp credential, an exclusive mark of membership into a particular subgroup of people we like to allow into our other particular subgroups, which from my anecdotal experience is the #1 reason parents want their kids to go to college. It's true. Watching the difference in recruiters' reactions at a graduate career fair depending upon a candidate's undergraduate institution was sobering. For two equal graduate students, the student with an Ivy alma mater got all the attention. College is partially a filter. If you can get in and subsequently graduate, it guarantees a lower bound on competence.
- eshvk 14y ago
  > You're forgetting the university as a place to get drunk, get high, get laid, and play football which appear to be pretty high priorities for many if not most students. So...? While these may not be my priorities, people who are paying through their nose to go to these schools are welcome to have other priorities. The thing is that just as elsewhere in life, there are people who would like to do different things with their money, I love the American experiment because it lets you do whatever you want with your money. > You're also forgetting the university as a rubber-stamp credential, an exclusive mark of membership into a particular subgroup of people we like to allow into our other particular subgroups, which from my anecdotal experience is the #1 reason parents want their kids to go to college. Uhhh...This is exactly how society works. Everyone makes first order approximations based on certain metrics. Hell, there are people out there who approximate based on the fact that you have a social media profile, have worked for google and play video games (Yes, even nerds ). The fact of the matter is that it is incredibly hard to judge people (Professionally and Personally) which is why we use these markers and throwing away universities is not going to make the markers themselves go away. > The university as a "place of higher learning" was created back when monks copied every book by hand. I think the way we've managed to gold-plate all of the more modern and typical reasons for college with this lofty image thousands of years later is pretty impressive. By now I think we can probably come up with much better/cheaper forms of "higher learning" but I suspect too much of society depends on keeping it where it is. I feel like what people are really looking for are tech shops that teach you how to do software engineering. Those are cheaper, more effective in teaching you how to do that specific task. The problem is that Universities are inherently designed to be a place where you are encouraged to make mistakes in the hope that you eventually get lucky and move humanity forward (This is the "higher learning" bit).
xal 14y ago
I'm founder and CEO of Shopify and I was trained via apprenticeship. Germany has the brilliant dual education system where apprenticeships have never ceased to exist and It's the true driver behind Germany's incredible performance recently. After 10th grade I left high shool and joined a company ( Siemens ) "full time" as a trainee. This means that 4 days of the week you work and 1 day you go to vocational school where you learn about CS fundamentals like compilers and algorithms. The program takes 3 years ( just like the rest of high school ). It's true, you make almost no money, the work is hard, and you are at the bottom of the food chain but if you get a good placement you will never learn faster in your live. Trying to finish programming projects while also keeping everyone coordinated and cleaning the kitchens also does a great job of stuffing out the entitlement that so many people join the workforce with. If you have any doubt about the merit of this style of education simply look at Germany. It's vastly superior and I'm raking my brain on how to reproduce this system in North America successfully.
- mbesto 14y ago
  Culturally speaking, America does not necessarily incentivize merit as much as Germany (and Europe) for that matter. We are a nation of marketers and salespeople, which means: (1) personal networks are key and (2) ability to sell is key. Our cultural is built on the ability to control hyperbole and attention fulfillment (bureaucracy) as opposed to hard work (meritocracy). The skills you learn in personal networks (mostly social) in American universities are much more valuable than the ones attained from apprenticeships. In the HN/SV bubble view of the world, this is may not seem true, but largely outside of that bubble it is. Therefore, what you are looking to do is make a massive cultural shift, not just fix a system. The best way you can fix our system is to continue to make yours (Germany) better. Competition breeds motivation to do better. note - I respect that some of my comments are very much generalized. And while I'm from the US, I do live in the UK and have lived in Germany.
- redwood 14y ago
  There is the question of the competency of a narrowly-educated public deciding critical matters in a democracy... The American liberal arts education tradition has this focus at its core, and the poster above alludes to it: the purpose of the education was not only to get a job, but rather to make full, well-rounded civic-minded citizens. On the one hand, the fact that German democracy seems to function so effectively, perhaps challenges this view. On the other hand, perhaps America needs to invest more in the civic area because the challenges that come from our diversity require extra strength in order for that diversity to in net make us stronger.
malandrew 14y ago
You say that universities provide learners with a wider exposure to ideas. I don't doubt that this was true in the hundreds of years that universities have existed. However, up until 1989, universities basically had a monopoly on a place where it is easy to be exposed to many ideas. Since TBL invented the www, and hyperlinks became commonplace, it's never been easier to be exposed to ideas. It's far easier to come across new ideas on the internet than in any university in the world. All you need to be exposed to thousands of ideas is hyperlinks and intellectual curiosity. The only feature that university has that the internet doesn't is a curriculum required to get a degree. However a required curriculum without intellectual curiosity isn't worth much. A required curriculum with intellectual curiosity is worth something. But now with phenomena like Wikipedia and MMOC's and a generation that has grown up online, the internet is most certainly overtaking universities. I'm 30 years old and were I to do it again, I wouldn't go to university. I'm know I'm not alone in this sentiment, but I also know this isn't yet a majority sentiment. I expect a significant portion of the generation currently at uni that grew up with the internet to feel this regret when they are 30.
lsc 14y ago
>There's a tension right now between the university as a place to expand your mind and learn for the sake of learning and the university as a place where you prepare for a job. I see this argument come up all the time. "You might be making more money than I am, but I have a degree, and that makes me a classy person." It goes right along with the theory that college degrees are class markers, made ineffective by the large number of lower-middle class and poor folks mistaking cause for effect and mortgaging themselves in order to go to school. The hard truth? For most of us, we can't afford to spend four years and a couple hundred grand "learning for the sake of learning." I have to work for a living. Sure, I enjoy reading in the evening, but even now, I couldn't afford to drop that kind of money and take four years off. If your parents can't afford to just pay for your school? well, you had better learn something that you can use to earn money, 'cause those loans? they don't go away with bankruptcy. So yeah; You (rather, those that say school should be about learning for the sake of learning, not learning so you can earn more money) need to acknowledge that if school is 'for the sake of learning' then it's irresponsible to ask the lower middle-class and the poor to mortgage themselves to attend. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with having a four-year long summer-camp for rich kids, but if that's what you want, say so. (yes, I have been told that I have a 'Napoleon complex' about my lack of schooling. Sorry. But I do think what I say is true, even if the tone, perhaps, has more emotion than a reasoned argument ought. Spending the kind of time and money required to get a BA "for the sake of learning" if it doesn't increase your earning power, is something that only the children of the rich (and recipients of full-ride scholarships) can reasonably be expected to do.)
- _delirium 14y ago
  You (rather, those that say school should be about learning for the sake of learning, not learning so you can earn more money) need to acknowledge that if school is 'for the sake of learning' then it's irresponsible to ask the lower middle-class and the poor to mortgage themselves to attend. I agree with that, but one obvious solution is that it shouldn't require mortgaging yourself to attend. Here in Denmark, universities are tuition-free, and students are actually paid a small stipend to attend, to cover living expenses. The intent is precisely to remove any link to parents' socio-economic status in who is able to afford to attend university. Even in the U.S. it used to be somewhat closer to that. My dad came from a poor family and attended university without taking out any loans, because at the time ('60s), public universities had very low tuition, and even what low tuition existed could be covered by part-time work on campus (e.g. in the cafeteria or library).

sridhar_vembu 14y ago

Let me be clear: I don't think there's anything wrong with this vision. This approach would probably be a success. It may be needed. The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job. I think we benefit from having more people being educated at a university level, but that benefit is not purely practical. I don't think the point of getting higher education is getting a job. -- I think the vast majority of us (I include myself) would be better off focusing on learning and finding meaning through work. I have learned to appreciate the finer things of life (literature, philosophy, art, music) outside the context of formal education, as I gained life experience and learned to reflect on that experience. I don't believe I could ever have appreciated philosophy as a 19 year old. I just did not have the life experiences to appreciate the questions it tries to ask. No professor can supply those experiences, and the best the system can do is to simulate it. So the traditional University, seeking truth, would continue to exist, but people would go there when their life experience propels them towards it. In crass business terms, we unbundle training in specific skills, the important task of earning a paycheck, from the abstract pursuit of truth. In that sense, the University becomes closer to how a religious institution operates today. Commercial job skills get to be imparted by commercially driven entities, with employers playing a prominent role. This could dramatically alter the economics of providing those skills, as we have found out from Zoho University. We not only don't charge students, we actually pay them from day one, and yet, over a 3 or 4 year period, their dramatic gain in productivity effectively pays for the investment in skill building. Yes, this is not the "abstract pursuit of truth" but that needs to be unbundled.

esharef 14y ago

>> I don't think the point of getting higher education is getting a job. This may be true for traditional students (18 year olds going right to college from High School who need to learn about life/ the world). But for lots of people, the goal of going to college is 100% to get a better job. 40% of college students today are non-traditional (older, single parent, works part time more than 35 hours per week, etc). These students aren't going to college for any other reason than getting hard skills they can use to get a job. Khan's vision is much better suited than the community colleges that primarily serve this segment now. There's a bigger discussion here about whether you should need a college degree to get a job/ pay raise and there are lots of arguments that suggest that a college degree is overvalued. However, right now most jobs do require a degree so candidates need one to get hired (e.g., we were helping a company hire for admins -- some of the candidates had been admins for 20 years but the recruiters wouldn't look at their resume because they didn't have a college degree). Some professions also get a pay raise when they earn a degree (I believe teachers and police are among them but may be wrong).

aidenn0 14y ago
Hmm, I know many non-traditional students who went to college because it was something on their bucket-list, not because they wanted a better job (they were happy with their career). On the other-hand, for nearly every person I know who went to college straight out of highschool it was with the intention of improving job prospects.

drd 14y ago

"...they can reason better..." I think one of the results of going to university is that people learn critical thinking. Obviously, increasing the ratio of critical thinkers to the intuitive people in a society puts that society in a much better position.

drumdance 14y ago

...somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job Yes, and universities have been complicit in this, and the result is that the personal economic consequences of not getting a job are considerable.

captobvious 14y ago

I agree that having a population highly capable of reasoning and critical thinking is a good thing. But I do think this vision of an enlightened society is a little bit of an ivory tower fantasy. We don't live in a society where people have a large amount of freedom and exist as free independent agents. Most people need to be employees. And if you are an employee you will exist in a dictatorship with a military-like structure, and doing critical thinking and proper reasoning will be downright dangerous. "Um excuse me Mr. Manager, but your proposal for the future of the division has a logical error in the reasoning, and your conclusion is actually false" Nope, Mr Manager is always right. Because you have to play the game of corporate politics if you want any chance of success, and avoid being labeled as difficult and abrasive. As long as the large majority of job postings and companies are looking for obedient workers of a certain skill, most people will want an education to become an obedient worker of a certain skill. And universities need to adapt to demand in order not to have a decrease in applicants..

saraid216 14y ago
> We don't live in a society where people have a large amount of freedom and exist as free independent agents. But should we? And if so, why may we not work towards it? > And if you are an employee you will exist in a dictatorship with a military-like structure, and doing critical thinking and proper reasoning will be downright dangerous. This is complete bullshit. You understand neither the military nor corporations, both of which can and do permit and encourage back talk.
- betterunix 14y ago
  Corporations only permit or encourage "back talk" when employees know what not to say or question. You are free to question policy or management decisions; you are not free to question certain organizational goals or the hierarchical structure of the corporation unless you happen to be in a high-level position (which most people will never be in).
  - saraid216 14y ago
    That's true in every human organization. If you're constantly questioning our societal decision not to eat other people, you're not going to make any friends.

jfarmer 14y ago

Caveat: I'm a co-founder of Dev Bootcamp (http://devbootcamp.com http://devbootcamp.com), so I have strong opinions. :D "The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job." No, I don't think that's fair. There's no "we." Everyone -- students and institutions -- have a different answer to "what is the purpose of an education?" In the US, we've been experimenting with the full spectrum of answers for the last 150 years. For some students "an education" is the promise of livelihood, for others it's about needs higher up on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Some reasons people "go to school": * Access to expertise and high-quality curriculum * Ability to connect with similarly-motivated people over an extended period of time (think: MBAs) * Credentialing, or in general access to a certificate valued by the market * Cultivating their own internal or external life, becoming a better person, citizen, etc. None of these are better or worse than others, however these mandates often contradict each other. I studied mathematics and linguistics at the University of Chicago and the thing I loved most about the university was that it had a very strong opinion about how to answer “What is an education?” That answer wasn’t for everyone, but the school was comfortable not being “for everyone.” In my mind, by taking care of a small subset of those mandates, Dev Bootcamp helps free universities to have a strong opinion about that question again. Sal Khan wants to call it a "new kind of college," which confuses things a bit. To me it's about understanding all the ways people answer the question "What is an education?" and unbundling those needs.

therandomguy 14y ago
"The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job."... That is indeed fair. The parent I assume is talking about the current general perception about universities in US.
- jfarmer 14y ago
  The "current general perception?" My point was more that if you ask 20 people, "What is the purpose of an education?" you'll get 20 different answers -- everything from "to get a job" to "cultivate the life of the mind."

svachalek 14y ago

You're forgetting the university as a place to get drunk, get high, get laid, and play football which appear to be pretty high priorities for many if not most students. You're also forgetting the university as a rubber-stamp credential, an exclusive mark of membership into a particular subgroup of people we like to allow into our other particular subgroups, which from my anecdotal experience is the #1 reason parents want their kids to go to college. The university as a "place of higher learning" was created back when monks copied every book by hand. I think the way we've managed to gold-plate all of the more modern and typical reasons for college with this lofty image thousands of years later is pretty impressive. By now I think we can probably come up with much better/cheaper forms of "higher learning" but I suspect too much of society depends on keeping it where it is.

ISL 14y ago
> You're also forgetting the university as a rubber-stamp credential, an exclusive mark of membership into a particular subgroup of people we like to allow into our other particular subgroups, which from my anecdotal experience is the #1 reason parents want their kids to go to college. It's true. Watching the difference in recruiters' reactions at a graduate career fair depending upon a candidate's undergraduate institution was sobering. For two equal graduate students, the student with an Ivy alma mater got all the attention. College is partially a filter. If you can get in and subsequently graduate, it guarantees a lower bound on competence.
eshvk 14y ago
> You're forgetting the university as a place to get drunk, get high, get laid, and play football which appear to be pretty high priorities for many if not most students. So...? While these may not be my priorities, people who are paying through their nose to go to these schools are welcome to have other priorities. The thing is that just as elsewhere in life, there are people who would like to do different things with their money, I love the American experiment because it lets you do whatever you want with your money. > You're also forgetting the university as a rubber-stamp credential, an exclusive mark of membership into a particular subgroup of people we like to allow into our other particular subgroups, which from my anecdotal experience is the #1 reason parents want their kids to go to college. Uhhh...This is exactly how society works. Everyone makes first order approximations based on certain metrics. Hell, there are people out there who approximate based on the fact that you have a social media profile, have worked for google and play video games (Yes, even nerds ). The fact of the matter is that it is incredibly hard to judge people (Professionally and Personally) which is why we use these markers and throwing away universities is not going to make the markers themselves go away. > The university as a "place of higher learning" was created back when monks copied every book by hand. I think the way we've managed to gold-plate all of the more modern and typical reasons for college with this lofty image thousands of years later is pretty impressive. By now I think we can probably come up with much better/cheaper forms of "higher learning" but I suspect too much of society depends on keeping it where it is. I feel like what people are really looking for are tech shops that teach you how to do software engineering. Those are cheaper, more effective in teaching you how to do that specific task. The problem is that Universities are inherently designed to be a place where you are encouraged to make mistakes in the hope that you eventually get lucky and move humanity forward (This is the "higher learning" bit).

xal 14y ago

I'm founder and CEO of Shopify and I was trained via apprenticeship. Germany has the brilliant dual education system where apprenticeships have never ceased to exist and It's the true driver behind Germany's incredible performance recently. After 10th grade I left high shool and joined a company ( Siemens ) "full time" as a trainee. This means that 4 days of the week you work and 1 day you go to vocational school where you learn about CS fundamentals like compilers and algorithms. The program takes 3 years ( just like the rest of high school ). It's true, you make almost no money, the work is hard, and you are at the bottom of the food chain but if you get a good placement you will never learn faster in your live. Trying to finish programming projects while also keeping everyone coordinated and cleaning the kitchens also does a great job of stuffing out the entitlement that so many people join the workforce with. If you have any doubt about the merit of this style of education simply look at Germany. It's vastly superior and I'm raking my brain on how to reproduce this system in North America successfully.

mbesto 14y ago
Culturally speaking, America does not necessarily incentivize merit as much as Germany (and Europe) for that matter. We are a nation of marketers and salespeople, which means: (1) personal networks are key and (2) ability to sell is key. Our cultural is built on the ability to control hyperbole and attention fulfillment (bureaucracy) as opposed to hard work (meritocracy). The skills you learn in personal networks (mostly social) in American universities are much more valuable than the ones attained from apprenticeships. In the HN/SV bubble view of the world, this is may not seem true, but largely outside of that bubble it is. Therefore, what you are looking to do is make a massive cultural shift, not just fix a system. The best way you can fix our system is to continue to make yours (Germany) better. Competition breeds motivation to do better. note - I respect that some of my comments are very much generalized. And while I'm from the US, I do live in the UK and have lived in Germany.
redwood 14y ago
There is the question of the competency of a narrowly-educated public deciding critical matters in a democracy... The American liberal arts education tradition has this focus at its core, and the poster above alludes to it: the purpose of the education was not only to get a job, but rather to make full, well-rounded civic-minded citizens. On the one hand, the fact that German democracy seems to function so effectively, perhaps challenges this view. On the other hand, perhaps America needs to invest more in the civic area because the challenges that come from our diversity require extra strength in order for that diversity to in net make us stronger.

malandrew 14y ago

You say that universities provide learners with a wider exposure to ideas. I don't doubt that this was true in the hundreds of years that universities have existed. However, up until 1989, universities basically had a monopoly on a place where it is easy to be exposed to many ideas. Since TBL invented the www, and hyperlinks became commonplace, it's never been easier to be exposed to ideas. It's far easier to come across new ideas on the internet than in any university in the world. All you need to be exposed to thousands of ideas is hyperlinks and intellectual curiosity. The only feature that university has that the internet doesn't is a curriculum required to get a degree. However a required curriculum without intellectual curiosity isn't worth much. A required curriculum with intellectual curiosity is worth something. But now with phenomena like Wikipedia and MMOC's and a generation that has grown up online, the internet is most certainly overtaking universities. I'm 30 years old and were I to do it again, I wouldn't go to university. I'm know I'm not alone in this sentiment, but I also know this isn't yet a majority sentiment. I expect a significant portion of the generation currently at uni that grew up with the internet to feel this regret when they are 30.

lsc 14y ago

>There's a tension right now between the university as a place to expand your mind and learn for the sake of learning and the university as a place where you prepare for a job. I see this argument come up all the time. "You might be making more money than I am, but I have a degree, and that makes me a classy person." It goes right along with the theory that college degrees are class markers, made ineffective by the large number of lower-middle class and poor folks mistaking cause for effect and mortgaging themselves in order to go to school. The hard truth? For most of us, we can't afford to spend four years and a couple hundred grand "learning for the sake of learning." I have to work for a living. Sure, I enjoy reading in the evening, but even now, I couldn't afford to drop that kind of money and take four years off. If your parents can't afford to just pay for your school? well, you had better learn something that you can use to earn money, 'cause those loans? they don't go away with bankruptcy. So yeah; You (rather, those that say school should be about learning for the sake of learning, not learning so you can earn more money) need to acknowledge that if school is 'for the sake of learning' then it's irresponsible to ask the lower middle-class and the poor to mortgage themselves to attend. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with having a four-year long summer-camp for rich kids, but if that's what you want, say so. (yes, I have been told that I have a 'Napoleon complex' about my lack of schooling. Sorry. But I do think what I say is true, even if the tone, perhaps, has more emotion than a reasoned argument ought. Spending the kind of time and money required to get a BA "for the sake of learning" if it doesn't increase your earning power, is something that only the children of the rich (and recipients of full-ride scholarships) can reasonably be expected to do.)

_delirium 14y ago
You (rather, those that say school should be about learning for the sake of learning, not learning so you can earn more money) need to acknowledge that if school is 'for the sake of learning' then it's irresponsible to ask the lower middle-class and the poor to mortgage themselves to attend. I agree with that, but one obvious solution is that it shouldn't require mortgaging yourself to attend. Here in Denmark, universities are tuition-free, and students are actually paid a small stipend to attend, to cover living expenses. The intent is precisely to remove any link to parents' socio-economic status in who is able to afford to attend university. Even in the U.S. it used to be somewhat closer to that. My dad came from a poor family and attended university without taking out any loans, because at the time ('60s), public universities had very low tuition, and even what low tuition existed could be covered by part-time work on campus (e.g. in the cafeteria or library).