3 ms·
I suppose we're splitting hairs here about what he's aiming for, but consider his comments, first, about what he learned on the job: >"My first six months, wha
by fecklessyouth 13y ago
I suppose we're splitting hairs here about what he's aiming for, but consider his comments, first, about what he learned on the job:
>"My first six months, what did the consulting firm teach me? They didn't teach me the basics of how they do business. They taught me how to think. I didn't know how to check my work. I didn't think about order of magnitude.
and then his goals for Minerva:
>"We want to teach you how to think," Mr. Nelson says. A course on "multimodal communications" works on practical writing and debating skills. A "formal systems class" goes over "everything from logic to advanced stats, Big Data, to formal reasoning, to behavioral econ."
Both these comments suggest that he's looking to improve the core critical thinking skills of his students. Indeed, he explicitly says as much. Thinking, reading, writing...these are historically fundamental goals of education.
They are not, however, merely "useful things" which can be pointed out. You cannot simply sit down and "learn" how to read/write/think, anymore than you be can taught a foreign language without actually speaking or writing it, or programming without coding.
They are "basic" in the sense that they form a foundation for other skills. What he seems to be aiming for is not "basic" in the sense that you use, which seems to cover tasks like "how to perform this financial function" or "how to use this technology." (But maybe that's not the sense you're using "basic in).
- foobarqux 13y agoI agree that some of his comments muddy the waters; I can't say that I know exactly what he intends to do. But take this first comment for example which I think would be made by many people who had recently started working in IB or management consulting: > I didn't know how to check my work. I didn't think about order of magnitude. I suspect in these cases he learned some useful trick or mode of thinking in a matter of minutes by having someone point it out to him. Not so much "basic" as "simple". And irrespective of whatever Minerva claims to do I think it is clear that many "elite" graduates feel there are simple, useful things not being taught in schools which ought to be.
- 001sky 13y agoOne issue with Economics, as an undegrad major its denial or downplaying the utility of 'fiction'. ie, it treata fiction as the wrong half a dichotomy: truth:fiction == rational:irrational. Yet real world problem solving requires not just deduction, but imagingation (ie, possible alternative priors from which to base deductions). Like any good crime detective ;). TLDR: fiction-->imaginitive pre-visualization-->creative problem solving. STEM and wanna-be STEM subjects like econ are good for benhcmarking discrete problem solving, and for providing technical priors. for that there is no doubt. Its just not the whole picture of problem solving (esp. dealing with people, etc).