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> Why are college courses giving "major" assignments that can reasonably be completed in 5-10 hours by a smart person with no training in the field? Because th

> Why are college courses giving "major" assignments that can reasonably be completed in 5-10 hours by a smart person with no training in the field? Because that's precisely the point of a liberal arts or humanities education: to make you able to look at a new field with a modicum of critical thinking & intelligence. Within the humanities, it is largely irrelevant post-grad what field you actually studied since actually working in that field (usually the only humanities jobs are in academia) means post-grad study. Instead, that field provides a framework for you to learn how to acquire, analyze, and summarize knowledge. Hence, it's absolutely expected that any educated adult should have no problem writing in an unrelated humanities field, because they've already gone through the system. This of course doesn't mean a random person can easily write such an essay (hence the demand for ghostwriting services). Many of my high school peers would've flunked out of even a basic college course. Hence, despite its apparent tedium, college does provide an important certification/funnel—even for mid-level office jobs, whose chief qualification is reading and synethsizing reports. I do hope you understand how it's unethical to aid and abet people in cheating their way through college. This does a disservice to them (they likely won't learn the necessary writing/analysis skills for the workplace), to employers (they might be hiring incompetent writers), and to society (by credentialing the wrong people, potentially driving out smarter/more ethical people). It's ethics 101 that claiming someone else's work as your own is wrong. > the heaviest users of the service were education majors. I sadly suspect that has something to do with class dynamics. Education is not very prestigious and (based solely on the ads I see in the subway) is one of the fields (together with "business administration," "IT management", etc.) targeted at low-income/low-ability people who probably don't belong in college at all.

bane 12y ago
> Hence, it's absolutely expected that any educated adult should have no problem writing in an unrelated humanities field, because they've already gone through the system. It's also part of the reason most reporting on technical fields is so horrible.
- morgante 12y ago
  > It's also part of the reason most reporting on technical fields is so horrible. Indeed. Your humanities degree is enough to understand the basics of economics, politics, etc. — but not compilers. Unfortunately, when technical people do the writing it rarely ends up much better (since most were never taught how to effectively synthesize ideas for a general audience). Hence why I wish more technical programs had larger disciplinary and liberal arts components.
  - lutusp 12y ago
    > Unfortunately, when technical people do the writing it rarely ends up much better (since most were never taught how to effectively synthesize ideas for a general audience). Hence why I wish more technical programs had larger disciplinary and liberal arts components. Complete agreement, but there's a paradox here. On the one hand, it would be nice to have journalists able to write for a general audience but also technically knowledgeable enough to avoid most of the common errors journalists make. On the other is the fact that a student able to absorb technical material sufficient to make him or her a serious journalist, would be strongly motivated to change majors, because of the much higher status and rank of any technical major compared to journalism. It's why there are so few technically adept college professors -- most who actually understand their subjects have long since jumped ship and are working for Google/Facebook/etc.
  - baddox 12y ago
    I assume it's not enough to understand the basics of economics or politics either. Everyone I know who is an expert or professional says that mainstream journalism generally makes a mess of their field. As a computer programmer, I know this is true of for things like computer security. I have heard it's true from chemists, astronomers, educators, mathematicians, biologists, and even automobile hobbyists. I generally operate under the assumption that it's true for every field.
    - morgante 12y ago
      > I assume it's not enough to understand the basics of economics or politics either. I have some background in econ (my college major) and most mainstream reporting is passable—it's not great, but it at least attempts to have some understanding, as opposed to the mainstream approach to technology (it's basically magic). Econ, politics, etc. are still in the humanities and many journalism majors will have some GenEd requirements to take those courses. Yet there's zero expectation or requirement of basic technical literacy. Yes, journalism usually lacks depth and experts from all fields will find something to quibble with. But the understanding gap is much worse in STEM fields because they're kept so far apart from the humanities.

bane 12y ago

> Hence, it's absolutely expected that any educated adult should have no problem writing in an unrelated humanities field, because they've already gone through the system. It's also part of the reason most reporting on technical fields is so horrible.

morgante 12y ago
> It's also part of the reason most reporting on technical fields is so horrible. Indeed. Your humanities degree is enough to understand the basics of economics, politics, etc. — but not compilers. Unfortunately, when technical people do the writing it rarely ends up much better (since most were never taught how to effectively synthesize ideas for a general audience). Hence why I wish more technical programs had larger disciplinary and liberal arts components.
- lutusp 12y ago
  > Unfortunately, when technical people do the writing it rarely ends up much better (since most were never taught how to effectively synthesize ideas for a general audience). Hence why I wish more technical programs had larger disciplinary and liberal arts components. Complete agreement, but there's a paradox here. On the one hand, it would be nice to have journalists able to write for a general audience but also technically knowledgeable enough to avoid most of the common errors journalists make. On the other is the fact that a student able to absorb technical material sufficient to make him or her a serious journalist, would be strongly motivated to change majors, because of the much higher status and rank of any technical major compared to journalism. It's why there are so few technically adept college professors -- most who actually understand their subjects have long since jumped ship and are working for Google/Facebook/etc.
- baddox 12y ago
  I assume it's not enough to understand the basics of economics or politics either. Everyone I know who is an expert or professional says that mainstream journalism generally makes a mess of their field. As a computer programmer, I know this is true of for things like computer security. I have heard it's true from chemists, astronomers, educators, mathematicians, biologists, and even automobile hobbyists. I generally operate under the assumption that it's true for every field.
  - morgante 12y ago
    > I assume it's not enough to understand the basics of economics or politics either. I have some background in econ (my college major) and most mainstream reporting is passable—it's not great, but it at least attempts to have some understanding, as opposed to the mainstream approach to technology (it's basically magic). Econ, politics, etc. are still in the humanities and many journalism majors will have some GenEd requirements to take those courses. Yet there's zero expectation or requirement of basic technical literacy. Yes, journalism usually lacks depth and experts from all fields will find something to quibble with. But the understanding gap is much worse in STEM fields because they're kept so far apart from the humanities.