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If you ever need to strike up a conversation with a group of academics, a surefire way to get them talking is to ask about their graduate training. Where did they train, in what methods, in which lab, under what mentor? People will speak with great pride about their training as an economist, historian, chemist, philosopher, or classicist. If, on the other hand, you need to make a quick exit, try sharing the opinion that undergraduate education should include a lot more vocational training. You'll soon find yourself standing alone or responding to accusations of classism and questions about your commitment to social and racial equality. You might even hear that "training is for dogs," a common refrain in higher education that carries the unpleasant implication that skills-based education is the equivalent of teaching students to sit, stay, and shake hands.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, in the United States training is widely understood to be the end, not the beginning, of an educational journey that leads to a particular job or career. Undergraduates are supposed to get a general education that will prepare them for training, which they will presumably get once they land a job or go to graduate school. Any training that happens before then just doesn't count.
It is because of this belief that general-education requirements are the center of the bachelor's degree and are concentrated in the first two years of a four-year program. The general-education core is what distinguishes the B.A. from a vocational program and makes it more than "just training." It is designed to ensure that all degree holders graduate with a breadth of knowledge in addition to an in-depth understanding of a particular subject area. Students are exposed to a broad range of disciplines and are pushed to think critically about the social, cultural, and historical context in which they live. It is supposed to guarantee that all graduates can write, have a basic understanding of the scientific method, have heard of the Marshall Plan and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and know that iambic pentameter has something to do with poetry.
While few would challenge the importance of general education, both to students and to a well-functioning democracy, there is good reason to question why it has to come at the beginning of a B.A.—and just how general and theoretical it needs to be. The pyramid structure of the bachelor's degree, which requires that students start with the broad base of general requirements before they specialize, is what makes college unappealing to so many young people.
It doesn't have to be this way. There is no iron law of learning dictating that students must master general theories or be fully versed in a particular historical or cultural context before learning how to do things. Some students will do well under this approach, but there is solid evidence that some students learn better through experience. For these students, theory does not make sense until it is connected to action. Putting a lot of general or theoretical courses on the front end just leaves them disengaged or, even worse, discouraged. They will do better if they start by learning how to master certain tasks or behaviors and then explore the more abstract concepts behind the actions.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @01:26PM (23 children)
I for one think people need to be educated in a wide range of subjects, otherwise they make poor citizens in a democracy. Of course, this shouldn't mean you can't get any courses first year you're actually interested in.
I find many engineer types completely ignorant of how the world actually works and yet having a political opinion, based on what who knows.
I was a big STEM lover for a long time but since I've taken a wider outlook since my 30s.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @03:07PM (3 children)
otherwise they make poor citizens in a democracy
Considering that the majority of US citizens will not complete a college degree, it seems that general education during college is much too late. Also, I wouldn't assume that general education requirements are actually sufficient to produce adequate "citizens in a democracy".
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:14PM (2 children)
They might not be quite sufficient, but they're a lot better than doing nothing at all. Yes, it is a little bit too late, but not that much (most college students start at age ~18, right when they start voting). It is a bit of a Band-Aid for our horrible public education system in high school, but there's not much that can be done about that because that's up to local control; we tried some stuff at the Federal level with NCLB and Common Core and look where that got us. So, the best we can really do is try to push state college as a way to make up for our lousy secondary school systems and try to get kids of up speed there; I know personally my knowledge and ability to think critically was massively improved by the college experience, and most of it was really in those first 2 years of general-ed classes.
Personally, I think it'd help to break up the high schools and follow the German model, where kids are split apart into separate schools based on their scholastic abilities. Having the dumb troublemakers sharing space with the college-bound and AP students doesn't work.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 16 2017, @11:07PM (1 child)
I take it you were in school back when they tolerated free speech and dissenting viewpoints, and encouraged healthy debate and shunned professional victimhood?
Fortunately, I was too until the last year or so, when I did my internship. We were required to do a community-service themed internship (shit like building websites for charities, or teaching tech to poor minorities like I did), which was also an opportunity to have the bullshit concepts of White Privilege and Social Justice down our throats.
The most infuriating part was having to read a piece about White Privilege written by a Harvard-educated Jew who'd more likely than not never experienced poverty or other hardship (as I did through much of my childhood and some of my adulthood) or even set foot outside her gated community*. Then there was the reading about Blacks in Silicon Valley, and I pointed out in a discussion that it was only about exploiting Blacks' ideas to sell more shit to more people rather than being about true diversity. Indeed, Blacks are still severely underrepresented in Tech and the few who are there are mostly tokens to look good for the camera.
Unlike others here, I'm not one of those elitists who looks down on those who choose to study art, or social sciences, or any other non-STEM field -- even if they are mostly liberals -- I think we need good teachers and scholars in those fields. The problem is that American education, thanks to their anti-dissent stances and professional victimhood they've adopted, is preventing both students and instructors alike from exercising true critical-thinking skills required to form their own educated opinions. In short, it's just one righteous circle-jerk and, worst of all, students can be sanctioned for voicing opinions ever-so-slightly outside the party line.
It's ironic that the students fought for free speech at Berkeley decades ago, now they fight against it, with faculty egging them on. Those fuckers need to be pulled out by the roots. Federal funding should be withheld from any university which does not tolerate free speech or fosters intimidation of those who express alternative viewpoints.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @03:08PM
Its OK EF, soylentnews provides you a "safe space" so you can stop whining so much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @04:20PM (8 children)
people need to be educated in a wide range of subjects, otherwise they make poor citizens in a democracy
Assuming that you can teach people how to be good: if citizens have to be educated to be good citizens, why does college cost money? Isn't it in the state's interest to maximize the number of good citizens by providing free education to all? Doesn't tuition exclude a large swath of humanity from becoming better human beings?
I suspect that poor people today often take the position that paying for education does not make one a better citizen. After all, the poor and uneducated do not voluntarily surrender the right to vote or participate in "democracy" (if that's what you want to call a system of electing an oligarchic legislature and magistrates). If the uneducated agreed with you that they cannot be good citizens without a formal education, would they not want to exclude themselves from the decision making process?
On the other hand, if virtue cannot be taught (or, if hearing lectures on basketweaving and gender studies does not, in and of itself, make you a better human being), your proposition simply does not hold. One might look to the well-educated CEOs and bankers and politicians and media demagogues who could, if education resulted in civic virtue, claim to be the best of citizens -- do the people running the world (and dodging their taxes) really seem like the best citizens to you?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:44PM (4 children)
Isn't it in the state's interest to maximize the number of good citizens by providing free education to all? Doesn't tuition exclude a large swath of humanity from becoming better human beings?
The US already provides free K-12 education. And that free education is in large part inadequate for the effort put into it. How many more years should we expect people to go to school for free, and get little out?
As to tuition, how does that prevent people from becoming better human beings?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 16 2017, @06:00PM (1 child)
People with (non-BS) college degrees typically pay their education back in taxes, and then a lot more. High schoolers have lower odds. people who don't finish high school are highly likely to cost more in assistance (and/or policing) than they pay in taxes.
That's why many countries have low or free college tuition. It's an investment which typically pays off big time.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 16 2017, @06:50PM
People with (non-BS) college degrees typically pay their education back in taxes, and then a lot more. High schoolers have lower odds. people who don't finish high school are highly likely to cost more in assistance (and/or policing) than they pay in taxes.
People who don't finish high school aren't ready for college. So one of your three groups are irrelevant to the decision whether or not to fund college educations with public funds. Second, you didn't speak of the US's ineffective education at the K-12 level. Publicly funded education is already strongly inadequate. How would making college education similarly inadequate help?
Finally, what is the supposed value of luring people who don't currently go to college? My view is that they're the group least able to benefit from college. That (not money!) is why they don't go in the first place. We would spend public funds poorly to encourage a large number of people to flunk out of college rather than get jobs right away and do something productive with their time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @03:11PM (1 child)
There is an entire country of evidence against you. Do other countries do better? Yes. Is our education worthless? No.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 17 2017, @04:08PM
There is an entire country of evidence against you. Do other countries do better? Yes. Is our education worthless? No.
Two things to note. They have far less variety of higher education than the US does. Second, the paying of tuition has little to do with the actual problems of US education. As I noted already, K-12 sucks, but it's public and free to the student, just like those other countries that are "doing better". Second, the enormous cost of higher education has to do with government interference for the past forty years. It would not be remotely as high as it currently is without those subsidies and special legal treatment (eg, non-dischargeable debt in bankruptcy) for student loans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @06:08PM (2 children)
I never meant that education would make people behave morally (although that could be hoped for but as you say there is plenty of evidence to the contrary) but just that education gives people facts so they at least can make rational decisions, evil aside.
Hailing from a Scandinavian country where all education is free, I find the concept of tuition very strange and discriminating. Here you pay nothing for elementary, primary, secondary and university level studies. The state in fact pays students benefits so they can study instead of having to work!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @07:36PM (1 child)
i would have liked to live in Scandinavia but those are socialist indoctrination centers as much as schools. That is why some Scandinavian or European countries are currently being invaded by Muslims (FFS!) and standing idly by while their children/teenagers are being sexually assaulted and their elderly being beaten/robbed by these jihadists. Too brainwashed/scared of being called racist to even protect yourselves. I would much rather see any country move to highly competitive private schools and neighborhood/home schooling. Families and neighborhoods can decide what is important to them instead of international banksters via governments. It's fairer now that even impoverished people can afford the internet (in certain localities). There's no excuse for not educating your kids, assuming the thieves/authoritarians could be eliminated from decent society. The state is the enemy of humanity! State schools are slave factories. Even in more successful socialist countries the price of giving away your individual sovereignty has only been deferred and hidden. One day you will have to pay the piper. The socialist way is to do it slowly so that you don't notice until it's too late. No thanks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @01:55AM
Despite the fact that most USAians would like USA to be more like e.g. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [commondreams.org] what northern Europe has is NOT Socialism.
What northern Europe has is Liberal Democracy, AKA Social Democracy, AKA Christian Democracy.
(There's still plenty of Oligarchy there.) [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [wsws.org]
...and when Sweden came up with a plan for "Socialism" in 1981, the electorate said NO.
We should note that their "Socialist" plan was still a top-down system.
"Socialist" plan in Sweden would gradually take over private industry [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [csmonitor.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JeanCroix on Thursday March 16 2017, @06:53PM
I find many humanities and social science types completely ignorant of how the world actually works and yet having a political opinion as well. I usually tell them to add a little more whipped cream to my mocha.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @09:21PM (7 children)
Yeah, that's the usual BS answer. I didn't give a sh*t about your "well-rounded" student nonsense. I wanted a degree to get a job and stop the struggle of being poor. Because of that I had suffer through soft sciences, history, etc. UGH. You can take that crap and shove it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @09:37PM (6 children)
The easy counter to this statement is "If you truly want to end the struggle, you need to climb the social/corporate ladder -- to do that you need all the soft-shit so you can not sound like a complete fuck-tard when you open your mouth." The piece of paper itself is really almost worthless, all it does it open a few doors. If you don't exploit that, or say "fuck the man, just give me a job", you're really not going to any better off.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 16 2017, @11:18PM
Well, you gotta keep in mind it's a cash-cow, and I believe that we should have not only stronger vocational programs (such as our high-school ROP which had programs in agriculture, welding, CAD drawing, and landscaping) but a degree track where you learn only what you have to for your major.
American universities are more businesses than they are institutions of learning. Teaching credentials, advanced degrees in education, that annoying extra degree requirement about diversity added at the last minute (as what happened to me) -- they say it is so that you will be more well-rounded, but in the autodidactic age of the internet, people are more than capable of learning things outside their major, and on their own terms. I learned much more about psychology, politics, and human nature reading classic literature than I did having to write bullshit papers in my non-STEM classes.
The "piece of paper" is and isn't worthless in the sense that it is the new high-school diploma in industry and every serious corporation (with increasingly few exceptions) requires one for salaried positions. I work with no less than 4 recent engineering grads working as technicians well below their ability -- and not because it's Boston Dynamics, but because there is a glut of STEM grads. As I've pointed out in a previous discussion, you don't hear much ("we have a shortage of qualified workers") from big tech anymore, because they know that we know that line is bullshit. And this is coming from a guy who spent 12 years getting a 4-year degree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @02:38AM (4 children)
you need all the soft-shit so you can not sound like a complete fuck-tard when you open your mouth
More Soylentils need to read the comments made by e.g. aristarchus.
They also need to note how many of the references he makes go over their heads.
People with a proper, broad-based education tend to climb higher on the ladder.
When The Suits use metaphors which refer to things which happened centuries ago, it's important that you know what to say in response so that they recognize you as someone who belongs in their rarefied ranks.
...and knowing what mistakes have already been made may keep you from repeating those and looking like a fool.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --George Santayana
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday March 17 2017, @04:07AM
Oh noes, you did not just do that, gweg_?
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --George Santayana
Santayana, fair to middling American philosopher. What I like to add to his profound saying is that those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it, too, but at least they will know what the hell is going on! Weimar Republic, my dear Drumpfkins? Oh, and for extra credit, look up "beyond the Pale" and "hoist by your own petard", and never say "begs the question" for "raises the question", and be cognizant of what a "shibboleth" is. You will go far, young IT guy, if only you pursue learning for learning's sake, Ars gratia artis, rather than being a lowly mercenary slave to some corporate master. Better to die in your mind than sleep on your knees.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 17 2017, @01:59PM (2 children)
More Soylentils need to read the comments made by e.g. aristarchus. They also need to note how many of the references he makes go over their heads.
No, I would advise them to avoid that bullshit. Among other things, aristarchus has a habit of wasting peoples' time (particularly, my time!) with dishonest, fallacy-laden argument. Just look at his reply to your post. We all need yet another clueless, word-salad rant comparing Trump to Hitler because there aren't enough of those already anywhere you look. And starting with a brief snide remark about Santana just to segue into the Trumphitlerness looks to me to be one of his typical red herrings.
When The Suits use metaphors which refer to things which happened centuries ago, it's important that you know what to say in response so that they recognize you as someone who belongs in their rarefied ranks.
Just like aristarchus uses metaphors? Is he a member of your tribe? I guess my opinion here is that if there's something you despise in other people, such as using special knowledge to exclude or marginalize outsiders, then don't engage in it yourself.
I think aristarchus is a completely fake persona (erm, beyond the basic act of pretending to be a two millennia old philosopher). I still lean towards the interpretation that aristarchus and Ethanol-Fueled are the same person. You never see them in the same room together except of course, when they jointly announce [soylentnews.org] that they're going to take a three month break. Seriously, EF should be an enormous pile of red meat for someone like aristarchus, but I've only managed to find a couple of half-hearted attacks [soylentnews.org] despite some googling on the matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @08:57PM (1 child)
[...]And starting with a brief snide remark about Santana just to segue[...]
Different person. He's the one with the guitar. I've never heard of the other guy.
[...]I still lean towards the interpretation that aristarchus and Ethanol-Fueled are the same person.[...]
Maybe they are. Why does it bother you? Giving names to aspects of his/her personality may well help to control them both prior to, perhaps, sublimation or subsumption into the main.
You right-wing wankers are all for freedom of speech, aren't you? Who's holding a gun to your head to make you read it? Just don't fucking read it. Go back to your rightard safe space where you can talk shit about foreigners without the grown-ups hearing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:35AM
You right-wing wankers are all for freedom of speech, aren't you? Who's holding a gun to your head to make you read it? Just don't fucking read it.
I have discovered that the "foe" option allows me to do just that. It can act as a crude killfile, modding people on my foe list, who just so happens to contain aristarchus now, to -1. But the problem here is that I normally like reading OriginalOwner's stuff. It's just very annoying that he chooses to laud a huge dick like aristarchus.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @01:59AM
This: "yet having a political opinion, based on what who knows"
...is so wrong in so many ways. The alternative is what, some professor pushing communism? Communism which will obviously work, because "real" communism has never been tried, despite the fact that various governments have self-identified as communist and despite the fact that the opportunities to try it have been numerous?
These professors claim to support public schools, yet send their children to private schools. They want to have open borders, yet they live in gated communities. They support a "living wage", but think we need dirt-cheap Mexican labor. They claim to hate bigots, but actively discriminate against Christian peers in hiring and tenure decisions. They say they support LGBT, but welcome immigrants who think LGBT must die. They tell us that rape culture is bad, then welcome actual no-joke serious for-real rape culture (Pakistan, South Africa...) into our country.
Enough already! We don't need fake Americans teaching us to hate ourselves, our culture, and our country.