Memorials promote 'white heterosexual male supremacy,' profs claim

[Dashinka 26,210]

9 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Yeah...even if you take out this whole PC and censorship/indoctrination and rioting mess, long before that I had my issues with those institutions. I think oftentimes the level of education received is definitely not worth the money...and definitely don't think college/uni is for everybody, some of us do better without it. If I had a magic wand and could change it so employers would look more closely at skills rather than degrees I would.

What is sad is that many companies rely on university degrees as a means to try and measure skills.  I have several friends that don't have a four year degree, and are essentially eliminated from consideration for advancement simply because of the lack of a degree regardless of their skill set.

[bcking 3,157]

8 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Yeah...even if you take out this whole PC and censorship/indoctrination and rioting mess, long before that I had my issues with those institutions. I think oftentimes the level of education received is definitely not worth the money...and definitely don't think college/uni is for everybody, some of us do better without it. If I had a magic wand and could change it so employers would look more closely at skills rather than degrees I would.

Universities that are less focused on one particular major and more on a "liberal arts" education have their place, they are just too prominent than they should be.

 

For most careers a "technical" college should be more than enough. A lot of people go to a liberal arts college and complete a degree without any new skills to get a job. You don't need a liberal arts education to brew espresso.

 

That being said, I do think there is value within some STEM fields for a liberal arts education (for the S, not sure about the TEM).

 

If I look back to my University degree, the specific subjects aren't what I remember. What I remember is learning critical thinking and problem solving skills, and how to hypothesis generate. Not all of that was learned from my biochemistry courses. I also got a lot from well crafted philosophy and history courses.

[OriZ 3,165]

Just now, bcking said:

 

 

If I look back to my University degree, the specific subjects aren't what I remember. What I remember is learning critical thinking and problem solving skills, and how to hypothesis generate. Not all of that was learned from my biochemistry courses. I also got a lot from well crafted philosophy and history courses.

That's exactly my point, I'll take someone who can naturally develop these skills over somebody who needed college for that any day.

[OriZ 3,165]

2 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

What is sad is that many companies rely on university degrees as a means to try and measure skills.  I have several friends that don't have a four year degree, and are essentially eliminated from consideration for advancement simply because of the lack of a degree regardless of their skill set.

Yeah and I have a huge problem with that. Being in college or having a degree doesn't make you smart. Some people graduate with a master's degree and are still dumb as a rock.

[bcking 3,157]

2 minutes ago, OriZ said:

That's exactly my point, I'll take someone who can naturally develop these skills over somebody who needed college for that any day.

Yes I guess I admit that I don't know what I would be like with my University degree. I could very well be the same.

 

I will say that at least in my field there is likely room for education to be compressed. Not sure we need 4 years of university followed by 4 years of medical school before our "on the job training". The UK combined the 8 years into 5 years. We could potentially do even less.

 

For what's it worth - I will just say when I talk to people who are doctors in the UK (friends of my wife), they generally have less topics they can talk about because it is pretty clear all they have ever studied has been medicine since secondary school. My wife is often confused by my ability to talk about ancient Greek history, different schools of philosophy or Russian literature. Her education was in Geology, so that is essentially all she did since the UK system is much more major-focused.

 

Now is that "conversational" knowledge on its own worth the college tuition? Probably not. But I do still have my collection of primary literature that I collected over those years. I'll appreciate it even more I think in retirement.

[OriZ 3,165]

2 minutes ago, bcking said:

Yes I guess I admit that I don't know what I would be like with my University degree. I could very well be the same.

 

I will say that at least in my field there is likely room for education to be compressed. Not sure we need 4 years of university followed by 4 years of medical school before our "on the job training". The UK combined the 8 years into 5 years. We could potentially do even less.

 

For what's it worth - I will just say when I talk to people who are doctors in the UK (friends of my wife), they generally have less topics they can talk about because it is pretty clear all they have ever studied has been medicine since secondary school. My wife is often confused by my ability to talk about ancient Greek history, different schools of philosophy or Russian literature. Her education was in Geology, so that is essentially all she did since the UK system is much more major-focused.

 

Now is that "conversational" knowledge on its own worth the college tuition? Probably not. But I do still have my collection of primary literature that I collected over those years. I'll appreciate it even more I think in retirement.

Obviously I agree some stuff you have to go to college or uni for. You can't be a doctor without years of high education, that would be dangerous. However I also don't believe college is for everyone or that everyone has to go to college like some people do. And I do have an issue with the "well rounded education" in the US...it is a waste of time and money. I mentioned before we have some nurses in the family and the stuff they had to learn just to be a nurse - why? It shouldn't be a higher ed institution's job to teach you general/trivia knowledge. If you're interested you'll learn it yourself. So I definitely lean more towards the system in the UK than the one in the US.

[bcking 3,157]

4 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Obviously I agree some stuff you have to go to college or uni for. You can't be a doctor without years of high education, that would be dangerous. However I also don't believe college is for everyone or that everyone has to go to college like some people do. And I do have an issue with the "well rounded education" in the US...it is a waste of time and money. I mentioned before we have some nurses in the family and the stuff they had to learn just to be a nurse - why? It shouldn't be a higher ed institution's job to teach you general/trivia knowledge. If you're interested you'll learn it yourself. So I definitely lean more towards the system in the UK than the one in the US.

Overall I'm right there with you.

 

I do think though there are some people that wouldn't become life long lovers of learning new subjects and topics without the initial stimulation. Unfortunately high school is just useless so you generally don't get it there unless your school is exceptional.

 

Most of my wife's friends don't really have an interest in learning about new subjects. They are okay just focusing on their career. Now maybe they would have been like that even if they got their education at a liberal arts school, but maybe not. College students are young, and it is a place that can stimulate a lot of new thinking and interests.

 

All that being said, is loving knowledge, books, history, art all worth 40,000 per year? I'm happy I have it, but if someone told me I could have skipped it and still go to medical school it would have been tempting. Especially before going to University. I would have likely jumped at the chance.

[OriZ 3,165]

1 minute ago, bcking said:

Overall I'm right there with you.

 

I do think though there are some people that wouldn't become life long lovers of learning new subjects and topics without the initial stimulation. Unfortunately high school is just useless so you generally don't get it there unless your school is exceptional.

 

Most of my wife's friends don't really have an interest in learning about new subjects. They are okay just focusing on their career. Now maybe they would have been like that even if they got their education at a liberal arts school, but maybe not. College students are young, and it is a place that can stimulate a lot of new thinking and interests.

 

All that being said, is loving knowledge, books, history, art all worth 40,000 per year? I'm happy I have it, but if someone told me I could have skipped it and still go to medical school it would have been tempting. Especially before going to University. I would have likely jumped at the chance.

The part in bold is what I also meant in my previous post - I don't think it should be their "job" to "stimulate" that in people. You're either into it or you're not...I know many people(myself included) who didn't do much of high ed(I only did two years of technical college but coulda done without that as well) and are still very interested in a wide range of topics. My wife and I love going to Buffalo Wild Wings and kicking everybody's behind in trivia. If it's something they develop naturally then great, but if not the way I see it they weren't meant to. Also, if anything, my schooling only almost ruined some things for me. I used to HATE history because of the way they would teach it and now I love it...same with math(I did always like geography even in school though). So there's two sides to that I guess. 

[bcking 3,157]

1 minute ago, OriZ said:

The part in bold is what I also meant in my previous post - I don't think it should be their "job" to "stimulate" that in people. You're either into it or you're not...I know many people(myself included) who didn't do much of high ed(I only did two years of technical college but coulda done without that as well) and are still very interested in a wide range of topics. My wife and I love going to Buffalo Wild Wings and kicking everybody's behind in trivia. If it's something they develop naturally then great, but if not the way I see it they weren't meant to. Also, if anything, my schooling only almost ruined some things for me. I used to HATE history because of the way they would teach it and now I love it...same with math(I did always like geography even in school though). So there's two sides to that I guess. 

For some that works, for others not. I don't think it is totally fair to say that everyone should be able to develop interests in their own without any external stimulation.

 

Now good parenting can give that stimulation without university, or even just better secondary school. As you mentioned, sometimes the way things are taught actually make people hate it more.

 

There are some people who without university would never discover a passion and go through life without that. For some that would just be a lost interest, but society would also potential lose some great scholars because not all experts in subjects had an interest in it from childhood. 

 

If I'm honest though, for me, university made me likely a slightly worse doctor, but a slightly better person. My idea of s relaxing evening is to reread 12 Caesars or something similar. I rarely will pick up medical literature in the evening. I'll read it at work, but not at home. The people who went through education solely focused on medicine are far more likely to read it exclusively, since they know nothing else. They probably have more knowledge than I do on their career, but they have missed out on a lot.

[Dashinka 26,210]

I remember taking quite a few classes in my first fours years of college while developing my chemical engineering degree because I had to.  I am not saying they were all useless as I could usually find classes that interested me (religion, economics, philosophy, etc.), but I believe I would have delved into those subjects on my own without them needing to be mandatory liberal arts requirements and I probably could have finished my ChE BSE in probably 2 years or so.

[OriZ 3,165]

18 minutes ago, bcking said:

For some that works, for others not. I don't think it is totally fair to say that everyone should be able to develop interests in their own without any external stimulation.

 

Now good parenting can give that stimulation without university, or even just better secondary school. As you mentioned, sometimes the way things are taught actually make people hate it more.

 

There are some people who without university would never discover a passion and go through life without that. For some that would just be a lost interest, but society would also potential lose some great scholars because not all experts in subjects had an interest in it from childhood. 

 

If I'm honest though, for me, university made me likely a slightly worse doctor, but a slightly better person. My idea of s relaxing evening is to reread 12 Caesars or something similar. I rarely will pick up medical literature in the evening. I'll read it at work, but not at home. The people who went through education solely focused on medicine are far more likely to read it exclusively, since they know nothing else. They probably have more knowledge than I do on their career, but they have missed out on a lot.

Honestly we would never know what would happen to those people without school unless we could experiment with a parallel universe where they didn't go to university. As long as the only thing we have to go on is that they did - we'll never know. For some like me, it is a turn off. For some it might be stimulating but who is to say they wouldn't have gotten stimulated by something else along the way, or found the same and/or a different passion another way? Now we're starting to get too philosophical for a Friday though

Edited July 21, 2017 by OriZ

[bcking 3,157]

7 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Honestly we would never know what would happen to those people without school unless we could experiment with a parallel universe where they didn't go to university. As long as the only thing we have to go on is that they did - we'll never know. For some like me, it is a turn off. For some it might be stimulating but who is to say they wouldn't have gotten stimulated by something else along the way, or found the same and/or a different passion another way? Now we're starting to get too philosophical for a Friday though

Agreed. Far too deep for a Friday.

[Dashinka 26,210]

2 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Honestly we would never know what would happen to those people without school unless we could experiment with a parallel universe where they didn't go to university. As long as the only thing we have to go on is that they did - we'll never know. For some like me, it is a turn off. For some it might be stimulating but who is to say they wouldn't have gotten stimulated by something else along the line, or found the same and/or a different passion another way? 

I don't know, we have a lot of examples of people still alive from a time where college was not essentially mandatory and are/were successful.  There are several people in this forum that admit to little or no university schooling that are successful as well.  I don't think we need a parallel universe to determine what we already know, not everyone needs to go to college to be successful, and many students that do go to college in relatively useless degree programs and actually earn their degrees are just feeding the university mentality.  Universities definitely have a place for some people and for some professions, but as Ted Knight once said, "The world needs ditch diggers too". 

[bcking 3,157]

6 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

I don't know, we have a lot of examples of people still alive from a time where college was not essentially mandatory and are/were successful.  There are several people in this forum that admit to little or no university schooling that are successful as well.  I don't think we need a parallel universe to determine what we already know, not everyone needs to go to college to be successful, and many students that do go to college in relatively useless degree programs and actually earn their degrees are just feeding the university mentality.  Universities definitely have a place for some people and for some professions, but as Ted Knight once said, "The world needs ditch diggers too". 

Yes, not everyone needs it. But some people do, and some of those people end up becoming major players in their fields.

 

There are a lot of interviews with great scientists, historians, authors etc... that credit University with lighting a fire. Perhaps the fire would have been lit otherwise with them but we'll never know.

 

Edit: to be clear, as I've said before, I think there is an over reliance on liberal arts education. A lot of people just assume you have to do it. That is silly. But it does serve a purpose for some people.

Edited July 21, 2017 by bcking

[IAMX 3,055]

46 minutes ago, bcking said:

Yes, not everyone needs it. But some people do, and some of those people end up becoming major players in their fields.

 

There are a lot of interviews with great scientists, historians, authors etc... that credit University with lighting a fire. Perhaps the fire would have been lit otherwise with them but we'll never know.

 

Edit: to be clear, as I've said before, I think there is an over reliance on liberal arts education. A lot of people just assume you have to do it. That is silly. But it does serve a purpose for some people.

More than that, people think they're entitled to a job merely because they possess a degree -- I notice this naivety is especially prominent in those with liberal arts degrees.

 

Then the real world hits.