This is topic What does a college degree mean? What SHOULD it mean? in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
With the spread of distance-learning, all-online, and other non-traditional methods of achieving a college degree (many of them through accredited institutions), it is becoming easier and easier to receive a college degree without ever entering a college classroom.

Some of these institutions have been around for decades. Before Thomas Edison College had online classes and arrangements with various local non-accredited institutions, they had correspondence courses. They (and several other institutions following in their footsteps) encourage students to test out of as many requirements as possible (through CLEPs and other tests). This allows students to complete college in less time, but (arguably) with less breadth of knowledge.

Is the main point of a college degree the degree itself (and its ability to get its holder a job or a place in graduate school)? Or is it something less tangible, and if so, what?
 

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Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
 
In my case, it was the ticket to a job that had decent wages and benefits so I could provide for my child.

I'd love to go back and study more, just for the love of learning . . .
 

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Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
 
I've always found this to be a really gray area.

I personally don't have a degree. Primarily because, while I was a junior in college, I was a programmer for IBM and other companies making upwards of $50K a year. I had already built up a reputation and a resume; in programming, that's all that really matters. Since then I haven't needed it, and am now making six figures without it.

I see it as a necessity for county/city/state government jobs. I guess they might consider it as one having served their penance or their debt to society. It sometimes feels like companies look upon people that don't have degrees as failures in life, unable to dedicate themselves to a cause.

I guess programming, or computer science in general, is one of the exceptions to the rule; it's a genre in which experience and hands on work beats any wall decoration one may have. Also, some of the best programmers I know don't have computer science degrees at all. I've worked with high level programmers with degrees in music, art, philosophy and English. For example, Yahn Bernier, lead programmer of Half-Life, is a patent attorney who just happens to program.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
It means nothing for the most part. Depends on the field, really.


I know, for a fact, that I have been a better worker and more qualified to do a managers job than half my managers who had degrees. That isn't just my opinion, but the opinion of my bosses, even those with degrees themselves.


In todays world, college is the new high school for most jobs.
 

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Posted by cmc (Member # 9549) on :
 
Well, to me, it means a piece of paper I'm working to get for my parents. They paid for my schooling when I went right after HS. I got a little over halfway through college and then life (or I guess my apparent disregard for) got in the way. I left college and when the calm that followed the storm came, I found myself a respected employee in a good job with a good company, all without a degree but still doing well.

The reason I say it's a piece of paper for my parents is that I sort of feel like I owe it to them to finish - so that they don't feel like I got nothing out of it and that there is tangible evidence of our efforts (financially, supportively and scholarly...). FTR - they don't even mention it to me or try to guilt me into finishing, I just personally feel like I owe it to them.
 

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Posted by cmc (Member # 9549) on :
 
rivka - After rereading your original post, I guess to me it's something less tangible. It will represent that I appreciate my parents and their Support and their Love for me.

Additionally, I learned a lot about people and the 'things' work while I was away at school. That's something I definitely couldn't have rcvd on-line. I was also given the opportunity to (this word makes me cringe because it's just so... whatever the word is) network for when I was out in the real world.
 

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Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
 
I keep trying to type a response, but this topic always makes me really, really angry and sad.

Suffice it to say that college degrees have definitely become the new high school diploma, and in at most 50 years a graduate degree of some kind will have the same role. We'll be in school until we're 30 and in our jobs until the day we die.

Hooray.
 

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Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
A college degree should prepare students for a reasonably academic career (I do not hold with degrees in ranching etc., which should be learned on ranches.) I think that, in the U.S., there is growing trend towards making colleges into very good secondary schools, rather than preparing students for specific careers. Ideally, a student wishing to work in ancient history should study the same liberal arts curriculum as his peers while in middle school, focus on history, literature and philosophy in secondary school, major in ancient history and archaeology in college and then do graduate work in a more specific field, e.g. Hellenistic sculpture. As it is, he may be taking courses in biotechnology, an important field but one which is likely to do him no good.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Would those of you who are saying that it means little or nothing agree that degrees from different institutions (such as Ivies and other well-respected colleges and universities) have different values? Or are they all just pieces of paper?
 

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Posted by johnsonweed (Member # 8114) on :
 
I am a college professor at a Liberal Arts College in the Midwest. Here is my quick impression (but I reserve the right to change this as I think about it more).

The degree is a symbol of completion of a course of study--nothing more, nothing less. The course of study varies considerably and the amount of effort on must put into a given course also varies quite a bit (perhaps more than you realize.) The level of rigor in individual classes changes from school to school, professor to professor and even year to year among individual professors. (We have a tendency to experiment with out presentation) There is little hope of, or reason to try and standardize the experience. I know of some distance courses that are quite rigorous and worth while and some brick and mortar experiences that are a waste of time. That is the nature of the academy.

On-line or distance classes at accredited colleges are fine in my opinion. Of course the delivery system of the course changes the experience for the student in many ways, but ultimately what one gets from any course is what one is willing to put into it. Just because the virtual course is different from a traditioanl college classroom experience doesn't make it any better or any worse...it is just different.

My $0.02,

jw.
 

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Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
 
"We'll be in school until we're 30" I am hoping to get out at twenty-five, but it may be as late as twenty-eight. My dad was in school at forty-two, although he had worked for ten years before that, not including work as a student. That is what happens when you have too many letter behind your name (B.A., M.A., M.A.T., Ph.D., M.D., F.A.A.P. in his case, although he only uses the last three on his buisness card )
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by johnsonweed:
ultimately what one gets from any course is what one is willing to put into it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
Would those of you who are saying that it means little or nothing agree that degrees from different institutions (such as Ivies and other well-respected colleges and universities) have different values? Or are they all just pieces of paper?

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Originally posted by King of Men:
In physics (and perhaps the other hard sciences, not sure about them), I think it means that you have served out your apprenticeship. Science is one of the last crafts where it still makes sense to think in terms of the old apprentice-journeyman-master model. I'd put the Master's as the journeyman piece, and a PhD as the masterwork. The PhD, then, says that you are fully qualified to do research without supervision. And, not incidentally, you escape quite a bit of the drudge work.

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KOM,

Don't forget the arts. They do much like we do (I'm and evolutionary ecologist). Also I would recommend a change in your stages for science since many don't do the Master's thing any more. The ranks are more like Bachelor's = apprenticeship, PhD = journeyman, Post Doc = Masterwork.
 

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Posted by cmc (Member # 9549) on :
 
ps - johnsonweed, i was trying to think of a clever way to sum up that the 'ivy' degree will also dazzle your hs classmates at the next reunion... you beat me to it.
 

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Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
 
I think it shows you can stick with something for 4 years. Oh, and that perhaps you learned how to learn.
 

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Posted by cmc (Member # 9549) on :
 
Playing the advocate... Who says you learned anything just because you got the degree?
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 

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Originally posted by Swampjedi:
I think it shows you can stick with something for 4 years. Oh, and that perhaps you learned how to learn.

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But many non-traditional degrees take far less than four years, mostly by encouraging students to CLEP out of as many classes as possible. (Most traditional colleges have strict limitations on CLEPs and other credit-by-testing.) That is actually one of the primary selling points of places like Thomas Edison.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
I tried to be clear that I was not speaking exclusively -- or even primarily -- about the Ivies. I also consider quite a number of other schools (some of which are far cheaper) "upper echelon" colleges. And to some degree that depends on the specific field -- there are schools which have wonderful film schools, but their pre-med degree is sub-par. Or places with wonderful liberal arts degrees, but horrible science departments.


Oh, and UCLA's film school is every bit as good as USC's.
 

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Posted by johnsonweed (Member # 8114) on :
 

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Originally posted by rivka:

quote:

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Originally posted by Swampjedi:
I think it shows you can stick with something for 4 years. Oh, and that perhaps you learned how to learn.

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But many non-traditional degrees take far less than four years, mostly by encouraging students to CLEP out of as many classes as possible. (Most traditional colleges have strict limitations on CLEPs and other credit-by-testing.) That is actually one of the primary selling points of places like Thomas Edison.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
With the spread of distance-learning, all-online, and other non-traditional methods of achieving a college degree (many of them through accredited institutions), it is becoming easier and easier to receive a college degree without ever entering a college classroom.


Is the main point of a college degree the degree itself (and its ability to get its holder a job or a place in graduate school)? Or is it something less tangible, and if so, what?

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quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
I tried to be clear that I was not speaking exclusively -- or even primarily -- about the Ivies. I also consider quite a number of other schools (some of which are far cheaper) "upper echelon" colleges. And to some degree that depends on the specific field -- there are schools which have wonderful film schools, but their pre-med degree is sub-par. Or places with wonderful liberal arts degrees, but horrible science departments.


Oh, and UCLA's film school is every bit as good as USC's.

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quote:

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Originally posted by johnsonweed:
I have found that students who CLEP out of coursework do not finish early they pick up a second major.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:

quote:

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Originally posted by johnsonweed:
I have found that students who CLEP out of coursework do not finish early they pick up a second major.

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But you teach at a traditional college, correct? At non-traditional colleges (at least the ones which are selling the we-can-get-you-a-four-year-degree-in-two-years claims), that's simply not the case.

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
For me, interaction, performance study, guidance from proffs and peers and hands on learning are what my education have given me. I know that I have achieved things I could not have done through the mail or online. The most memorable and to me the most important moments of my education have been in a classroom, at a cafe, in a performance hall, but never at my desk at home, or even in the university library.

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quote:

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Originally posted by johnsonweed:

quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
Oh, and UCLA's film school is every bit as good as USC's.

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Good call on UCLA. I'm a UCR grad and I am shamed that I listed USC before a UC!!

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TSK!!!



(I'm a UCLA grad. Not in film.)
 

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Posted by johnsonweed (Member # 8114) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:

quote:

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
For me, interaction, performance study, guidance from proffs and peers and hands on learning are what my education have given me. I know that I have achieved things I could not have done through the mail or online. The most memorable and to me the most important moments of my education have been in a classroom, at a cafe, in a performance hall, but never at my desk at home, or even in the university library.

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Exactly! But how do you explain that to someone who wants to know why your institution can't get them a degree in the same short time period the non-traditional one claims?

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That is ALWAYS a challenge when dealing with the students who want the degree beacuse they think it will get them a good paying job. My challenge is to convince some of these kids that the Gen-Ed courses are not something to "get over with." You should come to college (particularly a liberal arts college) for the education and to enrich your life. This generation of students (I call them the entitlement generation) do not always get it. It can be a tough sell.
 

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Posted by SoaPiNuReYe (Member # 9144) on :
 
For me it doesn't matter whether its worth anything or not, my parents will make sure i get one whether i like it or not
 

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Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
I kinda have to do the distance learning bit. It actually makes getting a degree achievable. That, and now by 2009 or 2011 I'm going to need a degree to advance to the next paygrade. Does it take anything away from me that I didn't/won't set foot in a classroom? I do and will put effort into getting that slip of paper. I pay my tuition (ok so the navy pays most of it. I still have to pay for the books and supplies).
 

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Posted by SoaPiNuReYe (Member # 9144) on :
 
I think its the tuition that really stops people from getting it, I know my parents won't be able to afford my tuition, and I'm not good enough at soccer, or smart enough to get a scholarship...
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 

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Originally posted by Stan the man:
I kinda have to do the distance learning bit. It actually makes getting a degree achievable. That, and now by 2009 or 2011 I'm going to need a degree to advance to the next paygrade. Does it take anything away from me that I didn't set foot in a classroom? I put effort into getting that slip of paper. I paid my tuition (ok so the navy paid most of it. I still had to pay for the books and supplies).

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quote:

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Or is it something less tangible, and if so, what?

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I'm in the "less tangible" camp, but I think it depends highly on what you study. For many, College is preparation for a job or preparation for preparation for a job. For me, this isn't really the case.

The actual diploma is, to me, like any significant piece of paper, merely a marker (like money or a drivers' licence) to prove that I have done something that I said I did.

I think a college degree includes something along the lines of an adult willingness to do something. Even if you have learnt almost nothing at college, you have still done something to earn the piece of paper. People do still drop out of college and never get a degree (I'm counting people who had the opportunity to go, but chose not to, not those who never went or people who were forced to leave because of monetary concerns etc.), so there are people who are not willing to do whatever it is- so it is a meaningful distinction.

Yeah, that's as pretty non-tangible as you can get.

I don't think a college or university degree, in general (not from a specific school) has ever meant or guaranteed one specific thing. Idiots graduate from university all the time.

To me, the actual degree, in the broadest sense, says "I did the time."

Within that hugely broad catchall is everyone from the guy who scraped by on re-done courses to the 4.0 student who put in hours of research and study.
 

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Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
Rivka,

Now that you put it that way ok. and unfortunately for me you quoted the original. I realized I typed that up as if I already had the degree. When in fact it is a work in progress. Tired, and chatting with a friend are my only escuse for that one.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
You mean when you Hatrack, you are not focusing 100% of your attention on us? *gasp*




 

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Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Teshi:


The actual diploma is, to me, like any significant piece of paper, merely a marker (like money or a drivers' licence) to prove that I have done something that I said I did.

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You know, everything I want to say on hatrack can usually be summed up in the words "What Teshi said."

It's like you're a smarter and more articulate version of me.
 

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Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
Hey, she's turned out to be a good friend so far.
 

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Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
 
To prepare you for a lifetime of meeting the responsibilities of living in a liberal democracy. You should be prepared to begin to tackle these issues well on your own, everyday, and for the rest of your life.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Irami, could you do me a favor and translate what you said into something a bit more concrete? What are the "responsibilities of living in a liberal democracy"? What issues?
 

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Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
 
Not everything is on the web, but if your teacherly powers to get your hands on two essays, "The Schooling of a People," and "Teaching, Learning, and Their Counterfeits," both are found individually and in the compilation, "Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind" by Mortimer Adler, he lays everything out in plain english.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
From what I've seen of my husband working toward his degree, a distance learning degree is still definitely work.

Of course, the institution he's finishing his degree through is one that has been established as a decent school for a while and has three actual physical campuses, not just distance learning, although they're pushing to recruit more students for their online program right now. But still, I think that he's learning a lot and what he learns will be valuable in his field. Of course, his field (accounting) is one in which there are a lot of rules, regs, skills, and special processes that can be learned without a specific course in them, but are learned more easily if you devote time specifically to their study. Which would be why so many jobs absolutely require a degree to work in this field.
 

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Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong:
Not everything is on the web, but if your teacherly powers to get your hands on two essays, "The Schooling of a People," and "Teaching, Learning, and Their Counterfeits," both are found individually and in the compilation, "Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind" by Mortimer Adler, he lays everything out in plain english.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
From what I've seen of my husband working toward his degree, a distance learning degree is still definitely work.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:
But many non-traditional degrees take far less than four years, mostly by encouraging students to CLEP out of as many classes as possible. (Most traditional colleges have strict limitations on CLEPs and other credit-by-testing.) That is actually one of the primary selling points of places like Thomas Edison.

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Four years was an arbitrary number. Seems like the average is more like five, now.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by johnsonweed:

quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:

quote:

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
For me, interaction, performance study, guidance from proffs and peers and hands on learning are what my education have given me. I know that I have achieved things I could not have done through the mail or online. The most memorable and to me the most important moments of my education have been in a classroom, at a cafe, in a performance hall, but never at my desk at home, or even in the university library.

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Exactly! But how do you explain that to someone who wants to know why your institution can't get them a degree in the same short time period the non-traditional one claims?

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That is ALWAYS a challenge when dealing with the students who want the degree beacuse they think it will get them a good paying job. My challenge is to convince some of these kids that the Gen-Ed courses are not something to "get over with." You should come to college (particularly a liberal arts college) for the education and to enrich your life. This generation of students (I call them the entitlement generation) do not always get it. It can be a tough sell.

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I could only speak to people about education based on my own experiences. I suppose one may be able to learn something on one's own; in fact I am certain that is true, however a good college/univ environment focuses your efforts, immerses you in an environment of learning and gives you an education to go with that degree.

I would say: THAT is what the degree means, it represents the EDUCATION you were supposed to have gotten. I have known many people, especially fellow English majors, and less often fellow Music Majors, who have seen college as a utility: a training camp for a career in teaching or something. I have never like these people, they have generally impressed me as rather stupid and boring types, not the kind of person I would learn something from anyway, so why bother with them? Only they are getting the same degree as me, and what it represents is supposed to be the same thing. I know for a fact, not intended as a boast, that I was more prepared, more intelligent, and more able as a freshman, than some of these people whom I met in their last days before graduation at the university. Says nothing about me, these people were not educated to a standard I held, and still hold for myself.

Today, as a rising senior, I am usually (especially in English classes) seen as that "grad student to be" type who is obviously interested in being in school, and not looking to escape. I had a beer with my literary crit prof recently (that's the kind of student I am- call me a suck-up ) and he complained to me about the UC trying to turn his classes, especially his creative writing classes, into workshops for career training. Short stories are changed to business letters, persuasive arguments become corporate memos, and so on. He sees it as a major travesty, and well he should since his job is to be a creative writing teacher, not a career counselor.

Music classes are harder for me. Though I have spent MUCH more time in the music building than any other, I am not the best of the musicians, and I am not the most skillful or florid or advanced of the composers. I do excel at music history/musicology -my concentration- but it is a specialty not always looked on with the greatest admiration. Music majors have to be musicians, and we history specialties are the poorest of the lot; though many of us are not bad by most standards, we generally pale in comparison to comp and performance majors. We are literary types, who are forced to be musicians. (Actually some of us are idiots who are forced to do SOMETHING... guess which one I am! )

Interestingly, my music major is very much focused on the things one would associate with "career training;" so much so that you'd think I'd be bothered by it the way I am in English. But I'm not at all. Part of it is that the major is SO focused on practical skills, that everyone learns them quite efficiently, and everyone is attracted to and relieved by non-practical classroom experiences. Classes that don't teach an operation are so refreshing and rewarding partly because of all the training we get in the two years of core classes in lower division. We have the skills and are ready to apply them intellectually, without a focus on learning how to DO something. We learn how to think, that is our skill as musicians.

That, come to think of it, has been what I have taken away most from music: thinking and focusing my efforts on certain things, following a tast to the end, or seeking a conclusion to an open question in composition or performance. My English major has complemented this with my knowledge of literature, writing, criticism, etc.

People often, far too often, ask me, "So, what are you going to do with that?" when I say I am a music/English major. I despise the question, and usually respond with a hazy description of my future as a traveling music critic or maybe a folksey third-grade teacher in Spain or something. I don't know what to say. I am a student; I am not a _______ in training, or a future ___________. I wouldn't want to be.

Interestingly enough, most of the friends I made in freshman year that I still talk to have gotten to be this way as well. Many entered with a standard freshman line: "In and out in 4." There is even a program at my university that you can apply to, which is supposed to help you achieve that goal by giving you choice registration times and additional career counseling. These friends don't say that anymore; mainly because those who did are gone, unmotivated as students, they got jobs in the last few years and left college "temorarily" to work. Others simply dropped the mantra and got into being students and learning. Few if any kept up the original plan, either because it was a strategy for coping with their unease about their educational fitness, or because they realized that it was a limiting and pointless excercise.
 

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Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
 
In my area -- CS -- a college degree means that you can program, and other people can look at your program and have a chance at understanding it.

I don't know what it means in other areas.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 

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I would say: THAT is what the degree means, it represents the EDUCATION you were supposed to have gotten.

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People often, far too often, ask me, "So, what are you going to do with that?" when I say I am a music/English major. I despise the question, and usually respond with a hazy description of my future as a traveling music critic or maybe a folksey third-grade teacher in Spain or something. I don't know what to say. I am a student; I am not a _______ in training, or a future ___________.

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But I strongly disagree with this attitude. While I am in favor of learning for the sake of knowledge, I do think that after 4 (or 3, or 5) years, you should ALSO be prepared to Get a Real Job. I do agree that should not be one's only focus in college; but it should (IMO) be a focus.
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
I hope my little brother Gets A Real Job Soon. He's got an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and a graduate degree in Materials Engineering from UCSB which is currently ranked at or near the top of those fields.

He graduated this spring and doesn't have a job yet. Now part of it is definitely a personal problem on his part in that he'd rather lifeguard than beat the pavement. But he could have had a job lined up while still in grad school and he just didn't care. My parents are getting a bit frustrated with him.

I on the other hand did some graduate work in Mechanical engineering but never finished the degree. I have an undergraduate degree in Chemical engineering from the U. of Oklahoma, a somewhat less prestigious school than UCSB in the field. I can emphatically say that I worked 3-4 times as hard to earn my degree as he ever worked on his undergrad degree, I know my equivalent named classes were much, much more demanding than his.

Part of me goes "it isn't fair!" On the other hand I also have oodles more practical knowledge on the subject than he does. In engineering, there is sometimes a backlash against the "most prestigious" academic institutions in the field, like MIT or CalTech, because the joke is, you give them a wrench or screwdriver and they don't know what to do with it.

Other schools like the CalPolys have a reputation in engineering that they can fix anything but don't ask them to do a calculation to save their lives.

My dad (also an engineer) used to make fun of the "namby-pamby academic" engineers because he came from Purdue, but has become more lenient on the subject because his sone has become one of them.

My point is even across similar fields the experiences you get at institutions of solid reputation in courses that should theoretically be equivalent, are vastly different. If I had it to do over again, I don't know what academic experience I'd choose. The U of Oklahoma nearly killed me physically from the stress. I wouldn't have had that at UCSB for sure considering how my brother skated through both of his degrees. On the other hand, the "real world" has been much easier for me than school was. I think my bro is going to be in for a shock the other direction.

AJ
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 

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It's like you're a smarter and more articulate version of me.

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!

I think that's the first time anyone's called me articulate, hehheh. Thank you .

But, blacwolve, it works the other way, too, you know. I often find myself thinking/posting "what blacwolve said" if you've posted first. I should say the same of you!

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I am a student; I am not a _______ in training, or a future ___________. I wouldn't want to be.

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"In and out in 4."

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In my area -- CS -- a college degree means that you can program, and other people can look at your program and have a chance at understanding it.

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I think it shows you can stick with something for 4 years. Oh, and that perhaps you learned how to learn.

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But I strongly disagree with this attitude. While I am in favor of learning for the sake of knowledge, I do think that after 4 (or 3, or 5) years, you should ALSO be prepared to Get a Real Job. I do agree that should not be one's only focus in college; but it should (IMO) be a focus.

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That is why my almost-step-sister (gee, I wish my dad would get married so I could stop having to type that) got her degree in Fine Arts, emphasis in ceramics, which is what she wanted-- and then started working toward a teaching certificate.
 

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Posted by Chanie (Member # 9544) on :
 
In response to Nighthawk about programmers.

I worked in industry for several years, and now I am getting my Ph.D. in computer science. I am often in trouble wth my advisor for being a little too "code-monkey" and not enough "theory."

Computer science education gives you a toolbox. Working in industry writing code all day long gives you a different toolbox. Without exception, the most effective programmers I have met are those with both.

Of course, all of the following are gross generalizations with a huge number of exceptions.

People in your group #1 often are creative thinkers. They can hack together anything. Which is awesome until you actually need to make a change or debug it. The lack of structure makes it really hard to figure out what is going on sometimes. In addition, they often lack knowledge of theory, which leads them to reinvent the wheel often, almost always writing code that is less efficient. In addition, they often have huge holes in their education because it has been specialized to whatever field they are working in There are cases when I have seen a lack of understanding of what is happening under the hood. Lastly, they often know one set of tools really well.

People in your Group #2 often lack real world skills. Outside of grad school, a really huge project in a computer science class might take 100 hours to complete. Which is about 2.5 weeks of work in the real world. So often they are not able to handle big projects, especially those in industry where the technical requirements have to balanced with business requirements. A lot of formal computer science education is spent on theory. The thing about theory is that you are going to use a small percentage of it in your real life. But when you do, it can be extremely helpful.

Sometimes formal methods are great. And sometimes you need to get the job done. Any education that is designed to prepare your for a job really should have a serious internship accompanying it. Formal education is for theory and a broad overview. Actual work experience is needed to round it out. A class like databases should be taught by someone with real experience in databases.

Just to give an example, this summer I am working with gene ontologies, trying to write programs to find clusters of genes with the same function in a given sample. Basically a tree of the possible functions of genes, where the root is the most general and the leaves are the most specific. I'm really glad that I have my real-world skills in Perl, MySQL, Apache, etc. I did't learn any of that in university. But I am also really grateful for my advanced algorithms class that taught me all kinds of ways to process trees efficiently. That's the kind of thing that you only learn in the classroom.
 

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Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
 

quote:

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That's the kind of thing that you only learn in the classroom.

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quote:

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I am sure there are some people who can read a book on theory and just absorb it.

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That would be my brother.
 

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Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
 
Well put, Chanie. I have a MS in CS, and I'd love to go for the doctorate one day - just for kicks.
 

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Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Belle:


Another phenomenon I've noticed with online classes is a lot of high school students in them, students who have applied for permission for dual enrollment and are taking their first year of college along with their last year of high school. What does everyone think about that? I know that my oldest daughter wants to do that, mainly because as a gifted student, she doesn't see enough challenge in school right now and really thinks college is wonderful (no doubt because I'm currently in school, but I can remember feeling the same way at her age.) Should we encourage our best and brightest students to rush through the first year or so of college by either CLEPing it away or taking the first year online while they're still in high school?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nighthawk:
Can you CLEP out of courses beyond the first year core requirements? I would have CLEPped out almost my entire compu-sci curriculum if I could.

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This varies greatly from college to college. Some specifically do not allow you to CLEP out of certain core requirements. Many have a maximum number of CLEPs you can get credit for.

And then there are the ones that encourage you to take as many CLEPs as possible.
 

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Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
 
Getting rid of the first year core requirements can make a HUGE difference.

I entered Purdue with 12 credits, only six of which were actually required and that made a really big difference.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Hmm, looking at the list, I'm tempted to CLEP my way to some random additional credits . . .

Nighthawk: I'm somewhat dismayed at your college's curriculum as described, but at my university (where I am not enrolled in the CS department ), the easiest way to get around requirements is just to become friends with various professors; they then use their magic course registration magic to get you into their classes and out of requirements because they like you and think you can contribute, and then you get department admins to sign off on the various higher level courses as fulfilling the lower level requirements, which you use to make the university give you your degree.

I'm in Informatics, myself (explore to your hearts content at http://informatics.indiana.edu , as I'm sure there'll be several questions, starting with "What is Informatics?"). I'm doing it somewhat differently from the intended approach, but I'm aided by the school being small and thus only having one advisor and one recorder, both of whom are also happy to wave their hands and make requirements go away where appropriate.
 

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Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
 
I don't really see any reason not to start a little early. Heck, good time to get those basic courses out of the way so that you can get on to the classes that really matter. CLEP out? Not so much agree on that, but it shouldn't be banned completely.
 

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Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
 
fugu13: While I was attending Florida International University I was writing software for the university. I wrote a disk-based application for admission to FIU for the Admissions Department (which failed miserably... thank you, Internet!).

The only way that helped me is that I didn't have to pay parking tickets (which, at the time, probably would have cost me more than tuition). Otherwise, it had no effect on my curriculum.
 

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Posted by Dr Strangelove (Member # 8331) on :
 
I'm getting my degree in History because I freakin love learning about history! And not just learning about history, but being taught about. The different spins different teachers give the same history is really interesting to me. When I graduate, I haven't the slightest idea what I will do. I might go to grad school, but then I might join the Air Force. Or go to law school. Or try to find a job right away, which would likely not have anything to do with history. Thinking about it, a college degree means virtually nothing to me. I'm going to college because I love to learn, not to get the degree.
My Assosciate of Arts degree on the other hand (gen ed), I went at with a mentality of "I'm only taking these stupid classes and getting this stupid degree so I can get to the good stuff".
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Your administration was clearly not pliable enough . However, the key isn't to write software for people (it is fun, I do it for my university), its to convince profs who teach high level courses in the areas required courses are in that you're able to take their course.
 

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Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
 
I can't figure it out. I wouldn't trade my college years for anything, but the degree hasn't really...I don't know. Nathan makes more than I do and I've got the degree. I wonder if I'm looking in the wrong places for jobs. I'm not sure.
 

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Posted by Chanie (Member # 9544) on :
 
Upon further reflection, I think that computer science is an interesting field, as a result of it being relatively young. This results in more diversity among the "core curriculum," senior faculty that migrated from other departments (usually math), and a rapidly changing field where a professor's knowledge becomes obsolete about the day she joins the faculty. This is probably at least part of the reason why people's experiences with the quality of a computer science education vary so widely.

In computer science (and I think this is true of many other disciplines as well), preparing someone for a job is at least different from preparing them for grad school. At an institution in which a large portion of the students go to grad school, should that be more of a responsibility than teaching the specific skills necessary in the workplace?
 

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Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
 
I didn't bother taking any AP tests my senior year though I was enrolled in my classes. I made this decision immediately upon hearing that my college of choice had its own "core" and nothing could be tested out of. But perhaps that was because we did not have any "English 101" classes but instead took "Texts and Traditions 1" and so on for three years. They stressed the importance of a class cohesion from attending lecture and seminar together four days a week every semester. They also didn't trust that the schools had properly prepared students for college-level courses.

Which makes sense because I've heard the horror stories from professors who end up with freshman in their upper-level math courses with disasterous results.
 

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Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
 

quote:

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I wouldn't trade my college years for anything, but the degree hasn't really...I don't know.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rivka:

quote:

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People often, far too often, ask me, "So, what are you going to do with that?" when I say I am a music/English major. I despise the question, and usually respond with a hazy description of my future as a traveling music critic or maybe a folksey third-grade teacher in Spain or something. I don't know what to say. I am a student; I am not a _______ in training, or a future ___________.

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But I strongly disagree with this attitude. While I am in favor of learning for the sake of knowledge, I do think that after 4 (or 3, or 5) years, you should ALSO be prepared to Get a Real Job. I do agree that should not be one's only focus in college; but it should (IMO) be a focus.

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Thanks for the kudos Rivka-

I suppose part of it is a little personal for me. Yes I have goals of a vague sort; there is for example a much higher likelyhood of me being an English teacher than a bussiness exec, a much higher chance of me being a composer or a writer than a carpenter. These education experiences focus me on the things I do like to learn about, but I think that any career I choose is going to be, at least for me, mostly about learning. I would like to be a period instrumenatalist for Shakespeare plays, for instance, and equally well I would enjoy directing plays or even writing about them, being a critique or a copywriter, or even a journalist of a sort. Anything I do I want to be about taking in the world and putting out what I think only I can give: my interpretation of a peice of music, like my reading of a short story or my setting of a poem to music, the output is supposed to be focused by the intellect, but it relies on what I can learn for myself and share with others.

My education has been about that. Multiple choice quizzes, though easy, have not been my favorites. Synthesis over mimisis: I need to be learning AND creating. As Emerson said: "A good reader must be a creative writer," and "genius is the greatest victim of genius," you have to be always synthesizing and personalizing the world, growing in order to fill the space you have in it, and still be worthy to call yourself human.

There is my focus, it just isn't on that timeless question and answer oral exam your relatives give you on Thanksgiving and Christmas: "Plastics my song, plastics!" I know, somehow, that I couldn't be happy if I KNEW, and PLANNED that my life would put me in a certain house on a certain street in a certain town doing a certain kind of work, forever. I don't know if career life is ever like that, but I get the feeling some people make it that way for themselves. That isn't me. I don't know what me is, but it isn't that.
 

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Posted by Kamisaki (Member # 6309) on :
 
You know, I was reading this thread and I was rather surprised by the attitudes of some of the posters here, who basically seem to think that if somebody is going to college in order to et a higher paying job when they graduate, they are somehow less worthy than someone who is going "just for the education." Quite frankly, that attitude seems to ignore the realities of life for a lot of people.

The fact is, getting an education is hugely expensive, not just because of the cost of tuition and such, but also because of the opportunity cost of giving up what you would otherwise be doing if you weren't going to school. And it's all well and good to say that the value of an education is priceless, but for many people it's just not an option unless they are going to get a significant financial return on their investment.

I also disagree that the purpose of college is "To prepare you for a lifetime of meeting the responsibilities of living in a liberal democracy." That implies that those who haven't gone to college are second-tier citizens compared to those who have. I agree that there are many useful things you learn in a typical university to help you be a better citizen, but there are also many things to be learned by living on your own outside a university.

Basically, people have different reasons why they value a degree, and I don't think that it "should" mean only one thing to everybody. If you're going to school just for the joy of learning, more power to you, but don't look down on the person who sees his education as an investment to earn more money later on in life.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kamisaki:
You know, I was reading this thread and I was rather surprised by the attitudes of some of the posters here, who basically seem to think that if somebody is going to college in order to et a higher paying job when they graduate, they are somehow less worthy than someone who is going "just for the education." Quite frankly, that attitude seems to ignore the realities of life for a lot of people.


Basically, people have different reasons why they value a degree, and I don't think that it "should" mean only one thing to everybody. If you're going to school just for the joy of learning, more power to you, but don't look down on the person who sees his education as an investment to earn more money later on in life.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kamisaki:
You know, I was reading this thread and I was rather surprised by the attitudes of some of the posters here, who basically seem to think that if somebody is going to college in order to get a higher paying job when they graduate, they are somehow less worthy than someone who is going "just for the education."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
If you get a degree to get a better job, in what way does that degree qualify you for anything? It represents the education, it is not the education itself. The degree is based on the acknowledgement that you have become more educated, learned something, and are thus recognized as knowledgeable in a field. This makes you hireable, not the fact that you HAVE the degree.

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quote:

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I think people in this thread are very reasonably giving voice to the concern that online and by-mail education may teach you less, or degrade the inherent value in education, while causing people to overvalue the degree you recieve. If anyone can get a degree in two years by mail, and it really means the same thing that my 4 year in person degree means, then what is the VALUE in that 4 years? This is a legitimate question to ask, and you seem to think we shouldn't be discussing it.

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quote:

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I'm afraid "different people have different reasons," is not grounds to dismiss a complex issue like this. Yes, patently, everyone does things for unique reasons, but this forum speaks to the universal: what can we agree on? What can't we agree on? If we all had to spend the whole time worrying about our various motivations, then what discussion could take place?

edit: I hasten to add, that we need to question motivations in order to find their value. To simply say: we have different motivations, is to beg the question- whom has better motivations? I think a discussion can take place in which we question the value of an education based on the desire to be more hireable or make more money; that is a question we can and should adress, and not shy away from for fear of offense. You are also free to question the value of an education based on nothing but learning, and thus we all have our little say.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kamisaki:
I guess they just struck me the wrong way, but I apologize if I came off as accusing a lot of people here. That wasn't my intention.

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It wasn't so much that I saw it as an accusation as that I wondered if we were reading the same thread.
 

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Posted by Kamisaki (Member # 6309) on :
 
Does your thread have the pink polka dots lining the borders too?
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kamisaki:
[QB]

"I have known many people, especially fellow English majors, and less often fellow Music Majors, who have seen college as a utility: a training camp for a career in teaching or something. I have never like these people, they have generally impressed me as rather stupid and boring types, not the kind of person I would learn something from anyway, so why bother with them?"

You can discuss online/offline all you want and I probably won't have anything to add to that particular discussion; it was the whole "education should be pure and untainted by thoughts of money" vibe that I was questioning.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Belle:
Another phenomenon I've noticed with online classes is a lot of high school students in them, students who have applied for permission for dual enrollment and are taking their first year of college along with their last year of high school. What does everyone think about that? I know that my oldest daughter wants to do that, mainly because as a gifted student, she doesn't see enough challenge in school right now and really thinks college is wonderful (no doubt because I'm currently in school, but I can remember feeling the same way at her age.) Should we encourage our best and brightest students to rush through the first year or so of college by either CLEPing it away or taking the first year online while they're still in high school?

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quote:

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Haha. No, it only bothers me when the complainer doesn't deserve to be complaining. I do my share of griping when it deserved, but then I also suck it up and do the work.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Orincoro:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kamisaki:
[QB]

"I have known many people, especially fellow English majors, and less often fellow Music Majors, who have seen college as a utility: a training camp for a career in teaching or something. I have never like these people, they have generally impressed me as rather stupid and boring types, not the kind of person I would learn something from anyway, so why bother with them?"

You can discuss online/offline all you want and I probably won't have anything to add to that particular discussion; it was the whole "education should be pure and untainted by thoughts of money" vibe that I was questioning.

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I'll note that I make a distinction between

1. Entering a university with an object in mind: getting a better job than you could have otherwise

and

2. as I said treating college like a training camp for a career.

Notice that the first doesn't preclude learning or say anything about how one treats the university, fellow students or the classes. It doesn't exclude learning for learning's sake, on the PATH TO the career. It may be an object, but there is room in between for what I would call the right motivations.

The second one, and the one that really bothers me, is the student who is treating the university, and thus the classes and the fellow students, in entirely the wrong way. This is the student for whom the proffessor I mentioned was asked to change a creative writing class effectively into a business letter writing class. These students treat the UC and other universities like Devry or Heald college, I have seen this happen. Students commute from long distance to sit in classes two days a week, they don't contribute to discussion, or read the assignments. They complain bitterly about office hours and study groups, and their projects at the end of the quarter are embarassing (this is in music classes mostly). I have known musicians even, to balk at spending time rehearsing with a group outside of class, because they refused to move to the area of the school, get to know anyone, or find work closer to campus. These are expected, basic things that one must do as a university student, and it cuts no ice with some people.

That is the kind of student I hate, because it brings down the level and tone of the whole class.

An anecdote: this past 2 years we had a student very much like the one I describe in my music series, so we were in 4 classes together: Musicianship, theory comp, music history and keyboarding. We were in the last lower div theory class at the UC, after 2 solid years of composition, history, musicanship, performance study, etc, she asks the professor this question in a theory lecture on Mahler:

"I mean, why are we listening to Mahler? Like, what do people like about Mahler, whats the big deal with him? Personally I just go to the symphony to hear the soloist play well, I never really listen to the whole orchestra ... so what makes Mahler so great, and what do we get out of listening to him?"


MY rendition doesn't do it justice, it was petulant and bored sounding, and delivered as much as an accusation than a question. Very strange. Questions from other class members were more along the lines of "How can we recognize the differences between the way Mahler moves into the development in his early symphonies compared with, say, Brahms? Or, "to whom to did Mahler credit the convention of the 5 movement symphonic stucture he used?" The question: "Whats the big deal about Mahler," in that circumstance, was laughable.
(she is, btw a virtuoso violinist)

Later the proffessor (also conductor of one of my ensembles) would say that if you have to ask a question like THAT after 2 years as a music major, you don't listen to enough music. She was being charitable. Its the equivelant of spending two years studying drama and asking "whats the big deal about Shakespeare?"

Now, granted this is partly an isolated case involving a bewilderingly clueless music student who spent two years as a major without learning the answer to THAT question, but its something of a common experience for me. I just meet people in my classes who don't seem to be absorbing anything. I see them periodically in an English section, and peer review their work and wonder how they can be English majors, how they thought they were going to get through it! For some of these people the attitude is: Get in, get out, drive by education.

As I said above, the uncommited student, the one who wants to be given skills in outline form to practice during two hour lectures brings down the tone and pace of the class. A stupid question (I believe in stupid questions, but they are difficult to concieve of for most people), can sidetrack a discussion if the prof has to do a double take at the student and go: "seriously, you really expect me to give you an answer?" The same student is the one who spends half of the first class meeting probing the expectations of the prof as to grading, absences, and class participation, asking questions that anyone could safely assume would be answered in due time. "If you were to accidentally put a question from the first half of the quarter on a non-cumulative test from the second half, then how would you count the answers to that?" I'm not kidding when I say I have heard that question more than once in an introductory meeting. I heard it this afternoon.

These are things I have come to associate with "that type" of student, the same one who is using the university in a manner not intended by the manufacturer, and which is not covered by warranty, with the "in and out in 4" type. It is sometimes apt as a comparison, and sometimes not, for various reasons.

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When the job market stops treating a college degree (note: degree, not education) like a requirement, you'll probably see a noticable change in the student demographic. As it is, there are so many jobs that unnecessarily expect/demand a degree that the diploma-mill view of higher education makes too much sense to ignore.
 

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Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
18 pages? Psh. My freshman year, I had this class in which the final paper had to be 104 pages. He said he did this to teach us not to be afraid of long papers. Pretty much we could put whatever we wanted in it (mine ended up with drawings from a friend's Deviantart, even), so long as we had 104 pages.

It actually came in handy, when I had a class with my psycho advisor who thought that a business plan wasn't a real business plan unless it was 80 pages long or something, with 30 pages of budget analysis. Of course, we had to deliver it walking barefoot ten miles in a blizzard during the blazing heat of the summer, during a hurricane. Uphill both ways.

-pH
 

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Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 

quote:

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Agreed. I was a mechanical engineer in college, and there were few things more annoying than English majors whining about having to write one 18 page paper when I had just gotten out of a 20 hour stretch in the machine shop.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Belle:

quote:

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Agreed. I was a mechanical engineer in college, and there were few things more annoying than English majors whining about having to write one 18 page paper when I had just gotten out of a 20 hour stretch in the machine shop.

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An 18 page paper would take me far more than 20 hours, and I'm generally considered a fast writer. When you counted the travel time to the library and the time spent there in research, I spent more than 20 hours on a six page paper just this semester.

There are few things more annoying to me than people who think just because a different major doesn't have the same requirements as theirs, the person in the major obviously doesn't work as hard.

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I think mechanical engineers are just naturally inclined to believe that the bicycle, flamethrower, or space shuttle they are building is more important than everything else on the earth.

But yes, that attitude annoys me as well. Especially because I have a business degree, which apparently means that I am a lazy, money-grubbing moron who just chose the major I thought would make me the most money with the least amount of work.

-pH
 

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Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
 
I'm worried when I hear about on line humanities classes. Edit: My ideal humanities course would be a small conversation.

Generally, judging the quality of a discipline by hardest or most time-intensive, makes about as much sense as judging that the best parent is the one who disciplines his/her kids the strictest.

In short, it doesn't matter how many hours a given paper or project or lab took, what matters is the importance of what you learned by doing it.

[ August 08, 2006, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
 

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Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong:
I'm worried when I hear about on line humanities classes. Maybe humanities course would be a small conversation.

Generally, judging the quality of a discipline by hardest or most time-intensive, makes about as much sense as judging that the best parent is the one who disciplines his/her kids the strictest.

In short, it doesn't matter how many hours a given paper or projuect or lab took, what matters is the importance of what you learned by doing it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Edgehopper:

quote:

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Haha. No, it only bothers me when the complainer doesn't deserve to be complaining. I do my share of griping when it deserved, but then I also suck it up and do the work.

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Agreed. I was a mechanical engineer in college, and there were few things more annoying than English majors whining about having to write one 18 page paper when I had just gotten out of a 20 hour stretch in the machine shop.

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As a liberal arts major, I find engineering majors complaining about having to write one six page paper just as frustrating.
 

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Posted by Edgehopper (Member # 1716) on :
 

quote:

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An 18 page paper would take me far more than 20 hours, and I'm generally considered a fast writer. When you counted the travel time to the library and the time spent there in research, I spent more than 20 hours on a six page paper just this semester.

There are few things more annoying to me than people who think just because a different major doesn't have the same requirements as theirs, the person in the major obviously doesn't work as hard.

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You misunderstand--I was annoyed because the English major got to sleep like a normal person English majors work plenty hard and I have great respect for them. But they don't get to complain about physical exhaustion. And we don't get to complain about boredom
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
I agree that scientists tend to seem to do more intensive work than liberal artsies.
 

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Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 

quote:

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You misunderstand--I was annoyed because the English major got to sleep like a normal person

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quote:

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Here's an idea - quit deciding what people can or cannot complain about unless you've walked the proverbial mile in the proverbial shoes. It will only lead you into trouble, and you're bound to make someone angry.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Edgehopper:

quote:

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Here's an idea - quit deciding what people can or cannot complain about unless you've walked the proverbial mile in the proverbial shoes. It will only lead you into trouble, and you're bound to make someone angry.

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Rarrgh...I went to a liberal arts school and took serious humanities courses as well. They uniformly required more work than my engineering classes that were test-focused, but much less work than my project classes, and then that work could be done sitting down at a desk rather than standing at a milling machine for hours at a time.

I had no friends who were both English majors and busy mothers of four. Anyone going through undergrad as a mother of four will of course have a much more difficult time of it than a single childless 19 year old regardless of major. At least at my undergrad, the engineers ended up slaving away over circuit boards on Friday nights while the humanities majors were socializing. And when those humanities majors complained about their workload the following Monday at lunch, it was certainly annoying.

There are of course exceptions to every rule, and they usually have to do with external factors.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Edgehopper:
And when those humanities majors complained about their workload the following Monday at lunch, it was certainly annoying.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Edgehopper:

quote:

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Here's an idea - quit deciding what people can or cannot complain about unless you've walked the proverbial mile in the proverbial shoes. It will only lead you into trouble, and you're bound to make someone angry.

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I had no friends who were both English majors and busy mothers of four. Anyone going through undergrad as a mother of four will of course have a much more difficult time of it than a single childless 19 year old regardless of major. At least at my undergrad, the engineers ended up slaving away over circuit boards on Friday nights while the humanities majors were socializing. And when those humanities majors complained about their workload the following Monday at lunch, it was certainly annoying.

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quote:

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Originally posted by blacwolve:

quote:

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Originally posted by Edgehopper:
And when those humanities majors complained about their workload the following Monday at lunch, it was certainly annoying.

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And listening to engineering majors talk about how much better they are than you gets really old really fast, too. I've never met an engineering major who cared, though.

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quote:

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I'll note that I make a distinction between

1. Entering a university with an object in mind: getting a better job than you could have otherwise

and

2. as I said treating college like a training camp for a career.

Notice that the first doesn't preclude learning or say anything about how one treats the university, fellow students or the classes. It doesn't exclude learning for learning's sake, on the PATH TO the career. It may be an object, but there is room in between for what I would call the right motivations.

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quote:

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I'm not saying that there is an answer. You just have to curse the Fates for putting you in a world that denies that people can both have cake and eat it. Or, you can do what the economists do, fake it, and pretend that they aren't damning themselves to hell in the process.

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Ummmmm..... Fate won't let us eat cake, and economists go to hell? What were we talking about again?

Seriously, though, you lost me with that last line. What exactly are economists "faking," and why does that make them evil?

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I have a bit of personal interest in the answer to that question, since I plan to become an economist myself, and if that means I damn myself to hell, I'd at least like to know why.
 

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Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
 
Kamisaki,

It's the case that people choose between two mutually exclusive courses. In Attica, this choice was at the heart of tragedy, does Antigone obey the law of nature and bury her brother or does she obey Creon's law and let the body stay unburied, does Agamemnon kill Iphigenia and sail to Troy, or does he call the whole business off and lose the Argives' place in history.

In economics, this choice has been recast as an opportunity cost. The problem is that opportunity costs aren't considered with the same awe as in tragedy because of the introduction of "utils." The introduction of "utils" allows people to pretend to compare these incomparable courses, by setting both courses equal to these fake units and positing the that the rational choice is the one that produces the most utils, no remorse required. The situation is even easier when we switch in money for utils.

It's neat business. In effect, economics has neutered the thorny problems of tragedy in a very clear and clean manner. The problems with this approach, as they appear to me, are twofold, the reduction of tragedy to a calculation of utils takes away the awe and horror of the events by basing the decision on the feelings of the decider, but Antigone's decison was not a matter of her wanting to bury her brother; it was a matter based on knowing that in this world, living bodies stay above ground, and dead ones below. It wasn't a decison about the wants of Antigone, rather, it was a decision about whether to respect the law of nature, and shifting the decision from the law of nature to the inclination of Antigone, or the utils she would receive, makes the whole decision smaller business. Am I starting to make myself clear?
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In my view, this discussion about an undergraduate education is has been centered entirely too much on the wants of the student, when the issue shouldn't be centered around the wants of the student, rather, the purpose of education should be determined largely by the nature of the human condition, and how education can aide us in coping with the attending tragedies as tragedies, not as economic decisions. In my view, Mac's education did that. The engineer's, or economist's, or behavioral scientist's education, I don't know so much.

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In chapter six of the Human Condition Hannah Arendt gives this issue a better treatment than I do in this post. I think that chapter six can be read as a stand alone chapter, if you understand that economics (oikos nomos) originally meant laws of the household, laws of biological existence, and the person who was emancipated from those laws was the political agent in the first democracy. Wives and slaves dealt with economics, while men emerged free of those bonds to conduct public affairs. Chapter five discusses how the laws of the house (economics) leaked outside of the house and started meddling in public affairs, and that's enough background to segway into chapter six.

[ August 09, 2006, 11:32 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Unsurprisingly, Irami substantially misrepresents economics. First, 'utils' are only a convention for comparison, much as dollars are only a convention for exchange, but even less so.

Economists know people make choices. Even in such tragic circumstances, a choice is made. Economists choose to suppose that people make the choice they think will make them comparably better off.

From those two assumptions, and only those two assumptions, we can talk about situations where people are better off and situations where people are worse off, by seeing if, given a change, they make a different choice. For instance, if someone has choices A and B and chooses B, but then a change happens to make the choices A, B and C and the person chooses C, economists would argue (and I think most people would agree) that the change made the person better off, since it introduced a choice the person preferred to any of his or her previous choices.

That's all that's meant by utility in economics.

Irami fails to understand that utility in economics is not the utility of philosophy. Utility in economics is simply a way of expressing the fact that people do make choices, and the assumption that choices are attempts to make the most personally beneficial/least personally harmful choices (note: this does not preclude personal sacrifice, the statement is wholly in the perspective of the individual's own value system).

Economics makes no statements about remorse, those are from Irami. Economics makes no statements about tragedy, those are from Irami.

Economics does say that those choices are personally comparable, and has significant evidence this is so. Specifically, since people make such choices, there must be some comparison going on for that person, which is all that is assumed by economics. I hope Irami would not deny that people do make choices.

In some ways, Irami's statement is completely befuddling. Economics says exactly the opposite of what he talks about -- it says that Antigone's decision was wholly based on 'the feelings of the decider', and had nothing to do with 'knowing that in this world living bodies stay above ground, and dead ones below'. Social conventions are irrelevant in economics except insofar as they affect individual preferences.

Perhaps most importantly, economics says nothing at all about how people should know what makes them better or worse off (and thus make choices). It says nothing at all about how someone should cope with tragedies, beyond exactly what Irami has said one should do in a tragic situation, which is 'basing the decision on the feeling of the decider'.
 

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Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
 

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it[economics] says that Antigone's decision was wholly based on 'the feelings of the decider', and had nothing to do with 'knowing that in this world living bodies stay above ground, and dead ones below'. Social conventions are irrelevant in economics except insofar as they affect individual preferences.

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In my view, this discussion about an undergraduate education is has been centered entirely too much on the wants of the student, when the issue shouldn't be centered around the wants of the student, rather, the purpose of education should be determined largely by the nature of the human condition

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Unlike you, economics does not assume there are 'right choices'. It solely takes information about preferred choices from the choices people make, and assumes that whatever choices they make are preferred to all the other choices they could have made.

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An 18 page paper would take me far more than 20 hours, and I'm generally considered a fast writer.

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Originally posted by MrSquicky:

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An 18 page paper would take me far more than 20 hours, and I'm generally considered a fast writer.

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As an aside, I'm wondering how true this is for people. For me, a rule of thumb is that, when I sit down to write, I can expect to put out 2-3 pages an hour. Now, this doesn't involve research and I spend some time putting the shape of the paper together in my head before I actually start writing, but once I was ready to write, I'd imagine that an 18 page paper would take me about 8 hours to write.

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Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong:

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Unlike you, economics does not assume there are 'right choices'. It solely takes information about preferred choices from the choices people make, and assumes that whatever choices they make are preferred to all the other choices they could have made.

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That last clause is a big, pregnant assumption, isn't it?

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However, given that it is very difficult to find many (if any) examples of people demonstrably choosing something they don't prefer at the time, it seems pretty reasonable as an assumption for describing aggregate behavior in broad strokes.

Also, there's that its impossible to construct a useful quantitative model if you don't assume that the choice chosen was preferred by the chooser out of the perceived options.

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Every choice that calls for a certain of quality of character is not chosen because it is preferred, it is chosen because that is what the situation calls for. When we are lucky, what we prefer and what the situation calls for align. When we are holy, what the situation calls for and what we prefer align for the right reasons.

Sure, these decisions may be fewer in number, but these are the important decisions.

As to the model, don't build it. The model may be appropriate for ice cream flavors and other matters of taste, but not for anything important.
 

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Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
I'm sorry I got riled up and acted like a jerk. I shouldn't have let my current stress level spill over into this thread.

warning - personal rant ahead

I'm trying to get myself and four kids back in school, and my university has raised tuition and fees a substantial amount, not to mention what I spent on school supplies and I'm a little sick of having to defend my degree and future job choice everywhere I go. It seems if someone asks me what I do and I tell them - "I'm a mom and a student" they always ask what I'm studying and why and when I say I'm going to be an English teacher I get a lecture on how stupid I am. How I'll never make any money, and I'll quit teaching in a couple of years after I find out what it's "really like" and why don't I just go to law school, English majors do really well in law school. I get told that I'll either be shot or ridiculed by the teens I'll teach, and who would want to spend their time surrounded by teenagers anyway, don't I know what snotty ba****s they are?



Only once in the past year can I think of anyone who wasn't already my friend who responded positively to me when I said what I was going to do and she was a former high school English teacher I ran into at chemo. We sat and talked about literature and teaching and teens, and when she got up to leave she put her hand on my arm and leaned down and said "you're going to be a wonderful teacher." I almost cried, because it was one of the only times someone said something nice about it to me. Even members of my own family have been very negative (not my husband, but extended family.) It would be so much easier on me right now (not to mention cheaper) to just quit and decide I'll never go back to work again and just stay home, but I don't want to do it. Then again, when people are so discouraging, it's tempting.

Again, I'm sorry - I do acknowledge that engineering majors work very hard, and some people do skate by with English degrees, and my situation isn't the norm. I didn't mean to be so snarky.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
*hug* Belle, you ARE going to be a wonderful teacher. And while I just got out of teaching (and am enjoying the freedom from paper-grading), I think there are some really great things about teaching that you will love.

Also, I think good teachers are crucial, and we should encourage every one we can!
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Many people consider models that allow significant improvements in standards of living, saving lives, to be important, strangely.

As for this:

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Every choice that calls for a certain of quality of character is not chosen because it is preferred, it is chosen because that is what the situation calls for. When we are lucky, what we prefer and what the situation calls for align. When we are holy, what the situation calls for and what we prefer align for the right reasons.

Sure, these decisions may be fewer in number, but these are the important decisions.

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Originally posted by Belle:
I get told that I'll either be shot or ridiculed by the teens I'll teach, and who would want to spend their time surrounded by teenagers anyway, don't I know what snotty ba****s they are?

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Could you give an example of something that is chosen (presumably because 'the situation calls for' it) that is not preferred by the person making the choice over the other options he or she perceives to be available to him or her?

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There is a real anti-intellectual vein in our society, and perhaps people like you, who go back to get an education are seen as dangerous, or like traitors to their class or place in society.

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This notion that some people, for certain things, have things inside them that prevent them from doing those things, yet those things inside them are not 'choices', is bizarre and unapproachable.

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Originally posted by Shigosei:
When I get my degree this spring (I hope), it will represent that I have taken certain classes and had certain experiences. I think I've learned plenty of theoretical knowledge about engineering, but I feel completely unprepared to actually be an engineer.

For me, the degree also represents all the learning I did outside of the classroom. As others have mentioned, college is an extremely valuable experience in itself--interacting with people, learning to be a responsible adult, coming across a broad set of views. I've tried all sorts of new things in college. Of course, not everyone does, so the degree doesn't universally represent that kind of learning.

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