Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
I was trying to find a thread to post this article from the NYTimes yesterday
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/education/as-interest-fades-in-the-humanities-colleges-worry.html
...
Meanwhile, since the recession — probably because of the recession — there has been a profound shift toward viewing college education as a vocational training ground.
“College is increasingly being defined narrowly as job preparation, not as something designed to educate the whole person,” said Pauline Yu, president of the American Council of Learned Societies.
...
Some professors flinch when they hear colleagues talking about the need to prepare students for jobs.
“I think that’s conceding too quickly,” said Mark Edmundson, an English professor at the University of Virginia. “We’re not a feeder for law school; our job is to help students learn to question.”
...
“Students who are anxious about finishing their degree, and avoiding debt, sometimes see the breadth requirements as getting in their way,” said Nicholas Dirks, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.
Many do not understand that the study of humanities offers skills that will help them sort out values, conflicting issues and fundamental philosophical questions, said Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College.
“We have failed to make the case that those skills are as essential to engineers and scientists and businessmen as to philosophy professors,” he said.
Interestingly, Botstein is onto something, "those skills are as essential to engineers and scientists and businessmen"
This past summer, participating in a summer school associated with the NSSC (http://nssc.berkeley.edu/); there was an evening "event" where the speaker discussed ethics. Apparently teaching ethics to engineering students has become quite a focus in academe, at least at UCB.
After reading the NYTimes article yesterday, I had a thought about how I learned ethics, not from an defuse socialization process, but formally. I didn't take a course in the Physics Department titled "Ethics for Physicists" but rather through reading literature and learning history. From fictional literature the exploration of the "human condition" through plausible stories gets you thinking about situations you might encounter. History teaches us about the consequences of choices, many of them dealing with ethical conundrum.
While teaching an ethics course in the Engineering department might be "efficient" it is hard to understand how such a course could address situations beyond the "case studies" presented... I can't imagine ethics being reduced down to a logic flow chart to be applied when needed (not that these classes do that).
I can't imagine it because of my exposure to "the humanities" where these questions are pondered, discussed endlessly, and an answer never offered... or at least not a hard-and-fast answer. The thinking through of the question is what is important, and a familiarity with that question, and the considerations, the best outcome, at least best when one is eventually confronted with a the real thing in life.
Why this isn't now apparent I don't know... perhaps it is the same reason that Physics Departments (at least when I was teaching in one) taught 19th century mathematics to its majors rather than having the Mathematics Department do it...
|
|
pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
|
|
People should get a credit for learning stuff from youtube.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
Werd has it the dudes that built the Great Pyramid didn't go to colledge.
|
|
Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
|
|
i would definitely conclude
that the experience and fruit of
college has increased my
quality of life.
|
|
okie
Trad climber
|
|
Bokonon says: " if you think ignorance is expensive, try education."
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
But Weege, you got an education. I've a couple of nieces who wasted a whole lot of time and their Dad's money and don't even have husbands to show for it. I won't go into the minimum wage jobs they have.
|
|
Floyd Hayes
Trad climber
Hidden Valley Lake, CA
|
|
I wouldn't have become a college professor had I never gone to college.
|
|
JLP
Social climber
The internet
|
|
College won't make an idiot smart nor employable at any cost.
|
|
Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
|
|
There are a bunch of ignorant, hungry sheep down in the Valley of Germanium and Silicon too. Middle class stupidity and conformity permeates the whole culture top to bottom. A nasty little junior achiever with his hard work, individual initiative, free will talk sounds so stupid when he collides with big money it makes you want to laugh (or cry). They can all go home and sacrifice puppies to an Ayn Rand stone idol. Long live the Dragon Lady and the University of Chicago School of Economics.
|
|
Rudder
Trad climber
Costa Mesa, CA
|
|
For those who don't believe in a college degree... watch 28 Up. :)
|
|
Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
|
|
Diplomas by themselves will not make anyone smart, or employed. Lack of education leaves a lot of doors closed, though.
Median annual earnings of full-time, full-year wage and salary workers ages 25-34, by educational attainment: 2011
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=77
|
|
Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
|
|
^^^^^ Totally got me for a minute! Hahahaha!
|
|
Chugach
Trad climber
Vermont
|
|
What can one do with a business degree that they can't do by simply immersing themselves in the business world? Serious question, I don't know... I find "business" incredibly boring.
You're half right, I've got an Economics degree and an MBA and that accounts for maybe 2% of my entire business knowledge. Biggest problem with the skipping college plan is you start at the lowest rung of the ladder and it's tough to "immerse yourself in the business world" from the bottom rung. I spent my 20's feeding a climbing addiction but now that I spend time with some hyper-achieving youngsters I'm amazed how much they know by 30 and it's all because they got fast-track opportunities coming out of college.
Three Best parts of college for me were;
1. Escape from my shitty redneck hometown in Louisiana.
2. Met my future wife and have been madly in love for 24 years now.
3. Got to play college ball which was just a ton of fun.
Yes, REILLY; "Werd has it the dudes that built the Great Pyramid didn't go to colledge".
They were slaves.
|
|
Tom Turrentine
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
College ruined my climbing career..and ruined my machining career I began at 15 and ruined my carpentry career I began at 20 and ruined my religion as well. I flunked out of first year of college, then went back and forth between climbing, carpentry, foreign travel and college. First thought I wanted to be a missionary, then a medical doctor, then a furniture maker, then a development economist, finally settled on anthropology, finished at 40 and now I work all the time with engineers at a University on low carbon pathways for vehicles.
The best thing about college was that it kept me looking at the big picture, gave me tools to think about complex problems. The one thing I curse about college is that it has just about pinned me to this chair, typing on this computer.
|
|
NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
|
|
College, and education in general, is a tool. A tool is still a tool whether it is in the hands of an idiot, someone too lazy to make use of it, or in the hands of someone who knows how to make something beautiful and useful with it.
The point here should be to take personal responsibility for what you want to be, and decide for yourself whether or not going to college is a useful tool for you.
Choosing not to have the degree is taking on a lot of personal responsibility for success, when you don't have as much control over those factors as you might like to think. If you want to be an entrepreneur or free-lance contractor forever, that's fine (until you get burned out or have other life ambitions and responsibilities and want a 9 to 5 in a big company). But you can't fall back as easily to the standard channels of getting a job without the college degree. This is because HR departments are staffed with people who can't tell the difference between who's good or who's not. But they can throw away all resumes that don't have a B.S. or M.S. or Ph.D in the education section.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
Chugach, actually it is now widely believed that most were knott slaves.
It doesn't mean they didn't make mistakes though... (you can skip the ad)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
CrackAddict
Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
|
|
Education is not necessarily a waste of time, but people need to start thinking much more pragmatically about it and less idealistically. If you are going to borrow $60,000 a year to study Sociology at Harvard, you have to understand that you are entering a life of indentured servitude as you will never be likely to pay off your debt. If you are working your way through Cal State to be an engineer, you will likely do fine.
There should also be more trade oriented education (manufacturing, construction, plumbing, etc.), especially at the junior colleges. Not everyone needs to have a 4 year degree.
|
|
CrackAddict
Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
|
|
People should get a credit for learning stuff from youtube.
This is probably the future of education, most likely. People will learn from free or inexpensive resources like youtube. The only thing missing is a standardized academic testing industry.
|
|
jopay
climber
so.il
|
|
College is never a waste of time, probably one of my greatest regrets is not finishing college. In high school I was a gear head and didn't take the "hard" subjects, but as a senior I decided I wanted to go further and took the ACT test, I got in two years at community colleges and then the letter came and I spent three years in the military, where I interacted with 90 day wonders and senior officers and I saw what an education can mean, young 2nd Lieutenants had new sports cars and lived in bachelor officer quarters, I lived in the barracks and bummed rides.Then freshly discharged with a wife I tried, but it was an uphill struggle, my family were not college educated and my wife wanted to move closer to her parents, and eventually the marriage fell apart and so did my ambitions, it would have been tough but with tutoring I could have pulled it off.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
Not everyone needs to have a 4 year degree.
Sadly, that is not what this world is coming to. Employers don't want to
have to actually judge a job applicant on his or her ability to actually do
a job or think critically they just want to see a piece of paper that supposedly
verifies that they are 'qualified'. Now, if you want to spend your career
studying the Shroud of Turin then you're gonna need a lot more than 4 years.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!