

Should the Obama Generation Drop Out? - tokenadult
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/opinion/28murray.html

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yummyfajitas
This is unlikely to occur. The main reasons:

1) The cultural reason. A lot of politics is cultural; most people have a self
image, and pick a party to fit that image. The self image of Obama's party:
smart/educated/cultured, not to mention altruistic. Providing education is
viewed as a morally virtuous act ("give something back", with "in return for
money and excellent job security" being unstated), not merely a professional
choice.

De-emphasize education? Sacrilege. It's like suggesting a religious
conservative should de-emphasize traditional hetero marriage. Good luck with
that.

2) It goes strongly against the interests of Obama and his party:
<http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.php?ind=W04>

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swombat
The author is assuming that what employers look for in a degree is a specific
skill. It is not. It is a general ability to deal with hard, ill-defined work,
and the persistence to keep at it despite the length of it (4 years seems
awfully long when you're 18). It's about the ability to socialise with widely
different groups of people and get along with them.

University isn't about job training, no matter how some people might want it
to be. It's not about what you learn, it's about learning to learn.

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stcredzero
Colleges should focus more on serving needs and less on ineffective preaching.
My experience as a TA in 101/102 level courses is that there is _no use at
all_ in subject requirements to encourage a breadth of knowledge in students.
These only serve to teach students that university is largely bureaucratic
bullshit. Give students the freedom to choose the courses they want.
Requirements just encourage lowest common denominator behavior in both
students and academic departments.

~~~
justindz
I would argue that allowing anyone to choose whatever courses they want
(outside of degree requirements) would not discourage lowest common
denominator behavior. It would facilitate that even more (e.g. Accounting +
Non-stop PE).

But, since our job is also not to support the LCD but the GCD, I would still
support this. I would have taken more Japanese, or possibly another language,
if I didn't have to take Geology. I likely would have also substituted more
Philosophy for Communications. That would have been a better supplement to my
CS coursework and wouldn't have made me a less well-rounded person.

~~~
stcredzero
That is my point! I am all for _not discouraging_ Lowest Common Denominator
behavior. You can't prevent it. Actively trying to prevent it causes such LCD
behavior to leak into and pollute the efforts of GCD students. Instead,
universities should focus their effort on serving the needs of those who want
to learn. Coercion just backfires.

I could've done a much better job in my Computer Science 101/102 courses if I
could just teach the people who really wanted to study the material, and not
people who just wanted to get out of the math requirement.

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gamble
The author of this article, Charles Murray, is best known for writing "The
Bell Curve", which argued that biological factors determine intelligence, and
intelligence determines success. I don't agree with his premise that only 10%
of university students are innately capable of a hard-science curriculum.
Intelligence is just a coefficient to effort. Being a genius certainly helps,
but most people could get through a science or engineering program if they
were willing to put in the work.

OTOH, he is correct that BA degrees have little relevance in the modern
economy. They persist as a relic from the role liberal-arts colleges played
before WW2 in conferring educational pedigrees on upper-class men. Higher
education is much more egalitarian today, but we're still aping the
educational practices of that era.

As a general rule, I don't think anyone should spend the time or money on a
degree that they aren't going to use after graduation.

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speek
Nobody is forcing anybody to get a bachelor's degree.

Or, nobody _should_ be forcing anybody to get a bachelor's degree. It should
be completely up to the kid going through the schooling to make up their own
mind.

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten stuff (work, tips, useful stuff,
etc) not through my schooling but through the people I know, but I'm still
going through my bachelor's degree/master's degree _hopefully a few of these_
/PhD because I want to.

If you don't like what you're doing, do something else while you're still
young. You most likely have a place to live (parents) and some form of
ambition, but if you decide to go through a useless bachelor's degree (I'm not
saying that bachelor's degrees are useless, just getting an unused bachelor's
degree is) that's your problem and you don't have the right to complain. Just
do something about it!

~~~
tokenadult
"You most likely have a place to live (parents)"

Lots of young people are turned out of home when they reach adult age. I
wouldn't assume that any particular nineteen-year-old has anywhere else to
live but a place where he is paying rent.

~~~
hexis
"Lots of young people are turned out of home when they reach adult age."

I'm 30 and I've never met or heard of one in the last fifteen years or so. I'm
sure such young people exist, but I doubt there are "lots" of them anymore.

~~~
tokenadult
"I'm 30 and I've never met or heard of one in the last fifteen years or so."

What circles do you hang out in?

I'm considerably older, and perhaps I've lived in more different places too.

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tokenadult
This seems like a good follow-up to the thread elicited by pg's article "After
Credentials."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=399863>

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time_management
_Except for the freakishly gifted, all of us are too dumb to get through
college in many majors._

Disagree strongly. Most people are too _undisciplined_ to get through the
"hard" majors, or too _uninterested_ to get through the "softer" ones (e.g.
engineers who claim they couldn't have done a history major).

I agree that not everyone should be going to college. A proportion higher than
10% doesn't make sense to me. However, I'd guess that 20-40% have enough raw
intellectual ability to pass through college with decent grades, and that
5-10% could complete virtually any major. The important point is that,
although a quarter or more have the intellectual mettle to get through
college, they have no interest in the coursework, and are going through the
motions only to be employable.

I'll also point out that American college students are not working full-
throttle. At demanding colleges (Ivies, MIT, top LACs) they might average
30-40 hours per week on classes and homework. At "average" colleges-- filled
mostly by students who don't belong there for reasons of motivation (to get a
job) rather than ability-- it's closer to 10-20.

~~~
gamache
_At demanding colleges (Ivies, MIT, top LACs) they might average 30-40 hours
per week on classes and homework._

Not true, at least as you state it. When I was at MIT, I was spending about
30-40 hours per week on homework for a single class. Not all my classes were
this hard, but there was at least one ball-buster per term. And I was far from
alone in this regard.

~~~
time_management
Fair call. MIT is known to be hard and I know nothing about it, so I'll defer
to you on this one. I was just listing it on the roster of "demanding
colleges". Evidently, MIT is in a league of its own when it comes to being
demanding.

~~~
stcredzero
From what I've heard, Caltech and Harvey-Mudd are in that league. Some from
Caltech would tell you that it's higher there.

~~~
nostrademons
I've heard Cornell and Swarthmore are too - those are other colleges with a
"throw work at you until you break" reputation. And Harvard is if you want an
A, but 80% of Harvard students get Bs anyway, so most figure they'll just
settle for that and work about as hard as any other liberal arts college.

Amherst was usually about 20-30 hours/week between classes and homework,
_except_ when I took Quantum Mechanics or OS Design, each of which required
20-30 hours/week by itself.

