""Geoff Zinderdine"" wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > > I understand everything you said, and I agree that college coursework > should > > modernize, but I think you may be missing the point of a college > education. > > > > The point of a college education is not to prepare you to step into a job > > immediately. That is not its purpose, and never has been - even for such > > 'professional' degrees like engineering and CS. The purpose of the > college > > degree is to provide you with a a reservoir of general knowledge upon > which > > you can draw, as well as practice in life-skills such as problem-solving, > > critical thinking, and time-management. In essence, you learn how to > learn. > > In the abstract this is a nice thought and perhaps how things should work. > In practice, university seemed to me to be mostly about learning how to > impress a bevy of preening mandarins who have long since lost any relevance > to the world at large. By removing accountability, tenure enforces this > irrelevance. There are some wonderful teachers and amazing researchers to > be sure, but they tend to be focused in disciplines which are very much > practical in nature such as medicine which are preparing students for real > world tasks. > > The real reason that college programs are far behind the times > technologywise is not because of any noble liberal arts approach to > learning. It is because the people on the cutting edge of technology are > working for companies that can remunerate them better than schools. There > is no fundamental benefit to studying old technology over new outside of > inculcating some small sense of nostalgia for an age when you could almost > know everything about the field. At issue is a lack of people qualified to > teach at the cutting edge.
I think you have made the mistake of restricting yourself just to the realm of technology - and rapidly moving technology at that. The vast realm of academia consists of subject matters that hardly change at all. To wit - in a hundred years, in the English major, Shakespeare will still be Shakespeare, in the political science major, Marx will still be Marx, in the psychology major, Freud will still be Freud, in the economics major, Adam Smith will still be Adam Smith, and in the physics major, thermodynamics will still be thermodynamics. Therefore there is tremendous benefit in studying the 'old masters' in these realms simply because they will be just as relevant today as they will be in the future. What exactly is the cutting edge in English, and is it really better than knowing Shakespeare? Again, forget about technology for a moment. Think about your world leaders - politicians, top businessmen, top authors/philosophers, whatever. I don't want people in those positions who know the latest RFC, I want people who have been grounded in the entire realm of human thought. That's not to say that I expect them to be able to recite Plato on a dime, but to at least have some exposure to a wide realm of logical and critical analysis. > > >They hire him because he has proven in > > college to be a hard-worker who knows how to think critically. This is > > these companies put such an emphasis on GPA - not because they actually > > think the subject matter has anything to do with the job, but because a > top > > GPA indicates a strong work ethic and a supple mind. > > That is generous. A high GPA indicates a strong work ethic and an ability > to coax the results that you want out of the system often by agreeing with a > prof whose theory you disagree with. This is a warped form of Kuhnean > "puzzle-solving". University does very little to encourage shifting > paradigms. In my short academic career I watched scholars rail against > paradigm shifts because they invalidated their life's work. Rather than > revising their disproven ideas they fought tooth and nail to preserve them. > Heaven help you if you contradict them. Supple, capable minds merely > *survive* formal education they aren't produced or even nursed by it. Uh, well, supple minds certainly aren't produced by a lack of education. Consider this - go to the not-so-good part of town where people tend not to be educated - how many supple minds do you think you're going to find? Now I do agree that universities often times do have a certain doctrinal bent, but on the other hand, I have found most universities to be more filled with independent thinkers than the average place. > > > To wit - look at the top management of any large company and notice how by > > and large everybody is a college graduate. Look at Congress - everybody's > a > > graduate. Clearly that means that there's something going on, and that > the > > degree isn't totally worthless. In fact, consider the case of the most > > famous dropout of all - Bill Gates, who himself has chosen to fill the > > entire ranks of Microsoft's top management with college graduates. Gates > > could have put whoever he wanted into those positions, so if the degree > > really wasn't valuable, don't you think Gates would have figured this out > by > > now? If even Gates agrees, I would say that clearly there is something > > valuable about that degree. > > I think you are committing 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'. Gates values smart > people and as most smart people go through university it is moot whether it > is the diploma that is significant in getting them the job or their > intelligence that is more important. Even if this were the case, in the eyes of a company, to paraphrase from Thomas Sowell, it doesn't matter. Whether college improves one's mind or whether bright minds tend to go to college - at the end of the day, if you're looking for smart people, you improve your odds of finding them by recruiting college graduates. The only thing a company sees is that productive workers tend to be college graduates, and exactly why this is the case is neither here nor there. It therefore then follows that if you want to improve your odds of getting a job, and especially a high-end job, you should go to college. Even if you subscribe to the theory that college will not improve your mind, it will still improve your chances - you want to cast your line where the fish are biting. If you don't have a degree, many companies will assume you're just not as capable as a graduate. Is that fair? I don't know. But, hey, life's not fair. Sometimes you gotta do things you don't like. I don't like stopping at red lights at 3 in the morning when there's nobody around, but on the other hand, I don't feel like getting a $200 ticket. > > Though I do not have a degree, I most certainly have an education. For me > the CCIE was an entry into a whole different realm of career possibilities. > Not once in any of my interviews was I looked at unfavourably for not having > completed my degree. Well, I would argue that you are choosing to interview specifically at places that don't look unfavorably at this fact, therefore you're not seeing everything. Go interview at Goldman Sachs to be an investment banker and then come back and tell us that you weren't looked at unfavorably for lacking a degree. But again, that gets to a point I made previously. Obviously not everybody wants to be a banker, or a manager, or any of those positions that stress the degree. Hey, if that describes you, then God bless you, you don't need that degree. But if you ever feel that you ever want to get out of slinging boxes, then the degree may be for you. >All of these tokens, be it degree or certification are > only for getting an interview. If one presents poorly even an Ivy league > degree won't save you. If one presents well, even a high school dropout has > a chance. Big question though - how do you get the opportunity to present? You can't just walk into Goldman Sachs and demand an interview. I haven't even gotten to the other huge advantage of graduating from college -the contacts. Let's face it, in the working world, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Isn't it interesting that the top management positions in New York, especially on Wall Street, are disproportionately filled by guys from Harvard, and the top management positions in Silicon Valley are disproportionately filled by guys from Stanford and Berkeley? People tend to hire people they know, and one of the most effective ways to get to know people is to go to school with them. Harvard, in particular, is infamous for this kind of incestuous behavior. How did Steve Ballmer get hired into Microsoft in the first place? Might it have something to do with the fact that he was Gates' old college roommate? Nah, I'm sure that had nothing to do with it. > > What is important to decide how to achieve one's goals is an honest > assessment of one's aptitudes and interests. For instance, I prefer to > study independently. As such, the certification process was allot more > fulfilling for me than university. If I want to read Hawthorne or Thoreau I > grab a book from the shelf and read it. I don't need any external > validation for that. I think it is a terrible shame that we rely so much on > an arid pedagogy to teach us the truly important lessons of life. Perhaps > this more than anything is to blame for the current atmosphere of corporate > malfeasance. Our learning is done apart from moral context and apart > largely from the world in which we live and breathe. Do whatever it takes > to maintain personal authenticity. Trying to figure out your path > statistically by determining whether you have a better chance of getting a > job by doing a degree or getting a certification is leaving too much to > chance. Figure out which suits you better and have confidence in it. It is indeed a shame that people choose to rely on an arid pedagogy. Yet that is indeed the way the world is. Go to any high school and check out all the lazy, unmotivated students who'd rather spend all day drinking and hanging out than learning anything. If the plum of improved job chances is the way to convince them to continue their education, then so be it. It's a nice theory to think that young people will find their own educational path, but we both know the reality is that if we let them do that, then most young people will just go home and play video games. Again, like I said, go to the part of town where people are uneducated (which is almost certainly the poor part of town) and see how many critical independent thinkers you'll find. > > > Now, again, that's not to say that significant improvements can't be made > to > > the college education. I agree that many college curriculas do need to be > > updated. But I look askance at demands that colleges transform themselves > > into glorified vocational schools. If all they're doing is teaching the > > technology du-jour, and neglecting the building of fundamental thinking > > skills, then I think the heart of what higher education is really all > about > > will be lost. > > To reiterate, what is lost by using the most current paradigm? Thinking > skills are independent of the subject matter so in this field you might as > well learn them in the context you will be using them. > > Apologies for my longwindedness, > > Geoff Zinderdine > CCIE #10410 Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=60131&t=59481 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
