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More Universities Recognize The Value Of Free
from the free-the-lectures dept
We've written many posts on business models that involve giving something away for free, and one of the points we've tried to hit home is that giving things away for free is not some utopian, un-capitalist notion. It's often an important component of a solid, profit-making business model. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today looking at how universities are increasingly embracing this concept, with many top schools offering things like class notes and lecture videos free to the public. Some schools, like MIT, have been doing this for awhile, but what's interesting is how many schools are now pushing more and more free material out to the public. Ostensibly, the reason for doing this is to "democratize education", but there's clearly self-interest as well. Schools compete with each other for students, professors and money, and they hope that by showing off their academics in this way, they can do better at acquiring these things. Individual professors also recognize the potential for increased prestige, which is evidenced by the number of professors that are now blogging. Of course, there remains a big gap between the value of free downloadable lectures and that of a paid university education, so there's little chance that doing this will eat into their core business. For other business -- and the music industry is a prime example -- the challenge should be expanding this gap, by offering something of real value above and beyond what's available for free.
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Worthless college graduates
In Asian countries, employers penalize job applicants for having college degrees. College graduates have taken to lying about being "high school graduates" to get jobs. The millions of unemployed young people with college and advanced degrees are emerging as a serious social problem -- they are turning into cyber-hooligans embracing extremist movements on the net. The economy does not need worthless pencil pushers who work in their starched white shirts, shuttling electrons on computers. The economy throughout the world needs more workers who are willing to work with muddy hands and greasy faces. The education industry is in a state of denial.
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Re: Worthless college graduates
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Re: Re: Worthless college graduates
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thanks Justin
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Re:
If you did well in calculus, that's one thing. You'll need to also do well in linear algebra, which is a whole other level of abstraction -- many people stumble in this course with its deceptively simple title. You also need good communication skills.
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Re: Dorpus
As for your comment about college graduates being in oversupply: you're an idiot.
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Re: Re: Dorpus
So college graduates aren't in oversupply? Have you talked to people with bachelor's degrees in physics, math, English, History, or any number of other subjects?
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Trevlac
So how does your paper hat fit?
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Re: Cixelsid
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Re: Worthless college graduates
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If you don't have the college education you can still do well for youself, but as a college grad - I prefered to spend 4 years in school and make a salary that took my father nearly a decade to reach without a college education.
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Re: Worthless college graduates
Every one of the people working for me also has a degree, as does my business partner. I certainly don't penalize people for having one. I will note that when we were looking for programmers we discarded more than 2/3 of the applicants as unqualified, in many cases despite their degrees, and of those we did hire, only about 1/3 last more than a year.
The problem is that most are non-thinkers. They do a fine job as long as they are being told exactly what to do to complete a project or solve a problem, but as soon as they are asked to provide solutions, they fall to pieces. Yes, I do blame the educational system for that. We teach far too much by rote, and spend far too little time teaching critical thinking and problem solving. Memorization is irrelevant in the information age. I don't care if you KNOW the answer, as long as you can FIND the answer -- and I don't care how you find it. Google, forums, other programmers, calling people you went to school with or by your own extrapolation. Just find it! This is the opposite of how students are taught in schools.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Cixelsid
You're starting to sound like you deserve a paper hat yourself -- the pointed kind
As opposed to the non-pointed kind? Not a lot of thought in Statistics, I see.
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And to that person teaching classes with only a high school diploma : that makes me sick. I'm glad I'm not stuck in your school and that everyone teaching me has to have at least a PhD, you know, like a professor.
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Re: Re: Re: Cixelsid
On topic though, I don't really see how this is an example of free bolstering a business, the business model is rape my pockets so I can get a piece of paper saying that I'm at least as smart as a parrot. Anyone can hear and repeat information, and get the degree from it. Very few of the people that go to college and get a degree learn anything.
Hell, I took a micro economics course less than 3 months ago and I can't remember half of the stuff in it because it was required to get into the business school and I won't be using it past that point.
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Amen!
The American school system (and I include the vast majority of post-secondary education) is not concerned with ensuring the next generation can think, but instead proving they have the capacity to learn.
Many technical degrees are outdated within years of recieving a diploma. A degree merely states this person had the minimum competencies required to complete a course of training which covers elements of the job which may or may not be relevant to performing the job. If a career were a car, the diploma is the drivers license. It doesn't mean the driver will be competent, safe, or capable of racing in NASCAR. It only means that person met a minimum list of qualifications defined by a committee.
As critical thinking, creative problem solving, and effective communication are subjective and difficult to metric, we measure things which are concrete. "How many graduates can perform simple math, grammar, and basic 'civilization survival skills'". Those are easy to test, assess, and timely. Ahh, sweet, unambigous numbers which you can make a superintendent jump through hoops for!
Instead of metricing pointless things like "57% of the high school population can appropriately punctuate a simple sentence," why not look at things like: "This group, educated with this methodology, after 10 years were employed at X percent, at Y average salary, with the following distribution of relevant post-secondary education". Timely? No. Accurate, that is for the statisticians to judge... but at least the data correlates in to real world success.
And that's really what it's all about: With more and more information available at your fingertips, it doesn't matter what you KNOW coming out of school, but what you can DO with it when given a chance.
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That is the whole point of college, to improve one's ability to learn.
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Of course there are exceptions. I mean I've had a whole 3 teachers actually teach me something since 5th grade, after which things tend to repeat themselves. And in the case of one what I was taught wasn't what the class was about! In my lifetime I've had over 50 different teachers. I liked about half, but only a handful were really Teachers.
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ends to means
I attend the University of South Alabama and have had some wonderful teachers. Being a computer science major, I see a lot of people that struggle with CS classes because they lack some very basic skills. Even if the teacher had an entire semester to sit down with the student one on one there wouldn't be enough time to catch up. That is why those students usually leave or just skate by. Universities do the best they can to weed out incompetent people, but no system is perfect.
I realise that as a non college graduate there are still plenty of opportunities for employment and success. A college education cannot just be measured in the amount of money that can be earned after graduation. Exposure to the world, people, culture, and ideas are also valuable additions to ones life. College is not about just graduating. It is also about the experience.
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un-capitalist notion!
Oh my goodness "un-capitalist notion", what a shock?- what a sinfull thougth?
Capitalism the art of the people who are smart, or with chutzapah, or who are heartless, or who are strong, or who are talented, or who are filled with avarize with the mantra "MINE ALL MINE, SCREW THE THE LITTLE PEOPLE."
George Will condeming General Motors for running
a well-fare institution, instead of a company to build cars. Right on George blame the little guy who made
their life better by being unionized. How about it Mr. Welch still sleeping at night after sacking all those employees to make it look better for Wall Street?
How about you Mr Reagan, can you hear me where ever you are, Mr. Trump heard you he became an icon by your example, "YOUR FIRED",
remember those words. I am sure the Air Traffic Controllers of America do! "Step on the little people",
the mantra of the "Haves". Oh yes don't forget "The Trickle Down" economy lesson you preached, needles to say the trickel dried up before it came down.
Keep it up America, in case any one has forgotten. our [America] is still an experiment, only two hundred an thirty years old. Other great nations of the past thousands of years have fallen under the weight of greed and avarice.
Right now America is doing the perverbial "Mirror Mirror On The Wall........" shadow dance. The answer the "Haves" expect, is the only answer possible "Why Of Course You Are The Best America:?
Just don't look at New Orleans, ignor "Off-Shoring"!
Cast a blind eye to the slums in each city! Our President supporting cheap labor from Mexico because of the Republican fat cats who own all those companies!
Charles Boyle
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Re: Re: Worthless college graduates
Notice that the links you quoted only "predict" a shortage of engineers. They do not say there is an actual shortage of engineers. I have known many, many engineering graduates from top schools who were unemployed for 1 year or more after graduation, because the "predicted shortage" of engineers was just that, a crystal-ball prediction. I used to be an engineering major myself, and when I could not find anybody interested in hiring a summer intern (after talking to 200 companies), I read the handwriting on the wall and changed majors.
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Re: Re: Worthless college graduates
But then, what if the worker presents a creative solution, but the boss doesn't like it and fires him? Most bosses in the real world don't want smart workers to embarrass the boss. A new graduate is likely to understand the true science or true theory better than the boss -- I've witnessed it many times myself. Bosses have wrongheaded notions that build up from years of sloppy thinking.
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College education
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College and knowing
P.S. my philosophy degree did not come with spell check so sorry if there are misspellings.
Part of my point right here. If this where a paper i would have an English writing major check this for grammar and spelling b4 i turned it in to a prof or an employer
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seeking for adimssion
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