Any real difference in education?

[schrizto]

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@lesdiablesbleus

Why would it be better for Chomsky (of MIT fame) to teach my Intro to Linguistics class rather than the professor I had here at Duke? How about Mankiw (Harvard’s Intro to Economics professor) vs. the Economic Principles professors at other non-top 5 universities? The fact that we are talking about two leaders of their field here has no relevance on their ability to teach introductory or even advanced undergraduate courses, a task which 1,000s of professors can do with relatively equal ease.

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<p>I agree with lesdiables… it’s frankly a waste of resources if they got Chomsky to teach Intro Ling. Come on, you want someone reputable in their field to teach you for the education you’ve invested in but you don’t need the guy who is considered the flipping father of modern linguistics to teach an intro course which should not need to confer all the advanced concepts of the field. Getting a top scholar to teach an intro class would be more for the impressive looks you get when you say you’re taught by a Nobel laureate than actual results in educational quality. And as for “as if getting taught painting by Da Vinci” that may be more of a result of the expectations one has in attending a class taught by revered faculty. </p>

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@cellardweller

His pace was so fast, his proofs so detailed and mastery of the subject so convincing, he would routinely get a standing ovation from the students after each class! He would cover points well beyond the core material so that even the most brilliant of his students would be stretched to their limits!

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<p>No offense, but you got this from sitting in on your D’s class? How can you be so confident in describing this, if you weren’t the one experiencing the class firsthand and attending it every week as a brilliant student being exposed to the material for the first time?</p>

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@cellardweller

Harvard has a notoriously difficult undergraduate math class, Math 55, arguably one of the hardest freshman math classes in the US also taught by the best math faculty Harvard has to offer.

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<p>Math 55 happens to also be a very exclusive class that not just any Harvard freshman can enroll in. I think the final enrollment for Math 55 is something like 20 students with a great number having dropped out before completing the course. It shouldn’t be used as an example of the typical intro class at a HYPSM school.</p>