I’m all in with what Steve Jobs said at his Stanford commencement address: it’s about making dots that’ll be connected later. That’s college, imho. You’re required to take some classes and can choose others that are interesting. All of them are adding “tools” to your mental tool chest; they’re some of the dots in your life. Will you use them later on? Who knows! But you’ll have them ready if you do.
To me, the most important thing in school is to pursue things that are interesting at the moment, without worrying about how it’ll fit into a career. In HS I loved one particular rock band and their album art (this was back in the Stone Age). I was in a computer programming class and decided to write a program on the school’s Apple II that would draw the band’s logo with a “laser beam” in an infinite loop. There was no reason behind it other than it was cool. Next thing I know, someone placed the computer and monitor at the room’s window and there was a crowd outside watching it. Cool! I didn’t know it at the time but it was a major “dot”. Ten years later I created a popular screensaver and my general interest in computer graphics resulted in a career and business. Also note that my obsession with that band led me to want to play guitar … but I couldn’t afford the effect pedals, so I bought ICs and breadboarded them into my own effects. Another dot. That led to me majoring in EE in college. There was no plan behind all this, just interest at the moment.
When I look at the classes available to D18 at her top choice college I see “dots” everywhere. It’s pretty incredible. I hope she get admitted there!
I have noticed employers increasingly using tests for entry level employees, beyond the usual exams of coding skills for computer types. I have a number of friends who had to take reading and writing tests for entry level jobs. Apparently a degree is not a viable indicator of literacy.
Lots of threads on this topic end up with the “mind” folks on one side and the “job” folks on the other. We can do better than that.
The “dots” concept is interesting, @droppedit. But I think it takes the “mind” orientation to grasp it. Ha.
One could go to trade or tech school if all they want is certification they can do some “job.” Even engineering/programming. Or accounting, lab tech work, lots of work that doesn’t really need gen eds. Maybe we’ll get to the point where that’s a more common option.
But we sent ours to college to hone their educations, expose and stretch them, hoping to make them better informed, better thinkers, contributors, citizens. Not train for a job. And we weren’t full pay. I bless the FA folks at their school all the time and we each (including my girls) earmark our small donations toward the FA fund.
It looks to me like Dr Roth is talking his book and the fact that he does this so incredibly well speaks volumes for the liberal education he is selling. Wouldn’t you want your kid(s) to be able to write like that? I know I sure would. The initial premise is a straw man. Although there is certainly value to be had in hyper selective elitism, everything mentioned has its own intrinsic value that making it valuable and worth having regardless of how may other people can or can’t have the same thing themselves. The overarching point being made is that if you play the game and get a good score, you can have your cake and eat it too. A great lesson for all of us.
But how many bright students from poor families forego college because of the up front cost (even after financial aid)? And how many bright students from poor families who do go to college would not have gone if college did not provide an upgrade in employability over entering the job market with just a high school diploma?
What i’m saying is that college does provide an upgrade in employability–whether or not that’s the reason you go. You can go without having that as the goal, and still get that benefit.
Incidental, but my D works at a job which doesn’t require any education level at all. She likes it and she’s good at it and okay with the fairly low income. She’s also incredibly well versed on political issues, philosophical issues, literature, and critical thinking in general. I don’t see her degree as wasted.
I’m not sure much has changed. The service academies, technical schools(even vaunted places like CMU) and public universities were all designed from the start as vocational training instead of some life of the mind ideal. Maybe, Williams grads are more career focused than they used to be, but that was always a tiny sliver of the population.
^My S’s good friend majored in history at West Point. I don’t know that that was actually vocational training. (Except that he now has a graduate degree in history and is a tenured prof, but I don’t think that is what you mean.)
The USMA exists specifically to educate people to be officers in the US Army. That it includes liberal arts education does not mean that it does not have a pre-professional purpose.
Learn new ideas.
Defend your ideas.
Learn different perspectives.
Learn to think critically.
Build great, lasting friendships.
Maybe get some job skills.
Noble goals. Now if we could just identify what subset of colleges actually teach those skills we would be all set. The empirical evidence is not good.
Not only it’s all doable without college, but also it can be done better without college. With Coursera (and other similar services), you can take one course at a time at your own speed, which can be much faster. Without worrying about GPA, you can customize the curriculum as you see fit, going deeper some times and just skimming through other times. While inserting relevant field experience whenever it would be useful.
In other words, you won’t have to make compromises between better learning and better grade all the time. For some kids who have homeschooled for a long time, making the compromises could be an unpleasant challenge.
Realistically, most people who want to learn those things do benefit from the somewhat structured curricula offered by colleges. Those with a high-enough level of self-motivation to self-educate effectively are probably uncommon compared to the number of people who could benefit from attending a college to learn those things.
I strongly disagree, for my kid at least. My kid camps out in her prof’s office hours when she needs help,and she gets it.
Some of her best learning has come from non-class college activities like clubs, career center, speakers and luncheons with prominent people in her field.
I am not familiar enough with Coursera to know if there is a strong online community of students and professors where ideas can be both learned and defended.
@OHMomof2 , I am sure it depends on each student for what is the best way to learn.
I used to bring mine to listen to speakers at nearby colleges and found them all open to the public, and now we can listen to them on online, although luncheons are not offered.
Coursera is amazing, for parents as well. Hope you would try.
I think there’s a difference between exposing a younger child to online (or other media) leaaning and the expanded forms a hs grad is ready for. Plus the depth and discussion.
Most of us have learned, at some points, from various non-classroom experiences and many of us do not feel it compares. Sure, it can inform, but isn’t interactive learning (as is a class or the continued conversation between class sessions.) Much of it is reactive.
Probably college education is better than online for the majority. But how much better to justify the cost?
A homeschool to college student said that moving into college required balancing practice between deeper learning and maintaining good grade, which were often mutually exclusive.
BTW, wouldn’t AI do much better for that “interactive learning?”