Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
You get what you pay for. If it's free, it's likely very low value. There is a reason university libraries pay for access to peer-reviewed journals. They are of high value, so there is a cost associated with that information.
I certainly do not agree that free internet knowledge is the same thing as carefully cultivated curricula from scholars that have experience in that field.
To your other points: Sure, experience of ANY kind is valuable, so of course you can learn some things from the workplace. I did myself before I ever went back to school, so I have to concede that point. It doesn't make education NOT valuable.
I don't understand your third paragraph. It seems like a bit of a non-sequitur. Obviously, it depends on the school and the kind of courses one takes, but generally speaking, universities give a more balanced education than a trade school does. That's all I'm saying. |
My point is more that if you want to learn about, for example, the history of the Netherlands prior to WWI, there is a much more expansive amount of knowledge readily available for free, than what you would have gotten out of a random history course in the 1990s.
I do agree that certain skills and knowledge are best learned in a school environment. However, students would be better off with focused and compressed course work. University degrees most certainly do not consist of a "carefully cultivated curricula from scholars". They are a hodgepodge of random profs and materials that force students to take useless courses to earn enough credits to graduate. My basic point is that university programs are not, in their current form, carefully cultivated in any way. Once again, a more focused and compressed program, similar to a trade school, would be much better at accomplishing that goal.
As previously stated, the current system just acts as a character test and shows prospective employers that students are willing to stick out 4 years of boredom and memorization.
The failure rates, in most programs (with notable exceptions like engineering), are so low that entry level courses, that at one time served as a way to weed out poor students, don't even do that anymore.
The North American educational system needs a complete overhaul, and we should be looking to far superior systems, like those in Nordic countries and Germany. Key points being that: unsuccessful students are put into less academically demanding and more trade focused programs earlier; the government controls how many spots are available in each field of study, and the number of spots are in relation to actual job demands; education is cheaper, which is accomplished via overall efficiency in the system, not higher taxes and expenses; programs are more focused and employment related; and failure rates are higher.
In North America, university is more of a business based on getting as many students through the door as possible and getting them to buy as many books as they can. Whether it is intended that way is irrelevant, as that is certainly what it has become. The Canadian taxpayer gets the added bonus of having to pay for the vast majority of some kind of 4 year post-adolescent summer camp. Meanwhile, we are forced to import large amounts of skilled labourers and technicians from Europe and Asia.
Edit: I appreciate what you are trying to do with your writing intensive school. However, the fact your school exists says a lot about the failures in our current system. If students aren't learning basic writing skills in a standard 4 year university program - so much so that they would need to rely on a privately funded liberal arts school to get basic writing skills - something is wrong.