Thread: Do you think colleges are obsolete

Err idk. I don't think colleges are obsolete. Sure there are many great things online but corperations like seeing education. Even if you are talented.

That's what I'm saying corporations......Freelance...you can make your own corporation....well, i wouldn't call it a corporation. I'm just saying you can do a lot of things yourself with the internet being available and all.

Oh yeah I agree with you. The point of what I said is you can use the Internet to train and be freelance but colleges are not outdated yet.

No, I don't think the Internet makes colleges/universities obsolete. The Internet is a wonderful tool, but for most academic fields guided assistance is essential to becoming well grounded. You mentioned music and I would probably concede that the arts are one exception, but I would disagree with you that it's easy to become an excellent programmer and general computer scientist without mentoring. And that's not even to speak of pursuing a career in natural/social sciences or advanced mathematics. Those fields can get very conceptually difficult and it's well worth it to pay for the wisdom and guidance of someone more experienced.

Beyond guidance, there are other advantages to a college education over a self-made education. Universities (good ones anyway) typically hold students to a higher standard than the students would hold themselves, and university students probably progress quicker because of this. Universities also require that students learn even the not-so-fun parts of their fields, so university students are in general more well rounded and have a broader knowledge base for the fields. And completing a university degree requires that you take courses in a wide range of fields not necessarily related to your primary interest. This not only broadens your academic perspective, it could also lead you to discover a new path that you wouldn't have considered otherwise. I completed my undergraduate degree in Psychology after switching my major from Computer Science. I never could have foreseen that change in high school (when I was determined to become a leet hax0r).

I think taking your education into your own hands is a great thing and I regularly study things on my own--I'm currently working through a text on symbolic logic--but for the things you really want to master, university is indispensable.

The only important thing uni does learning-wise is provide a good syllabus, and sometimes good notes and good questions. Everything else is self-study. (In my experience doing a mathematics degree anyway).

I don't see any good reason why, as DuB suggested, you would be disadvantaged. If you know what you want to do and you have the motivation to work hard at it there's no reason you wouldn't study the less interesting but still necessary stuff, or not study as hard as you would without deadlines.

I think this has always been the case though. The internet substitutes, not displaces, libraries.

C++ eh? Really think your googling will stand up to my college education?

Learning syntax and design is easy, but it takes a college education to fine-tune design and algorithms.

Sure, most of the content you learn in college is freely available. That's not really the point of college. The point is more about learning to learn, learning the underlying principles, networking (sure you can network on LinkedIn, but working cloesly with hundreds of other students in your specialty will really give you a boost in the networking department), exposure to field experts (professors > google).

It's also a social experience. You can't google that.

College = connections

Xei: I think we mostly agree in the abstract, but I should clarify my point a bit. I really have two: (1) while I grant that it's sometimes possible to achieve a fine level of scholarship on one's own, there's no good reason not to attend university as well, assuming the option is available to you, and (2) the benefits of a college education are generally worth the cost (especially in the UK ) and in that sense colleges are not obsolete.

I should also add that while the above possibility holds for certain fields (and my intuition tells me that it is especially the case for mathematics), it simply doesn't for some others. You can't become a competent, say, molecular biologist without spending lots of time working in biology labs--which are generally located at universities. So I would say that in general, pursuing a given academic field without attending university will put one at a disadvantage.

I think you hinted on one major thing, when you mentioned a portfolio. As DuB pointed out, art is normally the exception, and the reason is because they go by their portfolio. That works really well for things like web design, and graphics too. If you are in a field that uses portfolio, people judge you by that. However in many fields that isn't possible, so they need some way to judge your knowledge.

Having a collage degree is one way to show you have knowledge in an area. Even if you are self taught, a lot of people will not take you seriously, since you can't back it up. You need something to back it up.

After all, in most cases it doesn't matter who is better educated, its about what you can put on your resume. Its not about doing a good job, but being hired for the job. From the stand point of being capable of doing a job, I dont think you need a collage education, though in a lot of cases it would probably help you get a job.

Originally Posted by DuB

Xei: I think we mostly agree in the abstract, but I should clarify my point a bit. I really have two: (1) while I grant that it's sometimes possible to achieve a fine level of scholarship on one's own, there's no good reason not to attend university as well, assuming the option is available to you, and (2) the benefits of a college education are generally worth the cost (especially in the UK ) and in that sense colleges are not obsolete.

I should also add that while the above possibility holds for certain fields (and my intuition tells me that it is especially the case for mathematics), it simply doesn't for some others. You can't become a competent, say, molecular biologist without spending lots of time working in biology labs--which are generally located at universities. So I would say that in general, pursuing a given academic field without attending university will put one at a disadvantage.

Yeah, I guess I agree with that. With courses that are entirely thought-based such as mathematics, theoretical physics, philosophy etc., you could probably do fine without uni, but of course the more applied subjects require an institution.

Of course, I was only ever talking about the strictly academic aspect of uni; uni is clearly there for other things as well.

Even if you can self-teach, you will probably still need the approval of superiors in the form of a degree if you want employers to take you seriously.

You dont get degrees and diplomas and stuff from learning on the internet in your spare time like you do a college or univercity.

I generally agree (save with applied subjects as dub pointed out) My mom use to tell me that going to college isnt really about education anymore anyways. Its about proving to an employer that you are willing to work and follow through with things. And that you are interested in the subject and reliable.

I'd say college is outrageously overpriced, but not obsolete. When you get into a college with 98% job placement in the first six months in your profession, even if you're only paying to get the job and a fancy piece of paper, that is very important. When you actually need a degree and a license to practice, such as the case with pharmacy, college is absolutely mandatory. Even if you do obtain the exact same level of education from the internet (no easy feat), you still have nothing to prove it. Maybe in the future we'll have more focus on internet-based courses and working from home where possible, but as it stands, colleges are still essential.

So Mrs. Dubbles, do you have any questions before your surgery? ...What? No, I never went to college, but don't worry: I learned the entire procedure online.

I've met a couple of really, really brilliant software engineers who are self-taught (their actual degrees are in acting, and the arts). However, in my own experience interviewing people, the "self-taught" variety tend to have a severe lack of cohesion. Like, they understand certain very specific "hands-on" concepts, but they have zero understanding of the bigger picture and how it all fits together. Also, problem-solving is where they royally fuck up. Ultimately, you have to be vastly more intelligent to SUCCESSFULLY learn what you need to learn online than by going to university. And I'd stipulate that those vastly intelligent people who are self-taught and succeed would have succeeded even better in college.

Education certainly is growing towards being free online; at least one school, MIT, even puts up online notes and lecture videos that are open to the public. College is important for two reasons. The first is that by going to a college you are assured that you will be told what you need to study to be competent in your chosen profession. The second reason is that you can, hopefully, trust the information you're getting at the college. The terrible thing about the internet is they let anyone say anything they want. It can be avoided by only using trusted sources, but more often than not trusted sources are only open to people who pay lots of money or who are enrolled in a university or are part of the faculty at a university.

I've used those MIT materials, they're extremely good.

Why are they doing it? It seems extremely philanthropic considering what they stand to lose from it.

I think fears for MIT in the short run from this are not warranted, and fears from the long term effects are inevitable anyway, if it wasn't MIT it would be another school that starts this, so I think they stand to gain something from being at the frontier. Unless I'm overlooking potential losses other than lowered application rates and potential intellectual property losses.

Well as I said in response to the OP, the most important thing that unis do for you is provide good notes and questions for you to learn from (in non hands-on subjects).

By continuing to freely distribute quality materials, I could actually see MIT triggering something of a seismic shift in education. It wouldn't take much to establish a public-created compendium of courses online which were of quality as high as that at the very best universities, and were also free. Essentially what Wikipedia has done for knowledge in an extremely short time, but orientated towards more thorough and technical treatments, and with the emphasis on education. The altruism and passion of Wikipedia editors has, surprisingly, proved to be an extremely potent force; and you can add to this the fame of becoming very famous online if you make some good lectures.

The only function of university then would be to set exams and as a social network.

I don't know, I haven't been too impressed with most of the OpenCourseWare materials I've looked at. Most of them consist only of sparse notes (typically powerpoint slides) and some assignments/exams which only sometimes have the accompanying answers. I don't find those very useful. I certainly don't think they do a good job of standing in the place of the course itself.

On the other hand, a few of the courses include audio or video lectures and I enjoy those. I place a lot of value on the lecture component of courses. They not only help you consolidate the material in the text, they supplement it in important ways. My undergraduate instructors frequently disagreed with certain theoretical points made in the texts, and they would typically take the time to explain why. In these cases, using only the text would have left me with an incomplete perspective on the topic. I lead some undergraduate labs in statistics and behavioral research methods and I wouldn't be comfortable at all just sending off the students with a copy of the textbook and telling them to let me know if they have questions. I think they benefit from the perspective I bring to (and sometimes impose on) the material.

Also, for the subjects where it is applicable, classroom- or group-based discussions are immensely helpful for learning the material. Nothing will force you to consolidate and thoroughly understand something more than having your view put on the spot and defending it in the face of a group. This is the main reason why 90% of graduate seminars consist of 90% discussion.

@Sandform Woot for Maslow's hierarchy as your avatar!

Originally Posted by Majestic

With the Internet being available?

Let's face it, you can google just about anything and learn about it. And books, the same stuff people go to college and school for, I self-taught myself with the Internet and books. And that's music theory, sound design, c++ programming, flash animation, and some other stuff. Although my main focus was the music stuff. I ended up giving up the programming and flash animation.

The Internet has just made so much stuff possible, the job industry is going to change because of the Internet big time. Watch....there's going to be a TON pf ways to make money on the Internet....even just using skills you already have, whether it be music, art, programming, etc.

Like now with music, you don't have to go to college, or know someone who knows somehow who knows someone to be a film scorer, if you compose you can simply make a portfolio and post it on the Internet. That goes with anything, music, art, cartoons, porn, products..... with almost 7 billion people on the Internet, people will buy it.

Freelance is the future.

If "freelance is the future", then why is it that so many people are going to college and to universities? Why is it that it's so difficult to get a good job without a college degree? We wouldn't be shelling out this cash and dedicating years of our lives to something that was obsolete and replaceable by something we use every day. I use the internet a lot, and there are a lot of great things on the internet, many of which I will never even touch, but that doesn't make it the almighty source of information.

After all, why people like me are avid supporters of being autodidacts, not everyone would pursue it. I mean, anyone can look into a few pages and learn about some topic - let's say architecture. However, how many people would actually stay motivated enough that every day they look up new information on architecture in the hopes of learning to construct something great and practical, like a house? Education is a lot like exercise: you know you're going to get something great out of it in the end, but unless someone or something is really pushing you to keep with it, you'll just sit on Facebook and put on some music and relax.

And thus, colleges and universities are here to stay.

Originally Posted by Clyde Machine

After all, why people like me are avid supporters of being autodidacts, not everyone would pursue it. I mean, anyone can look into a few pages and learn about some topic - let's say architecture. However, how many people would actually stay motivated enough that every day they look up new information on architecture in the hopes of learning to construct something great and practical, like a house? Education is a lot like exercise: you know you're going to get something great out of it in the end, but unless someone or something is really pushing you to keep with it, you'll just sit on Facebook and put on some music and relax.

And thus, colleges and universities are here to stay.

Exactly. Maybe a few people are self-motivated enough to succeed without college, but I think the vast majority of us are lazy bums.