Educational system: School VS Degree

[Guest]

5 hours ago, wasab said:

Teaching is one and the same. Principles of teaching doesn't fly out the windows just because your subjects vary from math to physics to cooking or flying an airplane. It is the same, you watch others how to do and then do it yourself. 

And here by saying exactly this you've just shown how you completely misunderstand how it works.

It's not because you're going to see Einstein explain his process of thinking and his calculation theories about E=MC2 that you're going to:

• be able understand what he is talking about
• follow is process of thinking
• be able of replicate it

You will need to have the pre-requisite ability, knowledge and agility of mind in order to that.

 

You're talking of cooking? What is the main difference between a Chef and a cook? It's not because you're going to see a Chef do his/her "magic" in a kitchen and you'll try to mimic his/her steps of cooking that you'll manage to produce the same result.

Many ( many! ) steps in between!

 

Quote

Funny, I think I said something similar but you obviously missed it 

I suggest you reread all my posts, starting with my first response to @mr moose

 

I don't need to read again your posts, I've already did it once.

What you were basically saying is that you thought that the professors were not doing their job because they didn't take the time to explain to you the entire syllabus because you didn't understand what was being taught, and of course it was the professors fault, plus the whole notation system is also at fault because the College teacher is like god and they have a "life and death" power over you, poor students, as they so inadequatly taught you and then you are held responsible because of your not being able to look by yourself for the basic information and then ask for more in depth insight on the subject.

But you can't ask such question if you know zilch on the subject and you can't know a thing if you don't understand and don't have the necessary required  basic knowledge on the subject to access this level of education.

Meaning:

1. either you acquire it quickly on your own (which is what is expected of you) because you didn't get it in high-school level or the preceding years of college,
2. or you stop spending your money in college this year, take some easier classes to LEARN this time what you need to learn, and next year you attend again your classes which you don't understand a thing about this year (and maybe take some courses about how to organize your learning methods).

 

You can't ask at college level of education to have a professor (who in college is also a researcher and must publish papers and also most of the times has to do some higher level study groups and coordinates students, plus has to give some time to students who effectively need some guidance) to "feed you pre-masticated knowledge" by Mama Bird-Professor.
I said so before, butr maybe you don't want to "hear it". At College level education you need to be able to assess your own lacking areas and be able to ask for help regarding them, and not only from the professor. If it's one specific point of knowledge you're lacking, then yes, you can ask him/her.

But if it's basic knowledge you should already have acquired, if it's methodology, if it's understanding of your own process of learning, that has nothing to do with him, and you need to look around for help or insight from other students ( fraternities?? student groups?? ) or for the administration or support groups.

 

You're in College/University, not in high-school anymore.

 

And maybe, just maybe, you're not College material.

Not saying that you're stupid or dumb. But not everyone is made for that type of teaching/learning. Far from it in fact.

And there's no shame in that. Some people are practical learners (and from what you described previously it seems you're that type of learner) and most of the times they are much happier in other higher-education schools than College.

Edited October 9, 2019 by Guest
typos

[LAwLz]

36 minutes ago, Cora_Lie said:

But if it's basic knowledge you should already have acquired, if it's methodology, if it's understanding of your own process of learning, that has nothing to do with him, and you need to look around for help or insight from other students ( fraternities?? student groups?? ) or for the administration or support groups.

The college I went to had an entire course on "studying technique". Their focus was on helping students learn about different techniques for studying and learning, so that they could find a method that worked for them.

 

You can not go to college expecting it to be like high school. The amount of effort, self discipline and curiosity/drive for the subject has to be much, much higher than in high school.

[Akira Shimazu]

 i think people argue here because they have different kind of education style as if each country or states has their own culture. moved to Here

[Ithanul]

40 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The college I went to had an entire course on "studying technique". Their focus was on helping students learn about different techniques for studying and learning, so that they could find a method that worked for them.

 

You can not go to college expecting it to be like high school. The amount of effort, self discipline and curiosity/drive for the subject has to be much, much higher than in high school.

Same.  It is actually a pre-requisite before taking any of the higher classes in the university I went to.

[Guest]

May I ask in which country you studied in?

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

My experience of College/University. I did study mainly in France (different cities), but also spent 2 years abroad.

1. It was a long time ago, so things have changed, a LOT, for sure! ^o^

2. 1st year of University - 1st fortnight we had the presentation of the campus, the student associations and the different student study groups.

 

How it was in my time:

You had a syllabus given to you, with all the main subjects you had to know about, with a list of books, authors, etc.

SO when you were attending a lecture the previous class the lecturer was saying "Next time we'll study this and this!" that ment that for the next class you had to have read all the related material in the syllabus and the related books or chapters in the books concerning this subject.

Then the lecturer would base his/her course on that and built up on it. So if you didn't read it and understand it you wouldn't understand a thing.

 

That's for the lecture type course. For the hands-on course it was more or less the same, if you didn't understand the theory you couldn't apply it.

You had some support groups available to explain to you what you didn't understand, but you didn't really have courses about "What type of learner are you? How to organize yourself", etc.

If was a try & error process.

 

Oh! I almost forgot : I LOVED my time in University. I almost as much loved my time at University as I HATED my High-school years!

At College I met some of my best friends, which I still have nowadays, I had the opportunity to go on with Volley-Ball and discovered Aikido and Tai Ji Quan. I also started trekking (seriously) then and it was just fantastic.

 

I discovered a brand new world of culture (cinema, music) which I never had the opportunity to see and experience before, I had a very active student life too.

Edited October 9, 2019 by Guest
typos

[WkdPaul]

* Thread merged *

 

This new thread wasn't really different from the original one

[rcmaehl]

Having been through both an IT courses in college and having gotten certifications:

When it comes to IT in the US (or at least Kentucky), most non-community colleges will helping you get the same certifications you can get yourself several thousand dollars cheaper. I would recommend getting whatever IT certs you are comfortable with (A+, CCNA, Sec+, RHCSA) and a job in IT, degrees are unlikely to come into play until later in life when it comes to promotions and even then IT Certs + Degree in Management is probably as acceptable while being cheaper.

[Devin92]

First of all, i think the reason why ppl arguing here is because the scale of OP's question. different field of study have their own style and characteristics that can't be generalized. if OP is a new undergrad student doubting the whole system and need some advice i think the discussion will be far more helpful.

 

Now my opinion. The 'worthiness' of a university education depend on the quality of of the university you go to. Some are more connected to the industry and some are more isolated. Depend on which filed you are studying this might be a huge factor and as a result affect how effective the university education is. And industry can't connect with individuals so university is important.

 

However, there are field that you can self-educate to a well-enough level. Such as coding (not IT and CS). Because, first coding need to be practiced and no one can do that for you, and second there are loads of information online to give you information and guidance. Another example is math. If you are a genius, you can be a math pro by just given the fundamental concept/theory and everything else you can generate yourself.

 

To all the popular field of study, education system is  ONE: to provide guidance to let you have entry-level understanding of your field so you have general idea (believe me, some field is very complicated that self-learning from scratch is impossible). and TWO: let you become a organized problem solver so when new issue comes, you can systematically approach it.

[wasab]

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

If you are just going to keep arguing that I am saying something different to what I have clearly explained to you then yes, that is classic trolling. 

I ain't trolling if you keep relying to what I said with that single sentence Everytime. 

 

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

And I said that's BS, I refuse to believe any lecturer told you to find everything in google.

 

For assignment he did.for case point, one of my course is called cloud computing. 

 

Professor talking about what round robin round balancer in lecture. How to get that working? Well you google it. 

 

Professor talked about Ansible. How to write an Ansible playbook script? Well, you google it. 

 

Professor talked about message broker. How to use rabbitmq? Well, you google it. 

 

Professor talked about docker instance. how to write a docker file? Well you google it.

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

And this is the second or third time you've had to resort to this type of response because your previous claims have fallen flat.  If aren't going to address what I said or can't refute what I said then stop posting,  continuing with personal insults and trollish behavior is basically the last resort of a failed argument.

 I already said your claim makes as much sense of me throwing you a pilots manual and tell you to fly an airplane. You can't reply with something other than that is stupid and irrelevant. 

 

 

[wasab]

4 hours ago, Cora_Lie said:

And here by saying exactly this you've just shown how you completely misunderstand how it works.

It's not because you're going to see Einstein explain his process of thinking and his calculation theories about E=MC2 that you're going to:

• be able understand what he is talking about
• follow is process of thinking
• be able of replicate it

You will need to have the pre-requisite ability, knowledge and agility of mind in order to that.

 

You're talking of cooking? What is the main difference between a Chef and a cook? It's not because you're going to see a Chef do his/her "magic" in a kitchen and you'll try to mimic his/her steps of cooking that you'll manage to produce the same result.

Many ( many! ) steps in between!

 You just don't get it. What you are talking about completely does not change the fact that:

 

1) if Einstien said that matter can be converted into energy and tell you to solve how much energy can nuclear fusion produce, you will have zero idea how to do the latter just from the information given by the former which is why professor needs to introduce all the necessary equation and perhaps solve an example or two. 

 

2) if chef tells you need to cut a meat in a swift motion so that skin comes off one one go, you are not going to master his cutting technique just from what he said. You need to watch him actually do it. How he position the hand, how he cuts and lots of pratice. 

 

3) in calculus, professors can just said derivative is the limit of tangent as the distance between the end point approaches infinitly close. Just by this information alone, you are not going to be able to derive a derivative from a complicated equation. Professor has to introduce the chain rule and show an example or two of it in action. 

 

The problem is that you seem to think professors just talking about the general idea is enough and college education means you pick up everything else needed. That is very bad teaching, however you are going to look at it. 

 

Whatever education style, human's innate cognitive learning process doesn't change. We learn our first language by hearing how others speak. We reinforce by trying it ourselves through trial and error. If no one is there to demonstrate, the 2nd learning proccess is gravely hindered, leading to ineffectual understanding. 

 

 

 

 

[bimmerman]

Sounds like you've had some terrible profs, and that sucks.

 

I'll be the first to admit I've had a great high school / undergrad / grad education, with primarily excellent professors/adjuncts/lecturers/TAs although there were a few exceptions. Also, what worked as a teaching style that clicked for ME wouldn't necessarily click for YOU (plural you, not directed at @wasab), and often didn't for my classmates. My experience is also the STEM side of things.

In High School, the teachers who were the most effective explained the theoretical concepts with worked examples, then provided problems for us to work. Aka, standard lecture-example-homework-test model. Works well for me even though I daydreamed through lectures, because I learn by doing not by listening.

 

Undergrad: same thing. Learn by doing, but also I discovered that having study sessions with the TA and/or my fellow classmates helped a LOT in internalizing the material. Lectures were always somewhat useful as a vehicle to ask questions on nuance, but the bulk of the learning was done on my own or in groups where we were all working problems to figure out how to do XYZ. Once we got to project classes in the curriculum, we were experienced in figuring out for ourselves what we needed to do to solve the project/problem, and where to seek out resources. 

Then, grad school. Learn because you WANT to learn about subject X that you've never thought of, or deep dive subject Y that fascinated you when you discussed it in undergrad for a lecture. Self driven for the most part outside of classes; classes expect you have the foundational knowledge from undergrad so that they don't have to waste time.

 

Summary:

• High school teachers are there to teach you subjects to a foundational level, introducing concepts and assigning work while holding your hand.
• Undergrad professors are there to introduce subjects and assign more open ended problems, and expect you to figure out how to connect them. While frustrating, this is a skill you NEED in the real world, and this is exactly how you develop and cultivate that skill. You are also expected to have learned the core subjects to a high school level, so why cover that material again?
• Grad professors are there to be a resource and it's on you entirely to figure it out, because you're a degreed professional already and are expected to be competent and capable at teaching yourself new concepts and synthesizing them to be actionable.

[AHaskin14]

My take - college/university is 50% learn the content and 50% learn the discipline. I got a degree in Mechanical Engineering and while I learned countless topics of fluids, thermo, statics, etc. that I will likely never use, I certainly learned how to take on problems and do any job I might come across. Any school you go to will have crappy teachers that copy/paste from somewhere else. But teach yourself how to tackle the problems and you'll be a better person. Doesn't always work out unfortunately, I had a few classes where I simply couldn't learn the stuff, but hey, it happens.

 

I've always had a gripe with people making the argument of "wish I learned how to do taxes in highschool instead of blah blah blah". Well maybe if you learned to think for yourself and go learn things, you could learn that turbotax does it all for you in about 30 minutes, for free. I know its not truly that simple but come on people.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

 

Spoiler

 

You just don't get it. What you are talking about completely does not change the fact that:

 

1) if Einstien said that matter can be converted into energy and tell you to solve how much energy can nuclear fusion produce, you will have zero idea how to do the latter just from the information given by the former which is why professor needs to introduce all the necessary equation and perhaps solve an example or two. 

 

2) if chef tells you need to cut a meat in a swift motion so that skin comes off one one go, you are not going to master his cutting technique just from what he said. You need to watch him actually do it. How he position the hand, how he cuts and lots of pratice. 

 

3) in calculus, professors can just said derivative is the limit of tangent as the distance between the end point approaches infinitly close. Just by this information alone, you are not going to be able to derive a derivative from a complicated equation. Professor has to introduce the chain rule and show an example or two of it in action. 

 

The problem is that you seem to think professors just talking about the general idea is enough and college education means you pick up everything else needed. That is very bad teaching, however you are going to look at it. 

 

Whatever education style, human's innate cognitive learning process doesn't change. We learn our first language by hearing how others speak. We reinforce by trying it ourselves through trial and error. If no one is there to demonstrate, the 2nd learning proccess is gravely hindered, leading to ineffectual understanding.

 

 

Personally I think that the base of the problem is that you don't get that you don't get it!

 

It's not the first time that you/we hit the same wall in our discussions on different topics whether with me or with others and it's always that you are right and you "know" and the others don't understand, don't get it, are wrong, missed the point, etc.

 

Here many different people are telling you exactly the same thing in different ways, but again "we" don't get it...

Seems to me as if it's time for some serious instrospection on your part because this "Wasab misunderstood by the World" act is getting old.

But hey... What do I know?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

All I know for sure right now is that I've already spent too much of my time on this subject.  ^o^

 

 

[Teddy07]

I think people focus too much on the professor. It is from my experience way more important to have a good excercise instructor.

[mr moose]

22 minutes ago, Cora_Lie said:

 

Seems to me as if it's time for some serious instrospection on your part because this "Wasab misunderstood by the World" act is getting old.

 

Given his last few response to me I would say that is never going to happen.