Imagine lacking the curiosity to want to take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn interesting new things with all the resources at your fingertips. I think the root of the problem is that capitalist society sends students the message that learning is valuable only as a means to make more money. If that’s your view then it makes sense to skip the difficult stuff and just pay for the piece of paper that gives you access to better-paying jobs. Capitalism absolutely doesn’t value having a wiser and more knowledgeable populace, and students pick up on this.
I was one of the people who went to college to learn things, but the more I learn, the more I’m saddened by all the people I went to school with who studied things they didn’t enjoy, didn’t particularly care to get better at, all because they saw it as a way to make money. In optimizing for money, they miss out on learning and fulfillment.
This wasn’t that long ago, but I can only imagine how much heavy GenAI use could intensify that effect
I was one of those people too and the academic environment was honestly depressing. Almost none of the professors actually cared about the topics they taught, only about the ones that were their research subjects, on the topics they taught many were stuck at the state the introductory topics were at when they first graduated themselves (in IT where everything changes much more quickly than that). Many university wide decisions were nonsensical (e.g. teach memory management in OS classes in Java because Java was the language they standardized on for everything due to industry pressure). For Bachelor topics they only wanted to accept topics where you could tell you would basically spend months to write something that would end up in the round filing cabinet once it had served its grading purpose. Questions in larger classes were highly discouraged, even pointing out mistakes in the lecture materials (obvious indisputable ones that shouldn’t hurt anyone’s ego like some typo in the order of digits) got responses that discouraged doing that again.
Most people can’t afford to go to Universities for the purpose of research. Most people go to Universities for a specific college (every university is requured to have multiple colleges to be accedited) to learn information that is already known. Which is where I think we have it set up wrong. It shouldn’t cost large sums of money for a person to learn what is already known, the information should be made available for free. The tests universal and unattached to a University name. Were you able to pass the test showing proficiency in A, B and C. Yes or no, that is what we need to know you are proficient in for this job. It doesn’t matter if you went to Alabama, Yale, Community college, online seminars, w.e. Researching knowledge we do not currently possess is what I think the University setup should be pushed back towards.
Imagine lacking the curiosity to want to take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn interesting new things with all the resources at your fingertips. I think the root of the problem is that capitalist society sends students the message that learning is valuable only as a means to make more money. If that’s your view then it makes sense to skip the difficult stuff and just pay for the piece of paper that gives you access to better-paying jobs. Capitalism absolutely doesn’t value having a wiser and more knowledgeable populace, and students pick up on this.
I was one of the people who went to college to learn things, but the more I learn, the more I’m saddened by all the people I went to school with who studied things they didn’t enjoy, didn’t particularly care to get better at, all because they saw it as a way to make money. In optimizing for money, they miss out on learning and fulfillment.
This wasn’t that long ago, but I can only imagine how much heavy GenAI use could intensify that effect
I was one of those people too and the academic environment was honestly depressing. Almost none of the professors actually cared about the topics they taught, only about the ones that were their research subjects, on the topics they taught many were stuck at the state the introductory topics were at when they first graduated themselves (in IT where everything changes much more quickly than that). Many university wide decisions were nonsensical (e.g. teach memory management in OS classes in Java because Java was the language they standardized on for everything due to industry pressure). For Bachelor topics they only wanted to accept topics where you could tell you would basically spend months to write something that would end up in the round filing cabinet once it had served its grading purpose. Questions in larger classes were highly discouraged, even pointing out mistakes in the lecture materials (obvious indisputable ones that shouldn’t hurt anyone’s ego like some typo in the order of digits) got responses that discouraged doing that again.
Most people can’t afford to go to Universities for the purpose of research. Most people go to Universities for a specific college (every university is requured to have multiple colleges to be accedited) to learn information that is already known. Which is where I think we have it set up wrong. It shouldn’t cost large sums of money for a person to learn what is already known, the information should be made available for free. The tests universal and unattached to a University name. Were you able to pass the test showing proficiency in A, B and C. Yes or no, that is what we need to know you are proficient in for this job. It doesn’t matter if you went to Alabama, Yale, Community college, online seminars, w.e. Researching knowledge we do not currently possess is what I think the University setup should be pushed back towards.