Is University Becoming a Waste of Time?

[socialist]

Today’s university education in North America is, for the most part, make believe data padded with heavy duty Left wing political indoctrination. People graduate with all sorts of degrees, even doctorates, in things that have no use in the real World unless the purpose of the degree is to satisfy their father’s requirement that they would graduate from college if they want to be in their Will, or if they aspire to be community organizers, journalists, or some other such parasitic occupation. I met a woman recently at a social gathering who was addressed by some of her current and former students as Dr. X (name omitted for obvious reasons). During the course of the conversation we discussed our educational backgrounds, and when I inquire about the “Dr” title she informed me that she has a doctorate in “Conflict Resolution”. More and more people are going to school for degrees that qualify them for absolutely nothing (Liberal Arts, Psychology, African Studies, et al). or degrees that make them one more in the 20 million people that already have such degrees (Law, Business Administration) and either they get themselves into an insurmountable student loan that is going to force them to postpone all other life plans for many years to come, or worse, they waste the tax payer’s money on something that has absolutely no return in term of positive contributions to society.

Times have changed… No, getting a university education is not what it used to be. More than half the degrees available are useless, intended merely to make it easy for some who would have never cut the muster in a real academic environment to get a degree, or they’re so common that they don’t improve much the ability of the graduate to get a good job and develop an interesting and profitable career. Ah!... But they come out “knowing” that Communism and Socialism are good, and Capitalism is bad; they come out believing that there is such thing as man made climate change, and that’s all that matter to the dark forces that have taken over the educational system in America.

An interesting thing is that, with the of the ubiquitous nature of the internet and the general availability of a great deal of knowledge, in many cases even for free, if a fairly smart and diligent student spends 2-3 years sitting in his kitchen in front of his laptop six hours a day in two or three years that person will acquire more real knowledge, and develop many more marketable skills, than most with a post-graduate degree after six years in college.

[Boges]

On one hand, apparently even the most medial jobs seem to ask for post-secondary education now. But on the other hand, much of what counts for Post-Secondary education is a waste of time.

[kimmy]

Today’s university education in North America is, for the most part, make believe data padded with heavy duty Left wing political indoctrination.

For the most part?

Times have changed… No, getting a university education is not what it used to be. More than half the degrees available are useless, intended merely to make it easy for some who would have never cut the muster in a real academic environment to get a degree, or they’re so common that they don’t improve much the ability of the graduate to get a good job and develop an interesting and profitable career. Ah!... But they come out “knowing” that Communism and Socialism are good, and Capitalism is bad; they come out believing that there is such thing as man made climate change, and that’s all that matter to the dark forces that have taken over the educational system in America.

So... universities no longer have programs in science or engineering or medicine or business? It's all social science all the time now?

An interesting thing is that, with the of the ubiquitous nature of the internet and the general availability of a great deal of knowledge, in many cases even for free, if a fairly smart and diligent student spends 2-3 years sitting in his kitchen in front of his laptop six hours a day in two or three years that person will acquire more real knowledge, and develop many more marketable skills, than most with a post-graduate degree after six years in college.

Even if that student sits there for 6 hours a day reading nothing but crap from pseudoscientists?

Unfortunately this kind of thinking is growing... it's a major reason why dumb-ass new-age thinkers think miso soup works as a vaccine or that giving their kid bleach enemas will cure autism. They spent 6 hours a day researching this stuff on the internet, and they figure that what they've learned from the internet is just as good as what doctors learn in university.

-k

[Big Guy]

Today’s university education in North America is, for the most part, make believe..... degree after six years in college.

'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.' - Aristotle

I have entertained your thought and I reject it.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Big Guy

[Moonlight Graham]

Socialist, these arguments are insane. Education is never a waste of time. Some degrees won't lead to wonderful jobs, but the original point of university wasn't to create a job factory. How dare you learn knowledge, how dare you learn how to think critically! If you were on the jury I'm sure you would have been one of those who sentenced Socrates to death for "corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens".

An interesting thing is that, with the of the ubiquitous nature of the internet and the general availability of a great deal of knowledge, in many cases even for free, if a fairly smart and diligent student spends 2-3 years sitting in his kitchen in front of his laptop six hours a day in two or three years that person will acquire more real knowledge, and develop many more marketable skills, than most with a post-graduate degree after six years in college.

Well, in this day & age it's true that in some fields you can get a pretty darn good education for $10 in late fees at your local library. It's up to the student to decide what value for dollar is.

[Boges]

Yeah but Post-Secondary education is heavily subsidized and yet people get post secondary degrees saddled with huge debt because tuition keeps going up.

When you're an adult you've been laid off and are looking for the government's help for re-training, the government demands that you do a proposal and prove that the new education you seek has good employment probability. I think the same standard should be used for younger students looking for Student Loans or to go to highly subsidized public universities.

But failing that, young people can't complain that they can't get work if they go into education with poor job prospects as if it's some conspiracy to keep young people down.

[Ash74]

A few of my employee's left for art school. I told them I would welcome them back in a few months.

I was right.

Two of them came back and said what a waste of time. The education would cost more than what a job would pay a year if by some miracle a job was found.

One person was clever. He plans on getting his degree so he can go to law school and become a divorce lawyer.

A wedding certificate and a diploma. Both expensive pieces of paper that many times are not worth it.

[Wilber]

Waste of time? No. Waste of money? Quite possibly, depends on your financial situation.

[-1=e^ipi]

During the course of the conversation we discussed our educational backgrounds, and when I inquire about the “Dr” title she informed me that she has a doctorate in “Conflict Resolution”.

Yesterday I was tutoring an undergraduate in a similar field and she had a very interesting 'economics' assignment for one of her classes. She had to prove that the results of our recent general election were illegitimate because it did not represent minorities. It wasn't an open question at all, it was something that had to be proven. She was very distressed because she did not know how to approach solving this problem and I couldn't really help her with that.

I have many more stories like this, this was just the most recent one.

More than half the degrees available are useless

They are not useless. They help indicate to others that you are a neoprogressive. This way, you can benefit from noble cause corruption and croyism to be able to obtain certain types of jobs. In particular, jobs that involve the media, the education system or the public service. The neoprogressives can then use their positions in society to skew society's perception of reality, which allows the neoprogressives to win elections, which then allows the neoprogressives that win elections to funnel money to their neoprogressive friends that helped them win elections.

how dare you learn how to think critically!

If you think students are learning to think critically, you don't understand what has become of universities across north america. People aren't taught to think critically; they are taught to think dogmatically, accept the neoprogressive dogma, and then try to silence those that disagree.

[BubberMiley]

I didn't realize all you could take was Women's Studies nowadays.

[Moonlight Graham]

If you think students are learning to think critically, you don't understand what has become of universities across north america. People aren't taught to think critically; they are taught to think dogmatically, accept the neoprogressive dogma, and then try to silence those that disagree.

This is what's happening in university classrooms? When's the last time you've been in a university classroom? Name some examples with evidence. I've taken university courses in the last few years and I didn't experience this.

Now, what I did experience is university students and groups doing some really stupid, dogmatic things sometimes, and some try to silence dissenters when they come on speaking tours on campus. Student unions are also usually run by young idiots. But I don't see how it's linked to the university classroom. If anything, it's more linked to high school/grade school teachers/curriculum that teach progressive morals, along with the entertainment media young people consume. If more students paid attention to what they were learning in their university classes instead of skipping class to play Xbox & take selfies they'd be better off.

[-1=e^ipi]

When's the last time you've been in a university classroom?

Relatively recently.

Name some examples with evidence.

What? I have to given up online anonymity now? No thanks.

[BubberMiley]

You could provide details without giving up personal information. That is, if what you say is true.

[Argus]

I happened to come across this by accident and thought it was an astonishing revelation into the closed and intolerant minds of progressives. If anyone wants to know where these people get their sulky, victimhood ideology, well, it's at universities. The first is about an ongoing campus campaign at Yale, where hundreds of students are trying to get a pair of professors fired because one of them wrote an email which suggested that it was wrong to tell students what kind of Halloween costumes they could wear (not kidding). The other is about that mess at the University of Missouri, where the president recently resigned because, apparently, he wasn't active enough in condemning a few minor episodes of racism.

It shows just how, in the words of the Atlantic, progressive students 'catastrophize' minor incidents into huge and horrific insults to themselves, and become enraged whenever anyone disagrees, and tries to shut them down and prevent them from speaking - or even existing.

Personally, I'd simply expel every one of them as being unfit for higher education.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/how-campus-activists-are-weaponizing-the-safe-space/415080/

[BubberMiley]

That seems a little off topic, but I guess if you have one issue and one issue only...

[Argus]

That seems a little off topic, but I guess if you have one issue and one issue only...

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

[WestCoastRunner]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

This article dates back to September and yet the UOM is recent. Did you even research the racist incidents that have happened at the UOM in the last decade?

[Moonlight Graham]

I happened to come across this by accident and thought it was an astonishing revelation into the closed and intolerant minds of progressives. If anyone wants to know where these people get their sulky, victimhood ideology, well, it's at universities. The first is about an ongoing campus campaign at Yale, where hundreds of students are trying to get a pair of professors fired because one of them wrote an email which suggested that it was wrong to tell students what kind of Halloween costumes they could wear (not kidding). The other is about that mess at the University of Missouri, where the president recently resigned because, apparently, he wasn't active enough in condemning a few minor episodes of racism.

But how does correlate to what is being taught in classrooms? Yes, a lot of students on most campuses have some bent progressive behaviours, like silencing free speech, but what curriculum in university classrooms has taught them this? I just completely disagree that the cause is the university classrooms themselves and "what they're being taught".

[Hal 9000]

My daughter is in university psychology and this year on day 1 the teacher said just one thing "white males are the privileged class and we'll be working everything that that starting point". She came home for reading break talking about microagressions.

She doesn't buy into it - she's too smart for that, but I tell her to just go with it for the marks.

[Argus]

This article dates back to September and yet the UOM is recent. Did you even research the racist incidents that have happened at the UOM in the last decade?

From what I saw they were pretty minor in nature.

[Argus]

But how does correlate to what is being taught in classrooms? Yes, a lot of students on most campuses have some bent progressive behaviours, like silencing free speech, but what curriculum in university classrooms has taught them this? I just completely disagree that the cause is the university classrooms themselves and "what they're being taught".

I would say the causal relationship is reversed. When you have students demanding law professors not teach about rape laws, and not use terms like 'violate' as in violate the law, and professors talking about how super sensitive they have to be about every single thing they bring up in class you can see how these intolerant attitudes would impact classroom teaching.

Things have changed since I started teaching. The vibe is different. I wish there were a less blunt way to put this, but my students sometimes scare me — particularly the liberal ones.

...This isn't an accident: I have intentionally adjusted my teaching materials as the political winds have shifted. (I also make sure all my remotely offensive or challenging opinions, such as this article, are expressed either anonymously or pseudonymously). Most of my colleagues who still have jobs have done the same. We've seen bad things happen to too many good teachers — adjuncts getting axed because their evaluations dipped below a 3.0, grad students being removed from classes after a single student complaint, and so on.

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid

Edited November 11, 2015 by Argus

[kimmy]

This is what's happening in university classrooms? When's the last time you've been in a university classroom? Name some examples with evidence. I've taken university courses in the last few years and I didn't experience this.

Be aware that we're not discussing actual universities here, we're discussing a Fox News/Sun News straw-man caricature of what they perceive universities to be like.

-k

[bush_cheney2004]

Yes we are discussing actual universities here. I have the receipts for tuition and books to prove it.

[Argus]

Be aware that we're not discussing actual universities here, we're discussing a Fox News/Sun News straw-man caricature of what they perceive universities to be like.

-k

Maybe you should read some of the stuff from the Atlantic...

Edited November 11, 2015 by Argus

[-1=e^ipi]

My daughter is in university psychology and this year on day 1 the teacher said just one thing "white males are the privileged class and we'll be working everything that that starting point". She came home for reading break talking about microagressions.

That sounds about right.