Canada has 4 out 100 of best universities on plane

[Canuck E Stan]

Perhaps this is why there was such a better level of understanding in sociey than there is today.

There was less to understand then, our little village has gotten a lot larger and a lot more complex because of it.

[Yodeler]

The fact is that virtually anyone can get through a Canadian university liberal arts program.  That's not to say some of them aren't very bright ........

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The fact is that no one should take any subject just because it's easy to get through.

Whenever I'm debating people who took their liberal arts program seriously I make sure that I'm super-extra-+++ careful of what I say.

Else they'll eat you up!

From Argus' last sentence I sense that he too learned the hard way.

[August1991]

The fact is that no one should take any subject just because it's easy to get through.

On the contrary, I think that's the best way to choose - not just a subject in school but a job, and so much else in life. Why pick something that is hard, that you don't like, when you can choose something that is easy, and you enjoy?

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This thread is all over the map: ranging from whether lawyers only need to have good memories to whether mathematics is cooking-by-recipe, whether it's easier to measure the product of civil servants or teachers, and then even this:

In the currently fashionable economic theory, subsidies and tariff walls are a bad thing for country. It doesn't explain why the list of the wealthiest nations in the world is composed primarily of protectionist states.

For such nonsense, do we blame teachers or students, or do we blame our "education system"? (Miss Trudeau, I don't want to debate here the issue of how barriers to trade hurt people.)

It seems to me there are two ways of looking at education: first, people learn stuff and second, people get filtered into categories. Our current education system sort of accomplishes these tasks.

Something else: I am really bothered by the fact that our education system is essentially Stalinist. Teacher/master/dictator at the front who decides who gets points and who doesn't. Rules are devised to deal with disputes, attempting to avoid arbitrariness. Many students view classrooms as a prison. One gets through it, survives and then is free.

Voluntary relations are always better and school relations are too often involuntary. Maybe sometime in the future, someone will devise a better way for people to learn stuff and find out who is good at what. It's not as if people themselves wouldn't be willing and honest participants.

[Argus]

I Miss Trudeau,Oct 9 2005, 02:09 AM]

Argus,Oct 8 2005, 11:42 PM]I disagree. Memorization skills are all you need to get through law school, but there are sterner requirements for physics

To get through law school, you not only have to learn and memorize a vast amount of case law, but also how to apply precedents to individual cases. In physics, you do much the same thing. Start with a body of knowledge, and try to build out from it in a logical way.

If memorization is the only skill needed to get through law school why don't you folks try and lobby for those arts students and others to enter into law school huh?

Because there are already about a thousand times too many lawyers in this country.

One, would be too many. As the cost of home meating oil and natural gas is rising, I suggest we start burning lawyers. We have an overabundance, and they are so full of gas and hot air they'll heat our homed just fine. And if we run out of lawyers we can start in on insurance agents.

There is something called application of relevant law when you have accurately identified your issues.  It also calls for abilities, smarts and interpretation - usage of common sense.

Law school is not only about memorization - sorry.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Consider how many moronic idiot politicians got through law school, starting with Jean Chretien and Joe Clark. Dalton McGuinty is a lawyer. So is David Anderson. In all the time I have been watching politics I have seen too many raving imbeciles with law degrees to possibly keep count. Perhaps it takes more than mere memorization, but I refuse to believe you need to be anything I would WANT to be in order to become a lawyer.

[Canuck E Stan]

Maybe, if we had a law stating that lawyers cannot run for political office that would be the answer to our problems in Ottawa.

[I Miss Trudeau]

Consider how many moronic idiot politicians got through law school, starting with Jean Chretien and Joe Clark.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

One can say a lot of things about Chretien..but moronic? Not in the least. For good or ill, the guy was a genius, at least of the politcal variety.

[RB]

i don't what happened to the stuff i replied to

:angry:

[Argus]

Consider how many moronic idiot politicians got through law school, starting with Jean Chretien and Joe Clark.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

One can say a lot of things about Chretien..but moronic? Not in the least. For good or ill, the guy was a genius, at least of the politcal variety.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He had a weasel-like cunning. But this is the same guy who went to China and said "I have a guy in my cabinet look like a Chinese too!" referring to a Filipino cabinet minister, who winced visibly. This is the guy who, on being told he was out of touch with ordinary Canadians, immediately claimed that he stayed in touch by dropping into bars and taverns in his riding. Apparently it didn't occur to him that anyone would go check. Any more than it occured to him people would wonder at his claims to having spoken to the homeless.

" A proof is a proof. What kind of proof ? It's a proof. A proof is proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it is proven."

Besides, he won the award, so it's official. Chretien wins stupidest Canadian award

[Canuck E Stan]

For good or ill, the guy was a genius, at least of the politcal variety.

Hardly genius, just extremely lucky the winds were blowing the right way.

[ceemes]

One, would be too many. As the cost of home meating oil and natural gas is rising, I suggest we start burning lawyers. We have an overabundance, and they are so full of gas and hot air they'll heat our homed just fine. And if we run out of lawyers we can start in on insurance agents.

I can agree with the lawyer part of your statement, but would argue that we should start with so-called Financial Planners before Insurance Agents. A good Insurance Agent does serve a somewhat usefull purpose, whereas Finanical Planners really do not. For the most part they seem to be willing to sell you any junk insurance policy/investment plan while attempting to rope you into their circle of sub-agents. Financial Planners, the true bottom feeders of the MLM world.......

[RB]

If memorization is the only skill needed to get through law school why don't you folks try and lobby for those arts students and others to enter into law school huh?

Because there are already about a thousand times too many lawyers in this country.

One, would be too many. As the cost of home meating oil and natural gas is rising, I suggest we start burning lawyers. We have an overabundance, and they are so full of gas and hot air they'll heat our homed just fine. And if we run out of lawyers we can start in on insurance agents.

75% of our prime ministers were lawyers cum prime ministers. Only about 5 of the prime ministers were not lawyers. Something to mention to those arts folks when you are recruiting.

The prospect of being a practicing lawyer is good. The demand for lawyers stems from replacement of retire ones and also your fast forward increasing population growth that requires legal services, plus our business activities have not slowed down yet and the demand for lawyers is linked to economics and business cycles. So don't try to deter those arts students nor try and burn valuable lawyers.

[Yodeler]

For good or ill, the guy was a genius, at least of the politcal variety.

Hardly genius, just extremely lucky the winds were blowing the right way.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

BINGO!

[Guest eureka]

All lawyers have something of the Pheoniz in them. If you have ever seen one "burned" in Court, you will see him back there at the next good fee.

[Yaro]

I agree that the list is crap, Yaro: I also meant what I said about the various schoolings. In my day and in my system, only 4% of the population went to "Grammar" school and only 1% went on to University.

Of that, most were Liberal Arts scholars. Most of what are today called engineers or scientists would have attended technical schools not those at higher levels who would first have been through Liberal Arts programmes. Most Accountants, Lawyers, and so on would have learned on the job." Doctors, many of them, would first have received a Liberal Arts education.

Perhaps this is why there was such a better level of understanding in sociey than there is today.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well I don't know how old you are but the fact of the matter is that what was called a doctor today most likely wouldn't have qualified as a nurse today, what was called a scientist wouldn't rate a technology degree and what was called an engineer was really a technician.

I don't mean to belittle your argument or your education and I do believe that liberal arts educations do have value and contribute to an intellectually active population but the notion that someone could "learn on the job" what is required to be a modern professional engineer/doctor/researcher is insane. The education at universities is quite literally twice as intense as it was when I was going to school and from the sounds of it was probably 4x as intense as it was in your day. Your clearly out of touch with modern university life if you think what you describe could be reasonably applied today.

[Guest eureka]

Actually, Yaro. The education in those days was far more intense than it is today. Learning on the job meant learning, working, and spending every night studying. University itself was far more demanding and, from the limited numbers who gained entrance, and then only on Scholarships, required an intelligence that is possessed by only a small proportion of today's graduates.

Medicine certainly did not use lower standards than today. With the lesser diagnostic tools, it probably needed higher skills since intelligence and knowledge were the primary bases.

I found a TV programme that I watched last night interestin in respect to this. It was about a schooling experience in Britain where some present day students are attending a school with a 1960's discipline and education. The purpose I missed.

However, the performance of the students on their GCSE exams was pitiful: not one attained a Grade 1 level. All found it very much more difficult than the exams of today.

That is because (although this was not stated), the students, or most of them, would not have been in a high school in those earlier days. Certainly not in the schools of a decade or so earlier. Entry to tose was by examonation for which a minimum IQ of 115 was necessary - and much higher to last to graduation.

[Argus]

I found a TV programme that I watched last night interestin in respect to this. It was about a schooling experience in Britain where some present day students are attending a school with a 1960's discipline and education. The purpose I missed.

However, the performance of the students on their GCSE exams was pitiful: not one attained a Grade 1 level. All found it very much more difficult than the exams of today.

That is because (although this was not stated), the students, or most of them, would not have been in a high school in those earlier days. Certainly not in the schools of a decade or so earlier. Entry to tose was by examonation for which a minimum IQ of 115 was necessary - and much higher to last to graduation.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure that would have been true, or that the IQ test is all that accurate a guide to someone's future potential and possibilties. Students back then had much more discipline, externally and internally, and were expected and required, under threat of physical punishment, to study and attend classes and pay attention. Students today are simply not used to that level of work ethic.

BTW, I found it interesting that these students of today could still be so readily identified as lower class simply by their speech. I had thought that television had done more to close the "accent gap" between the classes in the UK, as it has here. Apparently not.

[Canuck E Stan]

University itself was far more demanding and, from the limited numbers who gained entrance

I don't believe that yesterday's universities were any more demanding than the work load today's youth have. First year and second year courses taught years ago in university are now taught at the high school levels.

University students have a greater number of courses to choice from today, each with extensive work loads.Greater numbers of specialties and fields of study that didn't exist back then are now available in universities.

Standards are still high at universities where 80%+ are required by many universities.

As for the "limited number who gained entrance" they were basically Anglo Saxon Whites who had the finances to allow them the admittance.

You didn't see a lot of "ethnics" or "people of colour" back then.

Today everyone has the opportunity to go to university and this can be seen by the diversity of peoples on the campuses.

[Guest eureka]

I more or less agree with you, Argus. I am not defending an elitist system; just pointing to the superior education it provides for an intellectual elite. We have not found an answer to that and universities have been dumbed down considerably. That dumbing down is alsopart of the degrading of liberal Arts programs of which, even the president of the Bank of Montreal has said that he gives preference to such graduates since they have learned to think.

[Guest eureka]

Canuck! Ango-saxon whites is irrelevant as are finances. The great majority of University entrants in those times got into them based on rigorous examinations. Those who passed were given scholarships - tuition was free. Certainly, upper classes were also there if they could afford the tuition. Members of the class who did attend also needed the intellectual competence to handle the courses since they had to pass each year.

No course at thos schools was, or is, ever taught in high schools. No student, short of genius, could have possible handled them. The average university graduate of today could not.

The high schools there did teach to the level of first or second year Canadian universities of today. That is because, as I said, only an intellectual elite made it even into high school. Again, there was a minority who could pay the way into high schools. They were, for the most part, going nowhere other into their inheritance from daddy since they has been unable to pass the entrance examinations.

This is all not very relevant to the point of this thread, though. It does advance a little the distrust of the university rankings which do not take into account the difference in systems or cultures.

[Slavik44]

I love how we ahve goen from the topic of Canada having 4 of the top 100 universities in the world, to bashing liberal arts majors, but with some people that seems to be a hobbie. Of course sometimes there is an expressed ignorance of a what a Liberal arts course entails, an exageration of the truth, or a common myth, like describing geography courses as trivial pursuit, an dLiberal arts courses as just plain trivial. For instance Argus calaimed that...

You can memorize some formulas, it's true, but to be any good you need to understand what those formulas mean, the basis of why the X is equal to Y/4 (multiplied a hundredfold of course). If you are taught that a Welshman named JD Farnsworth invented Pastries in 1402 you simply need to memorize that. You don't need to understand it on any kind of level. But you do need to understand what lies behind the formulas and the reasoning behind their logic.

Understandign the formulas was key, where as a history course was memorizing what happens, Bullshit. I can say with all honesty in the four history courses I have taken I have never once written down an exact date on any of my mid terms or final tests, because as every history teacher stresses the date is not important. On essays the question is not what happend and when, but why did it happen, what did it happen for, not what was the American revolution, but why was their an American revolution. there is a distinct difference between the two. Infact memorizing who created pastries is not at all important but being able to answer why he created pastries and what the significance of the pastry was is important. Well actually I don't think there is significance to the pastry, although it does taste good, but the principle applies, to everything you have learned.

History is not to Know when Mussolini invaded abyssinia now called ethopia, it is to understand why the Fuck he wanted to invade a piece of sand in Africa in the first place. If anythign a Liberal arts course is exactly what you fault it on not possesing. It is understanding why event X happened and the significance of event X and how it relates to event Y, to simplyfy it. If we are going to critisize Liberal arts lets start on a fair ground here, people who say mussolini did this, Fail the class...it is not about what he did and why he did it, and maybe if you weren't taking the remedial history of 15th century foods in college you would have learned that m8t.

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Let the people graduate with poli sci and english degrees. Leaves more jobs for the rest of us that understand where there is real money to be had. Plus it creates tons of teachers. 

There is simply too many people in universities anyways, and we can't have an over abundance of professionals. We should be raising tution rates and standards to exclude more people so we aren't wasting our resources on people that will not use those resources to contribute back to society. Like Argus said, most of these arts majors spend 4 or 5 years to become a clerk. That is money better invested in our business schools, medical schools, sciences and engineering.

So argus says he has met some Liberal arts majors who became clerks, so now the majority of Liberal arts majors are clerks???? That is a stretch. What if I told you Bruce lee was a philosophy majors, does that mean I can claim most philosophy majors will be superstars? No, I am sure you will argue that it means some Arts majors become Clerks well so what. I met a buisness major who flunked out of a first year history class, I met a biology major who did the same, in the end all of these wild generalisations mean nothing. Argus might have said this, but Argus is not God, I suppose takign those valuable edumacation courses have taught you to accept everything you hear, what a waste of a good mind.

As far as having to many professionals living in a Knowledged based economy, having people who know how to learn at the very least is advantageous, and if that is the least they get out of four years of school, then so be it. Besides that it seems to be that alot of managers I have met simply look for a degree, not a specific degree, no gurantee this is representative but that it is somethign to think about. I would say Business majors are just wasting there time as well. I fyou don't belive me pick up a paper, Almost No one is looking for a buisness major, they are looking for a manager with 2 years expirence...the degree is not the central hinge to being hired, it is the expirence. Which leads me to wager we don't need more money spent on buisness schools, but more time spent looking at Co-op programs at buisness schools.

As well Who determines wether or not Liberal arts students contribute to society, you explicity stated, that we should not be wasting resources on people who will not use those resources to contribute back to society. Well actually they are...In America (no Canadian statistics) Some one with a Bachelors degree earns 55% more than someone with a high school degree...So someone with a degree is generally contributing more back to society than a high school graduate. So they are puttign those resources to use, masters degree sits at 98% more and a PHD at 161% and a professional degree at 208%, so all across the board people who go to university as a rule contribute more back to society.

Another point to argue is Raising tuition and decreasing university enrollment, why? I woudl argue if we want the best of the best of the best, of the best, and so on, we shoudl want a good screening pool. If we want the best people to be doctors, we want more people in university to compete for spots in med school after 3-4 years, Or for spots in Masters degrees. Given Canada's current state of education I don't think we can screen out people for future careers at the ages we screened people out a century or two centruies ago. There are alot of people succesfull in a college environment who were not in a high school enivronment and vice versa.

In reality it is not up to you to argue where hte money is and where it isn't and to determien that your degree, what ever it is, will be more valuable then another degree. Unless you are getting a degree in engineering or pharmacy...you will be prretty well on even grounds with a History Major (which most consider the lowest of the lows)

E.X Earnings by major examples amongst Male Populations in America:

Economics: $36,000

History: $30,418

Math: $36,828

Psychology: $30,457

Buisness: $34, 938

Biology: $33,129

Pharmecy: $48,979

[kimmy]

At tthat time, most of what are called scientists and engineers; that would encompass computer scientists had there been such, went not to Universities but to technical colleges. Most lacked the intellectual capacity to cope with the real  purpose of universities which is to educate people in the "proper study of mankind."

"The proper study of mankind?" Study of mathematics and the natural world seems to have been present at universities for as long as there have been universities, and certainly long before the 1920s or whenever it was that you went to school.

We are a little broader minded noawadays and let these inferior classes call themselves university graduates. It doesn't really matter that universities have had to be dumbed down considerably to accomplish that. What matters is keeping the plebes happy.

Universities have been dumbed down to keep the "plebes" happy?

Perhaps this is why there was such a better level of understanding in sociey than there is today.

Society was much more enlighted back in your day?

Oh for sure. The world was undoubtedly far wiser back when...

In my day and in my system, only 4% of the population went to "Grammar" school and only 1% went on to University.

...only a tiny fraction of the population received more than a basic education.

That is an utterly laughable comment.

Apply X theory at Y time is really all you need to know.

I guess we have a different notion of what "rote memorization" means.

To me, "rote memorization" means that if you had a piece of paper with the information you're expected to memorize written down on it, then you should be able to get 100% on a test.

However, I know that students in applied mathematics disciplines such as physics, statistics, and engineering are generally given formula sheets during exams. In fact, I know that many exams in these disciplines are, in fact, "open book", meaning that you can bring as much reference material as you wish to the exam. Why? Because the test questions are such that no amount of reference material will help anyone who doesn't fundamentally understand the material.

In other words, someone with a tremendous gift for memorization but poor understanding of the subject would find himself utterly lost.

To get through law school, you not only have to learn and memorize a vast amount of case law, but also how to apply precedents to individual cases. In physics, you do much the same thing. Start with a body of knowledge, and try to build out from it in a logical way.

...but in other applied mathematics fields the same process is just rote memorization?

-k