Audley Strange wrote:FBM wrote:You are dead on, Audley. But, I think, verging on the naturalistic fallacy. The fact that that's the way many people are thinking doesn't mean that it's good.
In my experience, community colleges will give you a technical degree without requiring much, if any, language or history education. But if you want to graduate Harvard, you'd better have your broad-minded shit together.
Oh I didn't say it's good.
Sorry, I should have stated that more clearly. Not you, but the concept in general verges on the naturalistic fallacy.
I'm not even sure the Ivy League is immune to this. Certainly our own Oxford and Cambridge still have a level of prestige which I think is more historical now that factual. I know some frighteningly brilliant people, whose intellects and abilities are so beyond what passes for smart, that often I feel like an ape in their company, people who can bounce from neurology to greek tragedy, to the Crimean War without batting an eye, but I also know some people, usually the ones who keep telling everyone they went to Oxford or Yale, who I wouldn't trust to wash the dishes. These are highly specialised idiots, useful in their field but not much else. The former went for an education the latter for a better job opportunity.
Also I don't think tertiary education should be so stratified but as long as people are paying for it, it does, sadly fall into the market and if you have too many people going for the same degrees it undervalues the degree in the market. Just the same as if you double the workforce you half the wages. This then becomes a problem where you have young people more or less having to speculate on their future.
The dole queues and call centres are filled with such people. So, I guess the value is actually relative.
(Fighting the grammar Nazi urge) The market does rule, no doubt. In my own field, it's commonly misunderstood that the person with the highest test scores (or GPA) = the best teacher, and as a result, shitty teachers with higher degrees tend to be hired over those with lower degrees but higher student evaluation scores. Why? Because the higher degrees look better on the university's adverts and homepage. Horseshit. There is, of course, a point at which a teacher's lack of knowledge can become a problem, but the teacher with adequate knowledge and greater skill at motivating and guiding students is, at the end of the day, capable of producing better results for those students. As a result, a booger-eating moron fuck-up whom the students hate and refuse to learn from, but who has a degree from Seoul National University, will get tenure, whereas a highly motivating and insightful lecturer with a degree from a "lesser" university and higher student evals will only be given associate status. Common sense turned on its head. Bullshit labels and certificates carry more significance than results. It's a fucked up system headed in a bad direction, IMO. It's all based on money-making, rather than enhancing students' lives.
"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." ~ H. L. Mencken
"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."
