I would personally consider the education I received in UC Berkeley when I was there studying CS, excellent. It was very challenging (in a way, it's impossible to exaggerate this), I found tons of help from TAs, my peers, professors were experts in their fields, labs were very useful to make me experience "real life" stuff and discussions were very useful to learn "theory" side of things, both of these occurring in the same class. I had a lot of research opportunities, and "hand-on" engineering opportunities.
The only problem I can think of right now, it was occasionally hard to get the class you want; but with a few strategies it was manageable to get all the classes you want.
I hear a lot of people who criticize college being "4 years of fun". I don't doubt this is the case for most people, but this cannot be further than my own experience (and my friends in Berkeley who studied some STEM field). When you have endless stream of homeworks, projects, midterms and often-times you need to make decisions so that you minimize the penalty you can get by spending too little time on a HW (as opposed to maximizing your grade), there was simply not enough time to socialize. Obviously there were many people who socialized and partied but their GPAs were low. Also obviously, there were people who socialized and partied also had high grades, but they were very brilliant and were probably 0.1% of the class. Most of us mere mortal souls spent weeks in library studying and perfecting ourselves.
We can have endless discussions about importance (or lack thereof) universities, but given the correct setting, and correct motivation, they can be incredibly good tools.
When I came to Berkeley my family was piss poor and I was a 1st generation college student. Fast-forward 3 years (I graduated in 3 years as opposed to 4) I found a 6 figure job doing what I love every day, programming. I think that's a very good deal.
Controversial claim ahead: I think this discussion about universities' importance is uniquely American. I think we're simply discussing the wrong thing. Instead of questioning whether college is important for X, Y, we should be discussing how we can make every single American go to college. Yes this would mean having public universities where Americans can go without any cost, European style.
I just don't agree we should be discussing how every American can go to college.
I am a drop out. I really had no business ever going to college in the first place.
I love what I do now but I had to figure things out on my own.
Free college would have just been more free party time for me. You can run it a 1000 times and every time I am partying.
What we need to do is make sure people like you don't put off college because it becomes too pricey.
I also think I would have figured things out sooner if I would not have been pushed so hard by all these signals as a young man that college was a given.
> I think we're simply discussing the wrong thing. Instead of questioning whether college is important for X, Y, we should be discussing how we can make every single American go to college.
Or we could help most people learn valuable skills in their first 13 years of schooling, so the only people who need/want to go to college are those who will actually benefit.
"Like pretty much every everything about schooling in the US ever, it assumes that what schools do – and all that schools do – is educate. [...] The fact of the matter is our primary school system is state-subsidized childcare for the vast majority of parents who cannot afford to raise their own children in our ghastly economy. That's been the case for the last 40-plus years. This isn't new, and if it's news to you, o reader, it's only because nobody much in the US has wanted to admit this evidence of the US economy being terrifyingly more broken than we Americans are prepared to confront."
While I appreciate that public schools are supposed to serve the interests of the public, the standard factory school model isn't doing anyone any favors.
The United States' College/University system is a much more valuable institution than the K-12 as commonly exists today.
The only reform really needed for K-12 is to transform it into an institution that exists to help children figure out what they're good at, and provide the resources to help them learn what they want to learn.
That sounds like masochism. I went to a decent public school, worked hard sometimes, partied whenever, and yet I work for the same kind of company as you. A good 25% of my class ended up the same way.
If your goal is to make money, then I don't think hard work matters nearly as much as figuring out the social aspect of how to fit in with working professionals.
That's true. My point was college isn't necessarily 4 years of chilling and partying for everyone, which is weirdly how everyone I talk about seems to frame this debate. Some of my elders don't even believe college wasn't 7/24 frat parties, ideological indoctrination and protesting.
EDIT: Also, to be clear, masochism was part of the problem. In college I thought I wanted to be a professor so I was working hard for grad school so I can get into a good PhD program. I was also doing a lot of research. Then I realized I liked being an engineer, and I don't have money to go to PhD. I DEFINITELY didn't need a near 4.0 GPA and taking ALL the hardest CS/engineering/math classes to get a six figures job.
The only problem I can think of right now, it was occasionally hard to get the class you want; but with a few strategies it was manageable to get all the classes you want.
I hear a lot of people who criticize college being "4 years of fun". I don't doubt this is the case for most people, but this cannot be further than my own experience (and my friends in Berkeley who studied some STEM field). When you have endless stream of homeworks, projects, midterms and often-times you need to make decisions so that you minimize the penalty you can get by spending too little time on a HW (as opposed to maximizing your grade), there was simply not enough time to socialize. Obviously there were many people who socialized and partied but their GPAs were low. Also obviously, there were people who socialized and partied also had high grades, but they were very brilliant and were probably 0.1% of the class. Most of us mere mortal souls spent weeks in library studying and perfecting ourselves.
We can have endless discussions about importance (or lack thereof) universities, but given the correct setting, and correct motivation, they can be incredibly good tools.
When I came to Berkeley my family was piss poor and I was a 1st generation college student. Fast-forward 3 years (I graduated in 3 years as opposed to 4) I found a 6 figure job doing what I love every day, programming. I think that's a very good deal.
Controversial claim ahead: I think this discussion about universities' importance is uniquely American. I think we're simply discussing the wrong thing. Instead of questioning whether college is important for X, Y, we should be discussing how we can make every single American go to college. Yes this would mean having public universities where Americans can go without any cost, European style.