Why the us should cut useless courses from college degrees.

[Cisairse]

Yeah, you can use Grammarly, and that solves your English problem.

grammarly don't give you style, and clarity often involves such.
n-not that they need it, of course.

Actually Grammarly Premium does.

[Imperial Joseon]

grammarly don't give you style, and clarity often involves such.
n-not that they need it, of course.

Actually Grammarly Premium does.

I didn't know that. I feel enlightened.

[Kubra]

grammarly don't give you style, and clarity often involves such.
n-not that they need it, of course.

Actually Grammarly Premium does.

Jesus fuck cmon man
don't do this to me
don't show me this
there's bourbon in the house and I will drink it.

[Cisairse]

Actually Grammarly Premium does.

I didn't know that. I feel enlightened.

Yeah. If you pay enough, the world will basically write everything for you at this point.

[Cannot think of a name]

Actually Grammarly Premium does.

Jesus fuck cmon man
don't do this to me
don't show me this
there's bourbon in the house and I will drink it.

Don't worry man, as long as this exists:

I didn't know that. I feel enlightened.

Yeah. If you pay enough, the world will basically write everything for you at this point.

There's work.

Plus my friend is living that Hamptons life as an editor so I don't think Grammarly has really ended things yet.

[Imperial Joseon]

Plus my friend is living that Hamptons life as an editor so I don't think Grammarly has really ended things yet.

Wait six months.

[Salandriagado]

So fix that issue, rather than making up non-issues to complain about.

There is no way to fix it, other than lowering the requirements and lessening the length of time to completion. Or to have alternatives to college that're actually competitive and thus can put some downward pressure on college prices because fewer people are going.

"Worsen the product" is not how you fix "it's too expensive". The solution is to make it cheaper.

[Salandriagado]

Because aiding people with grunt work is not the same as actually replacing those people.

It's certainly replacing a large number of people who used to do that grunt work for the people who do the conceptual work.

In mathematics, at least, they didn't exist. Ever.

[Salandriagado]

Unless you're personally providing those grants, they aren't doing it on your dime.

My taxes are. Where do you think the money for them comes from? La la land?

You've paid your taxes. They aren't yours any more.

[Salandriagado]

Because a college education implies more than a vocational degree.

Yeah, that you can memorize facts long enough to pass a test. Woopity-do dah.

Sure, that's true, if you're going for some degree that's barely worth the paper it's written on from some shitty degree mill. If you go for a real degree, it's very different.

[Salandriagado]

Those aren't mutually exclusive nor binary. Want to try again?

I’m not sure I understand this answer.

Why are college degrees necessary in so many fields past a certain level if the point of college is not to prepare one for that particular career? Or is it?

Because employers like employees to be able to learn effectively and have a solid work ethic, and a degree is one of the easier ways to establish that.

[Salandriagado]

Indeed. And having a broad understanding of different subjects also helps people switch gears when they find the particular job they've studied for has more applicants than positions -- and lo and behold, you might discover an aptitude/love of something you would not have thought to try on your own.

But how are people going to have the luxury to just change their degree if they're too far along in it? Its too damn expensive to take every class you want to take, if you don't have a full ride scholarship or something special.

Once again, you give the solution in your question: just stop charging people.

[Salandriagado]

It's really odd how you think you know so much about how the educational system should operate based solely on street smarts. Hopefully you realize that you're ignoring literal centuries of pedagogical development and the current state of learning theory as developed by countless cognitive scientists in favor of this simplistic garbage.

I want you to imagine someone who says things as dumb as the stuff trump says, ok? Now imagine putting a guy like that in an algebra class. do you really think that's a good idea? Seriously?

Yes. There's very little relationship between the two kinds of intelligence you mention.

[Salandriagado]

Anecdotes are not evidence of anything

If kids like this exist in large numbers, I would say it means something. Clearly you can't make everyone a mathematician

Which is why other qualifications exist.

[Salandriagado]

Don't you think it would be better if advanced stuff like that was aimed at kids who could learn it and who would put the effort in?

Algebra isn't too advanced. You're usually not allowed to take certain courses anyways, unless you passed the prerequisites for it.

Generally speaking though, anyone can be taught any level of math if they really work at it and take the time to understand each problem and its solving, if they have a capable mind. It only really requires average IQ at best. It is a different matter if someone retains it however. But generally speaking, you'll always be able to learn a higher form of math if you passed the prerequisite recently and its familiar to you. Just more annoying steps to solve more complex problems.

A higher form of math just builds on top of the lower level of math before it.

People whose understanding of mathematics ends at the high school level should really stop making claims about "any level of math".

[Salandriagado]

Its too high for me right now. But if I had the time and luxury of learning it- sure, I could pick up such knowledge. I did pass Intermediate Algebra. I technically qualify for College Algebra if I were to relearn it all. Its just a matter of practicing enough problems on paper correctly and really learning each step of the solving processes.

The lady way back in community college that marveled at my grasp of whatever rudimentary math me and everyone else who couldn't remember what epsilon meant in the math placement test took and said her eight year old understood it but she didn't eventually figured it out. She was surprised when I took the statistics math requirement out for people whose majors had nothing to do with math when she went on to higher math. So the lady that was marveling at my ability to divide fractions now can do more complicated math than I can. I still don't really even understand what calculus and trigonometry actually do (I think one is for figuring out the volume of curves? I don't know...) and I have a graduate degree.

Differential calculus takes a thing and tells you how it's changing. Integral calculation is the continuous version of addition, and in particular gives you the area/volume/whatever under a curve. Trigonometry is just geometry of triangles (though it's really about circles).

[Salandriagado]

Flip burgers. Seriously. NO ONE should be unemployed that long, and everyone seems to think jobs are 'beneath them'.

I know someone who studied biology and forestry who is employed not in her field but as a hotel receptionist, because there aren't enough jobs in her chosen course of study in comparison to everyone who studied for it.

Narrow focus simply means that if you misjudged the marketability of your very narrow skill set, you're fucked.

Certain jobs are beneath me unless I have no choice and I've exhausted all means of avoiding it. I didn't pay a boatload of money and time to flip burgers, wait tables, work in hotels or whatever else. What is the point if I won't afford the gasoline to go to the place of work? I'm thinking that instead, I should conclude that college is worthless unless you're becoming something like a doctor or lawyer and instead borrow money to go to a trade school.

The college path is a bust, but picking up a real skill can be the ticket to prosperity. Dentists for example, can become employed absolutely anywhere because there are always people with teeth problems. It is just a matter of somehow being able to execute on it, even if you don't like it strictly speaking.

No, your path was a bust. Largely due to your attitude. College is still objectively the financially optimal path on average.

[Salandriagado]

The average human can walk 100 miles in a day. If your job is over 100 miles away you have bigger issues. And hey, America might not have such an obesity problem if a few more people walked an extra two miles to work. But even then, busses exist.

If you're walking fifty miles each way to and from work, how long is is that timewise? Does that leave time for extracurricular activities, sleep, etc.?

Because I'm sure people don't want to live solely to work.

And not every place has a good mass transit network. Austin, iirc, is a large city that doesn't have one and the voters refuse to vote to implement one

No. That's based around literally 24 hours of walking. The percentage of humans who can actually walk 100 miles in a day is essentially zero. A more reasonable target number is 15-20 miles, and that's an all-day thing.

[Salandriagado]

Least they know the issues bro
went the university for that shit

No they probably don't. If you're dumb enough to do that I doubt you know the issues. Just because you went to university doesn't mean you're intelligent. It means you can hang a piece of paper on your wall. Memorizing facts long enough to pass a test doesn't mean you know something. I can recite the definition of a main sequence star. Doesn't mean I have knowledge of astronomy.

Again: such techniques only work if you go to some shitty degree mill. Try going to a real university.

[Salandriagado]

You wanna back that one up, give it a consider and try again?

I'll give you a hint at where you might have gone wrong, just in case. The average walking speed is three miles an hour. Subtracting an eight our work day, that's sixteen hours left. I'll give you some time with those figures, you get back to us.

Yeah that's a math mistake on my part. But okay, even then. You can walk 48 miles in 16 hours. Why do you live 48 miles from your job? I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of people don't live half of that distance. Maybe 10 miles.

Now subtract out 8 hours of sleeping. And half it, because you need to get home as well. And another 4 hours for the various other necessary shit, and oh look, we're down to a 6 mile range.

[Salandriagado]

I can understand not asking a med student to take, say, philosophy of history, because they will more than likely not need it for their job. But there are certain courses that probably, for what I’ve seen, should be mandatory. Teach people to write coherently, to spell (because yes, there are college level students who can’t spell to save their lives), for example. Basic biology and physics too. And yes, a semester of philosophy wouldn’t hurt.

Okay, but what if some people don't need to be taught to spell? Make people who need writing and spelling courses take them. Don't waste everyone else's time.

Such people do not exist.

[Katganistan]

Because four-year degrees are for the children of The One Percent. The rest of you, just get your community college certificate and take the low-wage, low-benefit, non-union, fire-at-will job we give you, and keep your heads down and be quiet like good little proles.

Huh TIL that electricians, HVAC, plumbing, and a host of other trades that can be learned at a community college are low paying, low benefit, non-union jobs

That is, stereotypically, what "education snobs" are wont to think. But they are actually very well-paying jobs that weather the vagaries of the economy and should not be sneered at.

[The Blaatschapen]

Huh TIL that electricians, HVAC, plumbing, and a host of other trades that can be learned at a community college are low paying, low benefit, non-union jobs

That is, stereotypically, what "education snobs" are wont to think. But they are actually very well-paying jobs that weather the vagaries of the economy and should not be sneered at.

And here I thought that plumbers have to take on another job as actor to pay for their living.

[Katganistan]

No it doesn't. It enables a population replacement if anything, and I'd rather Europe's economy decline and jobs to go unfilled than for European nations to become too multicultural as to lose any European identity and culture. Europe must remain majority European. The retired don't need to be taken care of, because presumably they'd of saved for retirement and if it isn't enough to last until death, they should get back into the work force practically speaking.

Fortunately, no one cares what you want for Europe.

Or about their repugnant views on race in general.

School should be about preparing you for a career. If you want to take classes like that, then they should be an optional side course.

Then take career training courses. Go to trade school, if you want a trade.

I like the idea of people getting some experience with subjects outside their degree. Education, especially higher education, should be about understanding more about the world, not just about getting a piece of paper that qualifies you for a job.

And people who want to do that can take optional side courses. I like not wasting my money. Education shouldn't be about anything but what the student wants it to be.

So the uneducated should decide what their education should encompass.

It doesn't. Either their money does, the university's money does, or the government's money does. There's no possibility of your money being involved.

There's no such thing as the governments money. The only money they have is what they took from me and other people who pay taxes. Or, who purchase debt bonds.

We all contribute to things we don't want to with our taxes. Grow up.

Again: They had 12 years in elementary, middle, and high school to get that sorted out.

I've been a Teacher's Assistant in writing courses, believe me, a large swathe of otherwise highly educated Uni students simply can't write. I don't mean that in terms of my personal preferences, I mean it in a sense of their Elementary and Secondary educations failed them in teaching them basic writing conventions.

You will be pleased to hear that the copious notes I write in the margins of my students papers explaining the difference between there and they're, explaining subject-verb agreement, how to form a thesis statement, reminding them to remain focused on the topic they've chosen and not ramble,correcting punctuation and the like go straight into the bin without a glace at anything but the number or letter written at the top of the page.

[The Blaatschapen]

I've been a Teacher's Assistant in writing courses, believe me, a large swathe of otherwise highly educated Uni students simply can't write. I don't mean that in terms of my personal preferences, I mean it in a sense of their Elementary and Secondary educations failed them in teaching them basic writing conventions.

You will be pleased to hear that the copious notes I write in the margins of my students papers explaining the difference between there and they're, explaining subject-verb agreement, how to form a thesis statement, reminding them to remain focused on the topic they've chosen and not ramble,correcting punctuation and the like go straight into the bin without a glace at anything but the number or letter written at the top of the page.

they're wil bee consekwenses 4 there indifference