I hate college

[Carlos 0]

Getting to know college and the academic world has turned into a rather sharp disappointment for myself. Every day on some level it feels as if I'm inundated by lazy, passionless students who are just placing their warm bodies in a class room so they can get a piece of paper after 4-5 years that guarantees them a job. Even amongst fellow Physics students I rarely ever have seen a spark of passion, both in undergrad and now grad school. The defining state of many students (physics included) is apathy or lethargy, with the only exception usually being students who are very punctual and good at getting things done, but otherwise have no real passion for what they are doing (this is often best exemplified in foreign physics students who study and work hard, but are almost like lifeless efficiency-bots). But even amongst the students who study and obtain good grades, I would bet that 90% of the time if they were presented with a simple physics experiment and asked to demonstrate the understanding of a concept they would fail miserably.

When I read "A Brief History of Time" at age 15 I decided I wanted to get a PhD in Physics, and work as an instructor of physics at a university. That goal hasn't changed since then, but my understanding of what a university is has.

What are the experiences of others on this?

I can't help but to think that anywhere from 80-90% of my undergrad career was wasted on fluff courses. As an example, I completed 18 hours of Math courses to get a minor (was required 15 for physics program), but I had to take a grand total of 16 hours of Portuguese! So when I had my mind set on an E&M assignment that would require 30hours to complete, I would be distracted by the task of cutting out pictures from a magazine to make a silly poster for a Portuguese course (by the way, I can only say one or two sentences in Portuguese, we learned nothing).

The most shocking waste of time is in the other majors I see. Some high school friends of mine got degrees in business or marketing, and one of them admitted to me around his Junior year that "I never do any homework". Based on the number of hours they spent per week on meaningful coursework, I can't help but think that a very large percentage of students at universities could have their degrees condensed down into a year or two of trade school courses.

The conclusion I've reached then is that for the average student, college is a required waste of time in order to get a job for a company that places an intrinsic value on a scrap of paper. So for them it is little more than a social experience, and the equivalent of a four year long, 20K-40K dollar drunken vacation; and in completing it you get a beer gut, a piece of paper, and if you worked hard you will hopefully be on the same level of education you were at when you graduated from high school.

Has the quality of universities and the students that attend them declined over the last 50 years? I just can't imagine today's world being built by the lifeless drones I see around me. I can't imagine--while I'm grading a scrawled, childishly written answer to a very simple question in an Astronomy lab--that the leaders of tomorrow will come from this lot of people.

I will have to close here because it is time to go to my Quantum Mechanics course--a course that I would literally learn more from by skipping the professor's lectures and reading the book.

[ruveyn ben yosef 0]

I will have to close here because it is time to go to my Quantum Mechanics course--a course that I would literally learn more from by skipping the professor's lectures and reading the book.

What is your instructor (or professor) saying/teaching that was not in the book? I took the undergraduate quantum theory course at Princeton (as an auditor) last spring and it was all business. Physics, math and not an iota of philosophical speculation. The C-word (Copenhagen) was not mentioned, even once. It was very satisfying. This semester I am taking the course in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics. It is a pleasure because it is all business.

May I suggest an interesting book for you to read? -Science and Hypothesis- by Henri Poincare. He manages to get out from between the jaws of Popper and Kant (so to speak) very nicely.

ruveyn

[Carlos 0]

I will have to close here because it is time to go to my Quantum Mechanics course--a course that I would literally learn more from by skipping the professor's lectures and reading the book.

What is your instructor (or professor) saying/teaching that was not in the book? I took the undergraduate quantum theory course at Princeton (as an auditor) last spring and it was all business. Physics, math and not an iota of philosophical speculation. The C-word (Copenhagen) was not mentioned, even once. It was very satisfying. This semester I am taking the course in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics. It is a pleasure because it is all business.

May I suggest an interesting book for you to read? -Science and Hypothesis- by Henri Poincare. He manages to get out from between the jaws of Popper and Kant (so to speak) very nicely.

ruveyn

The fault isn't the course materials, it is paid professionals who are literally incapable of teaching or interacting meaningfully with the students.

Professor: And therefore we get blah-blah-arcane math-blah blah

Student (confused): I don't understand what that means, could you explain?

Professor: Well it's quite simple really, just hyperbolic sines and blah-blah arcane math...

Student (more confused): But what does it mean?

Professor (slightly flustered and quicker): Well it's just *repeats arcane math*

Student (still confused, but pretends to understand): Oh... ok.. thanks.

For most of my physics classes, I think the students simply show up and pretend to be interested and understand the lecture, but they get virtually nothing from it and show up mostly because it looks bad if they don't.

[ewv 0]

Getting to know college and the academic world has turned into a rather sharp disappointment for myself. Every day on some level it feels as if I'm inundated by lazy, passionless students who are just placing their warm bodies in a class room so they can get a piece of paper after 4-5 years that guarantees them a job. Even amongst fellow Physics students I rarely ever have seen a spark of passion, both in undergrad and now grad school. The defining state of many students (physics included) is apathy or lethargy, with the only exception usually being students who are very punctual and good at getting things done, but otherwise have no real passion for what they are doing (this is often best exemplified in foreign physics students who study and work hard, but are almost like lifeless efficiency-bots). But even amongst the students who study and obtain good grades, I would bet that 90% of the time if they were presented with a simple physics experiment and asked to demonstrate the understanding of a concept they would fail miserably.

When I read "A Brief History of Time" at age 15 I decided I wanted to get a PhD in Physics, and work as an instructor of physics at a university. That goal hasn't changed since then, but my understanding of what a university is has.

What are the experiences of others on this?

I can't help but to think that anywhere from 80-90% of my undergrad career was wasted on fluff courses. As an example, I completed 18 hours of Math courses to get a minor (was required 15 for physics program), but I had to take a grand total of 16 hours of Portuguese! So when I had my mind set on an E&M assignment that would require 30hours to complete, I would be distracted by the task of cutting out pictures from a magazine to make a silly poster for a Portuguese course (by the way, I can only say one or two sentences in Portuguese, we learned nothing).

The most shocking waste of time is in the other majors I see. Some high school friends of mine got degrees in business or marketing, and one of them admitted to me around his Junior year that "I never do any homework". Based on the number of hours they spent per week on meaningful coursework, I can't help but think that a very large percentage of students at universities could have their degrees condensed down into a year or two of trade school courses.

The conclusion I've reached then is that for the average student, college is a required waste of time in order to get a job for a company that places an intrinsic value on a scrap of paper. So for them it is little more than a social experience, and the equivalent of a four year long, 20K-40K dollar drunken vacation; and in completing it you get a beer gut, a piece of paper, and if you worked hard you will hopefully be on the same level of education you were at when you graduated from high school.

Has the quality of universities and the students that attend them declined over the last 50 years? I just can't imagine today's world being built by the lifeless drones I see around me. I can't imagine--while I'm grading a scrawled, childishly written answer to a very simple question in an Astronomy lab--that the leaders of tomorrow will come from this lot of people.

I think that this depends a lot on where you go to school. Do you don't, for example, see Zak describing his experiences this way. I think that a lot of it has come about because of an artificial goal for "everyone" to go to college regardless of what they need or are capable of and without regard for what a college education should be. The result seems to be a large number of colleges that are below high school standards fullfilling the "demand" for "higher education". This will only become worse as more government money is thrown into such "higher education" and intellectual standards are sacrificed to pragmatism and the worst ideologies.

There will always be differences to varying degrees between students and their motivation and interest, but you find the most interested and intellectually alive students at the best schools. You don't have to stay there past your MS degree. Look for other schools to transfer to.

I will have to close here because it is time to go to my Quantum Mechanics course--a course that I would literally learn more from by skipping the professor's lectures and reading the book.

I did that once. It was so frustrating sitting there trying to understand a disorganized professor mumbling into the blackboard while standing in front of what he cryptically wrote that I realized it was a choice between him and the subject. Since I wanted to learn the subject I stopped going to class, getting copies of notes from someone who did go and otherwise reading and doing all the homework. You might try something less radical -- bring the book to class and read it, keeping half an ear open to something important that might happen.

[Carlos 0]

You don't have to stay there past your MS degree. Look for other schools to transfer to.

I've already determined to a good extent the specific area I want to do my thesis in, so my plan is to do as brilliant job as possible with that then try to get into the best PhD program I can.

[ruveyn ben yosef 0]

You don't have to stay there past your MS degree. Look for other schools to transfer to.

I've already determined to a good extent the specific area I want to do my thesis in, so my plan is to do as brilliant job as possible with that then try to get into the best PhD program I can.

May I ask what sub fields of physics are of most interest to you? Judging by what you have written, I have a feeling that cosmology will not be your first choice.

ruveyn

[ewv 0]

You don't have to stay there past your MS degree. Look for other schools to transfer to.

I've already determined to a good extent the specific area I want to do my thesis in, so my plan is to do as brilliant job as possible with that then try to get into the best PhD program I can.

Then you are on the right track and will find your future student colleagues much better.

[Carlos 0]

I think that this depends a lot on where you go to school. Do you don't, for example, see Zak describing his experiences this way.

I doubt I would have ever gotten into Zak's undergraduate program. I was fortunate enough to have access to a remarkably good high school given the conditions of other schools in the neighboring farm towns, but in hindsight, compared to what's available in larger cities it wasn't that great. The star instructor of our school was a very intelligent student who had dropped out of med-school for personal reasons and was teaching my honors physics course (It was a stroke of luck that we had him, and in the end the idiotic students drove him out and he now teaches at a Christian private school in a different state).

I tried my absolute best given what I had available, got a 1330 on the SAT, got a 4 on the non-Calc Physics AP exam (we only did trig based physics in high school), 3 on the AP Calculus exam, was rejected by schools like Rice, and ended up going to Texas Tech. In hindsight this was a mistake, and I should have gone to the University of Texas or Texas A&M, but I didn't know any better.

I did quite well in some courses at TTU but languished in others. Looking back I've realized that generally I was a good student in courses with an inspiring, good professor, and was a poor student in courses with poor professors.

After bombing some courses my Junior year I realized I had let myself be influenced by lazy fellow students and poor instructors, the following year I had a complete renaissance, re-inspired myself, and became one of the best students (2nd only to an unusually brilliant student who by all rights honestly should have been at CalTech or some similar school). Regardless of my last ditch heroic efforts it was too late, and I graduated with ok grades overall, so I had no chance of getting into a prestigious grad program.

The school I'm at right now though has some really great researchers, and I think I could gain a lot from my thesis by working under one of them.

[ewv 0]

The school I'm at right now though has some really great researchers, and I think I could gain a lot from my thesis by working under one of them.

Get to know them so they will be able to give you top recommendations. That will mean a lot in applications to a more advanced program.

[Carlos 0]

You don't have to stay there past your MS degree. Look for other schools to transfer to.

I've already determined to a good extent the specific area I want to do my thesis in, so my plan is to do as brilliant job as possible with that then try to get into the best PhD program I can.

May I ask what sub fields of physics are of most interest to you? Judging by what you have written, I have a feeling that cosmology will not be your first choice.

ruveyn

Actually it and astrophysics/astronomy are. Over the course of my life the big questions I'd like to study and understand are why Earth was able to support life, whereas Venus and Mars couldn't, to what extent this was because of the Earth establishing a permanent magnetic field, what drives the climate of Earth, how much is driven by an extra-terrestrial source?, etc.

Plasma Cosmology is also something I want to study more in the future.

In grad school for research I want to do something in the field of solid state physics, perhaps something with amorphous Si/crystal GaAs semiconductors and solar cells, or perhaps something with thermoelectric or piezoelectric devices. Quantum Mechanics and Electrodynamics are both very interesting to me, and the way these two fields are applied to solid state physics is very exciting.

Also, solid state physics lends itself nicely to a career in industry. My current plan is to get a PhD, hopefully work in some kind of R&D in industry, then in later life retire from that and work at a university just teaching courses and perhaps helping undergraduate students do research projects in astronomy.

I think after years of study I would like to try writing and publishing books on certain science topics, or maybe even try science fiction (I've done some practice writing and the idea is very interesting to me).

[Carlos 0]

The school I'm at right now though has some really great researchers, and I think I could gain a lot from my thesis by working under one of them.

Get to know them so they will be able to give you top recommendations. That will mean a lot in applications to a more advanced program.

I took my wings out of the closet, dusted them off, and am trying to be a social butterfly in that respect. But seriously, I already have been talking to a particular professor, shooting him questions and explaining my interest in his field.

[Scott A. 0]

I was disillusioned as an undergraduate about psychology, but not mature enough to understand that fully at the time. So, instead of classes, I focused on other things that were interesting and/or fun. It didn't help my grades much, but I developed in other ways.

I took three years off after getting my undergraduate degree. I was still immature by the time of graduation, but mature enough to know that. I knew that I had to get more experience in life, and that turned out to be one of the best decisions I made.

Between the fall and spring semesters of my second year of graduate school, I got somewhat depressed. I couldn't wait to go to graduate school to learn the advanced material and be around other students and professors who were as interested in psychology as me. I rode the momentum of that excitement and the amount of work the first year into my second year, while also taking sharp notice of the people around me.

It wasn't until after that fall semester in my second year that the full realization of who those people were and my distance from them set in. I have a clear memory of a day in January, early in spring semester my second year, when I saw some fellow students walking down a dim hallway with the pale light reflecting off their pale skin, vacant eyes, and slow-moving stride. They looked like zombies to me. My mind recoiled and it "felt" like I had backed up against a wall with my palms flat against it, and that I had to slowly slide down the hall away from them to escape. But in reality I just walked by them, said hello, and focused on whatever I had to do.

The depression didn't last long, although it would come back in minor episodes, a day here and there, for most of my remaining time in graduate school. But that time early in graduate school was a turning point. It was a realization of something bad, but because I accepted the reality of it, I was now in a position to deal with it effectively. It's the things about reality one does NOT acknowledge (for whatever reasons) that cause the most problems. I was able to move forward and, oddly, had better relationships with people. I think it was because I no longer placed any value in "connecting" with these people, which removed the motivation to think about them much, and when I did interact with them I had no expectations that wouldn't be met. In other words, I just accepted those things I couldn't change and my frustration, anger, and sadness pretty much went away.

I offer this just as a recounting of my experiences, not necessarily as advice.

[Carlos 0]

I did that once. It was so frustrating sitting there trying to understand a disorganized professor mumbling into the blackboard while standing in front of what he cryptically wrote that I realized it was a choice between him and the subject. Since I wanted to learn the subject I stopped going to class, getting copies of notes from someone who did go and otherwise reading and doing all the homework. You might try something less radical -- bring the book to class and read it, keeping half an ear open to something important that might happen.

I do something like this when I'm bored with a substance-lecture. I will either do homework or invent and work out fun problems, like a quantum infinite square well with an E-field in it, or a moving conducting fluid in the presence of a B field. When school is out of the way I like to say my education begins, and these are the fun things I like to do.

[Carlos 0]

...fellow students walking down a dim hallway with the pale light reflecting off their pale skin, vacant eyes, and slow-moving stride. They looked like zombies to me.

Yikes! I wouldn't say that about my fellow students; they are all good guys, my complaint is that I don't feel like I have an intellectual equal or someone who shares my sense of life to any degree. But I always did notice (at Texas Tech) a huge difference between Physics students and the kind I saw in the Classics and Foreign Languages building. The former--despite whatever my complaints may be about laziness--were usually clean cut, normal people, whereas the latter were nearly always creepy beatniks or hippies.

Like you, I enjoy their company on a light level, but I don't see any serious friendships arising.

Something I hadn't realized until this thread is just how much I crave having a friendship in this town with someone I can regard as an intellectual equal, or interact with on a level of mutual respect. It is a little disappointing when you feel like you are an interesting and exciting person, but you are doomed to having a social life that consists of playing World of Warcraft over the internet with some 13 year old in Malaysia!

[piz 0]

Something I hadn't realized until this thread is just how much I crave having a friendship in this town with someone I can regard as an intellectual equal, or interact with on a level of mutual respect. It is a little disappointing when you feel like you are an interesting and exciting person, but you are doomed to having a social life that consists of playing World of Warcraft over the internet with some 13 year old in Malaysia!

I hear that. I went to college expecting intellectual excitement, and all I found were beer bongs. I joined a fraternity and was utterly disappointed because I didn't realize that the kind of fraternity men I sought had graduated 130 years before. I can remember having interest in discussing things deeply (relative to my level of knowledge, of course) as far back as second or third grade. In all the time between then and now I've met next to no one who can go intellectually deep on any topic (which is one of the reasons I spend so much time here ). For example, I'm a sports fan, but it seems like that's all 99% of men ever talk about. And listening to woman after woman drone on about...frankly, I'm not even sure what it is they drone on about. Something to do with emotions and shopping, or emotional shopping, or shopping for emotions - I don't know. Is that level of intellectual interaction the only one people ever reach?

Despite his evil, I feel a keen sympathy for Dr. Stadler in Atlas Shrugged when he speaks of "the loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire" and "the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom" of dealing with most men.

[Carlos 0]

I think that a lot of it has come about because of an artificial goal for "everyone" to go to college regardless of what they need or are capable of and without regard for what a college education should be. The result seems to be a large number of colleges that are below high school standards fullfilling the "demand" for "higher education". This will only become worse as more government money is thrown into such "higher education" and intellectual standards are sacrificed to pragmatism and the worst ideologies.

The truly tragic thing is the way that these idiots are taking over the university:

In the last few years Texas Tech decided to build a "Leisure Pool" at a cost of a few million dollars, and the budget has now increased to 7 million dollars (and according to a buddy of mine who knows these kinds of things, it will end up being much more than that).

http://www.fpc.ttu.edu/view/projpics.cfm?p...379&img=599

Looking at that I'm not sure whether to vomit or cry.

Because of the excessive building of stupid projects like this, the cost of going to Texas Tech has nearly doubled in the last ten years. A lot of that cost has come not from tuition increases, but in the form of mandatory fees per credit hour that are collected to fund different projects. The Leisure Pool was apparently another 10 dollars per credit hour.

Well, why do these decisions get made if they only hurt poor students who are serious about their education? Well, because the decisions are voted on by the "Student Government Association", which is basically exclusively populated by wealthy fraternity/sorority members. Their rich parents living in Dallas/Houston pay for everything in life, so why should they care if they vote for an additional million dollar toy? And they certainly have plenty of time to campaign for office, because it's not like they are preoccupied with any substantive courses or studying ("Oh man, I've got to study for this introduction to cinema test!").

But then again, Texas Tech is a public university, and therefore a pseudo government program--and the best way for a government program to get more money is to spend as much as it can while growing larger and trying to look as impressive as possible, and this is certainly what Tech does.

On a closing note, while Tech has millions of dollars to throw at smoothy bars and pools, still after constructing a new science research building on campus Physics professors must pay money to obtain a room for research!

[Jay P 0]

Getting to know college and the academic world has turned into a rather sharp disappointment for myself....

What are the experiences of others on this?...

My thought is that much of what you see, you would have seen 30-35 years ago when I was in college.

I was quite disappointed with my undergraduate years. The school was far inferior academically to what I thought it was going to be, and far too many of my classmates were not interested in learning anything - except maybe different ways to get drunk, and they just wanted the "credit" in their classes. I went to a technical school, so I mostly did not have to deal with leftist indoctrination, but the school was full of professors that either couldn't teach, or were just too lazy to bother trying. (There were a few good ones though.) Some of the classes - with fancy-sounding technical titles - were a joke, such as the junior-level course in which one of the exam problems was once to calculate the mass of a cube of gold 10cm on a side(!). (And then there was the old crank who didn't believe in relativity and one poor old guy who was literally senile.) Many of the courses amounted to little more than a rehash of what I'd learned in high school, or were just filled with concretes one could easily look up in a book; there was too little teaching of fundamental principles.

In my experience, people go to college for three primary reasons:

1) To learn something OR

2) To get a piece of paper that they can use to get a job OR

3) To goof off and go to parties.

I don't know what the relative sizes of these groups were when I was an undergrad. Since quite a few of the courses did require some effort, probably most of the students weren't there just to goof off, but I also did not get the impression that most really cared about learning. Anyway, the whole experience was a big letdown to me. I graduated as quickly as I could and at that point had no intention of ever setting foot in a college again. In retrospect, there are things I could have done differently: I could have made an effort to seek out good professors and good courses; I could have dumped the major I was in when it became evident that much of that department was worthless; and I could have pursued more study on my own - especially using our school computer. In other words, I could have salvaged something out of a bad situation and gotten a better education. Lost opportunities.

Later though, when I decided to switch careers, I did decide to go to graduate school (at a different school!), my earlier cynicism having worn off. And the experience was much better. In the department I was in (Computer Science) I would say well over half of the graduate students were seriously interested in learning. Some were not - some of them seemed to be just having fun playing the role of "grad student," but that never bothered me because I was too busy learning everything I could about my new field. I also chose to spend time with other students I judged to be the serious ones. (My experience was enriched, and I learned a lot more, by having friends I could go to lunch with and talk to about the classes we were taking. We'd ask each other questions and compare notes about how we were going to tackle challenging assignments.) That year was filled with hard work - one quarter I had absolutely no time for anything outside of my studies - and was one of the most enjoyable years of my life. I don't remember any of the CS grad students being drunks or goof-offs. There undoubtedly were those kinds of people in other places at the school (it was a large university) but I was too busy learning to care about what was going on elsewhere on campus.

Obviously I've learned that it makes a big difference where one decides to go. What's important is to gather first-hand knowledge about the different schools; weigh your abilities objectively; and then choose the best school that you can get into at which you'll be able to handle the work.

But I do indeed think much of what passes for higher education today must be worthless, especially in many non-technical fields. However, a resourceful and motivated student in science or engineering should be able to get a good education, keeping in mind that much of the learning might have to come from doing work outside that which is assigned in his classes.

[ewv 0]

I think that a lot of it has come about because of an artificial goal for "everyone" to go to college regardless of what they need or are capable of and without regard for what a college education should be. The result seems to be a large number of colleges that are below high school standards fullfilling the "demand" for "higher education". This will only become worse as more government money is thrown into such "higher education" and intellectual standards are sacrificed to pragmatism and the worst ideologies.

The truly tragic thing is the way that these idiots are taking over the university:

In the last few years Texas Tech decided to build a "Leisure Pool" at a cost of a few million dollars, and the budget has now increased to 7 million dollars (and according to a buddy of mine who knows these kinds of things, it will end up being much more than that).

http://www.fpc.ttu.edu/view/projpics.cfm?p...379&img=599

Looking at that I'm not sure whether to vomit or cry.

Please don't do it in the pool.

Because of the excessive building of stupid projects like this, the cost of going to Texas Tech has nearly doubled in the last ten years. A lot of that cost has come not from tuition increases, but in the form of mandatory fees per credit hour that are collected to fund different projects. The Leisure Pool was apparently another 10 dollars per credit hour.

Well, why do these decisions get made if they only hurt poor students who are serious about their education? Well, because the decisions are voted on by the "Student Government Association", which is basically exclusively populated by wealthy fraternity/sorority members. Their rich parents living in Dallas/Houston pay for everything in life, so why should they care if they vote for an additional million dollar toy? And they certainly have plenty of time to campaign for office, because it's not like they are preoccupied with any substantive courses or studying ("Oh man, I've got to study for this introduction to cinema test!").

But then again, Texas Tech is a public university, and therefore a pseudo government program--and the best way for a government program to get more money is to spend as much as it can while growing larger and trying to look as impressive as possible, and this is certainly what Tech does.

On a closing note, while Tech has millions of dollars to throw at smoothy bars and pools, still after constructing a new science research building on campus Physics professors must pay money to obtain a room for research!

Professors have to pay the school because that is the way the school increases the take: an "overhead" fee is tacked onto government research grants, costing the taxpayers more to siphon money into the school. Government funding has distorted the whole educational system, wiping out the possibility for most small private, high quality colleges to compete without becoming part of the mess, changing what they used to be in order to compete for students against subsidized zoos.

[ewv 0]

Getting to know college and the academic world has turned into a rather sharp disappointment for myself....

What are the experiences of others on this?...

My thought is that much of what you see, you would have seen 30-35 years ago when I was in college.

I was quite disappointed with my undergraduate years. The school was far inferior academically to what I thought it was going to be, and far too many of my classmates were not interested in learning anything - except maybe different ways to get drunk, and they just wanted the "credit" in their classes. I went to a technical school, so I mostly did not have to deal with leftist indoctrination, but the school was full of professors that either couldn't teach, or were just too lazy to bother trying. (There were a few good ones though.) Some of the classes - with fancy-sounding technical titles - were a joke, such as the junior-level course in which one of the exam problems was once to calculate the mass of a cube of gold 10cm on a side(!). (And then there was the old crank who didn't believe in relativity and one poor old guy who was literally senile.) Many of the courses amounted to little more than a rehash of what I'd learned in high school, or were just filled with concretes one could easily look up in a book; there was too little teaching of fundamental principles.

... In retrospect, there are things I could have done differently: I could have made an effort to seek out good professors and good courses; I could have dumped the major I was in when it became evident that much of that department was worthless; and I could have pursued more study on my own - especially using our school computer. In other words, I could have salvaged something out of a bad situation and gotten a better education. Lost opportunities.

Or you could have gone to a better school. Where did you go?

[Jay P 0]

... In retrospect, there are things I could have done differently: I could have made an effort to seek out good professors and good courses; I could have dumped the major I was in when it became evident that much of that department was worthless; and I could have pursued more study on my own - especially using our school computer. In other words, I could have salvaged something out of a bad situation and gotten a better education. Lost opportunities.

....

Or you could have gone to a better school. Where did you go?

That was at the Colorado School of Mines.

You're right: I could have gone to a better place. But I kept hoping it would get better - hoping that the few good courses I had would be a preview of better things to come. (I also ended up being able to graduate early because of extra courses I took, and the advanced-placement credits I had from high school.)

[Carlos 0]

... In retrospect, there are things I could have done differently: I could have made an effort to seek out good professors and good courses; I could have dumped the major I was in when it became evident that much of that department was worthless; and I could have pursued more study on my own - especially using our school computer. In other words, I could have salvaged something out of a bad situation and gotten a better education. Lost opportunities.

....

Or you could have gone to a better school. Where did you go?

That was at the Colorado School of Mines.

Wow, that's sad... The impression I had always gathered from others was that the School of Mines was a really nice institution.

[Ed from OC 0]

... In retrospect, there are things I could have done differently: I could have made an effort to seek out good professors and good courses; I could have dumped the major I was in when it became evident that much of that department was worthless; and I could have pursued more study on my own - especially using our school computer. In other words, I could have salvaged something out of a bad situation and gotten a better education. Lost opportunities.

....

Or you could have gone to a better school. Where did you go?

That was at the Colorado School of Mines.

Wow, that's sad... The impression I had always gathered from others was that the School of Mines was a really nice institution.

I work with someone who studied engineering physics there, and she loved it. She's not an Objectivist, but she's pretty darn smart.

[Brad Aisa 0]

Well, my experience here in the Psychology department at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has been great. All the grad students are tremendously enthusiastic and there is a very strong ethic to be very well studied -- most of the students I know take more than the required courses, and take extra seminars in specialized topics.

I've been a TA now for several semesters, and my experience with the students in the advanced lab class was that they worked quite hard (except for a few lazy apples.) They all seemed to take the subject seriously. I really haven't been involved with lower-level classes, so I can't speak about juniors and sophomores.

I know the faculty here in the Psych department are extremely top-notch. I've been tremendously impressed by the academic standards set by both faculty and grad students.

[MichaelJ 0]

I never went to university or college. I saw too many people in my former field, computer science graduates who couldn't even turn on a computer at all that I wondered what were universities teaching, because it certainly wasn't computers.

I would say it is a tough situation at the moment for people at that age now to make a decision, because it is hard to get jobs without that piece of paper unless you are known for certain achievements, or somebody that they know, knows you for certain achievements to override the stigma of not having the paper. You can either battle it out in college, or battle it out in industry until your established.

In the past, I would recommend battling it out in industry, at least there is more rational because businesses live or die by the power of their reason, but with the recent economic turmoil, it is probably safer at the moment in college to ride it out, and give you the advantage when you enter the marketplace of not appearing as risky to the employer.

[MichaelJ 0]

I think that a lot of it has come about because of an artificial goal for "everyone" to go to college regardless of what they need or are capable of and without regard for what a college education should be. The result seems to be a large number of colleges that are below high school standards fullfilling the "demand" for "higher education". This will only become worse as more government money is thrown into such "higher education" and intellectual standards are sacrificed to pragmatism and the worst ideologies.

The truly tragic thing is the way that these idiots are taking over the university:

In the last few years Texas Tech decided to build a "Leisure Pool" at a cost of a few million dollars, and the budget has now increased to 7 million dollars (and according to a buddy of mine who knows these kinds of things, it will end up being much more than that).

http://www.fpc.ttu.edu/view/projpics.cfm?p...379&img=599

Looking at that I'm not sure whether to vomit or cry.

Because of the excessive building of stupid projects like this, the cost of going to Texas Tech has nearly doubled in the last ten years. A lot of that cost has come not from tuition increases, but in the form of mandatory fees per credit hour that are collected to fund different projects. The Leisure Pool was apparently another 10 dollars per credit hour.

Well, why do these decisions get made if they only hurt poor students who are serious about their education? Well, because the decisions are voted on by the "Student Government Association", which is basically exclusively populated by wealthy fraternity/sorority members. Their rich parents living in Dallas/Houston pay for everything in life, so why should they care if they vote for an additional million dollar toy? And they certainly have plenty of time to campaign for office, because it's not like they are preoccupied with any substantive courses or studying ("Oh man, I've got to study for this introduction to cinema test!").

But then again, Texas Tech is a public university, and therefore a pseudo government program--and the best way for a government program to get more money is to spend as much as it can while growing larger and trying to look as impressive as possible, and this is certainly what Tech does.

On a closing note, while Tech has millions of dollars to throw at smoothy bars and pools, still after constructing a new science research building on campus Physics professors must pay money to obtain a room for research!

It is one thing I have observed about US universities and Australian universities. Australian universities that I have observed in Melbourne focus on education. Accommodation is private, in apartments that separate independent businesses construct near the universities which are designed to be optimal for students. Food is provided by nearby restaurants(they are located in the commercial hearts of cities, as some of our skyscrapers). They are a business with a purpose.

The US universities on the other hand, look like to me they are trying to create "mini-countries" with arcane rules and their own social engineered environments. They try to clone the outside world, in stupid projects like the leisure pools that Carlos E. Jordan was mentioning and try to make themselves as self contained and insular as possible.

It worries me a lot that 18 year olds in America, rather than discovering the real America and gain experience in the real America upon reaching adulthood, get boxed away in these arcane social experiment worlds where silly rules apply such as some of the shockers that FIRE have enlightened me to and those form the first adult experiences of their lives.