BF2S Forums Design a new college system

I'd love to join in on this whole debate (not really), but I don't really have time so I'll just pop in to say my government pays 40% of my undergrad costs (tuition + living costs), 60% if I choose to do a masters, and provides me with an infinite amount of student loans for as many PhD's as I want, in whatever country I wish.

Result? I've managed to get by without having to ask mommy and daddy for help, despite the UK's absolutely ridiculous over-seas fees. Which is good, because at age 18-19 I think we should be able to choose our education completely regardless of our parents.

Hooray socialism.

(that said, our system only really works because university hasn't become a thing 'everyone must do' here, as in the UK - the job requirement of 'must have a degree in at least something' is very rare - you either need a specific degree, or nothing.)

The most ironic thing about the discussions that we've just had and always have is that liberal arts degrees are supposedly aimed to instill a young person with an ethos of "understanding" and "awareness" of all disciplines and ways of life, etc. All that high-minded stuff written in normal school ethos-type documents that basically sell a $60k/yr private liberal arts education as something that will enrich a student and help them develop into top-rate characters, well-rounded and all that. And the only person here actually calling for equal respect and understanding to be given to all subjects and disciplines, and all academic pursuits... is me. The science guys all seem to have some super egomania problem wherein they have to state either/both that a) their subject is the most difficult and the only 'true calling' in life worthy of a person's time and devotion and that b) all other subjects are bullshit for 'pretentious hipsters'. Somehow I don't think you'll find a person with a liberal arts degree calling others that chose different high-level academic interests "pretentious" because of it. It's all wonderfully ironic, really. From my experiences online and in real life (I have quite a few friends with backgrounds in the sciences, we have a lot of friendly banter) I get the serious impression that science-types define themselves as much by what they don't do as by what they do actually do; it seems to be core to your confidence and faith in your pursuit that it is somehow 'better' and 'more demanding' than others' (read: it's not really). I think it all has something to do with the modern-day secular world's valorization and championing of the sciences as the current latter-day holders of absolute, universal Truth and Knowledge about Being (capital letters 'cause I'm getting really, like, philosophical now). Scientists are like the new high-priests and it seems you guys want the respect delivered of an episcopacy when in fact you're just regular Joes as well that chose a path after high-school. Big deal. Other subjects deserve funding too, get over it.

Uzique wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Uzique wrote:

Oh and furthermore, would anyone have acted on anything you did for your theoretical science PhD?

They acted on my B.Eng thesis http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/mechatronicsinmedicine and my MSc thesis was industry funded and went straight into use so I'm guessing yes.

I'm guessing the answer is 'no'.

Keep guessing.

So were you even doing a PhD in theoretical physics? Doesn't sound like it. Engineering thesis leading to work in industry. Doesn't sound like you're even talking about the same sort of academic funding as we're talking about. Physics and Maths PhD students don't get 'funded' by industry or workplace. They get funded by the central academic funding body. Which is what I was curious about... because I didn't think you got offered funding by them. Turns out you're talking about Engineering and thus have been completely missing the point of our discussion about academia altogether. Research in abstract/theoretical sciences is just as esoteric and unhelpful to everyday society as humanities research, believe me.

I never claimed to be doing theoretical anything, I did industry focused research, but am still well aware of what esoteric scientific research entails - although there are very often productive industrial spinoffs or straightforward advances in knowledge which may eventually lead somewhere or simply close off a dead end.

Looking into the past, to study people who really did stuff, not so much.

Given the choice between:

Using govt money to teach people to do stuff

Using govt money to teach people to study people who did stuff in the past

Seems pretty obvious.

The bottom line seems to me that hipsters and academic hipsters have killed their golden goose. The country has been run into the ground by an 'elite' educated in nothing in particular, there is no money left for anyone to study anything now, bad luck.

Maths and Science graduates are not typically running the govt or arts and humanities depts, your argument fails right there.

Expanding free university education to every hipster was the work of hipsters and humanities graduates, without a thought to the problem of lack of funding. Now everyone has to pay through the nose, terrific.
The same for expanding govt spending and deregulating the city.

Anyway, again with the personal insults, via karma or whatever, I would have thought you'd think you were better than that.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2012-04-05 22:36:13)

Um no, you went on for a while with the personal insults beforehand.

But wait a minute, you suggested one of the main benefits of funding classics and similar humanities was to produce super-geniuses to run the country.

The theory seems to have failed - given the country is now fucked and there's no money left for education.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2012-04-05 22:49:49)

Design a new college system: no socially confident people, nobody with a nice haircut or good-dress sense; strictly nobody with sex appeal; strictly nobody that thinks comics are nerdy; absolutely under no circumstances shall there be study of anything other than core science and math. Thread closed, really, I think that just about wraps up every single problem inherent in the Western system.

Anyway it has been fun - I'm off to the library to sit around gazing out the window with a profound look on my face, being a hipster, doing some close reading of a poem or two to try and figure out once and for all just what that pesky author meant. It'll be a long hard day's toil but it'll be worth it for my contributions to human knowledge and eternal Western progress.

Yeah, so what? Are you really pursuing this with a straight face? What's your fucking point? Clement Atlee had a History degree as well and he's possibly the UK's best ever Prime Minister. Want to look into the bio of every single good/bad politician and pin it on what they read between the ages of 18-21? Sounds retarded to me. But I guess that's the reasoning you cling to when you consider all non-science types as "hipsters". Moronic.

Engineering majors can at least do stuff

Uzique wrote:

Yeah, so what? Are you really pursuing this with a straight face? What's your fucking point? Clement Atlee had a History degree as well and he's possibly the UK's best ever Prime Minister. Want to look into the bio of every single good/bad politician and pin it on what they read between the ages of 18-21? Sounds retarded to me. But I guess that's the reasoning you cling to when you consider all non-science types as "hipsters". Moronic.

My point is that your argument that we must maintain an esoteric academia because thats where the smart people in govt are sourced from fails very very hard.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Uzique wrote:

Yeah, so what? Are you really pursuing this with a straight face? What's your fucking point? Clement Atlee had a History degree as well and he's possibly the UK's best ever Prime Minister. Want to look into the bio of every single good/bad politician and pin it on what they read between the ages of 18-21? Sounds retarded to me. But I guess that's the reasoning you cling to when you consider all non-science types as "hipsters". Moronic.

My point is that your argument that we must maintain an esoteric academia because thats where the smart people in govt are sourced from fails very very hard.

i already said above that govt. gets its people from oxford ppe now. it has high entry requirements. it's an establishment course. i already said that these courses and these schools will always exist. the only way to eradicate this sort of thing happening is to make us all move into fourier-like phalanxes and educate one another cooperatively, socialistically. so what would you prefer: a democratic/meritocratic education system where the rich kids gather together to drink port and read ovid, or educational communism? i guess you'd go for the latter, right... and everyone must take science.

Yay more personal attacks, knocks the idea that humanities graduates are good at forming arguments on the head?

All I've really said is people who hold out their hand for govt money should put up some argument as to why they, and not someone else, should receive that money.
You've stated plainly you're not going to even try, and prefer insulting anyone whose opinion you don't like. Well done.