Comments on: Why Not Home College?

By: Phil Goetz

Phil Goetz — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:37:58 +0000

Kids who do weird things maybe be ostracized less because we assume it was probably their parents who made them do such things.

Meanwhile, in my world, this sympathetic calibration of ostracism has never, ever happened.

By: John Maxwell IV

John Maxwell IV — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:41:26 +0000

I agree that self-teaching requires more discipline. I’m pretty successful in traditional school settings; I’ve tried self-teaching a number of times with limited success. Damned internet.

By: Granite26

Granite26 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:26:14 +0000

I’m a big fan of recorded live lectures. Get 30 people in the room so that the professor is teaching TO somebody, which makes sure he makes sense and isn’t being crazy boring, but still allow the majority of students to not show up at the appointed place and time.

I’ll go on the record, though, as saying that remote learning =\= home college

By: Vulgate

Vulgate — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:47:10 +0000

There are economic efficiencies of scale and legal protections in a college environment that cannot be duplicated in an at-home experience.

Can you imagine the personal cost of being a bio-physics or chemical engineering ’student’ at your stay-at-home college? Also if a student started mixing chemicals at their own home in the name of ‘lab experiments’ they are more likely to talk to the FBI than a corporation.

In my opinion, an at-home university would be better structured as a corporate apprenticeship.

By: tg

tg — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:54:06 +0000

Good points, Doug, regarding the 1,000 student class. Agreed, Thanks.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:39:32 +0000

As someone who has a tendency to procrastinate, I think there is some benefit. It is easier to make myself go to a lecture for an hour and pay attention than it is to sit there in my own personal room with 100 distractions and make myself pay attention to a difficult book or a difficult computer course for an hour.
It is of course possible that I am uniqe in my failings. But that would mean that the word “procrastination” was made up entirely in preparation for my birth, which strikes me as overstating my importance to the universe. If there are other people like me, then the lecture model will continue.

By: ado

ado — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:59:57 +0000

good point… niche-seeking auto-professionals would model neatly if we had the metrics.

By: William Newman

William Newman — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:38:12 +0000

I followed the normal college and grad school route, but along the way I dabbled in some uncredentialed work. In particular, in high school I worked part time as a programmer, and I received an unsolicited offer for a reasonably-attractive-sounding full time job offer (from a different firm) as an alternative to going to college.

Also in college I also knew various pure science majors, typically physics majors, who went directly into engineering jobs upon graduation.

From my anecdotal experience, my guess is that if you were prepared to show that you understood half a dozen relevant engineering-ish texts well — texts at the level of _Introduction to Algorithms_ and _Mathematical Methods for Physicists_ and _The Art of Electronics_ — and you could show off a nontrivial demo project or three, it would be straightforward to find good engineering jobs. Most companies would ignore you, true, especially big ones with human resources bureaucracies, but a significant fraction of less bureaucratic companies would be impressed, and such a fraction is all you need.

By: Doug S.

Doug S. — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:51:52 +0000

At the University of Arizona, due to budget cutbacks, there will be classes offered in the concert hall to upwards of 1,000 students at a time. These are not televised or internet based. These are bodies in the seats. Do we really believe in the authority of the teacher so much that we are willing to suffer this charade? Is there some transmission of knowledge that can only occur in person?

There’s actually reasons why the school would do this. First of all, it’s harder on a professor to give a televised lecture. The standards for performance are higher; any flaws in the professor’s public speaking ability, such as stumbling over words and such, stand out more when it’s on a recorded video. Second, if you’re physically in the room with a professor, even if it’s a huge lecture class, you can still raise your hand and interrupt the lecture to ask a question, or otherwise interact with the professor directly. Yes, it’s still basically a charade, but it’s not *completely* pointless.

By: tg

tg — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:14:18 +0000

At the University of Arizona, due to budget cutbacks, there will be classes offered in the concert hall to upwards of 1,000 students at a time. These are not televised or internet based. These are bodies in the seats. Do we really believe in the authority of the teacher so much that we are willing to suffer this charade? Is there some transmission of knowledge that can only occur in person? The University believes so, apparently, and that is laughable.