24 Comments

Most people who want to appear insightful do so not by imitating the surface features of insightful people, but by finding a subgroup (say, environmentalists, or libertarian economists) which has already enumerated the insightful positions, and which is small enough relative to the general population that they can regard themselves as being very insightful (as contrasted with Democrats or Republicans, who can each only consider themselves to be in the top 50%, insight-wise). They then regurgitate the consensual liturgy of insights to each other, and he who shouts the loudest is the most insightful.

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Admittedly Robin, my experience is specifically with Columbia, which I was emphasizing the quality of, Penn, which isn't very different from Penn State in my observations, and Harvard, which seems better than Penn but worse than Columbia in teaching, very g-loaded in grading, and very psychologically toxic in other respects.

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Robin Hanson:Michael, my experience doesn't match yours.

in which direction? do you disagree about the best schools or the others?

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michael vassar: Oh, I am sure all of your top 10 (or 20) uni-educated, g-loaded friends make spelling mistakes constantly, and that you were only trying to write like them (Look, I brought it back on-topic!). But next time, please, make a less brain-scorching mistake. Thank you.

And you can add to your g-smells the lack of imagination implicit in the name-calling!

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V: Don't be an idiot. If I had attended a top ranked university I wouldn't have found this out. By the way, do you have any numbers on the g-loading of spelling? The g-loading of spelling on the right hand tail? Please do share.

Doug S: You should read www.halfsigma.com archives on the topic of intelligence, career tracks, and college choice. Long an the short of it is that no, you have been fed a myth popular in right wing sets hostile to elite school leftism.

Robin: I'm sure that your classes are plenty g loaded. Also, you studied physics, which is hard to suck the g loading from. Still, I'm slightly surprised by the disagreement.

Phil Goetz: Waiting for you to chime in here on this one. You too Nancy Lebovitz.

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"Focusing on obscure anal rules about grammar or citations..."

Missing comma for coordinate adjectives! See, e.g., Hart’s Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford. 1st ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1893.

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I think students can roughly be divided into two groups:1) Those who want a "qualification"2) Those who have a passion for learning

I think the intersect between those two sets is larger than you recognize - and that a lot of people recognize that a passion for learning doesn't pay bills.

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Other people are having their little rants about university education so I'll have mine... :-)

I think students can roughly be divided into two groups:

1) Those who want a "qualification"2) Those who have a passion for learning

I think the great myth about university is that it can turn a type 1 person into a type 2 person. In my experience it doesn't happen. The people I know who like learning, well, they liked learning before they went to university, and they still like learning afterwards, and indeed will do so for the rest of their lives.

I think type 2 people get two main things out of university. Firstly, they are forced to learn about some things they wouldn't choose to study themselves. I've seen too many autodidacts (who are also type 2) who developed strong opinions about things early on and then selectively educated themselves in a way that just reinforced their existing beliefs and ways of thought. The second important thing, I think, is that university gives type 2 people a way to meet and hang out with a wide range of other type 2 people. Perhaps the major part of what I've learnt during my time at universities has nothing to do with any curriculum, rather it's been from hanging out with, and arguing with, all the interesting people I've met along the way.

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To michael vassar: next time you plan to demean someone's education, please use a spellchecker, mr. "seperately". It makes your point quite moot (yes, I am assuming you attended a top 10, or at worst 20, university).

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I went to a state university but I only spent 3 years there. I was there for the credential rather than the education. I don't think I made the wrong choice there, but I should have looked into internships as soon as I arrived.

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My father, a professor of electrical engineering, says that the primary value of a college degree is that it demonstrates to employers that you are the kind of person capable of doing the work expected of a college student.

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I was actually thinking about this yesterday, suffering through the latest education fad. A lot of the popular education strategies today encourage students to ape insight either in the hopes that it will make them really insightful, or because educators can't tell the difference between real and fake insight themselves.

I have a prof in medical school who makes students reading journal articles follow a special multi-point plan developed by some sort of top educators. Start by finding five difficult terms in the article, writing them down, and then writing down the dictionary definitions. Then write down your objectives in studying the article. Then write down a list of key points of the article. Then discuss the article in a small group. And so on. All of this is based on genuinely good practices (it really is a good idea to know exactly what your objectives are; it really is a good idea to have well-defined terms; other people really can give you a different perspective, and so on) but to enforce lifeless versions of the practices divorced from the motivation behind them turns it into a meaningless ritual.

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Tiedemies, I didn't say you can't tell; I said a mere feeling isn't enough.

Caliban, your hope is dashed.

Michael, my experience doesn't match yours.

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Do you want education or credentials?http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

And most mentors I've had have been very modest about their levels of insight. "I just do what I do. Maybe other people find it useful. Maybe not."

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Is Rutgers University a top-tier university? I attended Rutgers College of Engineering and learned a lot, although most of what I studied could best be described as vocational training (my major was electrical/computer engineering). If you're looking for vocational training and not "intellectual development" - whatever that is - then, chances are, most any college will do.

I've read that (U.S.) students who were accepted to big name universities but chose to attend no-name universities instead have the same type of outcomes as students who do attend big name universities. Basically, the difference, on the undergraduate level, at least, between Generic State U. and Ivy League U. is the students, not the school. (For graduate students, there's probably a much bigger difference in the quality of education from a big name school and a no-name school.)

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Cargo-cult science, eh? Follow the form and not the substance...

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