What colleges, universities and higher education institutes really do and your place

[Deadman1709]

Typically, this piece I will post in my rant box in Sickos Chat. But I would like to make this a public advice, so I will post it here. Now since this is something I composed in my head entirely in English (partially because I read them in English) so I had to use English (forgive me for that). It's something I only know after 4 years of university; though I really wish I knew it earlier.

I wrote this piece generally to answer the question: “Why the fuck do what we learn in universities rarely have anything to do with our work later in lives?” or in another viewpoint: “Why are university graduates so useless?”. My answer will probably contradicts what others, including the universities themselves, say about universities: their goals, principles, mores, or whatever. My answer could have easily been born out of my ignorance about the world, considering that I’ve only spent 4 years in a university (which is already more than a lot of people) and only is short 20-ish years of age. But it is an answer I found myself and I feel that they answer the two questions above very well. I also hope that it will help you decide the question: “Should I go to college?”

Now first, it doesn’t really matter what politicians, administrative officials or the universities themselves say what the role of university in a society is. All of those are secondary objectives, something born out of the university system. The whole university system was created for a purpose in the first place. That system is adapted by virtually all universities in the world, no matter quality. Thus, the essence of the original purpose will still remain. It’s like say … a knife. You can use a knife for many purposes, but the design is still an edged and pointed stick designed to cut and stab into something. It doesn’t really matter what you say you use it for, a knife will still retain the original purpose: cut and stab.

So, what is the purpose of a university system? To sustain itself. That’s it. Simple. Universities were first created as a platform so that scholars can exchange ideas with other people and through that, expanding the ideas. Over time, of course the scholars grow old and die, thus the need for the next generation of scholars and teaching was needed. For a university to exist, it needs people to staff it and the only source of such are from the university system itself. Translate it into the current system; universities train undergrads as if they all are going to be the next generation of PhD students. You should remember that PhD students are the main workforce for all research activities in all universities (though it's the Principle Investigator name that will get a paper published).

Research is the life blood of every uni. You can see that simply by looking at how universities are ranked. All ranking system put research as the main criteria for quality. Teaching accounts for less than 30%. Furthermore, in famous, accredited and high-ranking schools, teaching is a secondary job for professors. Their main job are research: thinking up ideas for projects, writing grants, hiring post-docs, supervising PhD students, etc … Teaching is their last priority. They wouldn’t sacrifice a Science/Cell/Nature publication for the future of their undergrads (they won’t). Only lower-ranking or for-profit schools the priorities are reversed. Isn’t it odd that a system that every societies are depending on doesn’t care about teaching?

The answer is simple: universities train undergrads so that they can have the next generation of PhD candidates. Here’s the bitter truth: of course not every Bachelor is going to become PhD students: some are not good enough, some simply do not want to spend so much time in school, some like to go to Wall Street and become a millionaire, etc … Only a fraction of the graduated Bachelors is going to become PhD students. Then you may ask: why don’t universities just take in the best undergrads they can and train them all they way. Well, the admission procedure is simply not good enough to predict every student success. Also, there’s a factor of freewill: some simply don’t want to spend 4 + 4-8 years of higher education on top of the first 12. Thus universities ended up taking in a massive amount of people, then some of the best move on to become PhD students. Universities discard the rest and societies pick them up.

By this point, you probably understand why university grads are simply not educated for the real world: they simply aren’t, because, that’s not the universities’ goal. Universities train every undergrads as if they are going to become PhDs and that training regime simply doesn’t cut it for the diverse requirements of the real world. But then why the real world takes up Bachelors? Put it this way, if you are good enough (or enduring) enough to spend an addition 4 years in (quite) rigorous intellectual environment (the degree varies), you gotta be (probably, but not an assurance) better than the dumbjocks who drop out of high school. University performance is somewhat like a proxy to real world performance. And the real world kinda believe that (many don’t).

The degree of how much of the above apply to a particular school, field of study, faculty or department varies. But remember that every thing in a university somewhat resembles what I described so it always applies, only the degree changes. In the “pure” science (contrast with applied science) field: like most natural science, liberal arts, arts and social science, all of the above applies to a T; especially so with social science. They train students as if they are going to be the next Einstein, Steven Hawking, Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, Ernest Gellner or many of the great name in science (no matter the field); but of course only very few of them will ever be. The things taught are generally useless, unless one is working in research-related works. An honest advice: if you are going into one of those area and wish to use your knowledge greatly, aim for a very good school (those which offer a high credential PhD degrees) and stick to the research path. If you don’t like research, then also consider a good school; at least the name of the school will make your degree scroll worth something (even if what they taught don’t). If you don’t, well, welcome to the suck boat.

Some other fields are less so but still bear a streak of research-oriented teachings, examples include business school and applied science schools. Remember, these schools while sounds like pretty close to the real world, still teaches a lot of theories and stuff that suitable only if you pursue a research path. And personally I distrust business schools: if their theories are so good, there wouldn’t be that many companies managed by MBA-holding managers went under.

Now some universities entirely devoted their teaching to produce functional, working and effective people, examples are engineering schools, medicine schools and law schools. Their entire curriculums are devoted to produce engineers (in many fields), doctors, nurses and lawyers. In many aspects, they ARE vocational schools; and not universities in the traditional sense (although they bear such names). Now coincidentally, they are usually tougher to enter, comparing to other schools; not because their curriculums are hard or demanding; simply because everyone wants to get on the boat. However, they contribute the least to the intellectual production. Take this as an example: in my uni, the two largest faculties are Science and Arts and Social Science. They both are somewhat easier to get into, comparing to the other faculties. However, they contribute the most publications, as in both total number and number per researcher head. That translates into more intellectual products and higher ranking. Yet, their graduates have the lowest starting wage.

As for Vietnamese universities: two of the toughest universities to get into in HCMC are Medicine University (DHYD) and Ho Chi Minh University of Technology (DHBK). However, if you use any university ranking system, they will come up behind the University of Natural Science (DHKHTN), which have a laxer standard but a more intensive research activity.

In a nut shell, the main purpose of a University (high-ranking one) is research. The purpose of teaching new undergrads is simply to perpetuate the university system.

Back to our question: “Why the fuck do what we learn in universities rarely have anything to do with our work later in lives?” or in another viewpoint: “Why are university graduates so useless?”. It’s not that universities are bad at doing this. They simply weren’t created in the first place to do so. They were created as a platform to exchange knowledge, some sort of an Enclave for like-minded people, isolating themselves from the rest. Societies simply come along and pick up some of the bright people which latched onto the system. Many people, and even the universities themselves forgot this and that’s why people ask the two questions in the first place.

Although producing mostly "useless" people, universities are the greatest production houses of intellectual products. Essentially technology, every medical advance you are using or seeing today found their way back to some labs and some (miserable) PhD students in some university. Without universities, societies simply don't advance, at least technologically; although culturally, people from the Arts and Social Science wing also contribute greatly, names like Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky should about demonstrate it.

[Solarius]

deadman này, tớ dịch ra rồi copy sang chỗ khác dc ko?

[Lowe Silvercross]

If university of technologies like NTU didn't teach u how to survive in real life then what ? They are resourceful and their facilities are good enough to allow students learn about up to date technologies which already a big advantage than most local colleges. But if u tell me that those universities are not fanciful as their reputation, I'll have to look at my plan again

[Deadman1709]

Nguyên văn bởi Solarius

deadman này, tớ dịch ra rồi copy sang chỗ khác dc ko?

Yes you can. But give due credit and a link to the original. And inform me where you post it (so that I can make sure that the original idea is not lost).

[Sphinx]

A lot of shits make much more sense nao

[Deadman1709]

Nguyên văn bởi Lowe Silvercross

If university of technologies like NTU didn't teach u how to survive in real life then what ? They are resourceful and their facilities are good enough to allow students learn about up to date technologies which already a big advantage than most local colleges. But if u tell me that those universities are not fanciful as their reputation, I'll have to look at my plan again

You might be educated for the real world. NTU is an engineering school; they train engineers, which honestly having an easier time finding work than the pure science field.

But you still have to remember that whether you are educated for the real world or not, it's simply not the actual goal of the university, no matter what the uni itself or you believe. Those are extras, gravy on top of a meatball.

But being in a really high ranking university has its prize (NTU fell, I believed, out of the top 200. Precisely because it's not a science university and is less intensive in research). Although it's gravy, the gravy is much thicker than lower ranking ones. At the very least, the name of the school is gravy itself.

But really you need to consider your future beyond the degree. You will be, financially and technically poorer than a hobo. You will have no property, no cars, no house and a 30000$ debt on your head. A hobo has nothing and own nothing to nobody. YOU will have nothing and own a hefty amount of money to a fucking bank (so do I). You better have some nice source of income to pay that off; and that pretty much exclude working anywhere in Vietnam.

I've been through all this. But I would never trade my past 4 years for anything else (may be a place in a good [non-VN] med school though). My last 4 years taught me a lot more beyond the confines of my degree. It taught me how to be a proper culturalist and observer (albeit a really cold-blooded and pragmatic). And yes, it taught me what the university system really is.

I may write a follow up on what I think of several categories of schools (science, engineering, etc ...). It could be a little bit arrogant, seeing that I am just a Bachelor. Also, I absolutely detest people in Business school; this is a ideological opposition and not really a rational one. But hey, at least I am a really cold-blooded when it comes to observing things and not saying sugar-coated shit (honestly believed or not). Also, I received inputs from a drop-out PhD student in Engineering.

[Strawberry]

Well, IMO, most of your points are correct.

However, some of my points are a bit different:

1) It's true that a uni does not really offer a practical education.
- But, hey, what is the "practical" thing anyway ? A good uni (top uni) is to provide us a good "foundation", which is not merely knowledge, but more important, an independent mind. Based on that, we have to create "practical" things ourselves. No one can do that for us.
- Uni does not want and can't provide us a concrete and fixed education. Uni is the place providing us information (instead of propagating things in Vietnam).
- Professors have spent their life to do "research", which is the only way to get the "truth", i.e. valuable information, and then bring them back to us. That's one of the reasons why research is the main part of uni.

2) So ? I don't think the uni's purpose of research is of any harm. Rather, it's one of the most wonderful things we can get in uni. A good "practical" thing comes from a good "foundation", i.e. via research. Those are what we should be proud of when graduating from a good uni, not because of its degree.

3) And, the companies (well, not in Vietnam) prefer the graduate one from famous uni, mostly not because of its degree; instead, because of the good spirit and foundation that he/she got.
-----------------
Well, I don't claim that I'm right. Merely a discussion anyway.

[Lowe Silvercross]

3) And, the companies (well, not in Vietnam) prefer the graduate one from famous uni, mostly not because of its decree; instead, because of the good spirit and foundation that he/she got.

. Indeed they prefer graduate one but for a "right price" and after confirm his skill
Study from a famous school doesn't give you the field experience and you still have to learn again at the workplace. So, it's better to hire a cheaper novice and train him rather than hiring one graduated from famous school with higher salary ?

[Deadman1709]

Nguyên văn bởi Lowe Silvercross

. Indeed they prefer graduate one but for a "right price" and after confirm his skill
Study from a famous school doesn't give you the field experience and you still have to learn again at the workplace. So, it's better to hire a cheaper novice and train him rather than hiring one graduated from famous school with higher salary ?

Like I wrote, success in university is some sort of "proxy", an estimation of a person's real capabilities and worthiness; and I believe for the most part, it's quite correct. Thinking of it as a baseline capability. If one has a crappy baseline, he's crappy at everything. 4 years of uni is like an extended test of one.

My father, as a university lecturer, admitted that schools don't create "good" graduates. They choose "good" intakes and because the intake is good, the output is good. Therefore, if a cheap novice comes from some crappy school or graduated with a pass (but nearly haven't), there's probably a good reason. Likewise, if you look at an officer cadre then fast forward 20 years. There's a reason why some made it to generals, others to colonel and some stuck at captain. Of course, personal connections etc ... are at work, but also is capability.

But at the same time, it also depends on the regiment of your training. How hard or easy is yours. If your regiment can train a bunch of high school drop-outs into satisfactory workers, then why bother with a university graduate? Or if your regiment can train unruly farmboys into disciplined industrial workers, then why bother with high school graduates? But if your regiment and training are really, really complicated and requires a lot of independence, confidence as well as some good foundation knowledge; sometimes you really need a Harvard graduate.

So there's really no good answer to your question. The missing variable, one you must collect yourself is the difficulty of the task.

Finally, I hope I have responded to people who talk derisively about universities and education in general, eg: "Universities ain't shit because they taught shit that has nothing to do with my work". My answer is "you just ain't shit for the university system: may be you got into the wrong (shitty) university, do the wrong job or simply not good enough for the universities themselves".


@Strawberry, your point isn't necessarily wrong. Yes, it's part of the university system to provide and disseminate information. However, I believe that they did so not because they are some sort of ... saints .... I can't really explain this; but if you've play Fallout, they are not Followers of the Apocalypse. They don't go around teaching people because they want to, although they actually go around teaching people. They do so because in the process of teaching people, some of them may have good ideas and expand the knowledge of mankind. Which is good anyway.

The rest of your point is correct. I didn't touch on how you learn to survive. On what companies really want? Well, may be you're right. But on the cold-blooded viewpoint of a graduate, what really matters to him is the degree.

May be I'll write later about the (perceived) problems of the general education: the 12 years we all know.

[Deadman1709]

Besides the problem of irrelevance of higher education, there is also an ongoing talk about how irrelevant the general education to the real world; otherwise can be known as the 12 years, the pre-university education thingy. But then again, I will have to argue that it’s not the education system which is at fault; rather it’s the other shit going around made it so.

The pre-university education system was created in the first place, probably for a single purpose only: educating young children into potential university undergrads; which is coincidentally why you learn complicated (relatively) mathematics, physics, chemistry, literature, etc … in your miserable days as students. Quite understandable, isn’t it? You wanna go to college (the original ones) and study, say … science? Then better get some basic knowledge about maths and such boy. It probably wasn’t very stressful for a lot of people because … well, not everyone can afford such thing and even less so the number of people who wants to go to college.

Then something happened, something call national-fucking-ism and motherfucking Prussia. Nationalism is somewhat a strange thing. It’s kinda hard to explain it, but it’s the identification of ones’ self as part of a larger nation. Or it’s the belief that a particular race or ethnicity should have the right to govern themselves and to call it a nation. Or it’s the thing that describe how people treat their nation as a fucking religion: painting the flags over cars, clothes, on facebook, etc … They somehow believe that their nation and the flag that stands on it is an island of righteousness in a sea of hostile, evil foreigners. Nationalism not naturally expressed in language, religion or race (tell me how many ethnicity Vietnam has. Or Singapore, or the USA, or France or German). Regardless, there’s one thing that it’s true: nationalism involves an imagined community, one that is created and believed by the people who believe in nationalism. Sounds contradictory, confusing and unreal? Yes, of course, because nationalism is. You may want to read Imagine Community: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism by Benedict Anderson or Nations and Nationalism by Ernst Gellner.

Ok, whatever. The point is: nationalism is kinda new; at least that’s true in the West. But Prussia makes it that it’s somewhat applicable to the rest of the world. Before nationalism, the kind of fanatical, zealous devotion is to a particular clan, tribe, lord or city-state, not to the state. They were united sometimes, and not other times. Being French, Russian (including at least Kievan-Rus, Novgorod and many many enclaves ruled by lords who received titles from the [Eastern/Byzantine] Roman Empire), or English wasn’t a great part of people identity back then). In the East, it was a little bit different. China was certainly big and united (but not in Tibet and a bunch of other places. Those were expanded under non-Han Chinese rules: Mongols and Manchu. And BTW, why Han Chinese anyway). Vietnam (Dai Viet it was) was only half as big. Japan was terribly fractured during the Sengoku Jidai.

Then what does nationalism has to do with education. Well, by now you should see that nationalism is artificial. It’s not something that natural bond people in the same way that race, language or religion could. It must be TAUGHT. So there you go, nationalism comes along and rape the pre-university education system, adding in a bunch of historical, traditional, literature, cultural and mythical mumo jumbo to foster the “love of the nation”, “patriotism” and “nationalism” in the “young minds” (Seriously, were you taught to today Vietnamese started when a humanoid dragon-kin had sex with a humanoid fairy and gave birth to 100 human-like creatures which hatched from eggs? And those bad parents broke up and they split the kids? We all know these stories. We chanted them like fucking religious mantra every now and then. But did you believe it? Do you think it’s real? Seriously, there’s more evidence for Lochness monster than this crap).

So … the beautiful system once dedicated to inducting younglings to the sanctuary of knowledge was loaded with a bunch of things that people don’t really care about. But that was only the beginning, the rape part. Something else is needed to turn it into something massive.

An orgy.

Then enter Prussia. Prussia was a fairly short-lived empire. But it shocked everyone when they won the Franco-Prussian war. The key to its success was the system of mobilization, namely, central, universal system of governance, education, taxation, military recruitment and mobilization and of course, education. The secret to Prussia success was quickly learned by virtually every European states and thanks to colonial rules, the rest of the world later. In effect, every functioning systems of governance today are based somewhat on the Prussia model. I’m not saying about being democratic or non-democratic: democratic/non-democratic republic, federation, etc … No, it’s the core bureaucracy and control methods which were inherited from Prussian model.

So, Prussia system created universal education, in other words, spreading the nationalism mind-rapefest to everyone within a country. Like an orgy.

And here’s the problem: on top of an overloaded system, you teach that system to everyone. Now, I’m not being a jerk here but certainly not every children has the same intellectual capability, right? Some need the true pre-university part with all the complicated stuff; even then not everyone need the same thing, some just need the nationalistic part (they themselves don't need it; those shits need to be shoved down their throat); others somewhere in between. Yet the principle of the Prussian system requires a universal curriculum for everyone.

Virtually, every pre-university education systems created were to address this problem. The British created O and A-levels. If you just need to graduate and GTFO, get some Os and you’ll be fine (thus satisfying the nationalism part). If you need college, better get some As.

The American created a system which all universities are independent. They admit students based some standardized tests: SAT (general-purposed) and SAT2 (kinda like A-levels, but somewhat easier) plus high school records and an admission essay (I fucking hated this). The students in high school decide which subjects they should take and how advanced those are (kinda O and A-level but much less standardized).

The Japanese system is a bit more extreme; shamelessly stratifies students into good and crappy schools and teaches them accordingly. I’m not making this up but one agenda for a "liberal, flexible and comfortable education" is like this "I expect that there would be a decline in scholarship. In fact, there will be no future for Japan if the average marks do not drop way down. Let dull students remain dull. We exhausted our energies since the war trying to maintain and raise their academic standards. Now we have to focus our energies to develop the abilities of the gifted. One in every 100 students would be enough. They are going to be our country's future leaders. All we can do for the absolute no-hopers (in his words 99 out of 100) is to have them brought up simple and sincere". This is shamelessly extremist elitist. There is still a strain of freewill though, by the virtue that you could apply to an after-hour cram school and study all you want.

Any of the 3 systems are venerable and proven enough to handle the problem that not every student needs the same education. Some need more at this, others at that and some just less altogether. Personally I prefer the British system: it has more time to develop and perfect itself and is the best compromise (I think) between standardization, stratification and freewill. The American system has too much freewill and too little standardization (US schools lack a state-wide, much less a nation-wide curriculum. School districts get to choose their own curriculum and textbooks). Lack of standardization makes stratification shaky. The Japanese system is shamelessly elitist and lack freewill (somewhat remedied by cram schools and tutors) but excels in standardization and stratification.

Now to our (VN) system. It has a strain of Japanese system: namely, classifying students into crappy and good schools, but then teaches them pretty much the same (the better schools have somewhat heavier curriculum, but hardly. The crappy school probably has too much for their student body. All uses the same textbook, hardly any difference). Also the cram schools and tutors enters the fray. It stratifies student into different university-oriented blocks at the beginning of high school, making it problematic should the student decided to change halfway (something inherent to the Japanese system as well, less so with the other 2). The stratification still sucks; sort of trying to retain too much of the “nationalistic” part in blocks that simply don’t need it

(I don't need to learn some fucking poems written 6 centuries ago. I want to study medicine, goddamn it. And you teaches the exact same period of history about 3 times in 12 years. Every time, you just pile up on data and other mumo jumbo which I could easily know with Google. You offer no new or analytical views about it. What are the lessons? the implications? how to use history? To continue hating someone forever? Who, just a few textbooks away encourages forgiveness? How to construct a thesis and uses data to support it? How to criticize other people thesis? Yeah, you sort of "teaches" the lesson; but it's always around the "leadership of the Communist Party". Really? Exactly what is that? Do you really imply that every time we hit a problem, send your question to the nearest political education officer? [Which is probably half-truth what they really want])

Actually if you have no better idea, just copy from other people. But do so completely. Don’t do it half-ass and results in a system that is mediocre in all aspects. (now this isn't a 12 years education related but our engineering programs in unis take 4.5 years to complete. There were plans to make it 5. This is the result of a patch-work attempt to emulate others. And well, our engineers aren't exactly better than others. An engineering lecturer already assured me that).

So there are two answers why schooling sucks in general. First, like the university system, the current intention simply isn’t the original intention; and people simply forget what it once was and should have been. Then the system that serves the original purposed is still retained and thus unsuitable for the current demands. Secondly, there are attempts to fix this and have proven to be quite venerable. However, some people simply ignore all the existing solution, scoffing them being “unsuitable” (without proper justification) and ended creating something really really terrible at everything else (Seriously, we spent years and years creating a home-brew English textbook. THERE ARE TEXTBOOKS PUBLISHED BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS OF VENERABLE UNIVERSITIES IN ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD. USE THEM!). This is a really fucked up mentality: everything we create is the best. Everything they create is inferior or inapplicable to us. By default.