I fear your thinking about higher education overgeneralizes the problem, with a tendency toward https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Typical_mind_fallacy. There are lots of aspects of higher (and primary/secondary) education that suck for many participants. There are probably a lot of aspects that really help almost nobody.
But overall, it’s evolved to what it is today because it does serve a purpose to a large portion of humanity. The ways it sucks for the very smart, self-directed math-inclined learner really shouldn’t be the guide to how to improve it for the median future knowledge-worker.
I dropped out of college a few decades ago. It did slow my career by about a decade as I built the skills, knowledge, and ability to communicate with employers and coworkers that I could have gotten more quickly had I stayed. And I still believe it was the right choice for me. It would be the wrong choice for a version of me that was only very slightly different in temperament.
There may be sufficient people like us that creating a full alternative stack is feasible and justified. But I’m skeptical, and I’d recommend smaller incremental improvements, which you can measure and tweak with much less risk. Start with a cooperative mechanism—something that has incremental value with or without the standard degree.
When building new systems, it’s not required to solve a problem for the median person. It’s okay to have a small niche where the new system is superior.
I do agree that it has a purpose. I discuss two of those: increasing human capital and the public good of an educated citizenry. Do you have any others in mind?
My goal isn’t necessarily to directly improve education for the median knowledge-worker. I want to start by improving it for smarter and more self-directed students and then see for how well it can generalize. Focusing on smart people first is kinda the point, since if the system you build attracts smart people, it’s going to be a stronger signal of intelligence.
But I think you underestimate how many people would see my proposed model as an improvement. Just taking the field of programming, the project I’d like to start would make it easier for all those who already get into programming without a formal education, and all those who’d like to, but lack the social support and accountability to be successful following that route. I think that represents a decent amount of people.
And it’s not as if the population of intrinsically curious people is restricted to people who are math-inclined.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the kind of environment I envision, with someone responsible to keep people on track and hold people accountable, would in fact be better for most students than the Zoom university they are getting now.
Not sure what risks you are thinking of. My own project at least just seems like a competitor to bootcamps, except >3x cheaper. I don’t think anything I’m proposing is particularly risky. Could you elaborate on this?
I fear your thinking about higher education overgeneralizes the problem, with a tendency toward https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Typical_mind_fallacy. There are lots of aspects of higher (and primary/secondary) education that suck for many participants. There are probably a lot of aspects that really help almost nobody.
But overall, it’s evolved to what it is today because it does serve a purpose to a large portion of humanity. The ways it sucks for the very smart, self-directed math-inclined learner really shouldn’t be the guide to how to improve it for the median future knowledge-worker.
I dropped out of college a few decades ago. It did slow my career by about a decade as I built the skills, knowledge, and ability to communicate with employers and coworkers that I could have gotten more quickly had I stayed. And I still believe it was the right choice for me. It would be the wrong choice for a version of me that was only very slightly different in temperament.
There may be sufficient people like us that creating a full alternative stack is feasible and justified. But I’m skeptical, and I’d recommend smaller incremental improvements, which you can measure and tweak with much less risk. Start with a cooperative mechanism—something that has incremental value with or without the standard degree.
When building new systems, it’s not required to solve a problem for the median person. It’s okay to have a small niche where the new system is superior.
I do agree that it has a purpose. I discuss two of those: increasing human capital and the public good of an educated citizenry. Do you have any others in mind?
My goal isn’t necessarily to directly improve education for the median knowledge-worker. I want to start by improving it for smarter and more self-directed students and then see for how well it can generalize. Focusing on smart people first is kinda the point, since if the system you build attracts smart people, it’s going to be a stronger signal of intelligence.
But I think you underestimate how many people would see my proposed model as an improvement. Just taking the field of programming, the project I’d like to start would make it easier for all those who already get into programming without a formal education, and all those who’d like to, but lack the social support and accountability to be successful following that route. I think that represents a decent amount of people.
And it’s not as if the population of intrinsically curious people is restricted to people who are math-inclined.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the kind of environment I envision, with someone responsible to keep people on track and hold people accountable, would in fact be better for most students than the Zoom university they are getting now.
Not sure what risks you are thinking of. My own project at least just seems like a competitor to bootcamps, except >3x cheaper. I don’t think anything I’m proposing is particularly risky. Could you elaborate on this?