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There are only two documents on the internet that cover the area I studied in graduate school, and I wrote both of them. After a certain point, universities are about obtaining new knowledge, not just reading what other people have to say.
Aside from that, your average person on the street isn't going to be able to pick up the internet and learn, say, advanced mathematics. The standard textbooks for the really tough stuff are not designed to be read without sitting down with an expert (i.e., someone with decades of experience) and talking through them. That's how the current generation of experts learned from the previous generation.
People who teach themselves usually just end up with gaping holes in their knowledge. Learning stuff online often ends up being like collecting a bunch of puzzle pieces without seeing the picture on the box to know how to put them together or even knowing how many you're supposed to have. This is how you get, for example, people who like to say they are sooooo interested in quantum mechanics despite the fact that they've never read a book on linear algebra or differential equations (but they can quote the Wikipedia page on Erwin Schrodinger!). Knowledge without understanding, without mastery, is nothing more than cereal box trivia.
Now, once you have the basics down (in math, this means you have a Master's degree), you're about ready to learn how to learn on your own. Yes, it usually takes that long, because the advanced stuff is so technical these days. Most people aren't capable of learning professional-level mathematics on their own, and those who are almost always had to go through grad school to gain that ability. (I know there are lots of people who think they taught themselves to be good at math, but they're usually wrong, and they usually only know math about as well as an average Star Trek fan knows physics.)
The other thing people don't tend to mention when talking about online education is that, no matter how you're gaining access to the material, you still need hundreds upon hundreds of hours to internalize it, and that's not something people can usually do while working a full-time job. You spend most of your time either reading, doing problem sets, or discussing math with your adviser. If you're not pushing yourself that hard, you're not going to be competitive against all of the other candidates who are. Knowledge isn't something you can lap up in your free time in the evening.
Even at the undergrad level, learning is your full-time job. To get a good college education, you have to dedicates countless hours to a bunch of different kinds of materials.
Online education works in some situations, sort of, when dedicated students follow a set curriculum, but it can't really take over an entire education. Students need direction, they need mentorship, they need back-and-forth exchanges with professors, and they need hands-on experience. They also need lots and lots of free time (so even an online-only program would pretty much require that students have someplace to live and eat while they study full-time). They benefit from interacting with their peers, who might struggle with the same difficulties when encountering new ideas. They gain a lot from being around others who are in the process of growing up, finding their place in the world, making a domain of knowledge theirs, and then moving on and becoming productive.
Oh, and experience with real people has taught me that most people, when left on their own, don't have the discipline to study stuff they don't particularly enjoy on their own, even if that stuff is necessary in order to get the full picture of a subject.
So, yeah, you can learn things online, but a lot of what it means to be educated comes from being part of an academic community. Think of a university as being a lot like a monastery where you're temporarily cloistered so you can devote yourself to the gods of knowledge and wisdom. Inside, you learn subject matter, but you also learn to think and act like a scholar. You come out of it having actually acquired knowledge and wisdom, not just assorted trivia. You come out of it trustworthy, because people know you have the solid foundation anyone would need in order to claim a real expertise in your field. People fresh out of undergrad can at least say that they've had to pass tests on their major subject. People coming out of grad school have had to defend their work in front of a committee of the best of the best, who then had to agree that the graduate had gone from being a student to being a peer.
Aside from that, your average person on the street isn't going to be able to pick up the internet and learn, say, advanced mathematics. Most people aren't capable of learning professional-level mathematics on their own, and those who are almost always had to go through grad school to gain that ability.
The average person also isn't going to be able to take advanced math classes at a university and pass them either. Also most people are not capable of learning professional level mathematics even if they take classes at the best university.
The math that is required for 98% of college majors can easily be learned on the internet. For example look at the math requirements for an Electrical Engineering degree. Only 19 credits, 3 semesters of Calculus, 1 semester of statistics and 1 semester of discrete mathematics. All of these beginning college math subjects can be learned on the internet before enrolling in the classes.
My nephew told me he had a dreadful stats professor and no one knew what he was talking about. His solution was to find an online class on Youtube that covered an entire semester at UC_Berkeley with an excellent professor. He was able to get an A in that class while many students depending on the professor's class lectures were totally confused.
LOL @ you think you can read on the internet and know just as much as a degree..
I have a degree in electronics, nothing I read on the internet would come close to what I learned in college.
having challenging debates with my professior on certain electronic theorys, and watching him just destroy me in a debate, while filling out the whole entire white board explaining what he's talking about...
yeah nothing could teach me as much as just one of those conversations ... . . I would just read something online, think I'm right, and have no clue just how WRONG I was ....
now, the color code, since I havent used it in 10 years, and now I need to know it, I learned it first quarter of electronics, sure, I can google that, and refresh on it. .. only cause I knew it before ..
I believe most of the stuff they teach you in school you can learn on the Internet. Pretty much everything they teach you in school you can learn on the Internet. The only exceptions to this rule would be something that actually requires hands on training like the following:
1) Becoming a professional athlete (yeah you can't learn how to become a pro-basketball or pro-Football player just by using the Internet)...
2) Some trades like plumbing, being an automechanic, being an electrician, etc.
But other than that, pretty much everything else you can learn on the Internet.
This is why I think school is mostly obsolete to people who actually have Internet skills. I haven't learned a damn thing in university that I couldn't simply learn on the Internet. So I really think university was a waste of time for me.
I majored in psychology, by the way. I didn't think majoring in psychology was a total waste of time because I did learn some interesting facts about my psychology. But too much of the stuff they taught me in psychology was just nonsense and a waste of time.
I finished three years of psychology. I decided not to finish my forth year of psychology mainly because I felt that it was a waste of time and money for me.
I really think going to university is mostly pointless these days since almost everything they teach you in university can be learned on the Internet.
I really think university is a waste of time.
If you thought it was worth it, you are entitled to your opinion, but I honestly thought it was just useless to me.
Ummmmmm......... you do realize that the internet is full of as much misinformation as legitimate information, right? It also has as many opinions as facts, right? It has many truths as well as lies, right? And you would know the difference, right?
Ummmmmm......... you do realize that the internet is full of as much misinformation as legitimate information, right? It also has as many opinions as facts, right? It has many truths as well as lies, right?
Then its the same as most college professors in the liberal arts fields!
30 years ago the question would be, "Why do I need to finish my degree when I already have a library card?"
While you may consider what you have learned to be a waste of your time or even useless, that is only true if you don't complete your degree. While some college grads are not able to leverage their degree into a successful career, very few are able to leverage 75% of a degree into anything meaningful, even with a smart phone.
Knowledge without understanding, without mastery, is nothing more than cereal box trivia.
Love that. Actually I think most people believe knowing trivia is knowledge. They don't grasp there is a difference between memorization of trivia and understanding what it means.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlAndSparrow
(I know there are lots of people who think they taught themselves to be good at math, but they're usually wrong, and they usually only know math about as well as an average Star Trek fan knows physics.)
Probably for most people who think they are good at math, all that means is they know enough to balance a checkbook and pay a tip, approximately, more or less. Basic second grade stuff. Anything beyond that is higher mathematics. Maybe even algebra.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 09-18-2015 at 07:16 AM..
Reason: fixed your html - learned that by googling...
I decided not to finish my forth year of psychology
Well, they apparently don't teach spelling on the internet. Just sayin'
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