Those most critical of Khan were none other than Waterloo's own students and alumni. Objections ranged from a sarcastic "Apparently Khan has never attended a lecture at UW" to a more serious challenge: that the university is too focused on career development and not enough on "learning for its own sake" -- learning for the purpose of fulfillment, pleasure, and other personal purposes.
Ironically, I think that the focus on career development actually puts students in a better position to learn for its own sake. It's easy to forget that historically, learning for pleasure has always been a privilege of the rich. Even with the more accessible, modern higher education, there is a tension between choosing a major that one enjoys and choosing a more useful course of study.
Most undergraduate students are concerned about their ability to make a living post-graduation, and rightly so. Being able to sustain oneself is not only the responsible thing to do, but it also brings much personal fulfillment. Not many people want to end up as the waitress or barista with a liberal arts major and only the thousands of dollars of student debt to show for it.
Waterloo's early focus on career development means that students become secure about their future ability to sustain themselves. With that need satisfied comes the privilege of learning for its own sake. Waterloo students even have the luxury of choosing a major that is perhaps different from their career choice, but nevertheless gaining the required skills for employment through internships. (I majored in pure math, for example, and now run a data visualization software startup.)
Underlying this entire discussion is the debate about what higher education should be for. Even if one believes that higher education should promote learning for its own sake, one should be realistic about student needs that come before personal development. Being able to sustain oneself is important, and if our universities ignore that, fewer people will be able to pursue higher education responsibly.
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Poor Munn, always attracting a negative public spotlight. Can't say he did not have it coming though :p
ReplyDeletePersonally, I feel most of the skills and knowledge I learned came from courses. The problem of co-op is, most of the jobs are dry. Not everyone can get good positions in companies like Google or Facebook. And in order to get better positions in the industry, students might push themselves to learn more practical skills rather than theory knowledge. Students will have a lot of time spending in the industry in the future, but if students step in the future too early, they may miss the chance to study something they won't do after graduating. Research has shown that most people in the industry fail to come back to get further education. I think the same problem lies in UW too. I personally prefer the continuation of education.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree that not everyone gets a position like Google or Facebook, and that is something Khan does not address in his original note -- what if you don't get a good internship opportunity?
ReplyDeleteAlso it's interesting you say that you learned more from school because most people I know seem to have learned more in co-op than in lectures, and that co-op put what is learned in school to context. In any case, do you feel like co-op took away from your classroom experience, even though it wasn't as fulfilling?"Students will have a lot of time spending in the industry in the future, but if students step in the future too early, they may miss the chance to study something they won't do after graduating."
Hopefully the alternation of academia and industry would encourage people to understand the benefit of continuing to learn after graduation. At the same time though, having co-op requirements does not mean that normal academic requirements are lessened -- students would have had to study the same material they would have, regardless of whether they have experienced industry. (And having experienced industry, they may better understand the practical application of some theories).
I think that it's right to focus on career development, but at the same time, our lectures do suck. :P
ReplyDeleteI do agree that our lectures sucked, but in a way that is teaching us to learn on our own. You have to go home open up the textbook. Waterloo is amazingly good at teaching you how to teach yourself, which is good. I do think that most other Universities actually have a similar problem, especially those focused on research. Research Universities do not make money by teaching students (in fact the majority of programs lose a University money [surprising, I know]. Therefore, Professors are hired and promoted based on their ability to research, not teach. This leads to Professors who are good at and passionate about teaching to move on to other Universities that do not focus on research (Lakehead, etc) where their talents will be more respected.
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