Should Physics Curriculum Prioritize Exams or Practical Skills?

[Andy Resnick]

"Tuning" Physcs curriculum?

This month's Physics Today had an article about the Bologna Process- a comprehensive reform of the EU's higher education system. There was also a brief bit about how that process can be implemented in the US. Two things stood out (to me):

1) European students objected to "requiring quizzes, homework, and attendance, rather than evaluating students solely on big final exams, as too micromanaging and make(ing) university too much like secondary school"

2) The US lists skills that a BS in Physics should imply. These are "An understanding of the role of evidence, of cause and effect, of experiment, of scientific ethics, of science as a community effort. A bachelor should have estimation skills, understand simple models, practice laboratory safety, be able to carry out error analysis, and be able to present an informal talk on a lab experiment of class project"

I am wondering what people here think of these. Specifically, my students are terrified of the idea of a single exam constituting 100% of their grade. Also, the skills list has *nothing* to do with physics specifically, and relates to nearly any STEM major. Why isn't there requirement for a physics BS to obtain some specific skills *in physics*? Specific knowledge, for example.

 

[ZapperZ]

1. Students who have to go through a similar educational system such as the UK are used to having one large, important exams that determine their fate. The A-Level exam is one such example where it really doesn't matter how you did in school throughout the year, it is how you perform on that one test on that day. So such a means of testing is something they are used to.

This is not the case for US students, for example, where the grades depend a little bit on a more consistent performance throughout the school year or the duration of the course.

2. No opinion as of yet.

Zz.

 

[Acut]

In my country (in south america), homework is only really important in the beginning years (elementary school). After you reach 14-15 years, your grade is defined by exams. You may earn a few more points doing homework or extra activities, but it's not significant (only 10% of final grade in my school). This is also valid after high school. It's not a big deal. (University admission is defined by a single examination in your last year of "high school". There's no teacher recomendations or school records involved).

I really think homework shoudn't be mandatory. I think you should only do it if you're having trouble understanding your subject. During my elementary school years I had to use a lot of time doing (quite mechanically) homeworks from subjects I understand very well. I'm sure this time would be much better invested learning new things instead of just doing something for a grade.

I've learned a lot more (both for life and academically) through all my school exams and science olympiads. I've also talked with many people who have spent one or more years in a American school: they've found it incredibly easy (even those ones who weren't talented at all) since the weight given to homeworks is much larger there than here. Result: when they came back to my country, their grades droped considerably.

 

[Andy Resnick]

During my elementary school years I had to use a lot of time doing (quite mechanically) homeworks from subjects I understand very well. I'm sure this time would be much better invested learning new things instead of just doing something for a grade.

I've also talked with many people who have spent one or more years in a American school: they've found it incredibly easy (even those ones who weren't talented at all) since the weight given to homeworks is much larger there than here. Result: when they came back to my country, their grades droped considerably.

That's interesting- my students say they like the immediate feedback they get from regular homework, it helps them feel more confident that they understand the material. Or it's a warning that they don't understand it as well as they should.

Either way, it's peripheral to any discussion regarding *subject competence*. I'm thinking long-term: how to get the students (mostly non-majors) to understand that physics is a tool they can use, and it's a very useful tool.

 

[Office_Shredder]

That's interesting- my students say they like the immediate feedback they get from regular homework, it helps them feel more confident that they understand the material. Or it's a warning that they don't understand it as well as they should.

Getting feedback from homework and having it count as part of their final grade are different things

 

[Klockan3]

Yeah, people still do the homework and studies for the quizzes even if it just counts for ~5-10% of your grade and don't count for anything higher than a passing grade, but that allows for people who have a firm grasp of the material already to skip those.

Almost every course I have taken have been in that way, ~100% of the grade is from the exam but you can retake it. I think that this is a much better system than having a lot of small moments without the ability to retake any of them.

 

[fasterthanjoao]

That's interesting- my students say they like the immediate feedback they get from regular homework, it helps them feel more confident that they understand the material. Or it's a warning that they don't understand it as well as they should.

I'm from the UK and that's where I went to university. For all of my courses throughout I was always given very regular (mandatory) homework - however my marks in that homework didn't amount to a single percentage point for my overall result, it was merely a tool to make sure we were doing the work.

The only times my exams (bar classes that had lab sessions, where that counted) that didn't have an exam worth 100% were classes that had two or more exams. There would be class tests worth perhaps 30% of the overall grade.

I always found that I didn't like the fact that the final exams meant so much, it was a lot of pressure to take - especially since often all of the exams for a year would be done in a single diet over, say, two weeks. So there would be a years worth of coursework, maybe 6-8 exams in 2 weeks. But then, at the time I never really considered properly any other way of doing it - giving marks for unsupervised homework doesn't seem to make sense from the Universities point of view, my graduating class was very small (8 people) so it would be have been extremely easy for us to collude for every submission and all be set up somewhere in the region of 100%.

 

[thrill3rnit3]

University admission is defined by a single examination in your last year of "high school". There's no teacher recomendations or school records involved.

Oh how I always dream of this happening in the U.S.

 

[xcvxcvvc]

assigning HW for a grade is annoying, because then the professor cannot provide you with the answer (not the solution)! HW should always have an answer paired with it for the student to see if he worked the problem correctly.

My AP physics teacher graded our homework on effort while providing the answers. It was the most right and coolest way to approach HW I've ever seen.

 

[mal4mac]

I think the UK system of "final exam" for 'A' level is good. If you have bad teachers then you can just forget them 'cause its between you and the examiner. This doesn't work so well at University as there is no national curriculum, so bad lecturers can feed you any old rubbish. So quiz current students to find out which course are naff (what else is physics forum for?!)

 

[ehilge]

I've experienced both types of schooling. I'm an American university student but I studied in New Zealand for a semester which has a similar system to the UK. Most classes there might have a two exams making up most of the grade, possibly a large project, and sometimes a very small homework percentage. I feel like I actually learn the material better in the American system because you are forced to learn the material as you go (regular homework grades). With the other system, I found myself putting off learning some things until I was forced to for the final exam. If you can stay on top of everything it works well though because you have more freedom to learn the material when you have time and more or less at your pace. However, some people just aren't very good at taking exams, so I think the system is somewhat unfair from that vantage point.

I think I prefer the American system, but that's just because its what I'm used to. It makes sense that Europeans would prefer the European system since that's what they're used to.

 

[twofish-quant]

This month's Physics Today had an article about the Bologna Process- a comprehensive reform of the EU's higher education system. There was also a brief bit about how that process can be implemented in the US.

Personally I'd prefer a licensure model. Your grade is determined by the test, but you can take the test as many times as you want. Also I'd advocate heavy use of pre-tests. Before you take a class, you are given an off-the-record tests, and if you don't have the basic skills to take the class, you are advised not to take it.

Also, I have my doubts about a) one size fits all standards since there are lots of different ways of teaching physics and b) even stronger doubts about committee created curriculum processes. I also hate the words "reform" and "process" when it comes to education, because when people talk about "reform" and 'process" nothing usually gets done, because people don't agree what needs to be changed.

I am wondering what people here think of these. Specifically, my students are terrified of the idea of a single exam constituting 100% of their grade.

I think the difference is the consequence of doing badly on the exam. European schools tend to filter before admission whereas US schools tend to filter after admission. One bad exam grade in the US could get you "weeded out" and change your entire life, whereas my understanding is that once you get into college, this doesn't tend to happen.

Also there is a maturity factor. Overall, it's a good thing that pretty much everyone in the US can get into college, but one of the consequences of this is that colleges have been forced to become babysitters to teach some life skills, and I don't think that element exists as much in European colleges.

There is a mode of thinking that would argue that US colleges shouldn't have this role, but then we'd have to find some other institution to do this, and there seems to be a social consensus in the US that colleges are a better place for this than the military as well as a social consensus that strongly frowns on strong limits to college admissions.

Also, the skills list has *nothing* to do with physics specifically, and relates to nearly any STEM major. Why isn't there requirement for a physics BS to obtain some specific skills *in physics*? Specific knowledge, for example.

I think this has to do with the "remarketing" of the physics major as a general numerical modeller. One problem that physics has is that there is a lot of rethinking of what the physics major is, now that the Cold War sugar daddy is no longer there, and that all of the academic money is in biotech.

Personally, I think it's a good thing.

 

[Klockan3]

Personally I'd prefer a licensure model. Your grade is determined by the test, but you can take the test as many times as you want.

This is exactly how we do it where I go, I really love this system. This means that failing a course or getting a bad grade in it doesn't really matter as long as you eventually learn the material. If you had a bad day on that test you can just go and retake it some other day.

And most of all it allows the professors to set the bar really high, we have some tests which fails 2/3rds of the class in the third year and this class has the highest standard in my country! Usually they just fail roughly 25% on each exam. But it is no biggie since what happens is that they are just forced to study a lot for the next test, they are not forced to retake the entire course or anything like that. Also to most there is too much work to try to retake all exams till they get an A, just something like 1-2% get a perfect score even though it is so easy to retake everything, most are happy with just getting passing grades and you have no problems getting a job with that since the companies knows that the bar is set really high.

I think that this system is way better than what you got in the American universities where failing a course basically means that you have to graduate later and the grade do not tell anything about your current knowledge but about the knowledge you had back then when you took the test but also how diligent you were with homework and such since they are a significant factor.

 

[twofish-quant]

This is exactly how we do it where I go, I really love this system. This means that failing a course or getting a bad grade in it doesn't really matter as long as you eventually learn the material. If you had a bad day on that test you can just go and retake it some other day.

One hard part to make this work (and the reason we don't have the system in place) is that it's non-trivial to get the financing to work right. Higher education financing is based largely on having a certain number of warm bodies taking a class, and if you go with something different then we have to think of a way of getting the financing to work. It's also non-trivial to figure out what would be on a licensure test. If you put control of the test in the professor, then you end up with the current system. If you set up an external bureaucracy to administer tests (ETS) then the contents of the tests become extremely inflexible.

Also Western Governor's University tried the licensure model, and I've been told that they ran into the problem of having a student take a course, and then getting annoyed that they had to take a whole other course to get grades for the course.

The Bologna Process article is behind a pay wall, and the articles that I've seen about it just "smell bad". Massive amounts of bureaucratic doublespeak, nothing "real" going on.

But that may not be the point. The problem that it seems that Bologna is trying to fix is to try to get different degrees and credentials in Europe to be compatible with each other, at which point you are going to have massive committee meetings full of politics and bureaucracy, since the basic issue that you are trying to resolve (i.e. how to get a physics credential in Poland recognized in Spain) is basically an issue that doesn't involve physics education at all.

 

[twofish-quant]

There are different ways of skinning a cat, which is why I think it's not a good idea to try to find an ideal system.

East Asian systems tend to be highly test oriented for college admissions, and one reason people like the system is that it's transparent and much less prone to corruption. If you have a committee decide who gets in, there is all sorts of opportunities for "funny business", but if you have everyone take the same exam, you can see exactly what answers you got right, what answers you got wrong, what the criteria was for getting in the university, and so there is much less room to argue corruption in the system.

 

[Klockan3]

One hard part to make this work (and the reason we don't have the system in place) is that it's non-trivial to get the financing to work right.

You mean how much the students have to pay? It is fairly trivial here since higher education is free anyway. The government pays based on how many passes the course and since everyone who wants to graduate needs to pass sooner or later it works. I guess that it would be way more complicated with fees like in the US.

 

[twofish-quant]

I'm thinking long-term: how to get the students (mostly non-majors) to understand that physics is a tool they can use, and it's a very useful tool.

First I think it's necessary to establish that physics really is a tool that they can use and it's a useful tool for non-majors, and it's not obvious to me that it is. The reason that I say this is that I study physics and math for reasons that are basically quasi-religious, and absent those reasons it's not clear to me at all that I would find physics to be "useful."

This involves some deep questions on what the role of higher education is and what defines "useful." In some ways, I'd argue that by college it's likely to be somewhat late to change the way someone looks at the world in any fundamental way, and the standard student-teacher interaction doesn't provide enough contact to create much change.

 

[twofish-quant]

You mean how much the students have to pay?

Or how much someone has to pay. Or how much someone has to not pay. If you can figure out how to set up a system in which you can get licensure tests without spending money to get certain things to happen, that's fine.

A huge fraction of higher educational funding in the US comes from the Federal and State government, and changing the way that this funding happens is something that is slow, complex, and difficult.

The big problem is cross-subsidization. In the US, colleges and universities, introductory courses tend to be a lot cheaper to teach than advanced courses, but tuition remains pretty much the same, and a lot of the money that you gain from intro courses gets put into research. If you go to a licensure model than what will likely happen is that everyone will try to test out of the lower division courses, which removes the revenue stream for upper division and graduate courses.

Just to give an example of the problem, I could put together an MIT 8.01 course using OpenCourseware that is just as good as the one that that MIT teaches but for a lot less tuition. If MIT let's everyone that passes the 8.01 exam get MIT credit for 8.01, then it loses a huge amount of revenue.

It is fairly trivial here since higher education is free anyway.

Where is here? Part of the reason it's nice to look at how different countries handle things is that it's useful to know how things can be very, very different.

Also, the fact that students don't pay for exams can make things more difficult, since once you get government money involved there is a whole set of constraints and difficulties. None of this stuff is trivial, and one thing that I find extremely frustrating is when you have a good educational idea that runs into problems for political, financial or administrative reasons, but this is something that I've gotten used to.

Just to name one thing. If something (anything) becomes the test that you have to pass to be licensed, then anything that goes on the test is going to be a political minefield, because by changing the test you increase or decrease the amount of money and power that some group makes or doesn't make.

 

[fasterthanjoao]

European schools tend to filter before admission whereas US schools tend to filter after admission. One bad exam grade in the US could get you "weeded out" and change your entire life, whereas my understanding is that once you get into college, this doesn't tend to happen.

Also there is a maturity factor. Overall, it's a good thing that pretty much everyone in the US can get into college, but one of the consequences of this is that colleges have been forced to become babysitters to teach some life skills, and I don't think that element exists as much in European colleges.

These are good points, and ones I hadn't considered. For a little extra info on how the programmes work for anyone that is curious: In the UK (for England, remove a year from these figures..I'm Scottish!), the degree programme is either 4 or 5 years with years 1 and 2 essentially acting as qualifiers. The students must pass all of the exams in first and second year at some point, and their average determines whether or not they are allowed to pursue the Bsc or undergraduate masters (Msci) - a C+ average will allow for the Bsc, and B+ is Msci, should one choose it.

And for the second point, the institutions I have had experience with certainly do not 'baby sit' students so I guess this rings true, though I don't know what it's like in the States. I do think, however, that too many students are able to qualify for university in the UK. I think that our previous government put too much emphasis on just 'going to university' to boost the figures, and thus at high school by far the majority of information given to final year students is about university - very little is offered in terms of alternatives. This means we have lots of courses offered that may even be called extraneous - courses where, upon completion, ones chance of gaining employment is barely improved.

I do also think that our universities have to take a position of responsibility and place more emphasis on employability, there are many courses that are jam-packed with students, despite the university being well aware that 99% of them have no chance in getting a job in that, or related fields. At the university I attended, for instance, we have in the low tens-of-thousands of students - and approximately 500 in each year of a psychology degree.

As a different type of example, with the recession we are struggling with positions for law apprenticeships. Despite this, the universities that offer our legal practice course have dramatically increased intake, without caring to mention to students that most law companies have ceased recruiting for the next year, or two. I know there is an onus on the student as well, and they should find things like this out beforehand - but people do tend to get caught up in the idea of now, and putting off thoughts of later. I see no reason why the university can't help here. They aren't entirely businesses here in the UK.

 

[twofish-quant]

I think that our previous government put too much emphasis on just 'going to university' to boost the figures, and thus at high school by far the majority of information given to final year students is about university - very little is offered in terms of alternatives. This means we have lots of courses offered that may even be called extraneous - courses where, upon completion, ones chance of gaining employment is barely improved.

That's also a criticism of US colleges and universities...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/weekinreview/16steinberg.html?hpw

One thing I do think needs to be done with physics curriculum is to focus more on vocational-technical institutes. How to put together a course on basic MIT 8.01 physics that would be useful to an auto mechanic or air conditioning repair man?

The other thing that I think needs to be done is to open up channels for people that go to vo-tech schools so that they don't end up being "second class citizens". OK, you got your air conditioning repair man certificate and you've ended up with a semi-successful business. Now is the time for you to get the Ph.D. in astrophysics that you've always wanted.

I know there is an onus on the student as well, and they should find things like this out beforehand - but people do tend to get caught up in the idea of now, and putting off thoughts of later.

This also opens up other issues in higher education. There is a point of view that it is the purpose of a college to be a "alma mater" (i.e. an foster mother). One problem is that the role of a college as an "alma mater" conflicts with the need for colleges to be financially stable.

 

[Klockan3]

Where is here? Part of the reason it's nice to look at how different countries handle things is that it's useful to know how things can be very, very different.

Sweden, but different universities do it differently. Most just allows you to retake the exams till you pass which gets the strange consequence that for example law students often purposely fails exams if they aren't sure to get the highest grade.

Also there is no standard test but instead it is up to each professor to do it. The problem with doing a standard test is that it would be impossible for the different institutions to agree on what should be included and how much credits they should grant. It isn't uncommon that some places gives out twice the credits for the same courses for example.

Now, why are the professors not just making the courses as easy as possible? Because that would hurt the reputation of the school. But this allows for some to study things slower by going to a worse institution and others to study things faster rather than everyone doing everything at the same speed.

My 3 years degree for example had enough courses to by US standards fill a maths major, physics major and had several engineering courses as well.(It was an engineering degree, the requirements for those in the US are not as clear so I do not know if it would be acreditet or so) On the other hand if you study physics at the university next door you would barely get enough courses for a physics major in the same time. Guess who has an easier time getting jobs or getting into grad school afterwards?

 

[Andy Resnick]

It's interesting how this discussion has focused more on the grade/passing the class, rather than comparing "learning outcomes". Does one approach better prepare a student for the next step? (I don't know the answer to this...)

I suspect most of the people here are self-motivated and would do homework (or attend class) regardless of course credit. This is not the case for the non-major who must take Physics I and II as part of the general education requirement. Uniformly, those students do not want to take the class, don't care what grade they get (as long as their career plans are not impeded by a B or C), and want to get past the class as easily as possible. I don't make attendance mandatory, but if I do not assign a token 5% credit for homework, reading quizzes, etc, students will not do them.

Sure, the student that does no work will fail the tests, but in the end, that student will resent not only the course, but fail to see why Physics is useful *to them*. Those are the students that will forever joke about how hard physics is, how "those scientists" don't live in the real world, and end up being the portion of the voting public that votes against school funding, against NASA, against research programs, and will be open to arguments that evolution must be taught as part of a 'fair and balanced' curriculum.

And the reality is that if I don't get students to sign up for my class, the administration will not be happy with me. That's the financial side of running a university. The more MBAs decide higher education should be run like a business, the more universities will come to resemble profit-seeking businesses and less like centers for education. Introductory physics classes are money-losers, period. UC Berkely is contemplating making *all* their introductory classes on-line only.

http://chronicle.com/article/California-Dreaming-Remaki/65446/

Surely, there is value for a biology, chemistry, sociology, psychology, or physical therapy major to use quantitative methods- at bottom, the real 'niche' of physics is that *quantitative models* are used to predict physical behavior. Engineers understand this already.

Let be specific: I do not expect any of my students to remember how to ray trace a lens, or how to calculate the rotational inertia of a falling stick 10 years after they take my class. But, I *do* expect them to remember the conservation of energy, if for no other reason that they don't get swindled by magnetic power boosters for their gas line. There's other topics specific to my students (mostly physical/occupational therapy).

I agree, the topics of the introductory curriculum need an overhaul but there are real barriers making this difficult. There seems to be a real resurgence of the 'demo', and that could help making the topics more accessible. The goal should not be focused on increasing the pass rate or decreasing the stress, but rather broadening the appeal and treating the students like adults.

Is it worth getting a BS? Only if we make the BS worthwhile.

 

[twofish-quant]

It's interesting how this discussion has focused more on the grade/passing the class, rather than comparing "learning outcomes".

Once you get into outcomes, you get into some very deep philosophical discussions.

I suspect most of the people here are self-motivated and would do homework (or attend class) regardless of course credit.

On physics or anything else that's geeky. If you have me sit in class or committee meetings memorizing things that I don't think are relevant or useful, then I'm going to bolt.

This is not the case for the non-major who must take Physics I and II as part of the general education requirement.

At that point, we have to ask the question of what purpose does the general education requirement serve? Why are we forcing people to sit in classes that they don't want to take?

Part of the real answer to this question is that we are trying to socialize students into be nice, obedient cogs in the grand corporate machine. The real purpose behind general education requirements is not to train thinkers, but to train office workers that will sign the forms and push the buttons that their boss tells them do.

If the purpose of a bachelor's degree is to prepare people for the workforce, then we have to acknowledge the truth that the real point of a college degree is not to show that you can think, but to prove to the employer that you can *obey* and *conform*. Employers don't care if you learn something in class. What they *do* care about is that you can sit in a boring lecture for two hours and give the right answers when asked.

Introductory physics classes are money-losers, period.

They actually aren't. If they were money-losers, people would want to get rid of them. If you calculate the tuition that the university gets from intro classes, and then subtract the cost to administer those classes, you'll find they they are massive money makers. The fact that they are money majors leads to some extremely dysfunctional behavior.

If intro physics were losing money, the thing that would happen is that schools would just drop the requirement. Because they are such cash cows, the response is to try to squeeze even more money out of them by cutting costs.

The other thing is that I've learned to respect football players, and I've also learned to respect MBA's. The thing about a university is that it *is* a business, and this remains true as long as universities accept tuition and pay employees. Education is an industry.

UC Berkely is contemplating making *all* their introductory classes on-line only.

Which I think is a great idea, because once you put everything online, people will wonder why you need to take the class at UCB. They are cutting their own throats here. Great!

The goal should not be focused on increasing the pass rate or decreasing the stress, but rather broadening the appeal and treating the students like adults.

Sure but the logical thing here is not to force people to take any courses that they don't want to, and to abolish general education requirements completely.

One big problem here is that a lot of college students *aren't* adults. Some are. Some aren't. College is at this very awkward age between childhood and adulthood, and one of the purposes of college is to provide a semi-supervised environment where people can do seriously stupid things without much long term damage. Figuring out when to get drunk and who to sleep with is more important than anything you are likely to learn in a physics lecture.

If you teach physics to a group of people whose median age is 45, you get a very, very different social dynamic than if you teach physics to a group of people whose median age is 20. Part of the difference is that if I'm dealing with a 20 year-old, I probably do feel qualified to lecture them about poor work habits. This just isn't going to happen if I'm talking to a 55 year-old.

Is it worth getting a BS? Only if we make the BS worthwhile.

Maybe, but we really have to have a good discussion of what the bachelor's degree *really* signifies.

 

[lisab]

...snip...

Maybe, but we really have to have a good discussion of what the bachelor's degree *really* signifies.

This is the crux of the matter.

Before a process can be altered, one needs to know, What is the product of the process? Is the process supposed to make cogs, or independent and/or unorthodox thinkers?

 

[Andy Resnick]

Introductory physics classes are money-losers, period.

They actually aren't.

I can assure you they are- are you forgetting the labs? There is an *immense* level of effort required to operate our introductory classes. We want them totally full, *year round*, to minimize the costs of running the courses.

 

[Andy Resnick]

This is the crux of the matter.

Before a process can be altered, one needs to know, What is the product of the process? Is the process supposed to make cogs, or independent and/or unorthodox thinkers?

That is very true. What is the purpose of an undergraduate college education? Partly, it's the factual content gained from coursework. But that's not the only reason people go to college.

My department is beginning a self-study program review this fall, we do it every 5 years as part of the accreditation process. It's an opportunity to ask those exact questions, and figure out how the curriculum will lead to the desired outcomes.

 

[twofish-quant]

I can assure you they are- are you forgetting the labs? There is an *immense* level of effort required to operate our introductory classes. We want them totally full, *year round*, to minimize the costs of running the courses.

Your university may be unique in that most general education physics courses I've seen have minimal lab components because labs are expensive.

It would be interesting to run through the numbers to see how the numbers stack up, but general education courses in the large public universities and big name research universities that I've familiar with turn out to be huge money makers. If your university is different, then that's great!

 

[twofish-quant]

Before a process can be altered, one needs to know, What is the product of the process? Is the process supposed to make cogs, or independent and/or unorthodox thinkers?

I think you'll find that different people have different motives. The same person may have conflicting motives. Also the process can evolve so that it has an unintended outcome.

Colleges are large bureaucracies with institutionalized processes based on consensus and social hierarchies. These sorts of places just do not encourage independent or unorthodox thinking, and you are in good shape if you minimize damage.

The other thing is that it's not either/or. You want cogs that can think independently and/or unorthodoxly. One of the things that you learn at some point in your life is when to keep your mouth shut. If you are in a situation where you figure out that the teacher wants a certain answer for you to get an A, then you write down that answer, but in the back of your mind you don't believe anything you wrote.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Your university may be unique in that most general education physics courses I've seen have minimal lab components because labs are expensive.

It would be interesting to run through the numbers to see how the numbers stack up, but general education courses in the large public universities and big name research universities that I've familiar with turn out to be huge money makers. If your university is different, then that's great!

wait... are you telling me your introductory physics courses had no lab component? What about your intro chem classes? Did you have *any* undergrad lab classes?

 

[twofish-quant]

wait... are you telling me your introductory physics courses had no lab component?

At MIT, I remember doing one experiment in 8.01 (the Cavendish experiment).

What about your intro chem classes?

There was one experiment that we did that turned into a mess. The fact that we mixed chemicals at all was considered somewhat of a novelty.

Did you have *any* undergrad lab classes?

At MIT, the only required lab class for physics majors is Junior lab, where you spend the entire year in the lab (i.e. you might as well sleep there). I took one lab course in astronomy, senior year.

This is much less bad than it sounds, most undergraduates are doing undergraduate research, so the point of the classes is to provide theoretical knowledge. Since the undergrads are working in the labs anyway, there's not much point in providing lab experience in the courses.

http://web.mit.edu/physics/current/undergrad/major.html

Of those courses, the only one with substantial lab component was Junior Lab where your entire life for a year was sitting in that room.

 

[Andy Resnick]

At MIT, I remember doing one experiment in 8.01 (the Cavendish experiment).

There was one experiment that we did that turned into a mess. The fact that we mixed chemicals at all was considered somewhat of a novelty.

At MIT, the only required lab class for physics majors is Junior lab, where you spend the entire year in the lab (i.e. you might as well sleep there). I took one lab course in astronomy, senior year.

This is much less bad than it sounds, most undergraduates are doing undergraduate research, so the point of the classes is to provide theoretical knowledge. Since the undergrads are working in the labs anyway, there's not much point in providing lab experience in the courses.

http://web.mit.edu/physics/current/undergrad/major.html

Of those courses, the only one with substantial lab component was Junior Lab where your entire life for a year was sitting in that room.

I'm stunned. It appears from your post that MIT has shoved a major cost of education directly onto the faculty. I have to pay for any student in my lab- not the stipend, but all of the equipment, supplies, and I have to fix anything the student breaks. It's one thing to have that arrangement for a grad student (who is in the lab for 3-4 years), another thing entirely for undergrads.

I am also concerned that you can apparently get a BS degree (from MIT!) with essentially no lab experience. One experiment in all of introductory physics, and one experiment in all of introductory chemistry? That's really disturbing. Junior lab should not be the place to learn elementary techniques.

For you students lurking on this thread, please understand if this is the sum total of your lab experience, you will have a hard time in grad school, and you will also be in for a rude awakening if you try and get a job that uses tools other than computers. Laboratory experience is essential.

We have weekly labs for Physics I and II: each class has about 12 labs- these are for majors *and* non majors. Chemistry I and II also has a full complement of labs. We also have labs in Physics III/Modern physics and an advanced lab class for majors in addition to 'senior project' type classes, summer research, etc. etc.

 

[Vanadium 50]

MIT must have changed since I was there. When I was there, there were "corridor labs" - cookbook labs behind plexiglass in the corridors, and they were part of the 8.01/8.02 (1st/2nd semester physics) curriculum. Then there was the lab requirement, which was a lab-specific course outside of one's major. Then there was the chemistry requirement which usually also had a lab component. Junior Lab was also there.

 

[twofish-quant]

I'm stunned. It appears from your post that MIT has shoved a major cost of education directly onto the faculty.

For the most part it hasn't. The institute provides funding for research through the UROP program, and it's a really good deal for the professors since they get a lab assistant that works even more cheaply than a grad student.

It's one thing to have that arrangement for a grad student (who is in the lab for 3-4 years), another thing entirely for undergrads.

Most MIT physics students find a lab freshman year and then work there for three or four years. It's good because it's a preview of grad school, and you get recommendation letters. Also you have to write an undergraduate thesis in something.

I am also concerned that you can apparently get a BS degree (from MIT!) with essentially no lab experience.

Not true. The lab experience comes from working in a UROP and junior lab where you basically spend every waking moment in a lab. It's structured differently, but IMHO, it works pretty well.

Junior lab should not be the place to learn elementary techniques.

That's the place where you learn it at MIT.

For you students lurking on this thread, please understand if this is the sum total of your lab experience, you will have a hard time in grad school, and you will also be in for a rude awakening if you try and get a job that uses tools other than computers. Laboratory experience is essential.

True. Junior Lab is the heart of the MIT physics degree. Also MIT has some reasons for structuring things this way. The intro physics and math courses are generally required courses for all MIT students, so you have to structure it so that it works for non-physics majors.

We have weekly labs for Physics I and II: each class has about 12 labs- these are for majors *and* non majors. Chemistry I and II also has a full complement of labs. We also have labs in Physics III/Modern physics and an advanced lab class for majors in addition to 'senior project' type classes, summer research, etc. etc.

It's different, but if works, then it works. One problem that I have with discussions of an "ideal degree" is that there are a lot of different ways to structure a bachelors degree. What you are describing is very, very different from the way MIT structures things, but if it works, then it works.

One thing about MIT is that it is a research institute, and the classroom experience is not a particularly strong reason to go there. There are great teachers, but there are also mediocre ones. It's also not a place for students that aren't self-directed. The degree requirements for MIT physics are rather unstructured, and if you just do the minimum necessary to get a piece of paper stamped MIT, you aren't going to get very much.

However, if you like doing physics and math, then you get a little booklet freshman year about all of the cool stuff that you could be doing, and you go out and look for professors to apprentice under.

 

[twofish-quant]

MIT must have changed since I was there.

I was there from 1987-1991. Also, they totally changed the 8.01 and 8.02 formats in recent years. They do now have much more of a lab component than when I was there.

When I was there, there were "corridor labs" - cookbook labs behind plexiglass in the corridors, and they were part of the 8.01/8.02 (1st/2nd semester physics) curriculum.

Yup, but I don't consider those "real labs". They are demonstrations. Anything that comes out of a cookbook, I don't consider a "real lab."

Then there was the lab requirement, which was a lab-specific course outside of one's major.

Yup, but most physics undergraduates took that either late sophomore year or senior year.

Then there was the chemistry requirement which usually also had a lab component.

I just remember one experiment in 5.11.

Junior Lab was also there.

Yup, and that's the core of the MIT physics degree. The thing about junior lab is that I don't think that it would be possible to have that any earlier. One of the things about junior lab is that you have to give a presentation on your experiment to the teacher as if you were giving a "real" scientific presentation, and the teacher is going to ask you some pretty tough even hostile questions about the lab. If you don't have your lower division courses out of the way, I really don't see how you can explain Josephson junctions or the Rutherford experiment. And you *really* won't be able to explain why your results don't completely match the predictions (they never do).

 

[twofish-quant]

Here is the MIT course catalog for course 8.

http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m8a.html

Something else that is worth looking at is how the course has evolved over the last decade

http://www.mit.edu/~8.01/

The middle number is the lab component. Also physics is a required topic for all students, and I think part of the change in the format of the course was that physics would have likely been dropped as a general institute requirement if the format hadn't changed from the classic lecture/recitation. The other thing is that 8.01 and 8.02 generally get the physics departments best teachers and TA's.

Part of the reason for the change is the internet. The thing about your standard lecture/recitation is that you can package everything and put it on youtube, whereas you can't do that with the lab component and the social interaction component.

 

[Andy Resnick]

It's different, but if works, then it works. One problem that I have with discussions of an "ideal degree" is that there are a lot of different ways to structure a bachelors degree. What you are describing is very, very different from the way MIT structures things, but if it works, then it works.

But don't you see how your experience has colored your opinions about college education? I totally understand where you are coming from, now.

It's the same deal with medical students- they have been trained to become docs from a very early age. Every career step along their life was in singular pursuit of getting an MD.

The problems start in medical school when they (naturally) consider alternate plans, for whatever reason- too hard, too boring, not what they expected... If they can't resolve that inner conflict, they usually just become unhappy MDs. Sometimes they flame out quite spectacularly.

I got hung up because you say "most" freshmen get into a lab and stay with it for 4 years. That tells me it's not a requirement, it's a 'desirement', and that's a big problem- it sets you (the student) up to be treated like a grad student, and by that I mean treated like slave labor for the glory of the PI, with all the disillusionment etc. normally experienced at a later stage in your career (and emotional development). Never mind that the student gets exposed to a tiny sliver of physics at a point where they should be experiencing as much as they can, to more rationally specialize later

My point is, your experience in school may not be typical. And from the overall tone of your posts of PF, I would say the MIT approach definitely did *not* work.

 

[twofish-quant]

But don't you see how your experience has colored your opinions about college education?

Well... Ummmm... Yes...

It's the same deal with medical students- they have been trained to become docs from a very early age. Every career step along their life was in singular pursuit of getting an MD.

Exactly. One thing that is cool was, it really started before I was even born.

If they can't resolve that inner conflict, they usually just become unhappy MDs. Sometimes they flame out quite spectacularly.

Yup, and this turns out to be a huge problem at MIT. One problem with MIT is that you end up in a campus learning physics and math with people whose supreme life goal is to learn physics and mathematics. It's worse because much of the faculty are people that have very little experience outside of MIT.

This is both a good thing, and a bad thing. The good thing is that for a lot of math and physics geeks, after spending high school being something of an outcast, you end up with people that are also math and physics geeks. The bad part is that you can end up with horrendous mental health issues.

I got hung up because you say "most" freshmen get into a lab and stay with it for 4 years. That tells me it's not a requirement, it's a 'desirement', and that's a big problem- it sets you (the student) up to be treated like a grad student, and by that I mean treated like slave labor for the glory of the PI, with all the disillusionment etc. normally experienced at a later stage in your career (and emotional development).

If you aren't super crazy about math, physics, and engineering, then you are just are not going to get admitted to MIT. If you go to an admissions interview for MIT, and the interviewer asks you whether you would prefer to work in a physics lab on the weekends, or get drunk and watch football, and you choose option 2), then you probably are not going to get in.

If you put people that are math-crazy and physics-crazy together in a small campus, lot's of interesting things happen.

One reason I enjoyed grad school as much as I did, was because I got rid of the "blow up" early on. If you are destined for a nervous breakdown, it's a lot better that it happen at age 22 than at age 30.

My point is, your experience in school may not be typical.

Everyone is different. However, I think that the things that I had to deal with are pretty standard for people that end up doing Ph.D.'s. If you aren't insanely committed to math and physics, you are just not going to get a Ph.D. in physics and math.

Where I *am* rather unusual, is that I'm still in the game. Because things fell apart for me at age 22, I could step back, figure out what to do next, and get back into the game. Most people when they fall apart it happens at age 30, it's too late to do something like that.

And from the overall tone of your posts of PF, I would say the MIT approach definitely did *not* work.

I think it really did. The reason it did was that I got enough education and mental tools so that when things really blew up, I was able to deal constructively with them. I'm a terribly angry and bitter person, but I think I deal with it quite constructively.

Part of the reason I think that MIT was a wonderful place, is that if you work in a "real lab" you get to see the politics, the petty bickering, the huge egos, the brutal exploitation early on, when you can still make major life changes. If you want people to learn physics, I mean *real physics*, you want to get them exposed to the NSF grant review process early on, and the constant quest for funding, and what a faculty committee meeting looks like. That's *real* science education.

If you are a undergraduate senior and you've decided that you really, really hate academia, you can do something else. Many of my classmates when through the physics degree, and learned that they really hated and detested academia, but at that point you have lots of choices you can make. Me, I'm crazy.

If you are an tenure track assistant professor with a spouse and kids, and you've decided that you really hate academia after you've been denied tenure, then what do you do?

 

[Andy Resnick]

Yup, but I don't consider those "real labs". They are demonstrations. Anything that comes out of a cookbook, I don't consider a "real lab."

Why not? Your analogy is apt- in order to be a "Top Chef", one must first follow some simple recipes. That's why I feel strongly that there must be an *educational* component to laboratory work in the undergraduate curriculum. And you correctly guess why there isn't- it's very expensive, and so the institution has an incentive to cut it.

And the UROP program is a reflection of this. From the website:

"...participate in research as the junior colleagues of Institute faculty"

"If you want to receive pay for your UROP research, discuss funding options with your faculty supervisor. The majority of paid UROPs receive Supervisor funding."

It's also pretty clear the PI has to pay for lab costs. For example, my lab (which is a very small operation- just me) goes through $40k of consumable items every year. If I had a full-time student, that person would also go through about $40k per year, *plus* salary, *plus* my time teaching the student how to use the equipment (which is why undergrads most likely get taught by the grad students). That's what the institution 'saves' when I have a student.

Education is a money-loser, any way you slice it. Again, when the administration tries to treat education as a 'product', which is the impetus for on-line courses, the students lose.

I'm not claiming an MIT education is inferior; I'm simply saying it could improve. Improvement is always possible, but the goal should be better learning, not cutting costs.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I think it really did.

How can you say this? It's clear from your posts that you think college education is designed to produce brainless cogs, you've said the system is a money-hungry exploitation machine, and you've even posted a link to an article questioning the value of *going* to college.

 

[twofish-quant]

Why not? Your analogy is apt- in order to be a "Top Chef", one must first follow some simple recipes.

One thing that I believe is that there are different ways for teaching people that work or don't work, and different teaching methods may work well or badly for different people. The MIT physics department curriculum is based on the idea of "total immersion." They drop you into a lab, you got to figure out the recipes on your own. For some people 'total immersion" works beautifully, for some people it's an utter disaster.

"If you want to receive pay for your UROP research, discuss funding options with your faculty supervisor. The majority of paid UROPs receive Supervisor funding."

Much of which comes comes from the institute. The UROP office has a budget of about $1 million/year. This is one of the things that I learned at MIT. Great ideas mean nothing unless you get the financing to work, and if you read about the history of the UROP program, it all started when MacVicar convinced Edwin Land to allocate a grant for undergraduate research.

If I had a full-time student, that person would also go through about $40k per year, *plus* salary, *plus* my time teaching the student how to use the equipment (which is why undergrads most likely get taught by the grad students). That's what the institution 'saves' when I have a student.

Which is why there is a specific internal grant system that MIT faculty can go through to request funding for UROP's. UROP's were started in the 1970's, and it's not a cost cutting measure.

I'm not claiming an MIT education is inferior; I'm simply saying it could improve.

If you ask me, the major thing that MIT could do to improve is to make an MIT education available to anyone in the world that wants it. Open Courseware is a step, but it's a baby step. MIT should figure out how to increase the enrollment of the physics department from 50 to 50,000.

Improvement is always possible, but the goal should be better learning, not cutting costs.

And for people like me, MIT was a really good match. Also you can't separate the issue of better learning from costs. If we had infinite money and infinite time, then every student would have in individual one on one tutor that could create a custom curriculum for them. The trouble is that we don't have infinite money, and we don't have infinite time, and so we have to figure out what to do with finite resources.

If you want to increase the learning experience with more funding that's great! The trouble is that you have to tend figure out where the money comes from.

Right now, MIT is going through a budget crunch, and like all large bureaucracies it's trying to fix things through minimal changes to the status quo. This won't work, and I've got the numbers to prove it. Right now, I'm just too crazy for be listened to, and people are trying band-aid approaches to MIT's budget problems. I think it's going to be obvious in two to three years, that the band-aid approaches just won't work, and which point the floor will be open for some really stunningly radical ideas.

 

[twofish-quant]

How can you say this? It's clear from your posts that you think college education is designed to produce brainless cogs

I said cogs. I didn't say brainless cogs. Sometimes at work, I get extremely angry. If I respond with that anger by hitting someone, this would not produce a well running office. So I take a walk, I go back to my terminal. I write an angry memo. Then I take another walk, and eventually it turns into a pleasant sounding bit of corporate-speak with just the right code words so that people know what I'm thinking and feeling. The bit of corporate-speak is nicely formatted, the spelling is accurate, and it's designed to express my feelings in the correct corporate mandated format.

That's what a college education does for you. This is why people without college educations find it more difficult to get a job. It's not the knowledge that you get. It's learning to conform. Punch in the clock on time. Smile and say how a nice day, when you feel like punching the customer in the nose.

I don't think conformity is necessarily a bad thing.

You've said the system is a money-hungry exploitation machine

Absolutely. I went to the same university as Noam Chomsky, remember.

I'm not sure it's such as bad thing that a universities are money-hungry exploitation machines, or even if it where a bad thing, that you could or should stop it. You can set up social systems to prevent the system from being abusive, but it's hard to do that if people pretend things are what they are not.

If I had lived in the 1940's or the 1960's, I would have ended up being a card carrying Communist seeking to overthrow the evil capitalist system and replace it with a utopian socialist one. However, the big defining event of my young life was the collapse of the Soviet Union. If I lived in 1930's, I could have believed that you could replace the old bastards with new ones that would behave selflessly and wouldn't use their power to further personal interests.

Since in lived in the 1990's, I don't think it's possible for bureaucracies not to be money-hungry exploitation machines. I've also learned that there are worse things in the world then money-hungry exploitation machines, and if you have enough wealth floating around, exploitation isn't that bad.

You've even posted a link to an article questioning the value of *going* to college.

Because I taught at University of Texas at Austin, and I don't think that about half of the students there really should be going to college at the age they are going at. They really should be doing something else (and I don't know what) and come back when they are a bit older and wiser. The problem with the current education system is that it basically forces people to go to college long before they are ready for it, and puts colleges in the role of babysitter rather than educator.

One of the things that I realized at one point is that the MIT undergraduate education worked *because* I left the Institute angry, bitter, and hating everything about the place. Suppose I left the place a "satisfied customer." I don't think that would have been good for MIT, for the world, or even for me. If you live in a world that pretends to be perfect, then you end up with what happened in the Soviet Union in the 1970's in which there isn't the energy to change things that need to be changed.

 

[Andy Resnick]

One of the things that I realized at one point is that the MIT undergraduate education worked *because* I left the Institute angry, bitter, and hating everything about the place.

Except you don't confine your critique to MIT- you indict the entire educational system.

 

[kylem]

Since in lived in the 1990's, I don't think it's possible for bureaucracies not to be money-hungry exploitation machines.

Exactly, this IS America, right? :)

If I could give twofish some sort of e-props on this site I would for every one of his posts.

I don't see any of his posts as "bitter" or "pessimistic;" I would classify them as realistic. Maybe that is because I mostly share the same viewpoints, though. :)

 

[Andy Resnick]

But the correct problem is not being identified- education is a money-loser, period.

There is no way to make education a money-maker except by eliminating the educational component from school. And that's what I object to- the tendency of administrators to remove the educational component from school.

This takes many forms: eliminating required laboratory work. Putting classes online. Having the students teach themselves (i.e. small group problem solving sessions).

This trend should not be accepted as inevitable- or promoted as an American Virtue. Students that are successful in the "self-teaching" model are ill-equipped to survive outside of academia, where you are expected to know things. The result of removing the educational component means there is no way to ensure the graduating student is competent in anything- which is why there's now a sneaking suspicion that a BS in physics is 'useless'.

If you think the trend is inevitable or even good, then think carefully about what this implies when you see a doc or a lawyer, because this trend is not limited to physics (or even science). Medical schools are ahead of the trend, I've seen the results, and I am highly concerned because there is going to be even more pressure on medical schools to produce more docs in order to meet the increased demand brought by health care reform. If you think your BS qualifies you to do nothing, consider what that means if an MD degree does not correlate with qualifications, either.

Training for a profession takes decades of time: your time, your advisor's time, your mentor's time. Nobody pays your advisor for that time.

Again, I like to provide a positive counterexample: this summer, I have 2 students in my lab. Their summer salary is paid for by CSU, but I pay for any lab supplies they use. They are doing tasks appropriate to their skill level- and I don't lie to them that they are doing publishable research, or that they are 'junior members of the institution'. My goal is to provide a useful experience, nothing more. Because if I don't, then who will?

 

[twofish-quant]

But the correct problem is not being identified- education is a money-loser, period.

First of all, I disagree. University of Phoenix shows otherwise. If it turns out to be a money loser, then how do we either make it profitable or convince someone to fund it or change the rules of the system so that it doesn't matter. MIT as an institution is enormously profitable. You have companies dumping money on the place left and right to get access to students there.

Socially speaking, education is *incredibly* profitable. One thing that made teaching at University of Phoenix worthwhile is that you could teach someone algebra, and then once they come back to you telling you how they used that at work, you could just smell the wealth that is being generated.

Given that education creates enormous amounts of social wealth, then the hard part is figuring out how to channel that wealth back to fund the education. The way that MIT does it is that it educates its students, makes them rich and powerful, and then they direct some of that wealth back to the university.

There is no way to make education a money-maker except by eliminating the educational component from school.

University of Phoenix has managed to make huge amount of money from it.

This takes many forms: eliminating required laboratory work. Putting classes online. Having the students teach themselves (i.e. small group problem solving sessions).

Yes, yes, yes. It's exactly what MIT is doing and for that environment it works really well there. It might work very badly in other situations, but it works great there.

Students that are successful in the "self-teaching" model are ill-equipped to survive outside of academia, where you are expected to know things.

It's really funny when someone tries to tell you that you don't exist.

At least where I work, you are not hired for what you know. You are hired for what you can figure out. Five years ago, I didn't know *anything* about finance. I knew a lot about supernova iron core collapse, but people figured that if I could learn about supernova, then I could learn what I needed to know about finance. Part of the reason that this happens is that 80% of what we thought we knew five years ago was wrong. About 30% of what we thought we know a year ago is wrong.

In most of the high paying jobs that I know of, you aren't expected to know things. What you know is going to be totally out of date in a year or two. What you are expected to do is to do is to *learn* things and *learn* things very quickly.

The result of removing the educational component means there is no way to ensure the graduating student is competent in anything- which is why there's now a sneaking suspicion that a BS in physics is 'useless'.

Degrees are useless except as a signifier that you can function in a bureaucracy. That's not a small thing, but a BS in French literature will work for that as well as a BS in physics.

If you think the trend is inevitable or even good, then think carefully about what this implies when you see a doc or a lawyer, because this trend is not limited to physics (or even science).

Great! Because it's people like me that are hiring or not hiring students that are pushing it.

Anything you can figure out by googling, you use google. There is no point in getting a doctor or a lawyer to tell you what you can use google to figure out. What you want is a doctor or a lawyer to tell you stuff that you can't use google to figure out.

Anything that you that involves basic knowledge that you can teach via cookie cutter, you can teach someone in India or China to do ten times cheaper than in the US.

ITraining for a profession takes decades of time: your time, your advisor's time, your mentor's time. Nobody pays your advisor for that time.

There is a difference between training and education. What the really high status jobs are looking for are people that can solve problems that no one has the solution to. How do we structure the global financial system so that we don't have another crash? There is no textbook. There are no advisors. There are no mentors. I don't know how to structure the banking system. Ben Bernake doesn't know. Tim Geithner doesn't know. No one knows.

They are doing tasks appropriate to their skill level- and I don't lie to them that they are doing publishable research, or that they are 'junior members of the institution'.

You are making me feel more and more happy that I went to MIT.

The thing about MIT undergraduates is that they do end up with some extraordinarily stuff. There is a lot of stuff that students do that is publishable, and one of the things that I think is great about MIT is that you *are* junior members of the institution.

The thing about MIT is that it's very common to have a situation where you have a student that has a higher IQ or stronger math aptitude than the professors there. Having a high IQ or strong math aptitude does not turn you into a physicist. You have to learn a culture and an ideology, and MIT does a very good job at it. Also, you may be a genius 18 year old with a 200 IQ, but you are still an 18 year old, and there are things that you have to still learn. Yes you can do algebraic topology, but can you ask someone out on a date?

You have undergraduates on all of the faculty committees, and course evaluations are taken very seriously for tenure reviews. Because I was chairman of the course evaluations, I got pretty heavily involved in academic politics at MIT, which was a valuable learning experience.

Yes, I did leave angry and bitter, but I was angry and bitter because MIT was taught a set of ideas and ideals and the institute failed to live up to them, but that's one thing that you learn when you are 20. Your parents are human. Your teachers are human. Your school is human.

But it's *great* that I left angry and bitter, because if I didn't live angry and bitter, I wouldn't be working like hell to make the world a better place. And I'm doing what I think my teachers really wanted me to do. You just can't take a young impressionable kid, fill him with the idea that he is going to be CEO or a Nobel prize winner someday, and then say "sorry, go work for Starbucks" and expect him to go quietly into the night. Hell no. If I have to make the Earth shake and the stars tremble to get what it is that I want, then I will make the Earth shake and the stars tremble.

Any less and I'd be disrespecting my teachers.

 

[twofish-quant]

Except you don't confine your critique to MIT- you indict the entire educational system.

It's less of an indictment than a constructive criticism. The thing about social systems is that they are complex organisms. One part reacts to its environment, and changes its environment.

One thing about me is that I like asking questions. I don't always ask them out loud, but even in situations where it's a good idea to keep my mouth shut, I still ask them silently. If I ask "why can't we do this?" and the answer is "because of budget" then the I ask "why is the budget what is is? Who decides budgets? Why can't we change budgets?"

What's really funny is that when you someone says that they can't do something because of "budget" and you ask them "well how much money do you need?" they usually don't have an answer.

One reason I ended up on Wall Street, is that whenever you ask "why not?" it's amazing how often the issue of money comes up, so I figured that my education would be sorely lacking unless and until I learned more about this "money" thing.

 

[Andy Resnick]

First of all, I disagree. University of Phoenix shows otherwise.

*Any* business can be made profitable- even ones that sell imaginary things like tranched mortgages. I said *education* is a money loser.

If you draw a distinction between 'cog' and 'brainless cog', surely you distinguish between an education and a college diploma. Otherwise, you assign a BS in Physics from MIT equal value to a BS in Physics (if one exists) from University of Phoenix.

But I can do more than claim- I have evidence. MIT, like any non-profit, posts financial documents publicly. Let's see what it says for 2008:

http://vpf.mit.edu/site/general_ledger_operations_reporting/reports_publications/treasurer_s_report

Hey, they just posted 2009... like, 5 minutes ago. My numbers are for 2008.

$2.4 B operating revenue, $2.3B operating expenses. MIT made a profit of $114.2 M in 2008, as compared to $27.3 M in 2007. MIT is a profitable business! Of course, it's sad that one of the world's largest universities made a profit of only $114.2 M million- think about Exxon's profits, or Bayer, or heck, University of Phoenix.

Here's the breakdown of income-

Research- $1.2B (on campus $620M, Lincoln Labs $619M), Tuition $371M, Fees and Services $163M. The remainder of income ($1.4B) comes from (I think- I'm not a financial guy) interest on the endowment and other investments.

Now, expenses:

Sponsored research- that's sponsored by someone *other* than MIT- $1B, Instruction and unsponsored research- $607M, Administrative costs $490M. Scholarship dollars and employee benefits were not reported.

It's clear- MIT could make more money by not having any students. Here is the incentive to reduce costs ($607M), which are not met by tuition ($371M). So yes- MIT is a (barely) profitable business. MIT is (barely) profitable *because it has lowered the costs of education*. What is lost? Labs. Time students spend with faculty. Faculty teaching classes. Student satisfaction. The list goes on and on.

Note also research barely breaks even- that's another myth commonly spread, that pulling in research dollars generates money for a University. It doesn't, but the faculty get totally stressed, constantly chasing after the dollars.

And this is MIT- consider smaller schools, or state schools that get a considerable amount of money from taxes. Americans *love* paying taxes. There is constant pressure towards the University of Phoenix model from the administration, and that should be opposed vigorously by both faculty and students. Because education is the reason to go to college, and education is what is being cut.

 

[twofish-quant]

I said *education* is a money loser.

In that case we have to define precisely what education is, and what the goals for education are.

Personally, if your goal is to instill wonder in the universe, I think it's better to have a structure that's more similar to a museum and library than a university, and probably better not to issue grades or degrees at all.

If your goal is to give someone skills that allow them to have gainful employment, then you have a different set of requirements.

Otherwise, you assign a BS in Physics from MIT equal value to a BS in Physics (if one exists) from University of Phoenix.

One doesn't. Personally I think that the piece of paper that I got from MIT wasn't that useful, and probably not that much more useful than the piece of paper someone could get from the University of Phoenix. For about 90% of the people in the US, a piece of paper from the University of Phoenix is going to be far, far more useful than a piece of paper from MIT.

MIT made a profit of $114.2 M in 2008, as compared to $27.3 M in 2007. MIT is a profitable business! Of course, it's sad that one of the world's largest universities made a profit of only $114.2 M million- think about Exxon's profits, or Bayer, or heck, University of Phoenix.

And everything changed in 2009 after the stock market crash.

It's clear- MIT could make more money by not having any students.

There are long term difficulties with that plan. The trouble is that without students, your endowments will eventually dry up, and you will no longer have access to corridors of power. Also, I don't think that MIT would be as good a research institute without students in the labs.

But anyway, it's a big discussion that will come up in about two years. MIT made it's money in 2008 from real estate speculation. After the crash of 2009, it blew up. Right now MIT is doing what most bureaucracies do in a crisis, which is to make minimal changes and hope the crisis blows over. It won't. In two years it will be obvious that MIT has some serious problems, and that "business as usual" won't work. At that point, there will be some pretty heated discussions.

Something that might come out of it is that MIT might become a pure research institute like Howard Hughes or Fermilab and leave classroom instruction to University of Phoenix or someone that does it better. I don't know if this would be good or bad. Still thinking about it. There are still about twenty months or so before MIT hits the iceberg.

There is constant pressure towards the University of Phoenix model from the administration, and that should be opposed vigorously by both faculty and students.

The trouble with screwing people over, is that when you need their help, they aren't likely to defend you.

I'm for embracing UoP. I don't see any particular reason why I should defend the status quo. Personally, I'm all for crushing the current model of education. One reason is quite simple. I'm willing to teach. There are likely to be lots of students that are willing to learn from me. University of Phoenix gave me the chance to teach students that wanted to learn, and I was able to do some pretty creative and innovative things with my class.

The students at MIT want to be Nobel Prize winners. The students at UoP are generally older professionals that want to make more money at work. So what I did with my Intro Algebra class and Intro Astronomy class was to focus on some math tricks that they could take straight back to the office and start being more efficient cogs in the corporate machine.

Also, I don't think that it's a good idea for anyone to copy UoP. UoP is UoP and probably can do a better job at being UoP than any other university. What every university really has to do is to do figure out what to do.

Because education is the reason to go to college, and education is what is being cut.

Maybe it should be the reason to go college, but for most people "education" (as I think you define the term) really isn't.

Look, if you are right, and I'm just a lone voice in the wilderness, then you have nothing to worry from me. I'll just keep screaming, and no one will care what I'm saying.

But there is an entire generation of Ph.D.'s and junior faculty that have been screwed over by traditional academia, and when you have more smart people outside the tent than inside it, that's when revolutions happen.

 

[twofish-quant]

One reason I talk about what employers look for in college degrees is that I've been on both sides of the interview table. It's pointless to use a degree as a signifier for specific skills. If I want to know if someone can do partial differential equations, I don't look at their degree. I just ask them to solve two or three equations while I watch them, and you can figure out pretty quickly what their level of math and physics aptitude is.

What's harder to see, and what's more important involves things like will they show up on time at work, are they tactful at meetings, can they write reasonably intelligent memos. Those are harder to test for in one hour, but if someone has a bachelors degree then I'm reasonably sure that they will show up on time to work. The thing about University of Phoenix is that its actually a lot better at providing the skills and learning that most employers look for than many traditional universities, which is why bashing them based on skills don't work.

I should point out that at this point, bashing UoP in an interview in a major corporation will likely kill your resume. Somehow, and I think this was somewhat intentional, you will be amazed at the number of HR people that have degrees from UoP. MIT is a great school if you want to be a Nobel prize winning physicist. If you just want a decent job as a HR person, then you are better off going to UoP, and there are more job openings for HR people than Nobel laureates.

So appealing to corporate America is not going to save traditional academia...

What else? Appealing to the "wonder of science" the "thrill of discovery"? Get real.

Appealing to "educational quality"? Nonsense. For the type of degree and the type of student that the specialize in, University of Phoenix has really great quality.

I'd put the crisis in academia with something deeper than money. The essence of the liberal arts is to teach people how to be free, and you cannot teach freedom on a system based on slavery. Sure I'm a corporate cog. Sure I'm begin economically exploited, but I have one big freedom that almost no one I know in academia has.

I can quit.

They treat me nice where I am, but it's not because they are nice people. They treat me nice because they know that the second, they treat me badly, I'll walk out that door, and they can run their own computers, thank you... I have money in the bank, I have very little debt. If I think that I'll have more fun being a beach bum, then I'll be a beach bum.

Course it works both ways. The millisecond they think I'm a liability, they'll kick me out. But it works out nice.

I don't know of too many people in academia that can realistically quit, and that leads to a lot of dysfunction.

And then there is tenure...

One thing that annoys me is why am I saying these things? The stated purpose of tenure is that it gives people security to talk about the great issues of the day, and to express controversial opinions. So why am I the one screaming about how bad things are?

This just ain't happening, and unless professors really use tenure for the purpose for which it was designed, which is *NOT* as some sort of grand prize, then it's just another special interest group looking for their jobs.

One thing I find interesting is that MIT is not releasing detailed budget numbers. You'd think that the worlds most technological university would have the budget somewhere, and I'm guessing that if people really saw who is getting cut and who isn't, then you'd have a campus revolution.

 

[Andy Resnick]

And everything changed in 2009 after the stock market crash.

<snip>

Look, if you are right, and I'm just a lone voice in the wilderness, then you have nothing to worry from me.

Yep- turns out there *was* a big change last year (2009)- MIT made $182M.

And the reason I am engaging you in this (very professional, BTW) discussion is that you are unfortunately, *not* a lone voice in the wilderness- you accurately reflect the end product of 20 years of MBA-centric academia. Education is a product, and MIT a widget factory. *I* am the one screaming that this has to stop, and *I* am the one fighting against the tide.

I don't know of too many people in academia that can realistically quit, and that leads to a lot of dysfunction.

Anyone can move on to a different job. I've worked in industry, and I could go back there. The key is to have valued skills- the kind that are taught as part of an *education*.