Original post: The Value of University in the Digital Age
Referenced throughout: Video’s Impact on Education
So, it’s been a whole semester of university. I completed my last exam yesterday and now I’m only awaiting results. This makes it a good time to write about any changes in my stance on the value of university.
Before reading, you should note that when the field or subject area is not mentioned I am talking about science subjects. Some of these points may not be valid in the context of humanities, economics, arts etc.
Lectures
The format of lecture-centric education is redundant. Lecturer A will lecture at 10:00AM then lecturer B will lecture the exact same topic and content at 11:00AM. It concerns me, because it affects the price I pay for my degree. With less staff there is lower cost, that is if you get rid of them. Though, it is unfair to say they should be fired. And it’s not what I’m intending to say. What I am intending to say will come up in the tutorials section.
“Two lecturers at different times allow a more personal connection between students and teacher.” It’s not hard to get more personal than entirely impersonal. Seriously, it’s not a conversation. It’s someone standing up the front and delivering content. If you’re lucky, they encourage discussion in lectures, which I admit offers a lot of value if the context is right. It’s just that this doesn’t happen very often, or when it does it feels so contrived it’s as if they read that “discussion in lectures is good” in an educational magazine that morning and decided to give it a try *cough* physics lectures *cough*.
This type of thoughtless integration of pedagogical technique is of benefit to no one. Thoughtless action and change to pedagogy was discussed in my essay on Video’s Impact on Education. One would be much better off getting the notes from the lecture and doing practice questions instead, especially for mathematics-like fields (e.g. mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science). For humanities it is much easier to integrate well-structured and beneficial class conversations because opinion and discourse a massive part of what makes the subjects engaging and valuable.
A pet peeve of the lecture-centric system thus far is improper recording of lectures and/or benefits given to lecture attendees. Why would anyone in their right mind attend if they had no other reason to be at the university? To sit next to a friend or to make friends is probably the only valid reason. Actually, the latter is the only valid reason. If you’re already friends you could have much more fruitful interactions when you’re allowed to verbalise your thoughts rather than snicker at mutually whispered jokes and distract others. You can watch lectures at 1-2X speed with greater retention because you do not need to wait (as long) for natural human pauses in speaking and thought. Of course, this is personal experience but I do believe that most would agree they don’t lose anything at all from watching lectures at a faster speed.
What I mean by “improper recording” is when lecture slides that are being worked on do not have the camera and when live demos are not captured. This links in a with my first point about lecturer redundancy. If you just had one lecturer who took a little longer to record everything but made sure everything was as close to perfect as possible, that would be a lot more valuable than having four lectures that are inevitably more imperfect due to time constraint. Live demos are not exclusive to university. So if they’re recorded or not actually doesn’t matter too much for the most part. Majority of live demos can be found on youtube, and they’re probably recorded with much better cameras.
Also, watching a lecture at home means (assuming you have nothing else on) you don’t have to travel, saving both time and money. Additionally, you can choose the desk you want to work on. The other benefits are, again, outlined in Video’s Impact on Education.
Guest Lectures
One of my favourite aspects of the university lecture structure (despite it only being for two subjects) was guest lectures. I was not expecting anything of the sort, and when I heard about the prospect of guest lectures I was skeptical about their net benefit to learning. However, having listened (not attended) to 3-4 guest lectures I can safely say they are both thoroughly enjoyable as well as informative.
The guest lecturers are chosen because they are experts in their field. Being at a top university may help in this regard. What they shared during their lectures was not necessarily helpful in terms of subject material (even though an effort was made to put guest lecture concepts on the exam) but was more helpful in describing and depicting what sort of job they were doing. It allows listeners to gain enough insight to get a sense of whether that particular job or field would be somewhere they would be interested in going into or not.
However, this can be easily achieved as an autodidact. Youtube exists and plenty of people upload videos talking about what it’s like to work in their field. Not to mention many universities upload their guest lectures. I guess it’s just something I never thought of looking into to complement my learning. Maybe because when teaching myself something I always have real-life applicability at the forefront of my mind; the guest lecturers just humanise the applicability.
Tutorials
This aspect of university pedagogy may need another readdress at the end of next semester. This semester was quite easy in terms of content in my opinion, much of the content I had covered last year at school or taught myself. But I’ll offer my opinion now anyway.
Tutorials, even within my science degree differed greatly between subjects. My mathematics tutorials I felt were a productive use of my time, utilising the ability of real-time personal interaction to learn off each other. There could be a number of biases here though, that make me feel more productive. The social aspect is bound to make it a more enjoyable learning experience, which may indeed translate to better learning. Happier learning environment translates to more effective learning. However, correlation is not causation. Nor is necessarily not. There is not really any way to know that I would learn more within a university (mathematics) style tutorial vs studying at home with my books and the internet without putting it under the scrutiny of the scientific method.
As an aside, I admit I am inclined to say “bias is expected” because it supports my bias that university is overvalued. However, it does not discount the fact that bias in my evaluations overall is still present whether for or against whatever I am arguing.
As for other subjects, namely physics and computing the experience was a bit different. Physics was more or less teach yourself, but if you have questions you have someone to ask. And computing was half lecture-with-frequent-intermittent-questions and half do it yourself and ask questions if needed.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this method of learning. To argue against it would be to argue against asking questions which certainly not what my position is. In my opinion this is not a terrible way to do it. I think this is definitely where universities are most right in their approach to learning in general. In fact, I think lectures should be replaced entirely with tutorials.
Tutorials offer greater opportunity for discovery-based learning and question formation than the authoritarian information transfer style of teaching (NB: teaching not learning). Lawrence Krauss has even asserted that the political undercurrent of doubt against science, particularly from the alt-right, can be partially attributed to the structure of science education. When science is reduced down to a set of facts to be memorised, it loses its credibility as a vehicle of change, one that runs on the fuel of doubt and admitted ignorance. It becomes as valid as religion. That is to say not valid at all, at least with regards to the way in which the world and universe works. By having tutorials as the centrepiece of the science pedagogy, and encouraging students to ask questions, you re-instil the credibility of science, science as the process it is, and was always meant to be.
If more tutorials is conflated with the decreasing of lecture redundancy, the lecturers who wish to teach, but whose ability to lecture effectively (if lectures are still to be part of the pedagogy) is not as objectively good as another lecturer, can tutor. This will allow the opportunity for more tutorials to take place with no delta in the cost.
Networking
Socialising, for the most part, does not come naturally to me, or so I’ve been lead to believe. Perhaps this is because modern society has the unrealistic expectation that everyone should be extroverted. Despite my subjective experience, university is objectively a great place to network. Whether you call it networking or you call it making friends with similarly interested individuals, the opportunity is there.
There are, however, a lot less people excited about learning than I expected. Apart from my current set of friends, I’ve met only a few who are there to become better people and/or because they think it is the best place for them to learn. The most common attitude I see is that they are there because at the end of their three year degree there is job safety. Like it or not (it’s certainly something I find hard to swallow) we don’t live in an absolute meritocracy and networking will definitely help you find a job, regardless of if you’re a genius, average or below average.
Can networking be done without going to university? Yes, but it would be much harder. You are at university to learn things, or at least should be there to learn things, and these things are in a particular area of interest (hopefully). You are there with people your age, with whom you know you have something in common. You have access to academics who, depending on your university and/or faculty, may have connections in industry and/or research that could come in handy when looking for a job or for research opportunities.
Networking in the business and job prospect sense, is not so relevant to me just yet, given I’ve only just completed my first semester. This may deserve another rewrite in a year or two.
Conclusion
So, I’ve decided to stay at university for the foreseeable future. It would be impolitic of me to do otherwise, I think. The structure the curriculum gives is useful and, as said in the initiating post, it ought not to hold me, or anyone else, back from learning things outside the curriculum.
I have come to accept that a degree may be more important now, despite the apparent increase in companies recruiting people without degrees. Why? Because the number degree holders is increasing too. Not having a degree means you’re playing catch up. Behind is a place I’d rather not be, even if I disagree with the system itself. I will continue to read and extend my learning beyond the curriculum set at no cost of formal, accredited education, especially from a top university.
This turned out to be a simultaneous reflection on my experience and response to my previous article as well as a critique of the pedagogical system in place at the moment.
Afterthought
Upon proofreading and editing this post, it became apparent that confirmation bias may be in action. Despite rethinking several points I did not come to a change of opinion, though will happily consider the opinions of anyone who wishes to offer theirs. Either about the validity of my stance, or about their own.
