h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

First, I invite you to remind yourself of what Acid Override had in mind when creating this venue.

Second, I invite you not bring up the current "controversy" over tuition fees as a non sequitur.
There is thread for non sequiturs, and more than one thread for opinions of tuition fees. Other threads.


I may have little to bring to this debate but for follow up questions.

The questions I'd like to see discussed by those more competent discuss than myself are:

What are universities for?

What should they be for?

Are they currently too anachronistic to deliver?

What form should they have for the future?

I've been surprised to see some Brits saying in the other threads that universities aren't for anyone who wants to go, they're for people who make some kind of special effort or special grade and that it's a privilege. I'm gobsmacked to see some of the more liberal researchers here make that argument.

In NZ it's much more egalitarian than that. You have to have some academic skill of course (eg finishing high school generally, although once you are 20 you can go to uni even if you didn't finish high school). But we don't have that same degree of elitism that says that uni is a Special place not available to everyone.

We don't even say that unis are special in terms of tertiary education. Polytechnics can offer degree courses and anyone that can meet the grade can set up a tertiary qualification. IN the past universities were considered a special class of tertiary education because they taught academic courses and polytechs taught trades. But that's been changed alot in the last few decades.

There are individual courses that are still highly selective and highly competitive of course eg law or medicine.

The other thing that has changed of course is that now one is expected to have some kind tertiary qualification - it's a much more widely held expectation amongst employers and the public. This isn't necessarily a good thing because there's been an increase in academic qualification at the expense of hands on training - nursing is a minimum 3 year degree course now (polytech). The reasons for that were so that nurses would have research skills and be able to improve professional status (a good thing), but it's probably gone too far away from practical, clinical training.

IMO universities are for providing certain kinds of education. There is still an emphasis on academics and specialist trainings like medicine. This is important where this has been historically so eg it makes sense for the university with a good med library to be the tertiary institute that offers medicine, but I also don't see why unis are more special than other tertiary schools.

Universities specialise in producing certain kinds of research and generating bodies of knowledge. I don't know to what extent that is a result of the kinds of ways they've operated historically. On the one hand it makes sense to make use of tradition, on the other hand there is a lot of bullshit within academic circles that could do with exposure to the outside world.

Tertiary education should be free to the student IMO but with certain high cost or nationally significant degrees using a system of bonding where the graduate is expected to work in certain areas for a period of time.

Hmm, maybe I'm on your list of
>>...more liberal researchers here make that argument<<
I hope not, but still

can't speak of or for NZ

Universities in the past were for those with the money to afford it.
So
Good thing: gradually, with more and more grants becoming available, it moved more towards being egalitarian.
Bad thing: more recently it's been deliberately borne in on us that Uni is for everyone.

Uni should not be for everyone.
Uni should be for those who have the bent of mind (or call it what you will) to cull benefit from that form of learning.

Technical colleges should be for those with different, more practical, hand/eye abilities.

Egalitarian is defined:
>
of, relating to, or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities
<
Equal rights and opportunities, oh yes I'm with that - but people just aren't equal in all things. I'd lay bets that I'm better at some things than you (and I might, just might, be persuaded to admit that you may, just may, be better at something or other else than I).



There's more, maybe, on other parts of the OP.

What are universities for?
-It depends on each one. But, basicly to form professionals and to foster and develop knowledge that can be useful to the whole society. Also they offer the posibility of rounding or guiding somebody´s career.

What should they be for?
- They should be for investigating, improving the knowledge and for helping to the integral education of ANYONE who wishes it.(free, of course)
(Integral for me means the study of Arts and humanities in Science disciplines and the study of divulgative science in humanities)

Are they currently too anachronistic to deliver?
-It depends on each one.

What form should they have for the future?
- No idea. I¨m sure that on-line courses will be of great importance and the physical building would take other education related uses.

I'm with you on that Rod, not everyone will want to go to university. I just don't think unis should be regarded as special status places any more. They're no more important to society than tertiary providers that aren't universities, and the idea that academia is a higher strata of society than technical skill really is something we should be getting past by now.

I don't think there's such a huge difference between technical colleges and unis in NZ now. I see the Auckland Institute of Technology is now known as the Auckland University of Technology (for the past ten years in fact).

"...the idea that academia is a higher strata of society than technical skill..."

I agree that that shouldn't be the case. I think that both should be the elite of their own specialisms.

Yes. Although I know people highly skilled who've never been through any tertiary education

Quite, and there should be absolutely no stigma attached to that either. Experience outweighs education (it's just harder to prove!).

We do not have distinctions about technical colleges and universities, in fact we have many centres with the name of Universidad Politécnica.
Any student chooses according to their abilities, etc.
I´ve nothing to discuss about that we all arent equal in terms of abilities. That´s common sense.

<<I just don't think unis should be regarded as special status places any more<<
Indeed. However that´s precisely what annoys those who think that to have a universitary degree proves your exquisite breed and unusual talent.

I don´t think everybody has to go to uni to get "a proper education", or a proper job.
On an occasion, I advised some parents to let their daughter do, try at least, what she so much loved: to do Vocational Training in the field of restauration (cooking?). I´d be now dead if eyes could kill. They were a very rich family and the idea of not taking their daughter to university was considered a humilliation for them.

Universities are for teaching and learning, research, and what's been variously called 'knowledge transfer', 'knowledge exchange', 'enterprise', and 'third mission' at various times. Roughly, this covers working with external partners to commercialise the fruits of research, running bespoke training courses, executive education, consultancy, and that kind of thing. The exact balance between the three varies from institution to institution, as you might expect.

A lot of media coverage about university activity is rather misleading, partly because universities and academics aren't generally great at PR, and partly because of wilful sensationalism, 'churnalism', and misreporting from the media. The standard teaching story, for example, is some sneering article about some module (inevitably misreported as being a 'course') on an outlandish topic which is not only innovative but will also make perfect sense to those who know about the subject, but which sounds strange from outside and held up for ridicule out of context. The coverage of research (and I think, particularly of social science research) is poor, as Goldacre et al have made clear. And all this is a massive shame, as the UK has outstanding universities and punches way above its weight in international research. The fact that English is the international language of choice gives the UK a massive, massive advantage in terms of international student recruitment, and in terms of the ability to collaborate internationally.

The university of the future, in terms of teaching at least, is very likely to be virtual, and therefore global. Every advance in internet technology makes distance and/or online learning more and more viable. The Open University has been doing it for decades. In other countries, such as Australia, the sheer size of the country makes distance learning less of a luxury. We're now in a position where lectures can be streamed, resources can be accessed, and 'tutorials' could happen via teleconference in real time, rather than via message boards or IM. Non-technological aspects have lagged behind too - the know-how and experience of how to deliver programmes online and how to provide student support online - but these are now much better understood. It'll be much harder for certain subjects, and for some, impossible - those with a strong practical element requiring expensive facilities - to be taught this way, but for others, this is likely to be the future.

There are pros and cons to this, of course, but that's the way things seem to be going.

did courses suffer when all the polys suddenly became unversitys??

>Second, I invite you not bring up the current "controversy" over tuition fees as a non sequitur.
There is thread for non sequiturs, and more than one thread for opinions of tuition fees. Other threads.
<

Yes I note you invite me Jack, so I bring it up as a non non sequitur.

The issue of tuition fees IMO will have a direct effect on what universities of the future may become. I can forsee the liklihood of a move away from the idea of studying certain subjects for cultural reasons which are to with questions of how our society functions, eg how it is structured, political powers and manipulation of people.

Acquiring knowledge, through reading around a subject, attending lectures and immersing yourself in the atmosphere of university which can include parties and going to the bar, and discussing these issues with fellows/peers who also question everything with open enquiring minds, will be viewed differently as something to attend university for...or no doubt as many will say, 'loafing around for 3 years, not getting up before midday and studying micky mouse subjects'.

I mean if you are contemplating the idea of studying something like eg philosophy, English literature, old Norse, political science and think wow I have to pay £9000 a year to do this, and may very easily saddle myself with paying off the debt of 3 years of study, quite possibly for the rest of my life, so do I really want to do this?

I can forsee universities of the future becoming much more narrow in terms of churning out students designed for the status quo of the way society is run. I can forsee an essentially anti-intellectualism, in its fullest sense, increasing at universities.

There'll probably be more students choosing to study subjects like engineering, pharmacy, medicine or maybe Law, if we continue on the road to more and more people seeking financial compensation for all manner of things.

Universities of the future are likely to become far more essentially 'conservative' places I think. When tutition fees were first introduced I think it started down this road..and now this will vastly accelerate.

Unfortunately, much as we might like it if all the different forms of tertiary education were treated equally, you can't just wish it so. The idea that it could be so goes at least as far back as the 60s (as I know because both my parents went to teach in polytechnics, full of idealism about them). Unfortunately, it didn't work out - they were (and are) considered much lower status.

It's worth thinking about what things should be like, but in cases where it's been tried and failed, you also have to think about whether or not you have some new idea that might make it actually work.

> What are universities for?
> What should they be for?
> Are they currently too anachronistic to deliver?
> What form should they have for the future?

These are very interesting and difficult questions, which I also don't have good answers for. In one sense obviously they're for research and for teaching, and both of these things are valuable. However, there is much about the way they're currently organised that is artificial and less than optimal (I'm not sure about anachronistic).

>It's worth thinking about what things should be like,<

I agree. But you can't just do it in a vacuum. The way things are funded ie what society at large accepts to pay tax for, how much or not, affects the nature of that thing, how it might be, and what it might be for.

Current (Scottish) University student here.

I am from a working class family, My dad is a car mechanic and has been since he left school at 16. My mum also left school at 16 and has had many and varied "unskilled" jobs since. My older sister made it as far as college and now works for a mental health team as a support worker. In short so far I am the only one to have made it to university, and okay some silly people call my university a trumped up polytechnic college, but in a years time I will have a degree that is worth just the same as any other degree.

I had to work hard to get here, taking some secondary school final exams three times just to pass them.

I beleive I have earned my right to be here.

Universities are a place for learning how to think for yourself, learning how to research and study independently.

I have no desire to become a professor, I am here because most employers require degrees for even menial and formerly unskilled tasks. I am also here to become my own person, to get away from my family and the rut i would have been stuck in at home. My dream is to be a primary school teacher, I'm just going to have to work hard to make it a reality.

mini

The point of university is not another 3 years education for everybody, and the idea that 50% of the population should attend university is as stupid an idea as ever has been proposed.

University is for the furtherance of knowledge. It should be hard work, and it should be a challenge. There should be at least 8 hours of lectures a week, and it should have a value.

Once it did, now it has been made into a purely elitist area, that only the rich can afford.

<>

Tell me about it... I keep finding jobs I could do with my eyes shut that I can't apply for because a degree is required. Problem is those jobs are the only ones in my field of 'expertise' which pay an amount I feel is fair for my skill levels and experience.

Out of interest, do you apply for them anyway? It may be possible that they will bend the rules for you given that you have degree-level skills, gained though ___ years of experience, including [insert project/job/etc. here that proves your exceptional knowledge and talent].

Then again, the HR dudes might be rubbish and just throw the application out anyway.

I agree. Degrees should not be a pre-requisite for a job unless absolutely necessary.

I do most times... never hear back from any of them. I suspect there's a certain amount of "being able to say we have X number of degree educated employees looks better on paper" going on.

Sometimes though I apply online and get booted out when I can't say "yes" to the "do you have a degree" question. This is mostly for a well known newsagent that has its head office in Swindon.