Heh… this is kind of clever: Karl’s new manifesto for the information age.
The information age elite exercises artful dominion of the means of production, the education system. The median family income of a Harvard student is $150,000. According to the Educational Testing Service, only 3 percent of freshmen at the top 146 colleges come from the poorest quarter of the population… The educated elites are the first elites in all of history to work longer hours per year than the exploited masses, so voracious is their greed for second homes. They congregate in exclusive communities walled in by the invisible fence of real estate prices, then congratulate themselves for sending their children to public schools. They parade their enlightened racial attitudes by supporting immigration policies that guarantee inexpensive lawn care. They send their children off to Penn, Wisconsin and Berkeley, bastions of privilege for the children of the professional class, where they are given the social and other skills to extend class hegemony.
The information society is the only society in which false consciousness is at the top. For it is an iron rule of any university that the higher the tuition and more exclusive the admissions, the more loudly the denizens profess their solidarity with the oppressed. The more they objectively serve the right, the more they articulate the views of the left.
Anyone familiar with my personal history knows that I regard the university education system with a certain amount of contempt. 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars results in a piece of paper which is a very poor indicator of whether the bearer is actually qualified to do the job.
If I won the lottery I’d endow a new kind of tech school. I wouldn’t even call it a school. It would be to computer science schools as a Shaolin Monastery is to Joe’s eXtreme Karate down the street. It would turn out the programmers to whom all other programmers are compared. It would emphasize balance in all things. It would insist on competence in all aspects and models of programming, without clinging to ideologies. The science, engineering, and mechanics of software construction would only be one part of the curriculum. Equally important would be philosophy, interpersonal communication skills, physical exercise, and spiritual development. The programmers that it turned out would not burn out. They would not over-commit. They would not allow their jobs to destroy their home lives. They would not allow themselves to be forced into deathmarches. They would know how to function in a healthy way with other people, taking into account their but not being victimized by their own idiosyncrasies. They would not whine about outsourcing, because all the world would be in demand of their services. It would not seek accreditation from any body, but it would not need it: these would be the finest programmers in the world.
No programmer would be pronounced a Master until a project that she participated in was successful at solving a real-world problem. A Master would not only know a dozen different programming languages and a half-dozen paradigms at ordination, but far more importantly, would be capable of learning new languages and techniques and incorporating them into his toolbox quickly. A Master would know how to separate her ego from pet projects, ideas, tools, and methodologies.
But most importantly, and here is what no traditional college would ever do: a Master would go out into the world with the ability and commitment to spread her knowledge to others. No one would be pronounced Master without having successfully taught other programmers, and they would be expected to apprentice new coders once they left the monastery. This idea, of encouraging education to happen outside the ivory walls of the university, is anathema to the established education system. For obvious monetary reasons.
This is my idea for a techinical school. I see no reason why it couldn’t be extended to other fields, though. The colleges have set themselves up as petty gods of learning, and it’s high time someone knocked them down a few pegs.
I’ll support you…
However, I would point out that you’re biggest problem will not be with the universities and educational system, per se, but rather with most of the business world having adopted a solely “piece of paper determines competency” type of attitude towards employment..
Here, in Madison, it’s ridiculous.. Places like Charter Communications now start advertising that they want Bachelors degrees for people doing phone-tech support–even though all they do is read from scripts…
Although I’m a grad student involved in the ivory tower crap–I’ve never thought that any of the cool looking sheets of paper made me a better or more competent person.. or made me more qualified in an of themselves…what makes me a better teacher–which is what I eventually hope to be–or perhaps an administrator–is that I will have spent a lot of time reading voracious amounts of material and have learned how to synthesize it and then communicate it succinctly and clearly to others whether through forms of spoken or written communication..
Did being in a Universtity help me do this?
Definitely–but mainly because I met a lot of other very cool individuals–whether other students or professors–who pushed my thinking process… (a lot like your shaolin monastery…)
So. to get back to the point.. I support your goal.. and will try to contribute–if you want a competent administrator and long-range planner–who can also argue philosophy and history of technology etc etc..
but our main enemy is not going to be the universities.. (especially not the public ones–they really aren’t strong enough anyway.. they are dying a million deaths from budget-paper cuts as we speak…) but rather the grander business world that too often doesn’t look and judge you by your competency, drive, or real-world skills–but rather wants to know what name is on the piece of paper you were given for $100,000’s….
Re: I’ll support you…
Oh, I don’t think the Universities would be an enemey per se… not in the near-term, anyway; although you can be sure that if the idea caught on you’d hear a lot of smug pooh-poohing from the ivory tower about “fads” and the “assurance” you get from a university degree.
I think there would be a certain self-selection in the businesses which hired graduates of this non-school. Most of the businesses which would refuse to hire without the right piece of paper would be places where no Master would want to work anyway. There are always hot new companies which are willing to bet on smart but unconventional programmers, enought, I think, for them to start to make a name for themselves in the industry.
The real trick – and I don’t think this would be too difficult – would be to get some of the existing industry “gods” on-board… guys like Phil Greenspun who became millionaires based on their programming prowess, and are equally disgusted at the state of education. People listen to them… and if they start saying good things about it, it would become the latest “hip” trend in the industry, which would give it some nice early momentum.
I’m just sick of seeing these “batchelor or greater” requirements on jobs, when I know from experience that a lot (most?) of the kids coming out of the degree mills are unqualified to do real work. I’d like there to be a piece of paper which really means something.
Re: I’ll support you…
Paul Graham (Viaweb, Ansi Common Lisp) might be helpful here. At one point, he wrote:
When I became an employer, I didn’t care about GPAs. In fact, we actively sought out people who’d failed out of school. We once put up posters around Harvard saying “Did you just get kicked out for doing badly in your classes because you spent all your time working on some project of your own? Come work for us!” We managed to find a kid who had been, and he was a great hacker.
A place like this could certainly do a lot of valuable teaching, but I’m not convinced you can create a piece of paper that means a lot. Most people who pay attention don’t take the existing papers seriously (academia wants recomendations from people they know; Microsoft auditions potential employees; other employers ask about experience…). In order to make a really good piece of paper, you would need to do two things. The first, which is difficult, is to extablish standards across many people for judging subjective characteristics. The second, which is unpalatable, is to refuse the paper to people who worked hard for years, completed the projects, acquired the simpler and more straightforward skills, but still don’t get it.
Re: I’ll support you…
Implicit in the idea is a very high failure rate. Although it would be more geared towards “pushing people in a direction they are better suited for” rather than “failing” them.
Hopefully the failure rate could be partially mitigated by honest advertising. It wouldn’t be hawked as another “you too could have a $50,000 starting salary” degree mill. Nor as an uber-MIT cram school for compulsive overachievers. It would explicitly cater to people with an existing aptitude for hacking, who are willing to be patient and open minded and to do apparently unrelated things like wash dishes.
Re: I’ll support you…
Implicit in the idea is a very high failure rate. Although it would be more geared towards “pushing people in a direction they are better suited for” rather than “failing” them.
Hopefully the failure rate could be partially mitigated by honest advertising. It wouldn’t be hawked as another “you too could have a $50,000 starting salary” degree mill. Nor as an uber-MIT cram school for compulsive overachievers. It would explicitly cater to people with an existing aptitude for hacking, who are willing to be patient and open minded and to do apparently unrelated things like wash dishes.
Re: I’ll support you…
Paul Graham (Viaweb, Ansi Common Lisp) might be helpful here. At one point, he wrote:
When I became an employer, I didn’t care about GPAs. In fact, we actively sought out people who’d failed out of school. We once put up posters around Harvard saying “Did you just get kicked out for doing badly in your classes because you spent all your time working on some project of your own? Come work for us!” We managed to find a kid who had been, and he was a great hacker.
A place like this could certainly do a lot of valuable teaching, but I’m not convinced you can create a piece of paper that means a lot. Most people who pay attention don’t take the existing papers seriously (academia wants recomendations from people they know; Microsoft auditions potential employees; other employers ask about experience…). In order to make a really good piece of paper, you would need to do two things. The first, which is difficult, is to extablish standards across many people for judging subjective characteristics. The second, which is unpalatable, is to refuse the paper to people who worked hard for years, completed the projects, acquired the simpler and more straightforward skills, but still don’t get it.
Re: I’ll support you…
Oh, I don’t think the Universities would be an enemey per se… not in the near-term, anyway; although you can be sure that if the idea caught on you’d hear a lot of smug pooh-poohing from the ivory tower about “fads” and the “assurance” you get from a university degree.
I think there would be a certain self-selection in the businesses which hired graduates of this non-school. Most of the businesses which would refuse to hire without the right piece of paper would be places where no Master would want to work anyway. There are always hot new companies which are willing to bet on smart but unconventional programmers, enought, I think, for them to start to make a name for themselves in the industry.
The real trick – and I don’t think this would be too difficult – would be to get some of the existing industry “gods” on-board… guys like Phil Greenspun who became millionaires based on their programming prowess, and are equally disgusted at the state of education. People listen to them… and if they start saying good things about it, it would become the latest “hip” trend in the industry, which would give it some nice early momentum.
I’m just sick of seeing these “batchelor or greater” requirements on jobs, when I know from experience that a lot (most?) of the kids coming out of the degree mills are unqualified to do real work. I’d like there to be a piece of paper which really means something.
I’ll support you…
However, I would point out that you’re biggest problem will not be with the universities and educational system, per se, but rather with most of the business world having adopted a solely “piece of paper determines competency” type of attitude towards employment..
Here, in Madison, it’s ridiculous.. Places like Charter Communications now start advertising that they want Bachelors degrees for people doing phone-tech support–even though all they do is read from scripts…
Although I’m a grad student involved in the ivory tower crap–I’ve never thought that any of the cool looking sheets of paper made me a better or more competent person.. or made me more qualified in an of themselves…what makes me a better teacher–which is what I eventually hope to be–or perhaps an administrator–is that I will have spent a lot of time reading voracious amounts of material and have learned how to synthesize it and then communicate it succinctly and clearly to others whether through forms of spoken or written communication..
Did being in a Universtity help me do this?
Definitely–but mainly because I met a lot of other very cool individuals–whether other students or professors–who pushed my thinking process… (a lot like your shaolin monastery…)
So. to get back to the point.. I support your goal.. and will try to contribute–if you want a competent administrator and long-range planner–who can also argue philosophy and history of technology etc etc..
but our main enemy is not going to be the universities.. (especially not the public ones–they really aren’t strong enough anyway.. they are dying a million deaths from budget-paper cuts as we speak…) but rather the grander business world that too often doesn’t look and judge you by your competency, drive, or real-world skills–but rather wants to know what name is on the piece of paper you were given for $100,000’s….
“It would be to computer science schools as a Shaolin Monastery is to Joe’s eXtreme Karate down the street.
That is funny as shit!
I think you should do it. I suppose your revolution would eventually turn into an ivory tower, over time and post-your-mortem, no doubt, but it would be awesome while it lasted.
Oh no doubt; they always do. And all the students would eventually start competing schools of their own; but hey, variety is good 😀
Oh no doubt; they always do. And all the students would eventually start competing schools of their own; but hey, variety is good 😀
“It would be to computer science schools as a Shaolin Monastery is to Joe’s eXtreme Karate down the street.
That is funny as shit!
I think you should do it. I suppose your revolution would eventually turn into an ivory tower, over time and post-your-mortem, no doubt, but it would be awesome while it lasted.
There are many people who believe as you do, myself included. Remind me to chat about the German educational system sometimes, and why it is a gabillion times better than the american one.
There are many people who believe as you do, myself included. Remind me to chat about the German educational system sometimes, and why it is a gabillion times better than the american one.