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UC's For-Pay Online Course Draws 4 Non-UC Students
slew writes "In the shadow of Stanford and Harvard offering free on-line courses, The University of California has been attempting to offer pay-courses for credit. UC online took out a $6.9M loan from UC and spent $4.3M to market these courses. For their efforts, they've been able to quadruple their enrollment year over year. The first year results: only one person not already attending UC paid $1,400 for an online pre-calculus class worth four credits. Now four non-UC are signed up. 'UC Online has to pay back the loan in seven years and expected to sell 7,000 classes to non-UC students for $1,400 or $2,400 apiece, depending on each course's duration. China was thought to be a lucrative potential source of students, but few expressed interest. The U.S. military also fell through.' Methinks head will roll on this one..."
I could go full-time to my local community college for less than that. Hell, I could almost go full time to my local 4-year university for that (paying in-state tuition). And UC isn't even that prestigious.
They seriously thought the Chinese were going to pay that kind of tuition, for a single course at the fucking University of California, that probably isn't even applicable to a degree? And the U.S. military? Hey, the military may be legendary for wasting money, but even they have limits.
For that, you would think they would at least have offered a complimentary reach-around.
It's been about six years since I've been in school, but even my most expensive semester of graduate school was only about $1750. Last I checked prices were still in the low $2000 range there. That's for 12+ credits (9+ credits in Graduate School), not a single 4 credit course.
These big schools and their even bigger price tags. What the flying fsck are they smoking?
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
In most civilized countries education is free not a commodity to be bought and sold, the market spoke and this universities education got handed the real market price, zero.
Wonder if the same people were responsible as their attempt at a new logo.
I'm not sure how they justify the cost, when it probably costs them all of $20 to manage the average online student. I guess people realize this, and for that kind of money they want the *full* college experience with hazing and all that.
I'll just stick with Coursera - it's free and awesome, (As long as you just want the knowledge and don't care about credits.)
$1,400 for a 4 credit class = $350 /credit. In the SUNY system here in New York, part time enrollment once you factor in fee runs ~$280 /credit in-state.
What the hell? Full classroom price for an online course? Are they serious? Who do they think they are? The RIAA?
Also, as a non-UC student, this is wildly useless to me. Free courses are excellent because they can help me through my existing classwork, or I can participate just to enrich my own learning.
For-credit is useless unless that credit applies at my own university. It might, but it would be a hassle to figure it out, and I am ALREADY paying full tuition at my university. Why would I pay another $1,400 for another class AND have to figure out if it transfers?
Terrible idea at a terrible price point.
I'm all for giving the ever bloating ranks of professors and staff a giant pay cut in this civilized country.
They get paid a LOT less in those other civilized countries.
Especially for an online class. I've never comprehended why the hell schools believe they can get away with charging more for an online class (usually usual tuition plus a fee). Having an instructor sitting at home in their underwear has got to be cheaper than finding room on campus, etc.
But that's not the trend that bothers me most. The trend that drives me absolutely insane is that an increasing number of instructors are choosing to become little more than glorified proctors. They're not there to help their students, there is a study center or a tutoring center for that. They're not there to consider the student's circumstances, like a computer they stick to routine/policy blindly. They're not there to come up with exciting, cutting edge material based on recent developments, they'll use the same tired assignments, tests, etc. from half a decade ago.
Fuck them.
If you're poor and over 24; student aid in America is quite generous
Few problems with paid courses approach.
First, there are free alternatives out there, like Coursera, that offer the same thing.
Second, consumer sees value in credentials, not education. Kinds of people that tend to value knowledge are more than capable of gaining it on their own. Kinds of people that would pay for education are only interested in acquiring credentials.
If the numbers are anywhere near right then they should easly recoop their money. Even if they fall short and have only 5000 sudents instead of 7000 then at $1400 each then they will earn 7 million dollars.
Who did the marketing research and how much ganja were they smoking when they did it?
The loss on this reminds me of an ill-considered plans where I worked ages ago. Someone bought a $20,000 system and contract to move EDI packaged records between institutions around the state. I has it foisted upon me (make it work, you peon) and spent the next year chasing down contacts and attending seminars. After a year the person who "bought" the product angrily wanted to know how it was I hadn't made any headway - this because none of the other institutions ever went through on the project and it was effectively dead. Then I had the gall to ask, so how much work are we saving by doing this anyway, and found we would move about 4 records per quarter. 4. End of project. That person should have been sacked, but was promoted. Go figure.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
6K a year for all you finish credits online for govenours college compared with 1400 for 4 credits seems expensive.
I'm sure there are even more cheaper places not even counting the free courses.
Why would anyone pay for online courses for UC general reqs at the regular UC prices when most of California's community colleges offer online courses for a tenth of the price, all of which are transferable. Whoever thought this up needs to spend some time out of their ivory tower.
I would consider paying $1,400/class for an online class through UC. It would look better than my community college and would be taken more seriously than a lot of 100% online colleges. However, not for the few crappy classes they offer. The course catalog only has a few courses, and they all are entry level and non-serious.
As a professional, I would be willing to pay $1,400 for an upper level finance course from a respected university, but Pre-Calc, intro psych, and "climate change" are all courses that don't matter where they are from.
What chinese kid with $1,400 hasn't already taken all the courses they offer?
If the appstores have taught us anything it's that you can make a lot of money off impulse buy pricing. If they dropped the fee to $14 / credit (so $56 for the course) they'd make it all back and more in 1-2 years.
I'm certain their fear is that those prices would eat into regular tuition as many would do online instead of in person. They'd have to run more numbers (maybe they have) to find the best market rate. Clearly they've priced themselves out of the market completely at their current rates though.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
FTFA (yeah, I know)
"UC leaders say they will focus online efforts mainly on students already enrolled at UC, in hopes that such classes will help them zip through school more quickly and cheaply. "
1. It's not cheap. I can go to a local community college and get an actual interactive course with an actual professor for a lot less than $350/credit. I can go to an actual local accredited 4 year university for a lot less than that too.
2. If you want outside students, you need to, you know, actually market to outside students instead of the students you already have.
--
BMO
What are you smoking?
He or she is not smoking anything. If you are poor and you take advantage of what is out there, you can get a college education paid for. There are thousands of state, federal, charitable and private programs that help pay for education. A good academic adviser can help you get access.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I was fine with online classes. Most /.ers out of school don't understand how popular hybrid is, especially for lower level classes. All the schools around me are doing great offering degree program enrolled for credit online / hybrid classes.
The mystery is why anyone would sign up, out of the blue, to blow $1400 on a precalc class (or whatever it is). Why?
If you want a degree you apply for admission and take online precalc for $1400 and are removed from this metric goal because you're a student now.
I do know some professions require a minimal level of continuing education, so out of the blue someone could sign up for "a class". But precalc isnt going to pass muster, its going to have to be vaguely upper level engineering, or maybe education. Not precalc.
So who is supposed to pay that kind of dough, for basically nothing?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
UOFP costs less then that and they offer more classes as well.
Ridiculously overpriced even without that idea.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
... they'll be fine, because at that rate, in year 7, they will have 16,384 enrollments, which is more than double the number they were hoping for.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I had no idea this existed.
The current course listing is as follows:
American Cybercultures: Principles of Internet Citizenship
Intro to Probability and Statistics for Business
General Psychology
Beauty and Joy of Computing
I guess it's not much of a loss, the only course I could have taken for credit was Psychology. A helpful suggestion would be for you guys to put the University wide requirements on here. The American History and Institution's requirement is generally unfulfilled by international students for instance.
The prestige of an American university does not warrant the cost. We pay for the implied value of the college we go to, and it is cheapened when the class is not taught in person.
The professor is one thing, but it's not connecting with your co-students that is the real downfall. Nothing sharpens your mind as much as having to discuss/cooperate/compete with other very bright minds and you're not networking the same way either. The professor is of course also good, but most of it is just putting all these people in the same room and watch the sparks fly.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Why would they get fired? They literally made THOUSANDS of dollars for the university. PLUS, they spent their budget for the year, so next year's advertising budget will of course need to be raised by 20%.
You're not thinking institutionally, and you know that one bucket is not connected to another bucket.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
My guess is that the precalc student is in high school. The student couldn't fit the class into his schedule with other classes he wanted to take, so taking it online at the university gets him the high school credit, and also gets you a college credit when you do end up enrolling wherever you go. That sort of thing happened a lot where I went to high school.
No one would ever know you took those classes at a community college. You would transfer them elsewhere to get the degree.
There is way to much put on getting a degree / a 4 year or more one.
I say more 2 years ones / more tech and trades schools with apprenticeships.
College costs to much and takes to long they has to be ways to cut time and costs.
Also not everyone is college material and a lot of people should not be there. There are people who are better in tech / trades schools.
The tech / trades schools are being held back and getting a bad rap from having to be part of the collgle system.
Look at tribeca flashpoint it's a real good school with lot's of real hands on work but it's only a 2 year place so in some cases it's will not get you past HR.
I saw a job posting for a master control job at a Major sports channel that wanted a 4 year communications degree so whats better some with 2 years of very hands on work in media working with hardware that you will see in master control or a 4 year communications degree that was a lot of theory and non tech communications parts to it.
Let me guess: the classes are restricted to non-UC students, making them mostly worthless.
LOL the really poor aren't going to have the credit limit to put more than a class or two on it anyway.
Its really aimed for tuition reimbursement people like I was for my BS degree (BS in several ways I guess). You pay the registrar or whoever in full on your CC, submit a reimbursement form to work, get a direct deposit right into checking in a week or so, write check or online bill pay to pay off the CC all done. Toward the end of my degree $employer required I submit a C or better report card or transcript to obtain reimbursement, so I had to float one semester's tuition at all times before getting reimbursed, which actually wasn't all that bad.
So my "tuition reimbursement" wasn't really free, depending on the exact CC billing cycle, etc, but still close enough to free not to matter very much.
TLDR is yeah I put an entire bachelors degree on a CC, got promptly reimbursed, it all turned out OK.
Earlier in my career I got an associates and I got a fixed monthly amount of money from the GI Bill and I had tuition bills which were lump sum, so I used the CC to smooth things out... takes about 3 months GI BIll income to pay off, then its time for another semester...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
But in 64 years, they will undergo gravitational collapse and turn into a neutron star.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Yeah, I think where they failed was getting: 1) serious, prestigious courses; that are 2) taught by top professors. Intro psych taught by a not-particularly-famous psych professor is not going to draw. But I think the concept could've worked if they had, say, a solid bioinformatics course taught by someone like David Haussler. There are plenty of UC professors across the campuses with similar draw potential. But they need to target higher-prestige than generic intro courses, because nobody is going to pay $1400 for precalc.
Mostly a rumor, but: I heard some discussions about it from some academic colleagues, and afaict part of the problem was that there was no real framework for actually setting up the courses. They were hoping profs would volunteer to do it, without providing any real guidance or resources, and you would teach it in addition to your regular teaching. Unsurprisingly, they didn't get a lot of volunteers.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
they also have more trades schools / apprenticeships as well. Not just one size fit's all college systems.
How many people outside the university actually know about this? I doubt many. $4.3 million spent on marketing seems to say they tried but I get the feeling they failed.
Google and census.gov think there are 20 million full time college / university students. There's probably about as many non-traditional students as traditional students. Doing some estimation and division, they should have been able to at least junk mail a significant fraction of the possible students.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
What are you smoking?
He or she is not smoking anything. If you are poor and you take advantage of what is out there, you can get a college education paid for. There are thousands of state, federal, charitable and private programs that help pay for education. A good academic adviser can help you get access.
Probably half of all students are already on some sort of grant, scholarship or other financial aid. I once worked with the financial aid office at a college and about half were getting at least some assistance there.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...assuming they quadruple enrollment every year. By the 7th year, if my math is correct (and it likely isn't), over four *thousand* people will be enrolled, and even at $1400/class, that's over $5.5M. So they'll be able to pay back the loan no problem!
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
You can get it (Calculus Made Easy) for free: http://books.google.com/books?id=BrhBAAAAYAAJ
The problem is with schools that don't let you pay using a credit card. Then, on most credit cards, cash-outs ("balance transfer" checks) have higher APR, and are usually limited to a part of your credit line. I know of at least one Big Ten school that doesn't take credit cards for tuition. They only accept bank transfers online and checks in person (perhaps maybe cash too).
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Well, at least they can brag about small class-sizes and consequently the best teacher-student ratio among top-tier schools, worldwide.
Probably
- not economics,
- not business plan 101,
- not calculus,
- not linear optimisation,
- not common sense and
- not "let's google if these courses can be found for free" either.
Privacy is terrorism.
Where on earth did they spend that huge advertising budget? They could've bought a superbowl ad, hundreds of regular tv spots, thousands of radio spots, tens of thousands of online impressions. But nobody here has even heard about it, including current UC students.
Why pay so much when you can audit most courses for $10 - $200 at almost any university? Ivy League schools like Princeton charge a paltry $150. It is a tough sell getting someone to spend $1400 to audit a boring online course at a state school.
A high school diploma used to provide some confidence that the graduate could read and write. Now, it's little more than a gold star for attendance (and avoidance of criminal behavior.) That's why there's an emphasis on four year degrees. If you are lacking the basic skills of reading, writing, math, and science, you simply won't advance.
A tech program is fine for those people who aren't cut out for furthering their education. I'm not saying anything bad about them, as they serve a very useful purpose for a lot of people. But you should recognize they are producing people with only a subset of skills, that are trained only for a specific career, and someone with a plumbing certificate is not going to be expected or even permitted to do anything but plumbing. On the other hand, while a degree in English Literature isn't going to land you a job as an engineer, it shows a certain ability to communicate and to learn. Such a person could easily end up in marketing, business analysis, management, or technical writing.
Ironically, your post is filled with a number of spelling and grammatical errors that telegraph your lack of language skills. If I were hiring, and I read a cover letter from you that had that many mistakes, it'd be in the bin before I got to your signature. I need people who can communicate clearly, regardless of the job I'm hiring them for.
I would be quite surprised if you could land a job at a media company like a sports network. Their entire product is a professional looking stream of information, and a person with an unfinished education isn't going to add value. For example, you couldn't be trusted as an editor or producer, because you wouldn't recognize poor quality content. You might land a job as an electrician or a grip, but you would go no further.
Here's the bottom line: people with four year degrees (at least) are doing the hiring. Therefore they get to set the bar - not you.
but a 4 years can easy be trimmed down to maybe 2-3 years by cutting a lot of the fluff and filler.
So you are saying that going to tribeca flashpoint an unfinished education?? They do real world work there and I say it better to have people who have done real work to be trusted as an editor or producer. Well someone with mostly theory based education wouldn't recognize poor quality content or they may say why X like that that if they went to tech school they would learn that that's the way it works.
that's the other Northwestern college is not the the big ten one.
How is an online pre-calc course worth 1400? Solve.
I've worked in Master Control at a state broadcaster for 7 years or so and no college degree would be of help there. Electrical engineering perhaps (I've got no special degrees) but mostly a good technical knowledge will do fine. Today it is mostly computer skills that is needed.
In Colorado, every B.S. (probably all undergrads) require the exact same 64 credit (2 year's worth of normal terms), so the legislature passed a law that anyone taking those courses -- being identical afterall -- have guaranteed transfer to any other institution that offers that same course. So I take my 2 years at my community college, and my last 2 years at my 4 year (like CU Boulder) and I save money, right? Wrong. The effect was every single community college increased tuition per credit hour or quality hour or whatever the fuck metric they're using now. Suddenly I'm paying only $50 less per Cr at my community college for a course I could take at the 4 year, but the education is not even close to the same quality.
If quality institutions made online per course enrollment an option, this could drastically change the financial landscape and put the students in power. Finally turn higher institutions into knowledge factories rather than scandalous money schemes they've become today. Also it would allow me to double up on credits, take summer credits, etc. This, of course, pending my degree contract, which states among other things no matter what transfer courses I bring in the last 64 credicts are to be taken on campus. ugh.
Not to mention the networking potential - at least some of your classmates at a prestigious university are likely to go on to positions of power and/or prestige. If they know you to be competent (or even just know you) you can potentially leverage that into more lucrative career opportunities for yourself. Without actually spending considerable time on campus all you get for your money is a lecture that *hopefully* clarifies and expands upon what you've read in the book.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You can get college credit for your military service.
http://aarts.army.mil/
You need SSN, Birthdate, and Basic active service date. Many colleges will grant you at least some credit, based upon what you did in the military of course. Lol mine only recommends 4 credit hours for my 5 years in service. But that was because I was a grunt. If you were in a technical position, it can be very different.
Note: This is only for enlisted, officers have something different.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
The problem is that a four year degree is no longer a sign that the graduate can read and write. Most people graduate High School with about a 7th grade education. It is becoming increasingly common that many 4 year degrees are only an indication of an 8th grade education.
Here's a program that actually looks appealing, and I'd consider paying for it (I think about $2k for the year-long program):
http://www.pce.uw.edu/certificates/data-science.html
It's a graduate certificate in data science. It's my understanding the guy behind it (J. Nathan Kutz) is the same one who teaches a couple of the data science courses on Coursera for free. So for some money and a bit more rigor in your work and assignments, you get an actual certificate you can put on your resume.
Here are the Coursera courses:
https://www.coursera.org/course/compmethods
https://www.coursera.org/course/scientificcomp
If Andrew Ng and Stanford offered some kind of real credit and certificates, I'd be all over that.
I don't disagree entirely, and lean Democratic myself, but I don't think you can blame the Republicans entirely for this one. A bunch of the plutocrats on the board are Republican appointees, but a bunch are Democratic appointees also. Perhaps the most egregious one is Richard C. Blum, an investment banker who owns significant stakes in for-profit universities, so directly benefits from the weakening of their public competition. Oh, and he just happens to be married to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm not sure I agree with all of your post. I would put forth a different argument than either this argument or the grandparent argument-
There are a lot of completely worthless 2 year degrees for white collar positions, just as there are worthless 4 year degrees. Apprenticeships seem tough (I have never done one) but generally don't lead to poverty. The real problem is that laying out a career path for the rest of your life is probably beyond the abilities of most 18-year olds. I did a good job of it, picking an in-demand field with high pay where I can advance and not be bored, but a lot of my peers did not choose wisely. Quality career counseling at the 16-18 year age would pay off for society. Problem is, the very people it would help the most would not see the value in it.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
And you forget banks. Very generous banks can give you some money.
I've taken a look at the syllabus (http://www.uconline.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Math-1A-Syllabus-SAMPLE.pdf ) You see this in college ? (and 40 hours http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/lowerdivcourses/math1A ?) You don't have that kind of courses at 16-17 years in high school in the US ?
(to be fair, it was also part of the program at my European university, but in a more bigger analysis package, and that was seen in something like 10 hours in the start of the 80 or 90 hours course to be sure that everyone had the required level. But there was a math exam to pass to apply for the university. All that stuff was in the program of the exam)
tell that to HR / who put need X degree in the job posting.
Suppose 25 students (including me) hired a teacher directly, and paid him/her $100 per hour.
The teacher lectures four hours/week. We also pay the teacher for four hours lecture prep time. So we pay him/her $800/week for the lectures. This $800 is divided among the 25 students, so we each pay $32/week for the lectures.
Besides the lectures, we also each pay the teacher for a half hour of meeting with us individually, to
- grade our homework,
- answer our questions, and
- ask us questions, to see what we do and don't understand.
(The teacher spending time grading our homework is really important. I hate to hand in my answer to a programming question, and have the teacher just say, "Yea, that looks ok." I want the teacher to tell me what my mistakes are. I want him/her to tell me, "This method call is deprecated, and that algorithm works, but here's a more efficient way to do it.", etc.)
So each of us pays $32 for the lectures, and $50 for individual instruction, or $82/week. That's $820 for a 10-week class, which is less than UC's $1,400 cost. Plus this class would have only 25 students, and we'd each meet with the teacher for 1/2 hour each week.
The teacher gets $800/week for the lectures and lecture prep time, and $1,250/week for individual tutoring and homework correction. That's $2,050, which is pretty good for working 20.5 hours.
We'd have to rent a lecture hall, and rent a lab for science classes. But I think it would still cost less than UC. Also, it doesn't involve any UC bureaucracy or cost Calif. taxpayers anything. Also, if we didn't like our teacher, we could "fire" him/her, and hire another teacher for our next class.
We wouldn't get credit for the class directly. But maybe we could take a test in school, and get credit for passing the test. Or maybe skip the UC system completely, and take a non-UC test like the SCJP Java test.
I'm not sure when you when to school. Now, with a pell grant, state grant, and Stafford loans I've have no problem paying for school without working. Though now loans, at least federal loans, aren't really a problem to payback under the Income Based Repayment program.
Under IBR your loan payments are set at 10% of your adjusted gross income past 150% of the federal poverty level, and capped at a maximum of what you would pay on a 10 year repayment plan. After 20 years the remaining balance is discharged and counted as income.
Maybe it's just me, but I find $50,000+ for undergraduates in loans that you may only payback a fraction of, and don't have to make payment if you aren't making money to be a generous offer to students with little to no credit.
After you're 24 you qualify for independent status, and your eligibility for aid goes up. Especially if you have kids as well.
It's ok, we passed prop 30, because not passing prop 30 would have resulted to funding of UC being reduced. Assuming it won't be cut anyway, they'll still have money for clowniness like this.
Oh, and when I say "we passed prop 30", I mean "we" as in people who were actually allowed to vote, which means not me. I just get to pay taxes.
Not that I'm opposed to subsidizing education. But it has to be possible to do better than burning through more than $5M to offer 5 classes and underperform your sales projection by 99.9%.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
In the Free Democratic People's Republic of Mexifornia the less money you make from such things the more heroically revolutionary and counter reactionary they are! If they need to cover their costs just make it more expensive for the running dog lackey plutocrats!
Then charge the UC students themselves even more for the course compared to the classroom version then cancel the classroom version - - like UNC Chapel Hill does.
I'll just stick with Coursera - it's free and awesome, (As long as you just want the knowledge and don't care about credits.)
Unfortunately that "not caring about credits" is what is going to eventually cripple the university system. The free MOOCs are widening education, but they're liable to draw a fair amount of custom out of the paid-for distance education sector, which means that the free stuff is going to increase the cost of accredited education in the medium term.
And even leaving aside the matter of credit points and certificates, a MOOC is not equivalent to a good paid-for online course, because the assessment is far more limited. No number of MOOCs are equivalent to a degree because you're missing the individually marked essay questions, the supervised practical projects etc.
MOOCs may just be killing the university... in a bad way.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Wow thats wild. I guess to avoid processing fees and people who drop out reversing the charges.
That is interesting, that anything other than tuition, if its faulty or fails to meet expectations, you can reverse the charges, but get a degree in art history and end up unemployable and you're just stuck with the bill. You should be able to mail the credential back and have the charges removed, ending up as if nothing ever happend, just like anything else you pay for via credit card.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
As someone who has been to both a real four year college and a tech school, I personally think the tech school was worth the money spent. It introduced me to all the types of technology in use at the time and what the future might bring, plus gave me the history about the technology. I should point out that I was in college at the beginning of the PC era, where new technologies were popping out every year.
The thing is, though, that I have spoken with people who are recently graduated from a number of different tech schools, and their learning is not at all like mine. They were much more heavily instructed in the software aspect and don't really know much more about the hardware other than a general overview. Tech schools must have a balance in what is taught instead of this heavy leaning towards specific vendor products. Otherwise, they are graduating educated idiots.
I would rather hire new people who have hands-on experience with computers in the wild than any of the tech school graduates I have met over the past ten years. Those tech grads did not have the skills to troubleshoot hardware or even know what to look for unless they used a software program.
As far as online courses, I have taken a few over the years on things that I had an interest in. Personally, I would prefer to be at a live class instead of online because there is more social interaction available and it is a richer learning environment. However, some of my interests are simply not taught at a college any where close so online is the only option. However, colleges offering online classes might want to use some of this wonderful technology to make it more like a virtual classroom instead of what is in use right now.
Agrisea Tsunami - Epyc Servers... https://agrisea.net/products
Good point. Although that 4 year degree is no guarantee that a person can read or write.
I teach a GenEd class that involves a term paper and other strong writing components. It's sad how many upper division students cannot write intelligibly. *Many* have poor grammar and poor spelling. A considerable number aren't *that* good--it's a challenge to understand what they're trying to say.
To be fair, some write fairly well, but they're in the minority.
A significant number of our CompSci students come in sufficiently unprepared as to require remedial math and/or remedial english before they can take any of our classes. (The school offers these remedial courses, but they do *not* get college credit for them.) Of the students who require such remediation, less than 1 in 10 ever finish our program. There's a case to be made that those students really don't belong in college.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
"Nothing sharpens your mind as much as having to discuss/cooperate/compete with other very bright minds"
Thus we have Slashdot; I have learned so much from it over the past twelve or so years. :-)
BTW, Alfie Kohn on "Competition versus Excellence":
http://www.alfiekohn.org/miscellaneous/cve.htm
"In a comprehensive review of 245 classroom studies that found a significant achievement difference between cooperative and competitive environments, David Johnson and Roger Johnson of the University of Minnesota reported that 87 percent of the time the advantage went to the cooperative approach. That result concerns bottom-line learning and doesn't even include the enhanced ability to get along with other people. In visiting classrooms where cooperative learning is used, I like to ask students to describe the experience in their own words. One ten-year-old boy thought a moment and replied, "It's like you have four brains." By contrast, a competitor's single brain often shuts off when given no reason to learn except to triumph over his or her classmates."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If only life was that way :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
A tech program is fine for those people who aren't cut out for furthering their education.
Wait a minute; are you saying that getting a degree is the only way to further your education? Many people just don't do well with certain TYPES of education - such as those provided in a college/university - but it is completely possible for them to go into a tech program while furthering their education on their own.
Ironically, your post is filled with a number of spelling and grammatical errors that telegraph your lack of language skills. If I were hiring, and I read a cover letter from you that had that many mistakes, it'd be in the bin before I got to your signature. I need people who can communicate clearly, regardless of the job I'm hiring them for.
You're assuming that cover letter would be in English...
He may be unable to land a job at an American sports network, but the sports networks pretty much the only networks making a profit nowadays. Everything else is bleeding customers, and those customers are turning to internet entertainment. Few of the biggest money makers in internet entertainment have a 4 year degree. Many of them aren't even out of high school.
So if people can manage to not starve to death for 6 years or so, they're set?
I want to change careers and am considering getting a computer programming certificate from UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Extension. Some courses are in person, some online. I have a 4-year BA degree and am currently working as an office manager. I am also 50 years old. Is there any way I could get an entry level job with this certificate or am I just kidding myself?
Tiny problem with that is that people try to kill you in the process - both your own side (through incompetence) and the other side (through policy).
Which is not too different to trying to negotiate the sports twats at some colleges.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
It's more for people who are looking to go to college after the service. No one in their right mind would join the military for college credit.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
That may well be true, but I've heard of US military recruiters using that line in recruiting talks, and I've seen people (two of my hall-mates when I was at uni) who have taken the military (to be precise - Officer Training Corps) shilling to fund themselves through college and then found that they actually had to go to war (Gulf War, Round 1 ; for Rick the airman) or had to pay back the tuition as well as go to war when they repeatedly failed their exams (Gulf War, Round 1 ; for Bob the Medic). The airman couldn't cut it as a pilot, but had to do something in aircraft maintenance - fair enough and unlikely to get shot at. The medic went to do nursing care in forward positions, and on his return wasn't released from his "reserves" obligations but was bankrupted by re-paying the military's grants that he'd accepted on the expectation of becoming a fully-qualified doctor.
Which didn't surprise me in the slightest. He'd known that it was coming for several years, since he failed his first year.
That said, the third guy I knew receiving an OTC grant did get through OK. But his family were all officers already, and his English degree must have been so helpful in shooting wogs.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Well, to be fair, I didn't actually PAY for my tuition, that was covered by my Research Assistantship... I got paid a lot less than $22k, though. Probably about a third of that. Lower cost of living and all that.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them