I was actually shocked my first semester in college. I was hoping for smarter kids, but I met smarter ones in high school. One of my friends told me, "I thought I'd run across kids who discussed Kant, but was I surprised."
I wouldn't go so far as Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap") but I'd support Pareto's 80/20 Rule (as in "Eighty percent of students shouldn't be in college").
I attended two universities and the last one was the largest producers of education students in a very large state. I never met a smart Education major except a friend of mine - and he went on to get a M.A. in Economics. The rest of the students, who were all girls, weren't much smarter than rocks.
We don't need an Education major, and I'd close everyone of them down (my friend told me one of his instructors told him, "Public schools are as close to prison as most people will experience").
Hard science degrees are a different story. But Women's Studies? Worthless. Black Studies? The same - worthless. (All of the data in "soft sciences" is too easy to fake and most cannot be replicated. That makes it not just worthless, but dangerous.)
Only once did I see a library in a student's room. Partying is just fine - I did a lot of it - but college is supposed to be about getting an education, too.
A lot of students would be better off going to technical school or being apprentices. Why pretend they're intellectuals and scholars when they're clearly not?
It's got to the point you can get a heck of an education on the internet. Better than most schools. And that is fine with me.
The more colleges that close down, the better I like it. It'll decentralize things, which is always a good thing.
Eighty percent of colleges should be closed down - and no one should be allowed in college until their IQ is at least 120.
the japs are smart to cut social science and humanities departments.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but college / university are very big business for many banks, corporations, not to mention government agencies. The fact that they all take advantage of inexperienced and trusting yutes should shame them. But then the leaders of Planned Parenthood aren't ashamed of selling baby parts, so there you go.
ReplyDelete"Eighty percent of colleges should be closed down - and no one should be allowed in college until their IQ is at least 120. "
ReplyDeleteI'd actually say that an IQ of 130 should be the absolute minimum.
Colleges would have to shrink, which means teachers losing their jobs. Aren't they unionized?
ReplyDelete"I'd actually say that an IQ of 130 should be the absolute minimum."
ReplyDelete125 is the 95th percentile. That's high enough.
Great post. Fifty years ago, the phrase "college-educated" carried a whiff of intelligence. Today it means less than nothing.
ReplyDelete"Today it means less than nothing."
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote, I was shocked at the ignorance and stupidity of college students.
Do you believe you can increase one's IQ?
ReplyDeleteWald
^ In short term, yes (more like arrest the decline, compared to the corresponding cohort). Familiarity with the test from repeating it also brings marginal gain.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.mrctv.org/blog/university-california-seeks-create-right-be-free-acts-and-expressions-tolerance - shutting these grievance factories down would be a turn for better future.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mrctv.org/blog/u-ca-profs-told-not-say-us-land-opportunity-its-racist-sexist-microaggression - more idiocy from the same 'institution of higher learning'.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely not. Stupid people are taking on an anti-intellectual mindset that has no place in a modern society.
ReplyDeleteIQ is no measurement of ability. Consider Vox Day: he supposedly has a high IQ but is so socially undeveloped that anyone over the age of 15 with a triple digit IQ - won't work with him.
Our education system is broken. Instead of educating Americans we are running diploma mills for stupid people. Like Bob - I was betrayed by the public school system and it's unionized, pooch screwing teachers. We very much DO need to educate our people, regardless of IQ.
Men should be formally taught the STEM projects at a greatly accelerated pace. When our grandparents were in school they learned Latin in high school. Today they are teaching remedial English in university. The system is broken and that is why you didn't get anything out of it. We need to make school back into a meritocratic institution - and separate the dullards and lazy from those that are intelligent and industrious. Once we do that, we can set about providing an environment where anyone with a work ethic and a moderate intellect can improve himself.
I found college a huge disappointment, and the universities bigger ones. Most of the students exhibited no intellectual curiosity whatsoever. Many professors were dull and really needed a course in public speaking. Most parents send their kids to college because they heard from their friends and the TV that every kid should attend college, get the magic degree and then have a leg up on the other Joes. HR reps make a college degree a prerequisite for jobs that need no college education. The colleges and universities have gone from a business into an unethical racket.
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly what I concluded.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11895590/University-student-union-bans-free-Tex-Mex-sombreros-for-being-racist.html - is 'Mexican' a race?
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