[ExI] jarring change

[spike at rainier66.com]

>...> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] jarring change

On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 5:50 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>... From here it looks like the Southern Baptist Church would take the
honors:  dogma is set in stone...
>
>>... So you see, I have little experience outside the ivory tower.  I am
anxious to see what people think about economics.   bill w

>...There's also the issue that many people see higher education, especially
from an ideological perspective, as very influential...To me, this seems so
out of touch with the actual influence of the schools...
Regards,  Dan


Thanks Dan and BillW for the thought-provoking comments.

I will only deal with what I originally had in mind with the question (I
have a lot more in mind now (but time is limited today.))

To me, the college professor with tenure on a nice campus is the greatest
place to be in the world, for a hundred reasons: you get to stand in front
of an attentive audience talking about stuff you know well, lots of
attractive young people (which is a benefit even if you have nothing
illegitimate in mind at all (and one would suppose even more a benefit if
you do)) a nice, low-pressure interesting environment, fun activities
everywhere; what better career is there?  OK chief photographer at the
Playboy Mansion, but other than that... college professor is the best you do
for interesting pleasant careers.

People who have it made know they have it made.  They don't want things to
change, and I understand.  If I were smart enough to get into that job, I
wouldn't want change either.  I have a former college roommate who got his
PhD from Purdue and has been a professor of engineering at our alma mater
ever since, working his ass off for a pittance, and will flat out say it's
the greatest life he could imagine and he is happier than a pig in slop.  He
means it and I believe him.

Covid hands the university system a jarring change that none of them wanted,
but I have known for a long time was going to happen eventually.  I didn't
foresee that it would happen as a result of an epidemic, but I shoulda: the
man after whom I named my own son invented calculus while home on university
lockdown because of a plague epidemic in London.

Consider USC.  The engineering training they dish out there is pretty
similar at the undergrad level as it is at any state university (but costs a
lotta lotta.)  The degree is more valuable of course, with its prestige, but
the actual education at either place (at undergrad level) is pretty similar.
All engineering students hafta master a pretty similar set of skills.  

The USC education has additional benefits however.  An engineering student
can make contacts there with money people (the smart students and the rich
students need each other.)

Without that additional benefit... the USC education isn't worth the 75K a
year.  Students might as well sit out the plague semesters and take classes
at the local state U.

spike