Bill Gates: Internet To Make Universities Obsolete

[bv90andy]

he stole this idea from Dan Brown aka pogobat.

 

[chispas]

Don't rely on professors, folks. If you want to know something, nothing stops you from pursuing the autodidact method except your self-motivation. Forget staring at screens, and studying some professor through an eye-glass! That professor you listen to may certainly have mastered his/her discipline, but beyond that he is a common dilettante. Expertise is for the narrow-minded - with the Internet, we should all have the ability to become rich and diverse polymaths of human knowledge. Expertise is merely a piss in the ocean in comparison to a life lived broadly, in examination of all that attends your interest. We're taught to believe that the "jack of all trades master of none" is a terrible dictum, and perhaps it has its flaws, but I am not arguing such an old point. I am arguing that you need to develop your mind beyond the discipline you choose for yourself. No professors will help you to do that - you must be true to yourself.

And on the question of books...its called a second-hand book store, or better yet, an online second-hand bookstore such as BetterWorldBooks.

 

[alexinnes]

[citation][nom]cadder[/nom]Some of the biggest and most intimidating books I've seen are books you buy in book stores as manuals for Excel,
Word, and modern programming languages. Maybe Bill should work on improving that.And yes I wonder if his view of college is based on his
much different experience from the rest of us. The internet is great, books are great, but sometimes a person standing there in front of a
chalkboard can do in a few minutes what you cannot do in hours trying to do it yourself with books and the internet.[/citation]


The reason programming books are that large is because they are soo detailed. I am in my 4th year of web programming and my programming books
are like my bible. If they try and make the books smaller and less intimidating then i feel you could lose out on some important detail and i am a firm believer
that detail is the key to everything. I am not saying that bigger books are better, i am saying that if the books have to be that big it is
becasue the subject matter has a lot to it.
In my view, i feel that Bill Gates has addressed a good point. Online collage courses would be a great idea. I am lucky enough to get funded
to study away from home, as the course i am studying i cant study near my parentals house. Online courses could fix this, if you have the drive
and the ambition to learn a subject then doing it online would work. This does not mean that we should do away with actual collages and universitys.
Because sometimes its easier to learn when you are talking to someone else rather than reading it from a book.

 

[Guest]

i feel bill gates is generaly right. the cost of books at university can be easily be replaced with online low coat downloads. mainline universities lack the flexability for a student that has to work. They deserve to be challenged. At the moment there are not many good credible online universities they will come. they will not challange the mainline universities immediately. even in this new commputer world it will take more than ten years to change ths dominance of mainline universities.

 

[gcarlin]

Being taught in a lecture hall with a real live professor is something I cant see an online course replacing. I recently finished an online correspondence class, and compared to my regular fall/winter classes on campus, I feel I didn't get nearly the same incite into the particular subject.

Taking a thermodynamics class and not being able to ask the professor a question about what he/she is doing at that point during the lecture would be incredibly difficult.

An engineering degree online would be next to impossible. The amount of group and hands on work that you have durring your 4 year degree would be very difficult to receive through your computer screen.

 

[LORD_ORION]

Not only that, but there should be end to end educational paths all mapped out for you.

What good are the best lectures if you are missing the foundation to understand why.

eg: Want to learn quantum physics? Here is the path from beginning to end. Jump in at the point where you have a foundation of knowledge.

 

[fyasko]

i wonder what hood "billion dollar" Bill reps?

 

[fyasko]

[citation][nom]wikiwikiwhat[/nom]I always love Bill Gates gang signs. That dude is so O.G.[/citation]

hilarious, simply hilarious. West Sieeeed

 

[LORD_ORION]

Also, who wants to be bet in 5 years all texts will be in e-reader format?

You'll carry around an e-reader, not 100 lbs in books.

 

[loomis86]

Most college degrees(as in numbers awarded, not as in kinds available) are utter trash. Doctor, lawyer, engineer...these are not trash degrees. But they comprise a small percent. Math/science fields are good programs. I still think the best way to learn math is with a black and white textbook and pencil and paper. Nowdays they fill textbooks up with glossy color photos, color graphs and charts, and silly diagrams and sketches.

waste of space and money.

 

[omikron48]

While online courses may be effective for some courses, I don't think it will be right for some. Just consider the courses that invest heavily on their facilities for their program, like engineering or chemistry courses. just how practical would it be for online student to set up a lab for themselves at home or wherever they are in order to conduct their lab requirements, not to mention the pricey software licenses sometimes involved.

It may be ok for programming courses, or maybe even research based ones, but it wouldn't translate easily for all.

 

[Guest]

My question is how will students be tested? How can the public be assured that the student (and not an imposter) is actually the one taking the test? A degree is much less meaningful if it can easily be obtained by cyber-trickery.

 

[christopherknapp]

The Internet won't make them obsolete, but the realization that paying $100,000 for an education you can get by simply reading material and putting yourself in the right place at the right time, is completely farking ridiculous ... that might do it.

I went to highschool, and I make 6-digits. School is a complete joke, especially in the US of A. From the time we are brought up, the first question we are always asked is "what do you want to be" ... "oh, you will have to go to a great school to do that."

It's a business, and the government has made it so. Nowhere else on earth do people pay such exorbitant amounts of money for so-called "education" from superiors.

 

[iqvl]

In 80% of my courses at university, Wikipedia offers much better lecture than those doctors and professors. Many doctors and professors either sucks in teaching or more horribly don't even understand what they are teaching.

p.s. I enrolled in an electronic course a few years ago and all of my classmates and me learned nothing from the lecture. You know what?! The lecturer told us that "This is not my specialty" in the last lecture. $#Q)!*%_^%#&*

 

[ronch79]

Online Universities will perhaps never be able to kick out real Universities, but rather, are increasingly becoming a worthy consideration for those people who are too busy to attend school physically, or perhaps those who are sick and would just like a formal education for the heck of it.

 

[irh_1974]

[citation][nom]brennon7[/nom]I hope they throw away those crazy&^%$ text books. It's the biggest scam in the world $185 for a MATH BOOK? They should be free to download.[/citation]
Some are, if you know the right (torrent)site, eh? eh?

 

[Guest]

When American schools manage to teach their students the different between "could care less", and "could not care less" then maybe they can start climbing up that graduation rate ladder again.

 

[kriskl]

is this the future Bill?

http://opentuition.com/

 

[archange]

He pointed out that the equivalent books in Asia are three times smaller

Could that happen because they don't use the Latin Alphabet there? xD

 

[randytobybigtummy]

The equivalent textbooks in Asia are three times smaller? I was born in Hong Kong and those books are just as heavy as the ones in US. In fact, they are the same publishers. Maybe the Asian Cliff Notes Bill Gate is referring.