Bill Gates: Internet To Make Universities Obsolete

[ctmk]

now days some or most of the distance learning are online based. Directly to universities. e.g. http/www.purpletrain.com/

 

[ctmk]

[citation][nom]ctmk[/nom]now days some or most of the distance learning are online based. Directly to universities. e.g. http/www.purpletrain.com/[/citation]

imo it is cheaper that way, not all families can afford higher education by sending their kids to overseas and local uni/college is packed full.

 

[a-a-a]

I dropped out of High School, have a GED and make six figures in the IT field without a single degree or certification.

What you know and what you can do surpasses anything a university or governing body can hand you. I'm not trying to diminish the value of a degree, its there, but its only as good as the person holding it.

Some of the dumbest people on the planet have degrees.

 

[Tamz_msc]

[citation][nom]brennon7[/nom]I hope they throw away those crazy&^%$ text books. It's the biggest scam in the world $185 for a MATH BOOK? They should be free to download.[/citation]
Yes, cost of books is very high abroad.But here in College Square, Kolkata, India you can get that same book for 5$,second hand, depending on its condition.

 

[Guest]

Problem majority of the information available on the internet is pure garbage.
The sources must be correctly cited more importantly a trusted source has earned its reputation usually from an academic institute.
I use the OCW on MIT at times, the video lectures are very good indeed. Self learning/teaching requires much motivation. Be honest how many college/university students would even bother to read notes online, in their own time .etc?
We still have to spoon feed these kids, half of them dont even bother turning up to lectures. I think for many university is just a social call, the next step after school whereby you attain a degree, by memorizing past exam paper solutions. I do not agree with the assessment methods of professors who recycle questions. Written examinations are far from accurate when governing ones intellect.
Video lectures are flawed in that they assume each student learns/understands in the same way, audio & visual.
Where as at an institution the professor has the advantage of human interation and being able to assess body langauge of the student.
Vital reinforcement of knowledge in small group tutorials/seminars doesnt exist online. Group conferencing may work but it lacks the 5 human senses, and again human-human interaction which is important.
Besides we need the researchers too, so sorry Bill your plan may work in the ideal world but as you know we are living in one far from it.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Just to pile on to whatever has been said.
First, perhaps the most important part of the education that I received at University was the give-and-take of discussions, debates, and outright arguments with my fellow students, teachers, and world-class researchers and writers. And unavoidable exposure to points of view that didn't exist in the area where I grew up.
Second, that doesn't look like a gang sign to me. With all due respect to a truly great physicist, I thought at first glance that that was an older picture of Stephen Hawking.

 

[WyomingKnott]

[citation][nom]LORD_ORION[/nom]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.[/citation]
Tried that, gave them away for free at Princeton. The students found them mostly fine for reading in their dorm rooms, but inadequate for keeping up in class and taking notes.
The book is not as simple as we think. It "evolved" over thousands of years to fit the way our brains want to absorb content. It's not an arbitrary invention.

 

[WyomingKnott]

I can't seem to stop commenting on this.

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

Umm, that would mean that if the US textbook weighs three pounds, the one in Asia would have to be tied to a string to keep it from floating away with its negative six point weight. Do they print on balloons there?
One third the size, perhaps?

 

[Guest]

online classes can never replace social interaction on campus
study buddies, making friends, hanging out
don't listen to bill gates
remember he's a drop out, what does he know about a good education

 

[husker]

[citation][nom]WyomingKnott[/nom]I can't seem to stop commenting on this.Umm, that would mean that if the US textbook weighs three pounds, the one in Asia would have to be tied to a string to keep it from floating away with its negative six point weight. Do they print on balloons there?One third the size, perhaps?[/citation]
+10
Nicely put. I wish I had caught that! So often people throw out phrases like "3 times smaller" without thought to the true meaning of what they are saying.

 

[leakingpaint]

Ha Ha no dude. What do you think you do at varsity? Study? Maybe a little but kids go to varsity to do the things you can't do anywhere else for a few years! Have fun and get the experience you need to survive once you're finished your "studies"

It's the interaction with other people which makes your studies more bearable and your life a little more fun before you start work.

 

[tburns1]

[citation][nom]wikiwikiwhat[/nom]I always love Bill Gates gang signs. That dude is so O.G.[/citation]
Oh man ...I never made that connection before. That is freakin' hilarious!

 

[Guest]

This is so painful to read...

What do you want? Training to be a technician who will know how to work with/fix what someone else designed and created or be the one who designed and created? And, NO; writing a library for reading data from a remote server or local file or collating some data or designing a wonderful GUI is not the kind of design/creation that I'm talking about. I'm talking about who created the new material that enables your multi core computer chip to run at 2+GHz and use under 100 Watts, or the people who came up with things like FFT, R-Trees, DFMSP, BFSMP algorithms that you can find prepackaged in a library or the people who figured out how DNA works, how information is encoded in neurons and their synapses...

There is a huge difference.

Graduate School is not meant to be easy, straight forward or convenient. It's meant to be challenging and demanding so that all those who would not cut it (be it because they lack the natural talents or because they lack the dedication required) are weeded out and only the best of the crop makes it through. After all, I don't want someone who is just as good as I am wasting resources coming up with the new science and technology of the future. I want someone better than me so that all the resources allocated to it are more efficiently spent.

Do instructors suck? Yes, some of them do. Do you know why? Because if it were up to them they would not waste their time teaching a bunch of mediocre students who are not interested in real learning but only in being given recipes that allow them to do the bare minimum to make as much money with as little work as possible. Why do you think that there are so many international gradstudents?

Bill Gates has the vision of a college drop. Does he even know anything about gradschool first hand? How can he made comments about graduate education here vs asia when the best gradschools anywhere are here? How many americans do you see moving to Asia for grad school? How about the other way around? Internationals don't all come to gradschool here to stay. A large number returns to their homecountry; they came because this is where the highest level research is conducted. I'm not saying that the rest of the world sucks, but this is where most of the cutting edge research is conducted.

And for the record:
1) I'm not American.
2) I did attend gradschool in the US.
3) I was among those who did not cut it when it came to finishing my PhD.
4) Unlike most of my classmates in gradshool I did enjoy teaching very much.
5) I work in industry now.

 

[bak0n]

[citation][nom]jimmysmitty[/nom]In most high caliber colleges, there is no hands on experience. [/citation]
Apparently your idea of high caliber colleges is limited. Try checking out schools such as Santa Clara University which have small class sizes and lots of one on one instruction with the professor. This is not a Cal state level college set up, which personally, I'm getting better instruction from UoP Online than.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

Yup, Asia wins in Education, but perhaps soon that will be reversed, and my child to be will have a good education.

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]christopherknapp[/nom]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.[/citation]

McGill University would cost you about 14K$CA for a whole 4 year Engineering degree, if you are Canadian that is.

[citation][nom]leakingpaint[/nom]Ha Ha no dude. What do you think you do at varsity? Study? Maybe a little but kids go to varsity to do the things you can't do anywhere else for a few years! Have fun and get the experience you need to survive once you're finished your "studies"It's the interaction with other people which makes your studies more bearable and your life a little more fun before you start work.[/citation]

Except for mickey mouse degrees, you gotta do a little more then that to get through.

 

[K-zon]

I feel the education involved comes down to the person, places, and things, and why, what, and how. Just getting to Universities and Colleges can be hard to do, and i dont think the internet makes it any easier either in many terms. Also with whatever interest is involved with what classes taken will dramatically change the needs of what can be learned and how. And the internet is limited and the computers too , as well as the places and courses given at a universaty or college. Finding the bridge of seperation is what i dont think gets taught sometimes.

 

[Prince_Porter]

I completely agree with Bill Gates. I'm entirely self taught and am self-employed. I run a website, and program flash games for a living. Some people laugh at the idea of flash games being game design, but I program properly using OOP and other advanced techniques, and have sold my games for as much as 8k. I learned everything myself, and probably have more game design and programming knowledge than plenty of 4 year college students. I've been involved with the industry since shortly after its birth, talk to sponsors regularly, and am a strong member int he community. That's more experience than any university could ever give me. I'd love to grab a degree saying I know all I do, and I'm glad that eventually it won't matter where or how I learned, as long as I did.

 

[Guest]

Yeah Right! This is just like the "Paperless Office" they promise 30 years ago.