Snobbery in education.

steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 07:16PM

Candie wrote: »

I can't let this go as the lack of self awareness is astounding.

Nobody can dispute that some world-class institutions produce world leaders. That is indisputable and you'd be an utter fool to try. This is what I said..

I'd agree these institutions produce world leaders and their course are probably more difficult. This is different to saying "higher calibre graduates". You cannot assume this.

Recognising this is a completely different to saying that Arts grads are
less intelligent to STEM grads, or that Arts courses are easy, or that people
who do arts do so because they can't get the points for STEM courses. This is
what you have said and implied. Again and again and again.

Actually Candie if you read my previous post I stated I make no assumptions about arts degrees other than they require lower entrance points. I was pointing out the hypocrisy in saying one group of people are higher calibre and not another.

For someone who sees themselves as something of a class warrior I find it
perplexing that you'll rail against a person being discriminated or thought less
of because of their address, their accent, their secondary school, but you have
absolutely no problem dismissing an arts student as, by definition, less
intelligent.

No I stated that arts degrees are generally less difficult, valuable economically and generally have lower entrance points.
You said that these institutions are harder to get into which is the exact same thing I am saying. At no point did I specify someone's intelligence. Considering you were the person I railed against often when it came to secondary school discrimination I'll skip the lecture thanks.

You even try support some of your assertions by falsely claiming to have
DIRECT knowledge of both the US and UK education system. In FACT, you know a few
graduates from each. I know a Japanese student, does that mean I've been to Uni
in Japan?

You're not actually reading my posts. I work on a team involving guys from American institutions and guys from British institutions. The scientists from the British institutions have contributed more to more diverse projects. E.G on the metabolic engineering project we're working on the British guys are more willing to go outside their area of comfort e.g. genetics students will often attempt a bit of enzymology. The reverse I don't find to be true. We take on British and American PhDs and the American PhDs after graduate schools tend to be far more focused in their degree area. I'm in a unique position to asses this as I'm part of a team which receives students from both sides of the pond.

You also assume that people study arts because it takes fewer points. I'm sure
many people who do arts have enough points to do STEM degrees - and choose not
to! Amazing, I know..

You're also assuming that people don't attend these institutions because they have lower points? Some may choose to study closer to home which is another amazing fact.

asumption and sneering, you
accuse others of snobbery

.

Half the posts you thanked were full of exactly the above.

steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 07:18PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

An MIT science degree is harder to obtain than a DCU science degree. Employers know this and that makes the MIT degree more valuable than the DCU degree.

The reputation of any institution is all important as that's how they attract the best students.

Yes of course. As I keep repeating some degrees are more valuable than others.

Iwasfrozen · 24-04-2016 07:22PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Yes of course. As I keep repeating some degrees are more valuable than others.

Yes, because a degree from some institutions is more valuable than a degree from others.

steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 07:23PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Yes, because a degree from some institutions is more valuable than a degree from others.

Yes of course and different degree types are more valuable than others.

steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 07:27PM

I'm getting mixed messages here. Some people are saying some degrees are more valuable than others (I agree) but when it comes to some degree types being more valuable to employers they change their tune. Cognitive dissonance much?

Iwasfrozen · 24-04-2016 07:29PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Yes of course and different degree types are more valuable than others.

Economically valuable? I agree.

steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 07:31PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Economically valuable? I agree.

Yes any other value is objective really. As regards advice if you're in DCU it won't hold you back unless you let it.

Permabear · 24-04-2016 07:31PM

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The Randy Riverbeast · 24-04-2016 07:32PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

An MIT science degree is harder to obtain than a DCU science degree. Employers know this and that makes the MIT degree more valuable than the DCU degree.

The reputation of any institution is all important as that's how they attract the best students.

What makes it harder?

steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 07:35PM

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Economically valuable? I agree.

FI according to Forbes:

Last week, Forbes reported on The 25 Most Meaningful College
Majors, many of which provided serious paychecks along with a strong
sense of purpose.

But which majors all but guarantee a healthy starting salary that will only
continue to grow?

As part of their 2014 - 2015 College Salary Report, Payscale.com asked survey
respondents whose culminating degree is a bachelor’s, and who graduated from
schools in the U.S., work full-time in the U.S., and are not on active military
duty to answer questions about their current employment and compensation.

Engineering dominates the list, which is top-heavy with STEM-related
(Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) degrees.

Iwasfrozen · 24-04-2016 07:41PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Yes any other value is objective really. As regards advice if you're in DCU it won't hold you back unless you let it.

Oh I didn't go to DCU, I'm a UCD boy but long out of uni now.

As for not holding you back it's obvious as Permabear pointed out that MIT grads make more than DCU grads.

Iwasfrozen · 24-04-2016 07:42PM

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

What makes it harder?

Vinegar and exposure.

Permabear · 24-04-2016 08:02PM

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steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 08:48PM

Permabear wrote: »

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What's my argument? Also could you break down earnings by university and degree type?

CramCycle · 24-04-2016 09:03PM

Aside from the ranking s system being incredibly flawed and in no way a reflection on an undergraduate degree quality, try filtering by subject area and watch how Irish 3rd level institutions jump in and out of the top 300.

Anita Blow · 24-04-2016 09:54PM

Permabear wrote: »

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Alas, Ireland does not encourage entrepreneurship. Parents and the education system seem to push many bright students into "safe" careers like accountancy, law, and primary teaching. In Ireland, you're more likely to set up a business if you never went to college at all.[/quote]
Ireland does very well for encouraging entrepreneurship. Trinity produces the highest number of entrepreneurs out of any university in Europe, 50% more than Oxford in 2nd place. UCD also places in the top 10 in Europe at no. 4.

We need to not constantly talk ourselves down when there are clearly some things our universities/ITs do well

Permabear · 24-04-2016 10:24PM

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Permabear · 24-04-2016 10:30PM

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steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 11:12PM

From Gerhard Casper, president of Stanford regarding university rankings:

Dear Mr. Fallows:

I appreciate that, as the new editor of
U.S. News & World Report, you have much to do at this moment.
However, it is precisely because you are the new editor that I write to you,
personally.

I emphasize you, because of your
demonstrated willingness to examine journalism in the same way that journalism
examines all other facets of society. And I say personally because my
letter is for your consideration, and not a letter to the editor for
publication.

My timing also is related to the recent
appearance of the annual U.S. News "America's Best Colleges" rankings.
As the president of a university that is among the top-ranked universities, I
hope I have the standing to persuade you that much about these rankings -
particularly their specious formulas and spurious precision - is utterly
misleading. I wish I could forego this letter since, after all, the rankings
are only another newspaper story. Alas, alumni, foreign newspapers, and many
others do not bring a sense of perspective to the matter.

I am extremely skeptical that the quality of a
university - any more than the quality of a magazine - can be measured
statistically. However, even if it can, the producers of the U.S. News
rankings remain far from discovering the method. Let me offer as prima facie
evidence two great public universities: the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
and the University of California-Berkeley. These clearly are among the very
best universities in America - one could make a strong argument for either in
the top half-dozen. Yet, in the last three years, the U.S. News formula
has assigned them ranks that lead many readers to infer that they are second
rate: Michigan 21-24-24, and Berkeley 23-26-27.

Such movement itself - while perhaps good for
generating attention and sales - corrodes the credibility of these rankings and
your magazine itself. Universities change very slowly - in many ways more
slowly than even I would like. Yet, the people behind the U.S. News
rankings lead readers to believe either that university quality pops up and down
like politicians in polls, or that last year's rankings were wrong but this
year's are right (until, of course, next year's prove them wrong). What else is
one to make of Harvard's being #1 one year and #3 the next, or Northwestern's
leaping in a single bound from #13 to #9? And it is not just this year. Could
Johns Hopkins be the 22nd best national university two years ago, the 10th best
last year, and the 15th best this year? Which is correct, that Columbia is #9
(two years ago), #15 (last year) or #11 (this year)?
Knowing that universities - and, in most
cases, the statistics they submit - change little from one year to the next, I
can only conclude that what are changing are the formulas the magazine's number
massagers employ. And, indeed, there is marked evidence of that this year.

steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 11:13PM

Permabear wrote: »

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Seriously dude you have several scientists telling you that there are elements of the Irish system well received and you're lecturing people about your own opinion of a field you know nothing of.

At this stage it comes across as chip on shoulder.

CramCycle · 24-04-2016 11:46PM

Anita Blow wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I have worked in Universities and IT's, in Industry, at home and abroad. If I have learned one thing, it is that the good businesses employ the person/graduate, not the university.
As with everything there are exceptions to this rule but these are statistical outliers rather than the norm.

Permabear wrote: »

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Interestingly, I think you will find that bar the one at the top, they have all complained about the stats at some point. Stats skew the reality on the ground in regards what future employers and academics want. Pick any 3rd level institution in Ireland and I could give you a statement about why it is better in some regard about another, all of which would be facetious and misleading in regards the overall picture but true nonetheless.

As for second tier, by what standards? I know graduates from here who are snapped up in the US for postgrad positions as they are considered more rounded and efficient in universities that are ranked far higher than any irish ones.

The US system is not the same as ours and comparing them is foolish.

I have met graduates from india who got CS degrees with only one computer in the college who would wipe the floor with some of ours, and I have had students from some of the UKs supposedly greatest universities work in my lab who I wouldn't trust to add up the price of a few pints let alone do simple molarity calculations.

In regards to the OP, yes, there is snobbery, is it justified?

steddyeddy · 24-04-2016 11:54PM

CramCycle wrote: »

Aside from the ranking s system being incredibly flawed and in no way a reflection on an undergraduate degree quality, try filtering by subject area and watch how Irish 3rd level institutions jump in and out of the top 300.

I'm a UCD biochem grad and I've been through masters, PhD all the way through to postdoc and research scientist and I can tell you the people talking about the rankings are telling a completely different story than the one I see.

The employers (US government) that fund me snap up Irish graduates as they consider them more rounded than their US counterparts. It's up to the graduate to build up their CV and get as much experience as possible. Another thing I'd add is that the skills gained during a science degree do not necessarily go hand in hand with lab skills. I've worked with someone with a first from Oxford who couldn't make simple buffers without taking the day off for calculations.

I never hear people A: fawn over the ranking system in real life when it comes to a graduate and B: continuously put down a county's university system.

CramCycle · 25-04-2016 12:14AM

steddyeddy wrote: »

I'm a UCD biochem grad and I've been through masters, PhD all the way through to postdoc and research scientist and I can tell you the people talking about the rankings are telling a completely different story than the one I see.

Same as myself, I hear all these articles in papers or people online who hear of blacklists and that simply doesn't par with my experience in the real world.

Admittedly some of it is misreading of reports eg earlier people talked of targeted hiring from certain universities whereas the report actually just commented on the stats of employees.

Shelga · 25-04-2016 03:10AM

One of my best friends did her undergrad in a science subject at DCU, and is now about to complete her PhD at one of the top technological universities in the world- currently ranked above Yale. (I'm very proud of her!)

Does that mean I can use her achievement as anecdotal evidence that employers and educational institutions would overall consider DCU on a par with other, more highly-ranked universities? Of course not.

What I would take from it is that an undergrad from DCU can be a solid but unexceptional start to an academic career. Several other factors were at play in her journey to her PhD, not least the contacts she made in her final year. She says herself she has had to step up her game massively since moving to the new university. I think she had the intellect and capability all along, but the second university is where she is really reaching her potential and pushing herself as far as she possibly can. Maybe that's true of all PhDs- I don't think one is likely to go on to do a doctorate in a place that is significantly lower-ranked than where they did their undergrad.

Going to DCU certainly didn't limit her in any way, but won't be the thing that makes future employers in academia sit up and take note.

Isn't it worth mentioning, however, that Irish students are incredibly unlikely to go to somewhere like MIT for their undergraduate degree? I know people my age who went on to study at Cambridge, Oxford and MIT, but the chances of them starting off there were absolutely miniscule. I would imagine that an academically-gifted Irish student is far, far less likely to go to Oxford than an English student of the same ability. My friend is from a very poor background, and this, combined with it never being mentioned as even a remote possibility by our school and being shoved down a one-way road to the CAO system, meant we were all limited to Irish universities. I don't know how an Irish Leaving Cert student even begins to apply to Harvard.

I don't know why people take such offence at someone saying Harvard is better than GMIT, though. I went to Trinity and Harvard is far better than Trinity too, so what!

Samaris · 25-04-2016 06:57AM

One area where in my opinion, Irish third level falls way down, is the quality of the Level 5/6 courses. I did a fill-in year at an IT due to a whole lot of rather unlikely circumstances that lead to a break in my MSc and honestly, it was horrendously, laughably, depressingly, out of date. The lecturers did their best, but really, the course itself was barely out of the 80s. Actually, no, I'd say it was last updated around early 2000s, but nearly fifteen years in the area of computers may as well be the 80s.

One area that I would look at fixing (in the utterly unlikely situation that I was minister for education, say a massive plague wiped out most of the population and I fell into the role!

) would be those courses. Is it any wonder that we're so lacking for technically trained people when the technical courses are so...well, lousy?

AnonoBoy · 25-04-2016 08:25AM

I've never been asked for college documents at any job interview ever. Which is just as well really because those fake ones don't stand up to repeated handlings.

HensVassal · 25-04-2016 08:56AM

donegaLroad wrote: »

I was at school with a guy who gained his degree in computer science from a local IT. He went on to become one of the team who developed Windows 95.

I'm sure Microsoft couldn't give a toss where he got his qualifications from so long as he could deliver. In fact all the tech companies are like that, or am I wrong?

North America must be the world leaders in education snobbery, with England close runners up.

Just proves his degree is shit then :pac:

Permabear · 25-04-2016 08:57AM

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steddyeddy · 25-04-2016 09:02AM

CramCycle wrote: »

I have worked in Universities and IT's, in Industry, at home and abroad. If I have learned one thing, it is that the good businesses employ the person/graduate, not the university.
As with everything there are exceptions to this rule but these are statistical outliers rather than the norm.

Interestingly, I think you will find that bar the one at the top, they have all complained about the stats at some point. Stats skew the reality on the ground in regards what future employers and academics want. Pick any 3rd level institution in Ireland and I could give you a statement about why it is better in some regard about another, all of which would be facetious and misleading in regards the overall picture but true nonetheless.

As for second tier, by what standards? I know graduates from here who are snapped up in the US for postgrad positions as they are considered more rounded and efficient in universities that are ranked far higher than any irish ones.

The US system is not the same as ours and comparing them is foolish.

I have met graduates from india who got CS degrees with only one computer in the college who would wipe the floor with some of ours, and I have had students from some of the UKs supposedly greatest universities work in my lab who I wouldn't trust to add up the price of a few pints let alone do simple molarity calculations.

In regards to the OP, yes, there is snobbery, is it justified?

Out of interest Cramcycle how are IT grads lab skills? I'd wager they can be nearly better than those with a bachelors.

steddyeddy · 25-04-2016 09:27AM

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I think the poster meant very few people in Ireland actually apply to Harvard. As Cramcycle said you can't compare the Irish and US system.

Snobbery in education.

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