Edupunks
"Don't study, teach yourself." This is the message of the edupunks movement. And my heart sais "yes" and "no" to this.
No: Before you start doing something new and creative, you should learn about what there is already. Problems, solutions, problems of the solutions, rules, alternative methods and tools. And only after you know this all, you can start developing your own solutions.
Learning the old stuff is more efficient when you trust an expert to summarize it for you and give you an overview about it. This is what your studies are for.
Yes: Of course, you are always responsible for yourself. The university can only deliver you part of the knowledge you will need for the rest of your life. This can not be otherwise because universities can only deliver basic knowledge which they believe will be useful for most of the students. When you were a professor, you would know what a small fraction of this expert`s knowledge fits into one lecture. It is frustrating for the professor, but he must make an educated choice. Especially, practical trainings and exercises take so much time. You can present UML in one hour, but really teaching it until everyone is a UML master would take several weeks of full-time teaching. And will all of them need it in this detail later-on?
So, the better you already know what job you want to do afterwards, the better you can teach yourself additionally what you will need and can focus during your studies on these topics, for instance by choosing the right lectures, seminars and internships.
I think that studies are a good basis for everything. You gather basic knowledge and learn working and learning strategies. And you get professional feedback about your performance, weaknesses and strengths. The professor has seen hundreds or thousands of students, he can compare.
But you will never stop learning anyway!
I understand that the demanding young generation who expects perfection from others, is not satisfied with their professors. I hope they will get more modest when they start working and see that they are not perfect neither and overestimated their knowledge and performance. When they start to see how much work it is to prepare a really good presentation and to give objective and competent feedback to 40 students.
My advice is: Go and trust the good old education system, but do not lay all responsibility on your professors. You are the one who knows where you want to go and what you want to learn. Set your own focus and teach yourself, too. And do not expect the professor to be responsible for your future. He has so many students!
And, by the way, it is the same for professionals: The boss and the company, they do not feel responsible for your learning and your future, neither. They are responsible for profit. So, they use you for producing profit. That`s it. Take the responsibility for your learning and future in your hands, too! This is the reason why I am able to earn my living now. While I was employed, I invested a lot of spare time and private money on learning. And now it is mainly these extra job activities that earn my bread and butter. Because in a company, you often learn to use very specific technologies not relevant elsewhere and follow company-specific work processes. Each company is a little universum on its own and knowledge from one universum might not be useful in the rest of the world. So, never stop learning!
Here two links:
http://www.edupunksguide.org/
And Ben, an active German blogger about anti-uni learning:
http://anti-uni.com/
And, of course, there are all these online course portals:
https://www.udemy.com
http://mooc.org/
https://www.coursepath.com/
http://www.akademie.de
http://www.lecturio.de/
http://www.edudip.com
http://www.diplomero.com
http://www.codecademy.com/
https://iversity.org/
http://www.udacity.com
http://www.coursera.org
http://www.ocwconsortium.org
http://www.codecademy.com
https://www.edx.org/
https://openhpi.de/
http://www.tele-task.de
https://www.open-c3s.de/
http://academy-cube.eu/
http://futurelearn.com
https://grockit.com/
No: Before you start doing something new and creative, you should learn about what there is already. Problems, solutions, problems of the solutions, rules, alternative methods and tools. And only after you know this all, you can start developing your own solutions.
Learning the old stuff is more efficient when you trust an expert to summarize it for you and give you an overview about it. This is what your studies are for.
Yes: Of course, you are always responsible for yourself. The university can only deliver you part of the knowledge you will need for the rest of your life. This can not be otherwise because universities can only deliver basic knowledge which they believe will be useful for most of the students. When you were a professor, you would know what a small fraction of this expert`s knowledge fits into one lecture. It is frustrating for the professor, but he must make an educated choice. Especially, practical trainings and exercises take so much time. You can present UML in one hour, but really teaching it until everyone is a UML master would take several weeks of full-time teaching. And will all of them need it in this detail later-on?
So, the better you already know what job you want to do afterwards, the better you can teach yourself additionally what you will need and can focus during your studies on these topics, for instance by choosing the right lectures, seminars and internships.
I think that studies are a good basis for everything. You gather basic knowledge and learn working and learning strategies. And you get professional feedback about your performance, weaknesses and strengths. The professor has seen hundreds or thousands of students, he can compare.
But you will never stop learning anyway!
I understand that the demanding young generation who expects perfection from others, is not satisfied with their professors. I hope they will get more modest when they start working and see that they are not perfect neither and overestimated their knowledge and performance. When they start to see how much work it is to prepare a really good presentation and to give objective and competent feedback to 40 students.
My advice is: Go and trust the good old education system, but do not lay all responsibility on your professors. You are the one who knows where you want to go and what you want to learn. Set your own focus and teach yourself, too. And do not expect the professor to be responsible for your future. He has so many students!
And, by the way, it is the same for professionals: The boss and the company, they do not feel responsible for your learning and your future, neither. They are responsible for profit. So, they use you for producing profit. That`s it. Take the responsibility for your learning and future in your hands, too! This is the reason why I am able to earn my living now. While I was employed, I invested a lot of spare time and private money on learning. And now it is mainly these extra job activities that earn my bread and butter. Because in a company, you often learn to use very specific technologies not relevant elsewhere and follow company-specific work processes. Each company is a little universum on its own and knowledge from one universum might not be useful in the rest of the world. So, never stop learning!
Here two links:
http://www.edupunksguide.org/
And Ben, an active German blogger about anti-uni learning:
http://anti-uni.com/
And, of course, there are all these online course portals:
https://www.udemy.com
http://mooc.org/
https://www.coursepath.com/
http://www.akademie.de
http://www.lecturio.de/
http://www.edudip.com
http://www.diplomero.com
http://www.codecademy.com/
https://iversity.org/
http://www.udacity.com
http://www.coursera.org
http://www.ocwconsortium.org
http://www.codecademy.com
https://www.edx.org/
https://openhpi.de/
http://www.tele-task.de
https://www.open-c3s.de/
http://academy-cube.eu/
http://futurelearn.com
https://grockit.com/
AndreaHerrmann - 28. Aug, 10:10
If you allow I will use this text for one of the opening postings in a new web presence of our company. Actually, it will not be seen by the public but only by our colleagues. The learning topic is one of the major topics I am concerned with now.
I would say that I have very often "preached" in this way. But this posting combines it all.
"And, by the way, it is the same for professionals: The boss and the company, they do not feel responsible for your learning and your future, neither. "
Unfortunately, it is true that profit is the driving power in organizations. But personally, I also regret if some colleague does not develop to his or her full potential. (Although I don't like this type of "Jesus gene" in me :) )
I feel honoured if you cite me. It would be best if you include the link of the blog posting to the article.
Andrea