Laura's List - was Re: new years resolutions

[Ben Leslie]

On Sun, 05 Jan 2003, Laura Creighton wrote:

> > Now, if I may ask a personal question, what you didn't like in science/academ
> > ia ?

Although I agre with a lot of what you have said, I thought someone
better stand up on the side of academia. I'll add the disclaimer however
that I've only just finished my first undergraduate degree, so I may
not have had enough time to experience all the lows possible in 
academia, or more likely I've been lucky with the lectures I've had
and the other students I've worked with.
 
> This is just off the top of my head....
> 
> 1. preoccupation with cleverness as opposed to wisdom

Care to expand on this point? I don't quite get what you mean.

> 2. giving the job of 'preparing people for industry' to people who have
>    mostly never been there.

Is this really the task of university? I thought university was there to
teach me to think, not to cram me full of <insert overhyped technology
here>.

> 3. believing that teaching is something that comes naturally.  No effort
>    is made to train professors on how to teach well.  This is a trainable
>    skill.

Have to agree with this one.

> 5. Greedily embracing the notion that 'a university education is for
>    everyone' because it means more funding, reguardless of what it means
>    for would-be academics who now usually have to wait until they get
>    to grad school -- or now in some fields a postdoc before they can do 
>    anything truly original.  That is too long a wait.

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. Are you saying there are not
enough interesting problems to tackle, or that universities provide the
opportunity for people to tackle the problems? (I'm going to assume the
latter :).  Surely this is up to the student as much as anything, what
is stopping them from finding some interesting original work?

> 6. Classroom teaching as opposed to Master/Apprentice type relationships.

Well unfortunately the funding arrangements in most universities do not
allow this sort of interaction in earlier years. In my expereience though,
you do have the opportunity for this the Master/Apprentice style of teaching
in later years.

> 7. Preoccupation with novelty, and originality, as opposed to soundness.
> 8. The complete disreguard of 'good workmanship' as the counterpart to
>    'sound design'.  These days people are likely to learn that the work
>    is good because it was 'designed well', as opposed to the fact that
>    one of many good designs was selected -- the result was good because
>    _the workmanship was good_.  (Good workmanship cannot save a really
>    rotten design, unfortunately.)

I haven't experienced this in my university education. Of course YMMV :)

> 9. A life focused on Grading people.  Making grades, not knowledge or
>    wisdom the important centre of the universe.

I don't know about focused, but this definately is true to a certain
extent. To get a degree you just need to pass the test, which basically
ends up meaning, not being in the bottom 25% of a course, because they
get scaled anyway. There is no measure of how much was actually learned.

> 10. (in some places) The notion that only the top 10% matter -- the
>     rest can all go hang.

I've found, in most courses, a balanced approach. Most of the teaching 
is really aimed at average. This leaves probably a lot of the top 10%
bored out of their collective brains. (Unfortunately people learn at
different rates; it can be frustrating when lecturers revise basic
concepts (like say converting hex to binary) in 3rd year subjects.)

Fortunately a few courses balance this by providing advanced challanges
for the top 10%. I don't see this as a bad thing. (But I may be
biases, oops, there is that ego you were talking about :).

> 11. The belief that business is somehow demeaning.
> 12. The belief that business is somehow superior. 
> 13. Too many fools.
> 14. Too swollen egos.

And how exactly does this different from industry? I find it difficult to
believe that all the fools and egoists go to academia and none into
industry.

> 15. The furthering of the belief that Art is merely entertainment.
> 16. The furthering of the belief that it is a good idea to appear
>     better than you really are.
> 17. Too many people who feel they have the right to be contemptuous of others.

This is sad, but true. :(

> 18. Too much paperwork.

Again, I can't really see it as being that much more than industry.

> 19. Too much specialisation within a given field.
> 20. Not enough play.

I think this probably depends a lot on the group you work with.

> 21. Really boring textbooks written by people who cannot write.

Oh yeah. It does make you really appreciate good textbooks
though :).

> 22. An over-reliance on analytical as opposed to geometric methods.
> 23. Avoidance of risk.
> 24. Avoidance of beauty.
> 25. Focusing on that which can be measured (in itself a good thing, and
>     the secret of Western success) but not to the extent where that
>     which cannot be measured is deemed unimportant, or even non-existant.
> 26. Students who sit like turnips in your lectures.

Hey, its a lot better than students that answer mobile phones in your
tutorials!
 
> I'll stop now.  I am sure you will get plenty more answers from other
> people.


Benno