Universities can’t fulfil the myth, but can’t become vocational schools either

Re:Universities can’t fulfil the myth, but can’t become voca... by unclebucknasty on Saturday May 31, 2014 @11:20PM (#7828036)

It's always seemed odd to me that we send kids through 12 or 13 years of school, then say that it's university where they're expected to get their critical thinking skills, exposure to new ideas, and other "mind-expanding" experiences.

It's kind of silly, really. For one, it seems an awful waste to not take advantage of 12 or 13 years of opportunity to expose kids to these elements. Secondly, compressing such important experiences into only 4 years seems insufficient, especially given that they are supposed to also be preparing for a vocation during this time and not just "mind expansion".

Finally, it's a very expensive time in a kid's educational career. Why wait until then to impart these "soft skills"? Economically (i.e. from an "ROI" perspective), it makes more sense for such an expensive education to focus solely on the skills that would make them viable in the labor market.

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Re:Universities can’t fulfil the myth, but can’t become voca... by TheSpiceIsLife on Sunday June 01, 2014 @04:17AM (#7828525)

I'm all in with this. Is there something about year 9-12 students that makes them unable to understand university level education? I left school in after year 10 because I was having a terrible time of it and went back to studying when I was 23, but there were plenty of other students who were doing really well, or well enough, to go way beyond the meagre intellectual offerings of high school.

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