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Comment by throwawayjava | Hacker News Reader

I've seen something similar at other institutions.

The School of Engineering, in this case, is trying to teach something more than just domain knowledge about engineering disciplines. The goal is to take those "18 year-old polyglots" and turn them into world-class problem solvers.

You see this is every elite educational program. Mathematics at Chicago. Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. Engineering at MIT. Their programs have a difference in kind, and are very intentionally not built for "the average college student".

It's good that there's an alternative path within the same institution for those students who need to focus their efforts on baseline competence. But it's also good that strong programs expect more out of their students.

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You've simply recited the fallacy. You've framed the very debate in terminology that assumes you are correct.

But that's what all entrenched interests do.

Schools of technology are not simply teaching baseline competence. They teach the theory of the same subjects, with a more hands on approach emphasized.

They are showing up to civil war reenactments with tanks and planes. The old timers are in a huff about it, but what else is new?

> You've simply recited the fallacy. You've framed the very debate in terminology that assumes you are correct.

I'm not sure what this means.

My claim is that educational programs designed for the top 1% of students are not well-suited to educating the next 10%. And vice-versa. (E.g.: A Chicago math student is often not well-served by the sort of "calculus for engineers" courses you'll find at state college branch campuses. Also, a college senior struggling through their Calculus requirement is not at all well-served by Chicago's honors mathematics program. Neither approach is better in an absolute sense; but in each case, one is clearly better relative to the particular student.)

This is not some sort of tautology. It's a serious pedagogical hypothesis with decades of empirical research probing its truth value.

> They are showing up to civil war reenactments with tanks and planes.

I can't speak to Purdue specifically. In the cases I know about, the very explicit purpose of these alternative degree programs is to build a department by admitting students that the name-brand program rejects, or who fail out of the weeder courses. The "old timers" aren't in a huff about it, because they had no interest in admititng those students to their existing programs in the first place.

I suppose I would argue that in the evolutionary sense, a university accumulates it's marketable value in units of accomplishment by it's people. To the extent that any one person can unequivocally demonstrate exceptional value through their own accomplishments, by inventing and commercializing valuable goods and services that improve the overall well being of humanity, the particular buildings those people occupied 30 years prior, and the particular people that educated them for those few months, are of no particular interest to the university. The university wants prestige because it attacts more prestige, which they can monetize.

I can agree that in the sense that the people best positioned to become the most educated should be paired with the best equipped to effect that teaching. However, at some point we're arguing over what is the best position to be in, which is not in anyway objective.

While those are big name schools. When I review a resume I never even look at the education section. I will never be impressed by that.

I would say, to firm that up even more, every school can point to their accomplishments, and the graduates/professors that worked on them, as to why they are in rarified air. You can look through Wikipedia at all of these renowned scientists, and who their advisors were, and who their students were. So you can say they stood on the shoulders of giants, and also stood tall for others to perch even higher.

But not a single one of those heroes of science should rightly be remembered primarily or even secondarily because of where they studied.

The underlying fallacy is that you can only learn the best skills from the best people in a short window if time in your early adulthood.

I'm not sure I understand how this is relevant.

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