<story><title>Modern universities are an exercise in insanity (2018)</title><url>http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2018/01/modern-universities-are-exercise-in.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>&amp;gt; But in the average public university most students you meet are just coasting through it as if it was high school, or as a way to delay real life.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps that&amp;#x27;s an unintended consequence of it being free, just like high school.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re paying the bill, it&amp;#x27;s a lot less likely you&amp;#x27;ll be coasting through.</text></item><item><author>laurentdc</author><text>I paid zero for my university since EU, but I still kind of feel scammed out of five years of my life. I got a degree only because I was young and family&amp;#x2F;friends pushed me into it since &amp;quot;that&amp;#x27;s what everyone does&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The networking thing, meh. Maybe if you attend the top 1% of universities that have some barrier of entry for people who&amp;#x27;re actually talented&amp;#x2F;determined to achieve a goal and care about what they do. Or expensive private ones with industry connections. Which feels a bit like &amp;quot;easy mode&amp;quot; but whatever :)&lt;p&gt;But in the average public university most students you meet are just coasting through it as if it was high school, or as a way to delay real life. Professors just don&amp;#x27;t care and they never have time. Even the job placement events, it&amp;#x27;s all a bullshit perpetuating machine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xyzzyz</author><text>European countries with free public universities also usually have private, paid colleges. In practice, those are where you &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; coast through.</text></comment>
<story><title>Modern universities are an exercise in insanity (2018)</title><url>http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2018/01/modern-universities-are-exercise-in.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>&amp;gt; But in the average public university most students you meet are just coasting through it as if it was high school, or as a way to delay real life.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps that&amp;#x27;s an unintended consequence of it being free, just like high school.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re paying the bill, it&amp;#x27;s a lot less likely you&amp;#x27;ll be coasting through.</text></item><item><author>laurentdc</author><text>I paid zero for my university since EU, but I still kind of feel scammed out of five years of my life. I got a degree only because I was young and family&amp;#x2F;friends pushed me into it since &amp;quot;that&amp;#x27;s what everyone does&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The networking thing, meh. Maybe if you attend the top 1% of universities that have some barrier of entry for people who&amp;#x27;re actually talented&amp;#x2F;determined to achieve a goal and care about what they do. Or expensive private ones with industry connections. Which feels a bit like &amp;quot;easy mode&amp;quot; but whatever :)&lt;p&gt;But in the average public university most students you meet are just coasting through it as if it was high school, or as a way to delay real life. Professors just don&amp;#x27;t care and they never have time. Even the job placement events, it&amp;#x27;s all a bullshit perpetuating machine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JadeNB</author><text>&amp;gt; If you&amp;#x27;re paying the bill, it&amp;#x27;s a lot less likely you&amp;#x27;ll be coasting through.&lt;p&gt;The fact that there&amp;#x27;s a bill to pay doesn&amp;#x27;t mean that it&amp;#x27;s the students who are paying it.  I think a significant number of students—most?—at expensive universities have their bills paid by family.</text></comment>