Look at the massive industry that has built itself around academia as well - all in the hope of gamifying a student's education. They learn to get the highest grade, not by mastering the subject, but by hacking information input. Nuance, comprehension, and critical thinking have no place in this game. And students are pressured to win no matter what.
you think academia is the only one ? Look at tech industry or any other industry , what are the major inventions in last two decades ? Nothing , all they are doing is just trying to make things have shorter lifespans to increase sales. My smart phones have no additional services which were not available a decade ago . The consumers are getting screwed at all fronts by the owners. The society is returning to its original form , lords and the peasants.
@@jeppeaim3039 I think about it along the lines of trying to get as much information about a subject into your head before a test instead of full understanding. (The essential problem is how we test subject understanding) but treating learning like a regurgitation of material. It's a system students are subject to, and with the pressure to succeed, will (and maybe should) game in order to get the grade. It's Spark Notes versus reading a text.
This is a complex situation The true way of "measuring if a student has learned the subject" is by a teacher specifically questioning the student, doing oral testing. The issue here is that doing *that* is by default not standarizable, which means that it is left to the judgement of the teacher, which opens liability to the school system(s) if the "customers" (parents of the kid) dont get what they want. And then it brings the second issue, and that is that cohorts of students today are infinitely larger than lets say, cohorts of students in the late 1800's. Therefore it is simply not possible timewise to have a teacher do oral testing in such a way. I have very much seen what you mention happen in my homecountry of Chile, where there is an anual test for University entry, and your future university and what you want to study depend on the score of this test. If you dont get a high enough score then you simply will not be able to study what you want that's it. So people go to specialized schools for which their only objective is to have the students hack information input to be able to answer the questions of the test. It is sheer paperclip maximizing. But at the same time, it is simply the outcome of all the pressures that go towards this. In a standarized test you are not being asked if you "know the subject". You are being asked to provide the answer to the question that the standarized test designers want, and it doesnt matter not one bit if you feel another question also answers the question asked within the context, it only matters the question that the designers wanted you to take... This same thing can be seen in "high level" university courses. Lets say to Doctors or Lawyers, both of which *must* cramp *huge* amounts of information in order to pass their courses. Anyhow, all of this is simply a consequence of the era we live in. “The great enemy of any attempt to change men's habits is inertia. Civilization is limited by inertia.” - Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda 1928
Ya ultra competitiveness just does not work what so ever. Anyone can see the US an example, since I don't think people have the same admiration of America now. Just hoarders and conquerors.
I’m 81yrs old and don’t have a degree, but you convinced me to pick up a book on stoic philosophy. I’m an avid reader and have been since I was 8 yrs old. Thank you sir💕
We are never too old to learn. I’m currently reading about the history of the Christian god. Not as a religious thing, but from an archeological perspective.
I didn't do the readings, or engage with any of my classes when I was at uni paying exorbitantly for it. As soon as I dropped out, I spent hours studying on my own, because it was suddenly easier again. Those 300+ student classes are utterly destructive. If you find something fascinating, there's no-one to talk to about it and ask questions. If you find something difficult, there are thirty students mobbing the lecturer immediately after class. It's easier to just disengage
Three things struck me as a philosophy undergraduate. First, there was a lack of contact hours. My course only had eight contact hours in total. Four hours were devoted to lectures, and four hours were devoted to seminars. Discussion is an essential part of philosophy, and yet, for each module, we were discussing an important philosophical text for only fifty minutes in a seminar. This was very disappointing. Second, philosophy programmes are not selective enough. Many students on the course did not want to complete the required readings, and many would surf the internet during seminars. Third, in the last and most important year of my studies, graduate students, fresh from completing their Ph.D.s, were leading some of my modules. While I have been taught by some very good graduate students in the past, many lack teaching experience and familiarity with the subject matter. Given the importance of the final year of one’s studies, I was shocked by this.
I study Education with Psychology as an undergrad currently and all 3 of these are identical to my experience too. I often also feel like one of the only students in a cohort of 75 that actually wants to engage with the topics in seminars too, can be really frustrating.
I have a lot of personal interests that I want to pursue. And I believed that being in academia would provide an avenue for pursuing those interests. But in reality, I have found that being in academia has forced me into a position of providing a service that students don't want (I work in teaching mathematics) and that detracts from my freedom to pursue my personal academic curiosities (applying my philosophical perspective in mathematics and category theory to broader fields beyond undergraduate mathematics) because I MUST teach undergraduate math courses that are accessible to a broad collection of students, so that they can succeed in an environment where mathematics is not their primary interest. The pressure to simplify and water down the material is a pressure from administrators that want to provide degrees as a product students can purchase rather than a measure of how developed and well rounded students have become. It's frustrating and has made me seriously reconsider my purpose and place in modern academia.
I’m college educated, but never got into reading as much as I have in the past year. You inspired me to read Ursula Le Guin, and through you I found Harold Bloom and have been so enriched by the western canon. You’re doing good work and it’s reaching people probably on a more personal level through video format! I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of your content!
I totally resonate with what you said. I was an assistant professor at a world top 100 university in the Netherlands - and I got disillusioned and quit my job. I'm now a researcher in Germany. It's a more solitary job and there's no teaching but I feel it's a better and purer use of my time.
Interesting. But Germany limits how many research contracts you can have, from my understanding. Are you working for a think tank? An industry? Something else?
@@clamarroan The use of students merely as cashcows, the very low bar on entry standards - they would admit students with poor academic records who could pay, just to ramp up the intake, the reluctance of students to learn hard science and the university's encouragement of the same to keep the 'customer' happy, too much time spent on teaching uninterested students with little time to do research, etc.
I agree that a lot of students are not being set up for success. A lot of my colleagues believe that our students are lazy and stupid. All of my students work full time outside of school. Many of them speak multiple languages. They're neither lazy nor stupid. They're overwhelmed. Your comments about not being encouraged or challenged to read remind me of a first-year student I taught who told me wanted to be a lawyer and prior to my class he had never once read a book from cover to cover. He didn't have the skills to really analyze what was happening in the books we read because he was learning how to do that in a university course rather than earlier in his life. He really did try! I think he has a lot of potential to improve! But he's starting so far behind because he wasn't challenged earlier.
I think that we faculty forget our own challenges when we were students. After you learn the basics of the field OF COURSE it is much easier than it is for them. Also, in these days, many more families are acquiring a college education than in the 1940s and 1950s, and given the cost nowadays, OF COURSE they are struggling.
This is a very interesting topic. I actually question students’ capability these days because the education is so poor before even getting to college. If they are given anything difficult, the level of complaining is nuts, and the professors give in to it instead of maintaining their expectations. I think most students are not there to actually learn, but to just get a degree. As a side note, in all my years of school (middle school, high school, college) I was never required to read a single classic novel.
Hey Jared. Thanks for your posts. I have been following a lot of your Codex posts, to learn more about literature. I'm 60, retired now for the last 5 years or so and in my retirement have focused my energies on writing and reading and learning about literature. I'm deep into that whole experience and loving it. I have gone to your posts, and a few other podcasting 'Literatos' on the web to get some background on writers I like, and literature movements and the history of literature and language. I had originally hoped to audit some classes in the universities in my town, but found them wanting, or not inviting, unless you've paid up and so I've gone to people like yourself for that learning. Just wanted you to know, you still have students and that this choice to share your knowledge and experience here, has been great for those of us out here, who want it. Hope you're able to continue. Thanks again.
Wow! I never expected to see this much pain/sorrow and (com)passion. I'm Estonian and I have absolutely no personal knowledge of what's going on in universities over there ... but the WAY you talk shows your honesty and even though you stay entirely logical and rational -- I would say, sadness and disappoint. It was a powerful talk. I hope everything will work out for you.
One other thing I noticed is that the classic works in my field were essentially absent from my education. In a history program we never discussed Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Hobbes, and Gibbon, and barely touched Plutarch and Polybius. I don't think we read any historians with a real impact on the field and it was almost all articles that had been written in the last 30 years. Now I feel like I'm playing catch up even though I already have my degree.
I'm a senior undergrad in an English program, and I've experienced the same thing. My professors are always referencing these classics, expecting students to be familiar with them, but they're never covered or actually discussed in classes. It's like the professors learned it all and forgot that it needed to be taught, creating a massive literary gap. Don't even get me started on grammar or technical language either. I wouldn't be surprised if most literature professors wouldn't be able to speak accurately or articulately about any of it.
The main advantage of an academic education in history, philosophy, literature etcetera is that by the end of it you should have acquired broad, summarized, reliable knowledge about the subject (along with some specialized expertise) and have learned how that knowledge was acquired and how to do research yourself and think critically. Historiography or the history of how history was written is not usually the main focus of a program in history let alone a detailed study of works of the major historians of the past. I don't see how that would be possible in the limited time available. Do you think you would know more about history if you had classes devoted to that instead of other subjects? Gibbon's 'The decline and fall of the Roman Empire' consists of 6 volumes and thousands of pages: how long would it take to read and discuss even a portion of that in class? Not to mention it was written in the 18th century and its main thesis (Christianity as the main cause for the decline and fall of Rome) is pretty much universally rejected today. In my view you're not catching up: your intellectual journey has just begun. With the major advantage of having a sound base of knowledge with which to evaluate and appreciate the works you mentioned. Which is something most people lack. Of course academic programs aim to produce academics which may not be ideal or even what most people who enter them expected and wanted but I do think they have value none-the-less. Self-study without any formal education to start from is not all it's cracked up to be. Professors are worth listening to.
I did history and taught it as a grad student. The texts you mention (apart from Gibbon) are all part of either the Classics programme or Ancient History. They’re not looked at in History programmes in Europe at all.
I'm starting my masters in English soon and I've noticed getting people to study Classics actually drives would be students away. Like me, if I didn't study contemporary poetry and modernist stuff I would have never went and read Homer or Dante. If I had the read Homer first, I would have dropped out. Thats another major thing, is that making people study the Classics in an already small and dying major like English Literature would make it even smaller and less people would study it. Getting people to study what they like is what gets people into the subject area. @@Jepicosity
I agree 100% with everything you said. I have a master‘s degree from a swiss university and felt that the education was severely lacking. I also would have loved to go into academia but the people I knew that did that were all unhappy. It’s so sad because academia would be a dream job if it was actually about academia. I also think that education is so elitist and exclusive to those who can afford it and that’s just wrong. Your channel is open to everyone and I‘m glad it exists.
Another aspect of American academia is that it’s designed for people who can devote all of their time to school, which is an absolute privilege. There’s not as much consideration or support for those who work while attending school. I was certainly not prepared for 500 pages of reading per week when I began my Master’s degree while also working full time.
Sorry to ask but my friend just finished her residency & is planning on doing her job now and getting a partime Phd from Ohio university.. isn't partime Phd available in the US in general or is restrictive?
@@Garglicious I’m not able to speak about that experience as I am only working on a Masters and not a Ph.D. But I hope your friend has a wonderful time in their studies!
23 year old university student here. I agree with your sentiments and observations, and I think the surge of inspiration many people feel when facing a challenge is necessary for education. There is truthfully one class I've taken in my university career where I've felt challenged, and the rest have been a bit below my intellectual capabilities - neither of which are to say I'm a whiz student by any means - but I felt really good doing the work for that one class! Doing the work for the majority of these classes feels dull and honestly more dutiful than it is inspiring or enriching. People like challenges, and we like the assumption that we're capable of more. Thanks for sharing this
Kudos for giving a sober analysis! I’m about to return to academia for a phd after teaching at a high school level for the last 15 years. I share your concerns. However, I do think that the only way to make a change is from within. And so, while I respect your opinion and decision, I think there still is hope. Keep up the good work on this channel!
Oh please make a youtube channel so we can track your slow metamorphosis from optimistic excited early PhD "changing things from within" student to aggravated cynic ogre.
Jared, thank you so much for this video. As someone who is in the process of leaving my doctoral program to pursue my passion as a landscaper, I deeply resonate with your message here. "Leaving academia was the thing that allowed me to pursue what I actually want my vocation to be." This is a quote of yours I'm going to carry with me on my own departure from academia. It's a quote that'll keep me working strong in tripple digit heat for sure. Your departure from academia and your plunge into your current persuits serve as an inspiration to me and I cannot express in words how much this means to me. I'll leave it at "thank you," for now. And I look forward to watching your videos on this channel or on other BookTube channels you're featured on. Take care.
I stumbled upon your channel one day looking into my newfound Philosophy interest. You have for sure influenced me to want to begin reading The Republic as daunting as it may seem. Your video on how to read hard books was great. Thank you, sir. Keep up the good work.
my experience in US education, both as a student and as a teacher, is that it takes so much agency away from the students, and it makes it easy, and boring and students are smart enough to realize they dont have to try and so they dont. everyone passes, everyone graduates, as long as you show up half the time and sort of do something, it's good enough. i eventually found art, and it was the only type of class where i was allowed to challenge myself, make my own decisions, and succeed or fail based on my own work. no other class i took gave me that agency and engagement, gave me the experience of doing something for myself and seeing the results of my effort. we rob students of ever learning that they can make their own decisions and challenge themselves beyond the outlines of a multiple choice test.
Insightful take. I'm wondering what was your major as a student and what do you teach now? Because as a current Soc and Psych double major, I feel a lot of my major classes give me great autonomy to explore things I'm passionate about if it's within the scope of the class. Although, when I take quantification or natural sciences classes, I do feel there is no space for autonomy or creativity which made me really frustrated (but, at the same time, I don't know if there is another way to teach them than that..).
@@randk2370 i studied studio art, but had to take a lot of 'required' classes and art history and the contrast was very apparent. maybe it is just the difference between the types of class, but there must be a way for students in all areas to feel like they are genuinely involved in their own education, that there are real stakes and real rewards. but of course, these schools would have to be putting education first and you know that cant happen.
I am in the uk and damn lol, I never really saw uni as an experience for me personally. I am not one to really party, uni to me is soley education and getting my degree and seeing where I come out at the other side. I LITERALLY am basically studying ALL the time
I'm a full time prof at a JC and a writer. Just wanted to drop in and say thank you for sharing your thoughts on the regular. It's a joy to listen to someone so passionate about the betterment of people's lives through the work of the mind.
Throughout public schools in the United States, teachers are actively discouraged from requiring students to read full book-length works. The main reason for this is the misuse of standardized tests to evaluate schools and teachers, which makes those tests so high stakes that anything that won't show short-term gains is removed from the curriculum. There are no novels on the SAT, only excerpts, so get rid of novels and teach them how to read excerpts. Of course this backfires, as kids don't build the stamina or sense of accomplishment that comes from reading a book-length work, and hobble into college handicapped.
Hey, I study chemistry in Germany. It is a lot less expensive to study here but there are also problems. In Germany professors are doing a lot of the teaching, but there also overseeing the PhD.s and connecting with the industry and politics. Thus, they are really overworked and often just set up the material for their course and really rarely actualize it. Also they get no training in teaching at all, it’s just assumed they know how to do it. That and the fact that they are “verbeamtet” (if they don’t do something criminal, they are practically impossible to fire) makes the teaching quality a gamble. Most of them are at least ok though. I was in the student council for many years and making the test easier was discussed frequently. In hindsight I am most shocked about the total uninterested way, they treated the growing gap between expectations and reality of student performance. They never even attempted to collect data. I mean fixing problems is sciences hole deal, right? They never even asked themselves if it might be a structural problem. They just assumed that schools are getting worse (which is true) and that students need to self-organize more. What Jared mentioned in this video - that students are getting to little feedback - is also true here.
Thank you so much for talking about this. Our world has plenty of vices to depress over, but somehow this is one of the top contenders for me. I deeply wish I could go back to my childhood when I passionately studied for endless hours. Now university isn't about education but maxing out the stats in this popularity contest the world has become. Just became a lawyer now, a bit of course work yet to complete but I despise the system. I'm grateful for not being in debt, but can't bear what's happening with my friends who do. I'm rekindling my love for reading from your recommendations. Thank you for everything ❤️
It's refreshing to hear someone speak honestly on this topic. I left the adjunct life mostly for selfish reasons because I could see that it was exploitative and there were no opportunities for advancement -- even though I really loved teaching. Now I work in an academic library and I see the problems you discuss becoming worse, particularly with the pandemic-accelerated shift to online learning and now the incursion of AI-generated text, which many students are using as a crutch instead of learning to write and think independently. University leadership responds by willfully ignoring the problem and telling faculty to "embrace it" and "adapt." Colleges and universities are businesses that often put profit before values, unfortunately.
I envy you (in a good way), although my liberal arts program at UW (University of Washington) in the mid to late 90s wasn't too bad considering the lack of standards today.
Wow, what are the odds! Yes, UW is a great school and I had a great time being a student there, although I would have preferred smaller classes in an intimate setting. I imagine Hillsdale still provides one of the best liberal arts programs in the nation.
Great points Jared. Never forget that universities are a business with an educational slant. Tuition is so high simply because the government is backing the student loans, thus admins are increasing the cost knowing that they will get the money. I agree that colleges are heading into trouble, but a lot of them do not even realize it yet.
this was phenomenal Jared. Your videos have encouraged me to put Boethius on my soon-to-be-read list. (We were assigned him in college but had a hurricane that cancelled school that week, and I don’t think I did the optional reading…excited to finally go back to it.) thank you!
Jared, this is an excellent video and I appreciate the integrity and thought behind your work. It’s bold to follow a path like this, and allowing us to see you pursue this “project” has been so enlightening and inspiring. I was a middle school teacher, and I’ve found that institutions get in the way of and prevent unfettered honesty and connection between student and teacher. I also think that watching a thoughtful intellect on RU-vid is less stressful and imposing and more accessible for the average “smart book curious” than university. I’m following your career with great interest and many well wishes. ❤
I agree with you 100% Jared. I've always been somewhat interested in philosophy on a very surface level but when I came across your channel a while back, you got me excited to dig a little deeper into it. I'm still a slow reader mind you, but you've really helped me to not just give up on a text because its a little challenging or it is taking a long time to get through. Keep up the great work! 🙂
As someone who's taking a break from academia (on the STEM side), I would like to note that a lot of the time when those first two years aren't being taught by grad students, they're being taught by non-tenure track faculty who have very little ability to push back on demands without putting their employment in jeopardy. My experience as NTT at a flagship university was one of high teaching loads, low support, and a desire to streamline everything. Ironically, I felt far greater leeway to challenge students at a two-year school, and the class loads were small enough that I could give students the attention needed. In addition, the students tended to come in not feeling like they'd "made it" by getting into the institution, so there was often more of a drive to challenge oneself. There were often issues with non-education things interfering that took more work, but students with complicated lives deserve good educations too. While I'm not in the humanities, I do agree with you that the move towards testing has led to a disturbing prioritization of shorter passages. I was especially concerned with that for my youngest kid, who spent his last year and a half of high school taking English online -- the state insisted on use of a system that changed what the students did quite dramatically, eliminating major book-related projects. In particular, the English department had one project called "major author " where students read five books by an author chosen from a list, analyzed the books and produced a work that discussed major themes and connections over those five books. The state did away with it during the pandemic. I understand - it's not something you can do easily with standardized testing - but I still grieve the loss.
Humanities professors are often retaliated against for increasing rigor, especially in subjects like foreign languages. If the program in a foreign language in particular will fail students at the same level of a difficult math or chemistry course the admin will target it for budget cuts or closure. History classes are also effectively not allowed to be difficult for similar reasons, as the students tend to expect to be an easy A and when it isn't they leave bad evaluations, leading to pressure from administration
Very good points. In recent years, the university experience has focused on extras, like gym, cafes, and entertainment/distraction things. Another big issue is the big focus on social justice causes and other political issues. College should be challenging, demanding, even hard...that's why it was so worthwhile in the past.
The quality of content that you put out is incredibly underrated. I was one of those students that struggled with reading, writing, doing math, etc and was told that this was and issue. Because of this everything was brought down a level in my mind until I reached high school. Your channel helped me discover a deep love for writing and reading.This discovery has shown me for the first time what those two subjects have to offer, the challenges that it poses to my mind and the benefit of overcoming those challenges. I appreciate your recent work on youtube and substack that advocates for a system that can better challenge the youth of today and hopefully create a generation great thinkers.
Another refugee from academia here . . . I absolutely agree with your position on the “college experience,” the bloated non-education related staff, the internal politics, and the lack of rewards related to solid teaching. I left, and ended up performing evaluation research for a major bank, documenting lending discrimination based on income or race. That research helped major banks develop outreach to “lending wastelands” in their markets. Those years of work was the most fulfilling period of my life. There IS a place for us in the outside world, and occasionally, that can be very rewarding. Bravo for your explanation. ❤
Solving problems in the real world, making life and business better in some way, beats academia gloriously. I was in a Physics PhD program, passed the qualifier meaning I was ready to pick thesis advisors, but decided not to become a professor as a career goal. Instead, give me manufacturing, industrial R&D, hands-on problem solving. With a PhD and staying in the academic world, the goal is publishing papers, which is an okay thing to do, but just doesn't thrill me the way improving a product and making customers happy does.
I had a similar path when I started my degree in philosophy-- I wanted to be teach philosophy. However, I began the realize the road ahead was publish or punish in a very political workplace of a public university. I empathize with your decisions to move off that path, Jared. Happy to see your channel grow!
A year ago, you published 7 Books for Beginners, or something like that. Your video gave me that last nudge to read philosophy. I followed your recommendations and started with Plato's Works, then moved to Philosophical Investigations by Wittgenstein. I also have Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics on my shelf, but I haven't read that one yet. Still, it was all thanks to you.
I’m still grieving my academic career, three years post-dissertations defense. I strongly agree with your critique of the US university system. I’m very glad I stumbled upon your channel; it’s the medicine I needed tonight.
Really one of the only remaining benefits of College is you have a way to show that you are qualified to do a certain task, and the connections you make. Really, using the internet you can learn a fair amount of stuff. I studied music theory and history online before I started going to my teacher and she mentioned that if I hadn't told her that she would have thought I studied at a conservatory.
I did my bachelor in chemistry in Colombia in the 00's. A decade later, I decided to shift gears, I was living in the US and enrolled in a local college. I was baffled, the young students around me were really lazy and getting the same grades I had (doing all the work), they went to the teachers offices crying for better grades, and they got them. I left. I wasn't learning anything I couldn't learn by myself, given the really low standards in those classes.
I got my bachelors in the early 2000s, and later went back to school for a graduate degree. I was teaching as a grad in 2016-2018 and again as a lecturer in 2020-2021. Standards have fallen so low, there's no rigor, students are handled with kid gloves and emerge with an outsized sense of worth without the knowledge and skills to back it up, because they've been coddled for four years. Professors have become terrified to grade harshly or hold them to a high standard, because of sites like Rate My Professor, or being accused of this, that, or the other thing and called before administration. So most professors just let students slide in order to avoid conflict and confrontation because they are only interested in focusing on their research, and their undergrad classes are potential minefields of politics, gender, cancellation, etc. Undergrad programs are broken. It's just about money.
@@clamarroan I'm no sure. I have no experience with Colombian education right now. I know it has changed to comply con international standards (that are about administration, not much about curriculum). I can say that the education I got in Colombia back in 2004 was way better than in the US in 2019, if only because I got real feedback and challenges, while in the US I didn't get feedback, the teachers were very reluctant to critique any student's work, they also didn't want to ask student to make the effort. They just nodded and said good job if the student gave the bare minimum (no incentive to do a good job if you're getting the same than lazy ppl).
@@clamarroan it depends a lot on a number of things. There are A TON of poor quality institutions in COL (I asume that's also true for the US). The crying for better grades thing is happening a lot (I worked for four years as an adjunct so I had to deal with that). Universities are also marketing themselves as an experience, so they're focusing on that rather than investing on, well, education. Adjuncts' conditions are HORRIBLE. In general terms, I'd say that you can do well here but only as long as you have access to a top-tier university and don't get debt. The size of the debt in the US is ridiculously higher tho.
So well done Jared! You found your unique way to provide value which might seem counterintuitive at first, but worked out just perfectly. I would wish that for everyone.
Hey Jares I am one of your past followers during college, I am academia now , and start a RU-vid channel, and I trust your explanations, and may you be one of models I need to be on RU-vid one day. and I wish you best in upcoming work
I am 50+, and almost a year ago I was taking a history university course online. I was surprised that we were assigned to read specific fragments from 3-5 articles and all we had to do is to repeat the same point of view. No analysis, no competing two points of views, no synthesis, just read 20 pages and report. It was driving me insane. No wonder I quit.
When I was younger I had this romantic view of the academy and what I thought were "professional" or academic philosophers like. I had read Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and that book left an impression on me, I felt a personal connection with Raskolnikov. Not with his deed, of course, but with his thoughts on greatness and predestination. I got this naive idea that "for sure, everyone that is interested in philosophy is like us". And I was certain that for you to attain a philosophy degree you have to have read from the source material all the classics from antiquity to modernity. "How could you be truly knowledgeable on philosophy knowing any less?"- I thought, naively. I never however put seriously thought on enrolling in a philosophy undergraduate course. I just wanted something that had a more practical application. I wanted to build actual things. Maybe my engineering side was stronger, after all, both of my parents are engineers. When I finally did enroll in an undergrad course, I enrolled in architecture. I remember in one of my first assignments I sketched an eagle, for what would be monument, and explained to the professor, that the meaning of it was symbolic, that it had to do with Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra (my favorite book ever). She was surprised and asked If I had studied philosophy. I said "No... I just like reading philosophy out of my own interest". Soon I came to understand that even in academia most people are just not very bright, even academics are disappointingly dull. For the longest time I was sure that had to be because I live in Brazil (I'm Brazilian) and surely, the US universities must have a much higher standard. Thanks for confirming to me that is not the case, that your institutions and academics are just as underwhelming as ours. If you are curious about the end of my academic story: I got my Architecture undergrad degree, then I learned programming by myself and that is what I do now. Thanks for the video.
Hey, I appreciate your comment. I've read Dostoevsky over the past 2 years too and have found him deeply profound on the roots of modernity's problems. You're convincing me to start reading Nietzsche too (Beyond Good and Evil has been on my bookshelf for a while now -- my friend gifted it to me!). However, as I am going into first year undergraduate studies, your observations are quite worrying to me. I certainly hope university classes will be an enriching experience and I will certainly read novels, philosophical treatises and other books to make the best of my spare time. It would be great if you could offer any advice on making my undergraduate years fruitful. Nevertheless I see a silver lining. Although as you say, "even academics are disappointingly dull," what I see in many spaces on the Internet are intelligent people, knowledgeable and inquisitive in the realms of philosophy and other fields. Certainly if people like the viewers of this channel come together, there can be a revival of academic inquiry outside of the university. It might even be better -- it ends the monopoly on knowledge universities currently hold, effectively democratizing knowledge even to a degree beyond what the Internet has accomplished.
@@adrianatgaming8640 Thanks for your kind words. I share your views and enthusiasm on this promising broad online community we are building. I have thought about this many times and you have articulated it very well in your own words. Beyond Good and Evil is very good, however, I myself I'm more drawn to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, maybe because I have an artistic side of me that really enjoys the prose of the book. Or maybe for other reasons that would be too much to discuss here... I'm not sure I have much to offer in terms of academic advice as I did struggle to navigate the academic world myself. One thing I can say is, if perhaps, I had choose to enroll on a philosophy undergrad program I would have found more kinship with my peers and professors. But that is something I can only speculate about and could be completely wrong. You tell me you are reading Dostoevsky and philosophy and finding it enjoyable, so one thing I can say to you is this: you are an intellectual. And in my experience we are a rare kind. Know that you probably won't find many along the way you can really connect to in a deep intellectual level, so value those you do find, both peers and professors. Those are invaluable friendships, potentially for life. Do not fear, know that it will be sometimes a bumpy journey. Trust in yourself, do not let mean-spirited professors destroy your love for your gift. And if by chance you find yourself identifying a lot with myself, remember this: "Ne te quæsiveris extra" As Emerson puts better than I could in Self-Reliance: "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age..." Good luck!
Having read philosophy books since I left college in 1989, everything you say here is spot on. At first, they seem daunting, but you get used to it and find yourself in a world of wonder. The fact that you prefer to do your own thing here on RU-vid rather than be part of a predatory money-making system that doesn't deliver on its promises is something I admire.
One of my best friends is an absolutely brilliant historian who would have been a kickass professor, but she stopped after her masters bc she knew it’s basically impossible to get a job doing that anymore. (And boy do we know enough history PhDs to confirm that). She has worked as an administrator at a prestigious university for several years now. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the injustice that is the same system that refused to pay her to research and teach is perfectly happy to pay her a living wage to sit in meetings and get yelled at by professors who don’t want to have to submit grades.
Jared I have watched your videos on and off for a couple of years. I have taught at all levels of education and as a 53 year old man I have found joy in teaching at what you would label Kindergarten level as it fits in with my family commitments here in the UK. I enjoy being at the ‘chalk face’ but I have also become disillusioned by the decay in education and its constant ‘rebranding’. Style over substance. I have turned to your channel in an effort to scratch an intellectual itch. I am revisiting my brief foray into Philosophy from about 25 years ago. I am really enjoying it and with the summer break heading my way - I’m looking forward to being able to commit some time to it. Thank you for your honest and approachable manner - I’m sure academia has made a mistake in allowing you to move on. But then - I’m doing my most enjoyable work after ‘moving’ on from other things. Maybe this is your true calling?
I always get something out of ALL your videos. I am long out of college and university, now retired, but reading is something I love and you are truly an inspiration in so many ways. Thank you.
Love what you said, and hate how correct you are. Expectations, and universities/colleges as we knew them, are for the most part dead and gone. People are coming to you on RU-vid because they've been starved for real, difficult, and meaningful education. Keep up the great work!
Thanks Jared. Over the past many months I have been watching and enjoying your videos, you have provided an extra spark in my desire to read philosophy. I have been interested for a few years, but it now is more than just an interest. I believe it is something that can enrich my life in many ways. Last month after I finished reading Meditations for the second time I went straight to Letters From A Stoic. I seem to be reading these works with a different level of awareness. I can't say it is from just watching your videos, but I do believe it has definitely helped. Take care fella.
Some rhetorical questions: (1) are universities more focused on the pursuit of funding for research, or, is undergraduate education the top priority? (2) do parents expect a university to take their place when the student goes to a university? (3) is success at funding a higher priority in the tenure decision vs. teaching and training excellence of university students? (4) how many parents conduct ad hoc audits of the classes that their students take at a university as a matter of quality checks? (5) is poor teaching equivalent to stealing?
Today I learned about the result of me failing to get in a local music school, as a college drop out from Europe. The failure of my application to music school forced me to rethink about why I dropped out at the first place and I came across this video. Unlike the States, in Europe the Europeans don't need to pay tuition, however not much luck for the non europeans. Yet the situation is the same, in order for schools to provide "experience" there are a lot of budgets go into the "environment, event' etc proxy. And as a student of science I found it a big headache the school doesn't have the capability to offer us proper intermediate courses nor lab courses, yet always brand themselves as "game changer, world impact, will let you gain the mastery of xxx". It is really frustrating for me that every content I've came across in school lecture could've been learned from the internet, not saying it's thence bad, but really, then what's the value of a school other than selling the prestige?
I like to refer back to the rhetoric of Mark Twain about not letting schooling interfere with one's education. But seriously, I often recommend that people seek out training in hard skills such as nursing, mechanical work, IT, etc. (as opposed to soft skills like management, administration, HR, et al.) Hard skillsets are almost always in shortage and their certification route relatively accessible. And most of all: instead of trying to find a job that makes you happy, find something you're good at and find joy in it. Also, don't accept the notion that a junior college is necessarily inferior to the big universities. Junior colleges not only have much more reasonable pricing, class sizes, and scheduling, but the professors are most often retired industry professionals with a career of genuine experience and lots of earned wisdom. University professors (particularly those outside of the hard sciences) have little to no experience outside of the classroom, for better or worse.
This encouraged me as a stay at home homeschooling mom to continue reading long books and classics with my kids instead of just small excerpts. I want them to feel that they are capable from a young age to finish books and not feel so intimidated. It wasn’t until I stopped going to college and learning on my own that actually have felt the accomplishment of finishing a long book and really analyzing and enjoying the process.
Thank you for your videos. I had stopped reading for some time and was struggling to find something to pursue on my own time. I started purchasing and reading more since watching your channel. You have definitely help me find the passion of reading more meaningful books again.
The thing about dreams is that you eventually wake up and see them for what they are. I agree that you can do what you love without being a cog in that broken machine. And you'll probably be paid better, if you aren't already.
I absolutely resonate with what you shared (speaking from an engineering student's perspective). I'm a rising junior, and throughout my life college was presented to me as the pinnacle of intellectual inquiry and academic excellence. And although there are certainly aspects of that, in my experience many departments fall short of providing that experience for the majority of students. It's really up to students individually to carve out a path to explore their intellectual interests, it's sad that we can't rely on our institutions to provide that for us and more often than not they can actually get in our way and even inhibit our progress in doing that.
Nothing made me more resentful of my university than having a grad-student for a teacher. My fellow students didn't seem to mind, or even notice the difference, but I recognized that I was being cheated in my education: we were paying for PHD level instruction, but getting someone who was only a few semesters more knowledgeable than ourselves.
When I was in graduate school, my history professor said “I have to dumb down this class because if I taught you the way I learned none of you would pass.” That really made me angry and insulted so after class I went to his office and said “Frankly I’m disappointed and frustrated because I didn’t come here to learn dumbed down material, I came to learn the most that I can. I believe I could learn what you learned.” He turned to me and said “you’re probably right, but nobody else in the class could so I can’t do it.” That’s what I was left with. Grad school still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, that I sacrificed all that time and money and I’m not sure what it got me. Now I’m learning way more on my own than I ever did in school. In part thanks to your videos like you said. Your early videos encouraged me to read hard books outside my field and I’ve been enjoying tackling philosophy and difficult books and learning that my intellect is not limited to my initial field but that I can expand my education beyond that schooling on my own.
Do you think he meant in the the whole class not learning, everybody does learn differently and everybody won’t put the same hours in. Just think how many students came to him and asked or how many students went on to search for themselves,
@@Che-vn6vu I think he meant that the students in the class were not intellectually capable and if they needed to know something they could simply google it. That’s what he told us
I went to CU Boulder (Go Buffs!) in the winter of 2020 just before Covid lockdowns. It's a lovely campus with a rock-climbing wall, a football stadium, a planetarium, and a Vegas style buffet. It was totally geared toward an experience for the fresh-out-of-high-school lot. I was 44 and had never been to university before. It was ok, but I see exactly what you are saying in this video. I ended up not attending my sophomore year as I felt like I already had the skills and experience to get good work.
CU has a great campus, great scientists and professors, and Boulder is a great town for artists, intellectuals, creatives, explorers, and world class researchers. I regret leaving it for a job in Florida.
Thank you for your perspective! Seeing your videos really coincided with my bachelor's burnout on year 3 out of 4. I'm not from America, but our countries' humanitarian faculties (Theatre studies in my case, but also Humanities in general) are understaffed and underfunded, not rescpeted compared to other sciences, and most graduates are not in demand at all. Also now professors and students can be fired or in extreme cases be legally prosecuted for being against government's policy... Add to that a feeling of inadequacy, and imposter syndrome (or maybe I'm just geniunely a bad fit lol) Your videos as well as of other creators really remind me that I can choose a different vocation while continuing to learn more about life in philosophical and other terms on my own, that I do not neccesarily need a degree to "deserve" to have opinions about the world we live and the life that is happening. Thanks!
As a retired professor, I agree with you completely. I went as a student to a college that was rigorously devoted to learning and intellectual growth. I would say that over the many years of teaching, that became secondary to cushy dorms, gym workouts, and of course spectator sports. There’s nothing wrong with these things, but they have become the cart before the horse.
I was a weird kid in highschool. When I saw how much college cost and the interest rates they charged, my response was "I wish I got that in my savings account!!". Given I was a weirdly financially conscious kid, I never left home. I went to the local community college to get my associates degree, got it transferred to the local 4 year university and completed my bachelors there. The quality of education was pretty disappointing. I see videos online from students at other colleges studying the same degree as me, and they can speak with such depth on topics I haven't even been introduced to. Funnily enough, I still find myself wishing I could've gone to a "real" school. The ones with the fancy libraries, dining halls, dorms, all that. I do sometimes feel like I missed something.
I think the core problem here is Mission Creep. The term originated with military operations, but it seems to apply to about any organizion or institution, be it education, govt, health care, tech, NGO, etc. I think the root is the human desire for prestige and to have control over as many people as possible thus an ever increasing staff size, coupled with the corporate eternal growth mandate.
As an engineering student the expectations part for like the complete reverse. Most the professors are really more interested in their research than teaching, same problem you mentioned about grad students and we're just kind of expected to learn most everything and adapt to new software almost entirely on our own. Like I feel I'm more paying for a structured timeline to do my own learning and a degree that proves I did that. Many of my class mates who end up doing just fine skip most lectures because they're largely useless
I had a professor that reminded the students in his classes that all education is self-education. He emphasized to us that we should not pigeonhole ourselves into our majors.
Not that I was seeking a career in academia, but I was turned off to any possibility of it after taking part time work for a lab on campus. I watched what the doctoral candidates and post-doctoral researchers had to jump through, as well as the politics. So I do understand some of the frustrations mentioned. Now after retiring from an unsatisfying career, I find myself wanting to learn again. I think it's natural that philosophy be the starting point for that, and I guess that's why the RU-vid algorithms introduced me to this channel. So much of what I know of philosophy actually came from my high school courses. Your channel and suggestions have made it easier for me to rediscover what I have sorely missed.
I understand this video is just your point of view, but I wanted to speak up about your comments about adjuncts. Adjuncts are incredibly underpaid and undervalued. They receive very little institutional support. Where I work, adjuncts do not receive benefits and their hours are capped. When classes do make, they are often taken away to be given to a full-time faculty member whose class did not... at the last minute. Many adjuncts hustle to get classes, work on multiple campuses and, yes, do sort of stitch together an income in a mercenary way. However, a blanket statement that students will "not be getting that top quality education that you can really only get from an established professor..." is unwarranted. I realize it is a small point in your overall message here, but there is a lot more nuance than that. As an adjunct for the last twelve years with another 15 years of teaching experience previous to that, and extensive (and current) experience in my field, I supply a top notch educational experience in the classroom. I do so, despite the roadblocks the my position as an adjunct throws at me. I was asked a few years ago how I would conduct/structure my class if I were full-time and at a larger institution. The answer is I would do basically the same course. Perhaps a bit more indepth, but pretty much the same. And the instruction would hold its own against any other comparable class by another experienced teacher. I do not believe I am a rarity, either. A great many adjuncts are very capable and amazingly "top quality." The system has let them down. they have not necessarily let down the students.
Where i work in Britain i mix amongst a lot of active students and i notice the same thing. I must stress i never went into academia didnt have A levels but i have read a lot of various topics including the classics when i discuss any of this hardly any know what im talking about. I seems education is like the highway code you just need to learn what is necessary to pass thats it you left on your own in the wide world theres no encouragement to carry on learning about anything they just end up doing menial jobs like where i work. But i have notice more youngsters now dont want to go on to further education because of debt but just go out to work. I use to dream about goint to universities prove myself to people but not now i don't regret it i just carry on learning my own way from books and RU-vid videos like you thanks
I've sometimes felt intimidated by the harder works of philosophy (I haven't read nearly as much as I would've wanted) but you have definitely inspired me to read more philosophy and you've given us a general understanding of how to approach it, which can be quite daunting even for someone interested in it, let alone any "normal" person. So yes I'd definitely say you've helped me get out of my comfort zone. And in other genres too, I started Book of the New Sun and GGK's books in part because you've recommended them, and I'm very glad. So thank you.
Sir, that is a cool decision! There are significant problems in the selection processes for both learners and universities, as well as in academic management. Considering advancements in technology and the economic and political situations in different countries, there is a tremendous need for change in these processes. Throughout history, philosophers often lived modestly and were not wealthy, which contrasts sharply with today’s focus on economic survival and paying bills. Thanks.
Yeah I dropped out of university for medical reasons in my senior year. I have a job I am happy with so I have just been taking one class a semester remotely to finish my degree eventually. I don't feel like I have been given tools, structure, or knowledge. I feel like I have been scammed and bullied collectively by professors, administrators, and policies.
Education merely for its intrinsic value is fading. Your channel has helped me expand my reading, and given me the courage to venture into philosophy and I am forever grateful. I am 38 years old and my goal is to have a novel published by the time in 40. Everything I have learned has been on my own because I went to university and it took me too long just to get my AA degree paying out of pocket to avoid debt. My fear of going for a Bachelors is how expensive it is and knowing that attaining it doesn't always translate to working in the profession immediately. What would be the point of all that debt if I'm still in the same position I am?
I feel this. I’m a tenured professor of philosophy looking for an off-ramp. My university is becoming a degree mill, focused on degree production rather than the process that culminates in a degree. One reason for this is market pressure from students; another reason is the influence of state politics (I work at a public university). There’s so much to be said on this topic, and I glad Jared dedicates time on his channel to these problems in higher education.
Hi Brian. I was tenured 40 yrs now retired. My advice is to focus on writing and teaching and to ignore that big picture. You can’t fix the world but you can fix a few students and write some good papers. There was a RU-vid vid with 3.5 mill views about a spine doctor who quit cos he couldn’t address the outside causes of spine disease. Same point, I said he should get back in the game after a break.
@@VintageSoloHarmony I appreciate your advice. I just wish the incentive structure wasn’t one that punishes professors for maintaining reasonable standards in the classroom.
@@brianh4625 Hi Brian. Around 1995 there was a news article about a math prof who failed more than 90% of the class. Big row, he said the students just couldn’t do it. He kept his job of course. I say don’t worry, make it hard but too hard.
My dad ran the best college in Canada, he retired in the late 80s. There were only a few people running the place. I don't know the number, but the run of offices was maybe 4, with each containing either a secretary + exec (Provost) say, or a registrar with a few others. No website to maintain. Today they are building a tower to accomodate administration. My daughter is going there, and I will say that they are responsive, but it is a boondoggle.
Nice to find your channel and the others here who share similar experiences and views. I was a philosophy graduate candidate years ago and had similar dreams of reading/writing/teaching philosophy as a career. Ultimately I decided against pursuing it and have occasionally been haunted by "what if" thoughts. (One of my loves was philosophy of language as well btw!) The more I hear professional academics and former professional academics discuss the problems and often downright toxicity in the academic bubble, the more I'm convinced I saved myself a lot of headache and heartache, not to mention money, by not going that direction. Thanks for your channel!
I was trained in high school to read complex philosophical books in a very short amount of time. I was young and did not get everything I was reading. Anyway, it made a difference for me at the university: instead of "philosophical antologies," with short excerpts from various philosophers, I was able to read actual philosophical books. I live in Europe, and in order to do this, I had to follow a study course in English (I am a mother language, Italian and English). But without my double language skills, without the proper education that one single teacher gave me in high school, what would have been of my university education? As a researcher, I still see students struggling to read a whole book and prefer to read various reductions. This is highly discouraging. You can not do research in humanities without having the ability to face complex texts without an appreciation of minor works and a well structured knowledge. I am still in academia, but I understand your position. Things have to change: we have the responsibility of making our future generation independent and professionally competent. Thank you for sharing.
I'm happy that I went to a college that prepares you for university and helps you develop those skills. For example, doing 100 pages of readings. I feel that I did get what I paid for and it helped me realize what I'm interested in. If I had gone to university straight after high school, I wouldn't have done as well because high school work is very different from university work, especially in philosophy. I feel that I developed really good reading and writing skills, especially for essay-like exams. I know academia can be toxic, but it also has its benefits. I can see how it may have failed some students. Even though it costs more money, I do feel that going to college before university would be beneficial.
I’m almost done with my masters degree and can easily say there has not been consistency amongst the professors within my courses. 10 courses in and some courses were incredibly difficult while others had such a low bar that I felt I was back in high school or undergrad. There were 2 classes in particular that I felt I wasted time and thousands of dollars on. I could have done the work in my sleep and didn’t learn much at all. What a waste!
I quite literally couldn't bring myself to keep going with school after getting my AA, even though it had been my plan my entire life to be in school for a long time. I was so horrifically burnt out, at my most depressed, and paying utterly insane amounts of money for what felt like almost no reward - this coming from someone who went to college prep high school as well, and was fairly well prepared for what it would be like. I had bounced from a full, proper university to a community college, and genuinely the cc was the better education by MILES. It was sickening the amount I paid for a university "experience" just to learn next to nothing when the most passionate learning I ever did was at cc. Now that I'm out of school I read like crazy again and actually feel like I have time to pursue real dreams, even as someone who works. It's genuinely wild what the current American university system can rob from you with the way it's set up now.
Great video. As someone who graduated a year ago, I have seen and felt the low quality education being given in college. I went to Grand Canyon University. And although I cannot speak for everyone there, the expectation of a tough, rigorous education to sharpen your mind for life is not there. People go there, like you said, for the experience, not the training to better their lives in work, family life and making the world a lovelier place. It is sad, but it is the world we live in. Keep up the videos. You are making a difference.
I had a full scholarship and I left. I hated it. They knew nothing about field research and were leaping to stupid conclusions based on information that was 20-years old (at least) and was done by someone else who had done NO FIELD RESEARCH.
Dude I don't know what you did but these last few posts you're looking sharp as hell. And yeah, universities are long overdue for a reset. On paper it seems like a good idea for the department of education to give everybody whatever loans they need to go to school, but the way it has played out has just been for colleges to raise tuition over and over without increasing the quality of the education. The way universities are accredited basically functions as a cartel, with officials from prestigious universities sitting on the board that makes the decision whether or not to allow in a new university to qualify for federal student aid. Students won't go to schools where they won't get student aid, so any school with an innovative spin will get locked out, and competition is blocked. It's a recipe for disaster that's been playing out for decades. The bubble's gotta pop sooner or later. Also, major props to you with everything you're dealing with now. You're seriously a badass.
That's kind of scary to hear. I'm building a charity to get examinable, accredited online distance-learning material out there to students for the bare minimum costs (think $200 a year). Do you have any insights into the chances of getting US accreditation for 100- and 200- level courses? I am setting high standards for the material. The point is to help students get at least the first two years for nearly free. Then they can transfer or specialise elsewhere. I figured that might reduce the sense of competition with existing universities.
I was a tenured professor in STEM. I assure you that exactly the same thing is happening in those classes too. I left for more or less exactly the circumstances you discuss here.
