Credentialism versus Autodidacticism

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Autodidacticism is the philosophy of being ones own educator, learning on one's own via textbooks, experimentation, or otherwise being one's own teacher. Credentialism, on the other had, and for this discussion, is the emphasis upon credentials in order to prove you know something - often associated with a few years of being owned by a college and then being stuck with a bill for a few myriad dollars. In college, you are basically teaching yourself anyhow, except you have a heck of a lot more money to pay for doing so. At least that's my opinion as of now. What does everyone else here think? Does getting a piece of paper that costs tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars actually prove you actually have the knowledge you signed up to learn? Does it mean for certain that you will get a job/career? Are most colleges anything more than type of a business playing upon the gullibility of the population into which the importance of a college education has been drilled into them from childhood? Does it mean that the college will get paid for certain or do they lack any certainty of getting money once a person enrolls? Is it not possible to learn virtually everything you could learn in a college just for the price of the textbooks and the time it takes to exert the effort to study the material that you want to learn in college?

I understand the need to "prove" you know something to a potential employer, but in my opinion the collage system as it stands now in an engine for crushing dreams, not building them.

Autodidacicism is not a very effective method of education, simply because the autodidact will lack the appropriate background to effectively approach any given field (to be expected... if you are trying to learn a field, odds are you don't know much about it yet). Undoubdtedly you will trot out a few examples of successful autodidacts, including some from a couple centuries ago, to give your proof by example, but the majority of "autodidacts" tend to be very shallow in their level of knowledge.

unless the invent an entire new field of endeavor with their self directed efforts. Several branches of science were started by gifted autodidacts. For example geology and paleontology.

ruveyn

And being indentured to a "higher learning institution", provided with the cheapest textbooks the school bothers to afford, and having instructors who don't even know the subject they are supposed to be teaching and often don't even know English, is supposed to be a "very effective method of education"? Do you think people are unable to direct themselves in their studies and instead somehow need a curriculum predetermined for them? Do you need this assistance?

The universities do not exist for your sake, but to produce individuals which have the skills which the establishment are in need of, whether within science, business, administration or propaganda.

Knowledge is proved when it is expressed and put to good use wisely, and neither "independent study" nor "straight from the professor" (and as opposed to learning from a mentor-practitioner) can guarantee for everyone the desired result.


I seldom learn anything without first having someone else wittingly or unwittingly at least get me orientated a bit, and that kind of question has no single answer for everyone.

At $500 per credit hour, they ought to be demonstratively better than they are now. But you're wrong, they aren't to produce individuals to benefit the community either, but they exist only for themselves to profiteer off a populace of cash cows who have been ubiquitously brainwashed as to the importance of a college "education" throughout childhood.

... and for the sake of that "which the establishment are in need of ..."

Apart from the thought of their possibly being of benefit to everyday people, you are each actually saying the same thing.

it sounds like you're angry at a specific entity.

I was at first upset at the college I am currently attending alone, but when I was considering transferring to the university of Minnesota into their aeronautical engineering program I found that they listed, on the U of MN website, the results of surveys by students. The polling data is vague, however the comments section in all of the years after they placed a comments section on the survey was very telling to me, in essence telling me that no matter which educational facility I enroll in it seems to basically be the same regardless of what the title of the business is or how they do their taxes. I had waited until the age of 24, studying on my own until then, in order to qualify for financial aid according to the FAFSA, and instead of what I imagined of college being the case I got Wal-Mart instead.

that sounds pretty disheartening.


perhaps some humor would improve your mood?



www.bigfatwhale.com is fun times.

Evidently you have never been to a decent university. All of my professors have been completely fluent in English (I think about half of them were not native speakers, but oftentimes you couldn't even tell it was their second language) and all of them have been quite competent in their respective fields. It is very helpful to have some form of direction in what you are studying. In some fields, there is a decent bit of "insider information" that you need to avoid wasting time going in the completely wrong direction, and the best place to get that information is from people who have spent their entire lives in the field.

I had a really wonderful educational experience at my university as well. There's no way I could have taught myself what I learned through my professors. They didn't just regurgitate bits out of a textbook, but they constantly challenged my thinking, enabling thought processes that would otherwise not exist. Some of my professors were true pioneers in their field (meteorology). OK, some of it may be BS, especially when you're going through the motions of fulfilling prerequisites. I think a lot depends on what your major is. Some disciplines are more easily self-taught than others. Schools and professors also vary in quality, and tuition is often NOT a factor in true quality.

What college provides textbooks???? Textbooks are unbelievably expensive and this cost is shouldered by the students (unless you know of a college that provides textbooks? I've never heard of one). A common complaint of students is that professors assign texts that- while high quality- are also exorbitantly expensive. They can do this because the students buys them, not the school. Money is no object when the budget is somebody else's concern.

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I have never had a college professor who didn't know the subject. I've never even heard of students complaining about this. On ocassion they complain about the exact opposite. Some newly minted professors have spent so long immersed in their subject that they forget that students don't have the rock solid knowledge base that they do and they skip unintentionally over crucial stuff because they forget that the students don't already know it.


I've never heard of this, although some students complain of thick accents




It's more effective than trying to teach yourself. Like Orwell said, the professor gives guidance. It takes more than just reading a stack of books to really know a subject. Also, painful as it is for many students, the act of writing papers or doing projects is what forces many students to really grapple with a subject. Writing posts on the internet just isn't enough.



Very often, yes. There are brilliant exeptions and some famous autodidacts. But most people need guidance. Some subjects also require lab work. You can't really learn anatomy without doing dissection. And you can't dissect anything but meat from the butchers without getting arrested unless you are in an anatomy lab.



Absolutely! To give an example, there is no way I could have learned chemistry without chemistry professors walking me through the curriculum in an exact and time-tested progression. Chemistry is truly a field where you can't really dive in anywhere. You have to start at the beginning and work your way through a curriculum progression. I suppose I could rely on a beginning textbook and then move to a more advanced textbook and so on. But I think having professors design the curriculum and also designate which courses need to be prerequisites of others was the only way I could have learned. And chemistry lab? I can't fathom trying to do that safely at home.

What really sucks is to fork all that money over to a collage only to lose it all because your teacher doesn't like you and kicks you out of class.