NWR: Searching for a College

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

originally posted by VLM:

originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:

originally posted by Cliff:
A view from insidehere

Good essay, thanks; useful at the policy scale of resolution rather than the household one, though.

Any individual is just a random draw, unfortunately.

Unless you are the individual, in which case you want a different analysis. Agree that Tan's comments are apt.

 

[Peter Creasey]

originally posted by vaughn tan: majoring in a language is less clearly useful.

Vaughn, In the case of language being one of a double major, e.g. Economics and Spanish, it can be quite valuable.

. . . . . Pete

 

[vaughn tan]

originally posted by Peter Creasey:

originally posted by vaughn tan: majoring in a language is less clearly useful.

Vaughn, In the case of language being one of a double major, e.g. Economics and Spanish, it can be quite valuable.

. . . . . Pete

agree—though i wonder about the signaling value of having a double major in economics and spanish. in what situations would that be significantly better than having an economics major and being provably fluent in spanish? gut says: not so many. i don't think a language double major is a significant bump factor in resume reviews either, though that may vary a lot by employer.

i never thought that doing academic research on hiring would ever become relevant on this board. the world is a strange place.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by vaughn tan:
the world is a strange place.

And this place is stranger, by far.

Mark Lipton

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by VLM:


This is excellent advice.

I think some combination of STEM skills and intellectual breadth is the best way to approach college. As he said, undergraduate business majors are not taken particularly seriously...

I thought of you today when one speaker was thrashing PCA. I wish I had some of her slides.

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

Stems skills/science literacy seem like the best training in evidence-based critical thinking, which is good for everything (except Glen Beck).

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Stems skills/science literacy seem like the best training in evidence-based critical thinking, which is good for everything (except Glen Beck).

Not Scholastic theology?

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

No.

 

[SFJoe]

I dunno, that Aquinas dude was pretty sharp.

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

So I hear, but doesn't the evidence side of things get lost there?

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

Depends on what you think evidence is and also whether the question of what counts as evidence is part of critical thinking. One thing Aquinas did really well was at least show the structure of what looking at a question and conflicting evidence in favor of one position or the other looks like.

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

As usual, I'm over my head. I mourn my squandered youth and lack of Jesuit training. But I still like science literacy together with, as Nathan writes, intellectual breadth.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by SFJoe:

originally posted by VLM:


This is excellent advice.

I think some combination of STEM skills and intellectual breadth is the best way to approach college. As he said, undergraduate business majors are not taken particularly seriously...

I thought of you today when one speaker was thrashing PCA. I wish I had some of her slides.

I actually had to use PCA about a year ago (for stratification in a genomics study) and then defend the use of it on a call. It was totally fucked up. They acted like I invented it, I pointed them at Hotelling (1933). Biologists...

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Stems skills/science literacy seem like the best training in evidence-based critical thinking, which is good for everything (except Glen Beck).

I'm hesitant to mention this, but the foundation for my professional life was an undergraduate degree in Philosophy. I hesitate because it was a particular kind of Philosophy that was heavily wrapped up with the study of AI, so required me to develop a lot of STEM skills. Symbolic logic and argument are powerful tools that translate across disciplines (I consider statistics to be the applied philosophy of science, the math is secondary to the logic). I even used them to good effect in a paper about Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by VLM:

originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Stems skills/science literacy seem like the best training in evidence-based critical thinking, which is good for everything (except Glen Beck).

I'm hesitant to mention this, but the foundation for my professional life was an undergraduate degree in Philosophy. I hesitate because it was a particular kind of Philosophy that was heavily wrapped up with the study of AI, so required me to develop a lot of STEM skills. Symbolic logic and argument are powerful tools that translate across disciplines (I consider statistics to be the applied philosophy of science, the math is secondary to the logic). I even used them to good effect in a paper about Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.

Why, why, he's nothing but an English major!

 

[Jay Miller]

originally posted by VLM:

originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Stems skills/science literacy seem like the best training in evidence-based critical thinking, which is good for everything (except Glen Beck).

I'm hesitant to mention this, but the foundation for my professional life was an undergraduate degree in Philosophy. I hesitate because it was a particular kind of Philosophy that was heavily wrapped up with the study of AI, so required me to develop a lot of STEM skills. Symbolic logic and argument are powerful tools that translate across disciplines (I consider statistics to be the applied philosophy of science, the math is secondary to the logic). I even used them to good effect in a paper about Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.

Cognitive Science? If so you should have a chat with Jeff one of these days.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Jay Miller:
Cognitive Science? If so you should have a chat with Jeff one of these days.

I think he's a Neat and I'm a Scruffy so it may not work out.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

originally posted by VLM:
I'm hesitant to mention this, but the foundation for my professional life was an undergraduate degree in Philosophy. I hesitate because it was a particular kind of Philosophy that was heavily wrapped up with the study of AI, so required me to develop a lot of STEM skills. Symbolic logic and argument are powerful tools that translate across disciplines (I consider statistics to be the applied philosophy of science, the math is secondary to the logic). I even used them to good effect in a paper about Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.

Look who's going to fix science, to boot.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Look who's going to fix science, to boot.

Gee, that's a dumb article.

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

Read this story from the NYT in April the other day, and recalled the discussion in this thread on the role of burgeoning administration in tuition costs.