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Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
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Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
I went to an extremely expensive no-name college (although I did manage to graduate with Bush's Secretary of State, the deputy Attorney General under Clinton, a nationally famous political cartoonist, the U.S. expert on terrorist groups and a bunch of other fascinating people I was lucky to call friends). My parents paid for it, no question, and I came out with a degree in American Studies that qualified me to do nothing more than go on to law school or graduate school. I had decent, but not memorable grades and you'd be shocked at how little American history I even remember these days. Most of it I've picked back up again talking with my son who went to OU. I can tell you the political science department at OU has some impressive educators, perhaps because of Boren. I don't know if they'll be famous educators, but they're good.Originally Posted by Rover
It wasn't until I decided for myself that I wanted to go to medical school - actually had a goal to work towards - that I settled down and got excellent grades and made myself learn. That was at 24, three years after I graduated from college.
Two points in all this rambling. If a student has a real goal in mind and they're passionate about that goal, it may not matter how old they are. If they don't, college is probably a waste of time. The attempt to give you a well-rounded educations results in students paying for two years of classes they are forced to take. When you're taking Intro to Film, Intro to Psych, World Music, etc just to fulfill requirements, I can promise you most students do not come out of the first two years well-rounded. But many of them do finish those two years in serious debt. The biggest mistake I see is kids borrowing significant amounts of money to go to tier II colleges for undergraduate. If you go to a Wash U, Tulane or Vanderbilt and have to borrow the money to do it, you are unlikely to get a significant return on your investment. That might be different for Harvard, Yale, Princeton or MIT, but probably almost no others. I luckily had two go to OU and one to the Naval Academy. One went to Wake Forest and I can tell you it was a big waste of money, except that ultimately it led to her meeting her most excellent husband. But, we weren't smart enough at the time to realize that a Wake Forest education is nice, but really carries no weight. In fact, what I told all my children was "Better a 4.0 from OU than a 2.0 from Harvard if you want to go on to graduate school."
It might be time, with college costs out of control, to talk about a two year service requirement for high school graduates. That might be two years in the military, two years in the Peace Corps, two years as a Teacher's Aide in a junior "Teach for America", or we could resurrect the WPA or the Youth Conservation Corps. Kids could pick their branch and when their two years were over, they would have seen a bit of the world, broadened their friendships and interests and might have found a calling. Maybe (appalled responses expected here) the federal gov't could give each of them two years of tuition at a state institution upon completion.
Banned
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Okay, some of you guys are all over the map. Study after study comes out that says how every country in the world is beating America in math, science, engineering, etc... so the call goes out for more education funding... with the ultimate goal of leading the world in Art Appreciation? The biggest problem with that is that America doesn't have a whole lot of art worth appreciating. Now if we had been around when the Catholic Church was spreading Christianity through art, architecture, city planning, and music using their Baroque movement then maybe we would have something. But we got stuck in modernism and pop culture. Sucks to be us.
BTW - the Ovation Channel has a really good documentary (3 parts) on the Baroque movement. Very fascinating.
Here is the trailer for it:
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
What appalls me as much as anything in this discussion is that we have apparently accepted the notion that competent writing, language, and thinking skills are apparently mutually incompatible with science, technology, engineering, and math skills. You have the latter on one end of the spectrum, and "liberal arts" on the other. The attitude to me that reflexively makes me recoil at the latter is that there is a presumption of some moral high ground in its acquisition. I am trying to determine how the prior generation(s) built a nation, went to the moon, discovered powered flight, etc. without such agonizing struggles over such minutiae.
The point is they are not mutually exclusive. It shouldn't take an act of Congress to demand that students have the capability upon graduating high school that they can spell, construct a complete sentence, and formulate a paragraph. Yet in the years since I attended elementary school, where we most certainly were taught those very things, I am so very saddened (if not angered) to discover most of those simple notions have been abandoned - and not by some overarching urge to push every student into a STEM degree. They've been replaced by feel-good notions of "free expression" and "we don't emphasize grammar or spelling" for the tommyrot of self-esteem. We've entirely lost sight of the fact that such rules exist to allow us to master the communicative skills and the language we have been given.
If employers in the public sector need certain skill sets, why is it so abhorrent to ask the public sector school system to assist in providing them? If so many parents who subsidize those public school systems recognize in a common sense manner the idiocy of feel-good, anything goes teaching, yet are powerless to stop it, what can they do but plead to their elected officials to change the course of that public education system, or pull their students out in favor of a privately funded system that will do precisely what was done as a matter of convention barely a century ago?
Common core failed in this state for a very simple reason - it finally pushed over the edge the limits to which a common threshhold of where the abstract crosses into the practical. As a third-party to a discussion on the matter, particularly as it pertained to math, an "educated" yet entirely clueless former superintendent explained in perhaps the most condescending manner possible, all prefaced with a "you just don't understand" to a parent that it was "essential" that we develop the "critical thinking skills" that teach a child "why" 2+2=4. I challenged that. There are some things that do not need to be explained and rationalized to the conceptual level to every student. They should be taught as fact. I was accused of trying to start an argument for daring to challenge a "true educator."
There is no one, single magic bullet to solve our education and employment problems. We have an out-of-control federal educational bureaucracy that sucks down more and more resources seemingly every year while returning less and less in measurable results. We have students churned out of a social promotion system that champions "trying really really hard" even though they can't spell, write, or perform basic mathematics. We have parents who either find that combating such nonsense is either an exercise in futility or are too indifferent to care. We have hyper-educated "educators" too busy being affiliated and mutually enamored with their own failing yet self-congratulatory educational "revelations." We have too many politicians pushing social agendas. And all the while, our children and our country's future pay the price.
Banned
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
SoonerDave - mandating that children be forced to communicate in English is about as racist as you can get (according to some people).
Participating Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Well thought out and written. I concur.
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Interestingly, the man that built the world's largest technology company agreed with you:
~Steve Jobs“It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology, married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”
Interesting article about what's wrong with the tech industry today (it's partly too MUCH STEM focus)
What Silicon Valley refuses to learn from Steve Jobs | VentureBeat | Business | by Rod Bauer, Bauer Group
Owner / Administrator
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
About 15 years ago, I had a long series of interviews with Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, back when they were still a big dog in the tech world.
Due to the background of the company, they had an incredibly strong bias towards engineers. I was applying for a pure internal business position and in the end, they still ended up hiring an engineer.
Similar situation at some other Silicon Valley companies at the time.
On the other hand, companies like Apple and now Google started showing a preference to English majors in particular. Very wise, because the irony of technology is that the written word is more important now than ever.
Participating Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
My brother got a degree from OCU in Psychology and went on to work as a councelor for Laureate in Tulsa and Children and Family Services after that. He then realized this was not what he wanted to do so he went to Columbia University in NYC to get a Master's in Divinity with the hopes of teaching after he was done. Well, he stopped the school one semester short (basically one class and a theseus) because he didn't want to do it any more. He then went to work as a sales rep for an art company, based out of NYC but his area was Arizona and Vegas. He moved back to NYC to be their main sales rep. Well, when 2008 hit, sales went down and the company ended up folding. No one was hiring anyone as art sales reps because people were not spending as much money as they used to. He got married, his wife got a job in OKC so they moved here. He wanted to work in oil and gas and couldn't understand why none of the oil and gas companies wouldn't want to hire him. He now works for an oil and gas contractor but he had to start out with a temp agency doing contract work for CHK and Devon then he went full time about two year later. He still does not know why he could not get the job immediately with his history and I had to tell him, no matter how you spin it, you had a Psych degree with Master's Studies (not finished, mind you) in Divinity and a sales rep background. Those are not the type of people on the top of the list for O&G companies. He was in the group that thought as long as you have a degree, it doesn't matter what you want to go into. That may have been the case 20 years ago, but not so much any more.
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
I don't know about being racist, but it is highly useful to speak English properly. Having done business in about 30 countries for a couple of decades, I can tell you it is embarrassing to sit in a meeting overseas and the persons speaking English most properly are those not from the US.. It is tragic how poorly so many recent graduates communicate.
Owner / Administrator
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Having worked in the LA public schools for years, I can assure you there are zero issues with CHILDREN communicating in English.
The only real issue is adults that immigrate from other countries, as it's much harder to learn a foreign language once you get past a certain age.
But that's been the case since this country was founded and if people bothered to research their own ancestry they are likely to discover that the first generation of their own family (if from a non-English speaking country) probably never learned English very well, if at all.
Participating Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Boy, did this thread fall off the rails.
Participating Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
What's with all the anger? Is it Monday or something?
For my part, I was reading post after post about higher education as nothing more than a jobs program. I merely wanted to point out the concern that many have that education is about more than training - it's about learning. I didn't say it was mutually exclusive, I didn't say one was "better" than the other, I simply was bringing the conversation back to what higher education has been about for a long, long time which is a broad based liberal arts education and graduate schools were for higher degrees in particular fields. Today, there is a real concern that a degree is nothing more than a ticket to a better job. Reducing this argument down to a couple of book recommendations and accusing people of assuming a "moral high ground" is quite an unfair response to pointing out the ages old purpose of higher education.
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
I know the Executive Director of Children and Family Services. His degree is in Music.
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
I'm finding this entire discussion fascinating, since I happen to have personal experience with the subject covering four full generations of students.
My parents both came from absolutely uneducated environments. My father was orphaned by the time he was 12; my mother was born into a third-generation family rooted in Germany. He dropped out of school after the third grade; she finished high school, became a teacher, then got a teaching certificate from East Central. However in the 1920s both finally graduated from A&M in Stillwater, with lifetime certificates. And in 1930 he returned to work toward an M.A.
I was born during the final semester of his graduate work, and from day one they assumed -- finally demanded -- that I go to college. My own choice upon finishing high school was to study photojournalism at The Art Center, which was the nation's leading institution for that at the time. University of Missouri would have been my second choice. However they insisted that I go to either A&M or OU; OU won out because in the late 40s, its J-school had the better reputation.
The only direct benefit I ever saw from my B.A. after four years at OU was a recommendation that led to my first newspaper job. I have no idea today where my actual diploma is, or even whether it still exists. That's how much I value my "college education" that my parents thought was so vital. I did, however, learn the basics of my trade from a non-degree program there (that I could just as well have taken via correspondence) and I did learn the value of thinking for myself, from a single required J-school course, so it wasn't entirely a waste of time. It also allowed me to go into the military as a lieutenant rather than a private, which was the main reason I put up with it all.
Only one of my three sons finished college, although one of his brothers did attend OSU for a time before dropping out. The other brother got an associate degree from OSU's OKC institution, mainly to satisfy state human resources folk when he worked for DPS as a computer tech. I left all their decisions up to them, since I don't subscribe to the idea of forcing everyone to get that sheepskin from a college, any college, just to have it.
And that brings me to the fourth generation, my now-adult grandchildren. There are five in all, and three of the five have advanced degrees, two in medical fields. I don't think it's coincidental that their father is the one who finished college and their mother is an R.N. and now an RNP. One of the three is working toward her own RNP and her brother is in graduate school becoming a physical therapist. The third majored in business and is in the financial industry. The remaining two grandchildren chose not to go to college; one spent a year studying to become a chef and the other now raises rabbits.
Bottom line: the diplomas were the ticket out of near-poverty for my parents, meant almost nothing to me, and by the time my children and grandchildren came to consider their worth, meant very different things to different offspring.
As for the "dishonest marketing" accusation, I see that as a most redundant phrase. I consider just about all marketing, as practiced in the western world for the past century or so anyway, as dishonest by definition! Why should we expect a university to be so different from the rest of our Mad Mad Mad World?
Participating Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
As always from you, a fascinating story (and personal stories are the best). Your larger point is well-taken, too. Thanks for the post!
Gold Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
A lot of jobs are who you know and who is on the reference sheet.
Participating Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
There are immigrates from other countries than have been in the US for many years and they still speak their native language all the time. The Asian community is a good example.
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Over the years I've found that to be true of almost every job I've held.
One's personal network is by far the most effective employment agency known to mankind. While we have lots of snide references to "good old boy networks" the fact remains that personal contacts quite often let one know about opportunities long before they become public knowledge. I can think of only three jobs I got by applying through newspaper ads or employment agencies.
Both my newspaper jobs came about through personal contacts made long before; my software development opportunity resulted from a chance meeting at a computer supply store. My literary agent came to me, referred by an on-line friend, and she sold more than half a dozen books over the past 24 years (one of which still pays a few bucks each year in royalties).
Want ads did lead me to an RCA recruiter who got me into the defense industry for a 2-1/2 year period as a tech writer, and much later led me to G-E and a 24-year stint in the local plant (through four owners!). A commercial employment agency got me into University Loudspeakers for one of the least enjoyable six months or so I've ever spent.
Several times, though, I've learned of an opportunity from a friend, set up an interview, been accepted, and only then gone to the Human Relations folk to fill out their paperwork!
Owner / Administrator
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Right, as I said the first generation of adult immigrants usually have a big struggle learning a new language.
But for kids that move here or are born here, they all learn English pretty quickly, even if it's not spoken at home.
Kids not only learn language much more quickly, they WANT to speak and communicate in the local tongue, and often they completely drop their native language altogether.
I've spent a lot of time in Switzerland and knew a bunch of American/English/Scottish/Irish families that worked for an American tech company there. They merely enrolled their kids in the French-speaking schools. They figured it out very quickly, while the adults struggled greatly with professional lessons. The kids would often have to translate for their parents.
Banned
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
My point with the book recommendations is that one can acquire a liberal arts education readily through self-study. It's less doable to teach oneself electrical engineering by making a habit of going to the library. Considering the cost of higher education, my suggestion is that the liberal arts be left for personal time and college be used for the career tracks most likely to be able to pay for it.
Participating Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
I'm sorry, LRO, I wasn't even talking about your books or post. You placed the titles in context and that's valuable. I was referring to the post with the images of two book covers. I agree with you about lifelong learning 100%. I still think higher education cannot simply become white-collar vocational schools. A well-rounded education, imo, means a foundation of broad-based education. As much as the actual classroom teaching, a big value of a college education is the give and take and classroom discussion.
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Less doable, perhaps, but it's not impossible. I never took any formal engineering courses, nor did I ever complete a semester of physics or any math at the college level. Similarly my computer knowledge is entirely self-taught. However I did manage to learn differential calculus from self-study when I felt a need for it. And over the years I've written more than 20 books about electronics, one on mathematics, and taught a course in system design at vo-tech level (involuntarily; G-E sent me to do that as part of their community service).
What's needed to make this possible is the drive to know the subject, and the willingness to do what it takes to gain that knowledge. With those, formal classes make it easier, but are not at all necessary. Without them, formal classes are at best a poor solution, and at worst a waste of both time and money.
Unfortunately in some technical areas, governments require the formal training before the student is allowed to put that knowledge to use. It's worth remembering that Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and even Bill Gates would not be permitted to call themselves "engineers" in many jurisdictions!
Participating Member
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
There was one facet of student loans and costs that I found disturbing when I went to OU in the late 80's. I had to get a loan of 600 and change each of my last two semesters. When I went to the bursars office I learned that OU takes 10% of the loan right off the top for "juice".
Banned
Re: Dishonest Marketing by the University of Oklahoma
Jim, your transition from journalist to technical writer is certainly commendable but not equivalent to becoming a self-taught electrical engineer in my opinion. Don't take this as a self-interested lobbying effort for lower tuition on my part; I won't be attending OU any further. The instruction isn't up to the standards available from other universities and methods of instruction (i.e. Coursera). I do think society needs to make a STEM education as affordable as possible and I'll continue to draw attention to that. There has to be a reason why only 23% of Oklahomans have a bachelor's degree and 38% of Massachusettsans have one, and I don't think it's because Oklahomans lack drive. I think the majority of the populace lacks respect for education and doesn't want to spend the outlays necessary to enable higher levels of educational attainment. Critics of the system, such as myself, are decried in an attempt to keep taxes low and the status quo humming. Btw, Jersey Boss is absolutely correct about OU skimming loans.
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