Whoa whoa whoa, WHAT? Historian, cook, screen writer, journalist, director? On what planet can directorial skills be conveyed via a lecture video clip? Did CalArts, which graduated Tim Burton, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Joe Ranft, and countless other masters of animation do so simply by showing them what amounted to the same stock lectures with some automated method of remote feedback? Or was it instead significantly in part a communal learning experience that involved peer criticism and one on one tutelage from professors who were in the room with them as they drew and developed their craft?

I'm sorry, but believe it or not, not all professional skills can be remotely acquired without a kind of human transference of intangible, personable skills. Education in higher academia is about much more than the acquisition of particular facts--it's a culture, practice, and way of life. Critical ideas are meant to be discussed in person, ruminated on, and debated in real, highly dynamic discussions. Real life work environments, especially in software companies, are ones in which critical, GROUP brainstorming dynamics are particularly important, because oftentimes the answer doesn't lie in the answer key in the back of the book, but rather as a result of a group process of rumination, guess, check, and revision.