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Comment by Nition | Hacker News Reader

There's a section in Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) where Persig takes this all the way to the final conclusion that there should be no grades at University, and no degree at the end, and then and only then will everyone who goes there actually be learning-motivated.

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So. I teach at a university and I do give an "assignment" exactly like this.

In a few of my classes, I have final projects that teams work on. I also have presentations. I used to require them of all students; and quickly learned this is a good way to waste valuable time.

Now, all my presentations are completely optional for NO CREDIT. You don't get penalized if you don't do them, and perhaps more importantly, I give ZERO EXTRA CREDIT for doing them.

As you can imagine, every single presentation I've gotten from this has been absolutely worth it.

What were the best three?

Hmm, I mean been doing this for years. Some were interesting because they DIDN'T accomplish much and things went bad but then we could kind of post-mortem in the class.

Others had some pretty cool things that ended up in real life; I believe the official timers for the Florida Supreme Court testimony things came from one of my classes.

What proportion of students bother?

It seems to go in waves? Rarely is it one or two, I imagine there's some peer pressure thing going on. Something like all or nothing.

I do the same in my classes, and it´s common practice in many courses my dept which may help, as the students know what is expected of them. I don´t think it's wasting time. It motivates the students to know that they have to present in front of their peers, helps the shy ones get practice, and yes the quality varies, but it´s a very good way to share information within the class about different projects, even with a not so good presentation.

which students fail your class?

I get very few failures, but that's a selection thing; it's a junior senior "big picture" IT class.

understood thanks - but in those few cases how do you even determine who fails?

The problem is that the motivation from above (i.e., administration, state legislatures, employers, etc.) is no longer really about learning. We could have an entirely learning-motivated university right now and it would be considered a bad thing by many powerful people because it's not aimed at "preparing people for the workforce" (in part simply by providing that degree).

The students also want a certificate for their efforts. It's impossible to avoid signalling.

> It's impossible to avoid signalling

You can take that one step further. What kind of signal does “I can afford to go to University and not worry about credentials” send? I’d argue that’s realistic only for people who are willing to admit that they belong to a leisure class. In the US at least, we like to flatter the leisure class with the pretense that they worked hard to get there.

I learned recently that most universities in Switzerland have open admissions where entry to the program is pretty easy. However they do not hold anybody's hand and you have to pass your classes or can get kicked out quite easily. I am not sure if what I am saying is completely accurate feel like this is one model that would weed out people who are serious from who aren't.

The Open University in the UK (which has been running for decades) doesn’t have any entry requirements for the first year of its undergrad courses and the early modules definitely include a focus on getting people up to speed on academic writing, use of library tools, etc. I don’t know how many people make it to reach the year 2 modules (which require passing year 1)

There are institutions like that. For example, the Collège de France started in 1530, still active, doesn't administer tests nor grants degrees. It's purely about learning.

https://www.college-de-france.fr/en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collège_de_France

I was recommended that book many years ago, when I was far too young to appreciate it. Maybe it's time to give it another go...

This is great, but is incompatible with charging people a year's income for it.

university provides in the following order: prestige, connections, knowledge in exchange for money

If you missed “practice space to learn how to learn and to work with other people”, your understanding is too flawed to forgive the obvious so-edge take.

I assume that would fall under the listed "knowledge" category.

Perhaps, but to my mind knowledge and skills are qualitatively different.

I went to a state school, and didn't get much prestige or many connections. I did learn how to be an engineer, and more importantly I learned how to be an adult. I think my time there was worth it.

Maybe this is true of liberal arts or business degrees? I don't know, but I don't think this is the opinion of anyone who went to engineering school.

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