About education

Well, perhaps I am an ungrateful fool, but I am very disappointed with the education which I have found in the universities. I enjoyed learning in the school (with a few exceptions, of course), but when I went to the college, I got very soon frustrated with the education that I found here:

• No motivation! The college has been one of the most bureaucratic, demotivated places that I have ever seen. Many professors consider teaching the least of the least of all possible works. You get the feeling to be nothing more than a piece of dirt very soon. Motivated profs are few and rare between, why should they develop motivation if they will receive their cash in every case and even more cash for the far,far more important research? In turn, this leads to a form of demotivation from the students. Some develop steel elbows and survive, others will leave forever...

• No creativity! Gerd Binnig, the inventor of the tunnel electron microscope has told in his book about creativity, that the college has been the most un-creative place in his life, apart from the army. To be successful, you will have to recite the professor the most time, the most people will lose any creativity here because they have few opportunities to learn it.

• No interdisciplinarity! The lack of interdisciplinarity has been mentioned by Binnig, too. Many of the profs are egocentric individuals who have never learned to work together with others, who consider their own job the most important of all and refuse to accept any hints from guys who a) don't have studied the same or b) have a lower rank than themselves. But these who are able to work together with others, can move mountains. See one of my favorite books, "Goedel,Escher,Bach" from D.Hofstadter for more about interdisciplinar thinking.

• No solidarity! Usually, the students who don't develop steel elbows, do suffer from severe depressions. Kindness is considered as weakness and the common reward for giving clues to a fellow student is usually a kick in the ass. These students will become the next assistents and profs and they may gain many useful tips through their students. In return they will deliver the most awful lessons of the world.

• No personality! What do you expect from a prof who has to teach 1000 or more students? Here you will feel like a number - exactly what you are.

• No freedom! The most powerful force in the science is the freedom to browse through books of your own choice! Good books are remembered and recommended, bad books are trashed and forgotten. In the universities, this quality control disappears. You will have to learn pre-digested stuff from one or two books of the choice of your prof (Even if he recommends more books, don't worry. The final test -a painful unnecessary procedure- will be only about the first one or two books, sometimes the books are from the prof himself - who would dare to criticise his choice).

• No time! Sometimes I do think the only purpose of this "education" is to keep the students busy, so they won't think too much about the REAL important things. Especially near the tests, time is a rare stuff. This may be the reason why the college libraries do not contain any trivial books. You are here to work, not to waste your time! And if you are too old, the industry won't find any use for you, so hurry up...

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