Thank you. Must be that UTK education.
I entered school as an 18-year-old who wasn't sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. I'd been accepted at couple of extremely prestigious schools, academically speaking, but the aid packages were such that I was still going to have to accumulate a ton of debt. Meanwhile my hometown school was offering me a scholarship package that basically paid me to go to school there. I was uncertain enough about what I wanted to do to that I thought it would be silly to rack up massive amounts of debt just to go to a school with a name, rather than to study something in particular. So I decided to stay home, take the money, and go to UTK while I figured out what the hell I wanted to do with my life.
I did not overly obsess about the rankings in the books, in other words. Otherwise I would have just said screw it, give me the debt; I'm going to MIT even though I don't really know what I want to study.
Do you notice a contradiction in your post?
Every night, I lie down to sleep in what I consider a very nice condominium in Downtown Knoxville that I paid for with roughly the same amount of money I would have owed Duke, Stanford, or Princeton had I taken them up on their offers to let me pay them for my education. I have not a single regret. One of the smartest classmates I had in law school had a transcript that read this way: Roane State CC, Hiwasse College, East Tennessee State University. I'm pretty sure US News & World Reports doesn't fall all over themselves praising any of those institutions. On the other hand, the densest SOB in our law class had a degree in Divinity(or some other religious hooey) from Harvard and an MBA from Duke.Thank you. Must be that UTK education.
I entered school as an 18-year-old who wasn't sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. I'd been accepted at couple of extremely prestigious schools, academically speaking, but the aid packages were such that I was still going to have to accumulate a ton of debt. Meanwhile my hometown school was offering me a scholarship package that basically paid me to go to school there. I was uncertain enough about what I wanted to do to that I thought it would be silly to rack up massive amounts of debt just to go to a school with a name, rather than to study something in particular. So I decided to stay home, take the money, and go to UTK while I figured out what the hell I wanted to do with my life.
I did not overly obsess about the rankings in the books, in other words. Otherwise I would have just said screw it, give me the debt; I'm going to MIT even though I don't really know what I want to study.
Every night, I lie down to sleep in what I consider a very nice condominium in Downtown Knoxville that I paid for with roughly the same amount of money I would have owed Duke, Stanford, or Princeton had I taken them up on their offers to let me pay them for my education. I have not a single regret. One of the smartest classmates I had in law school had a transcript that read this way: Roane State CC, Hiwasse College, East Tennessee State University. I'm pretty sure US News & World Reports doesn't fall all over themselves praising any of those institutions. On the other hand, the densest SOB in our law class had a degree in Divinity(or some other religious hooey) from Harvard and an MBA from Duke.
On the other hand, the densest SOB in our law class had a degree in Divinity(or some other religious hooey) from Harvard and an MBA from Duke.
That decision, rightly reversed, was in line with any of a number of unconscionable decisions the twits in charge of UT have made of late.It's great to see this topic getting some attention on here. My mom has a degree from UT in speech pathology. It's a great program whose graduates are in high demand. Why it was chosen to be cut is beyond me.
I spent seven years in grad school at Duke, and I only met a small handful of fellow grad students who I would classify as complete idiots. Oddly enough, they were all in the MBA program except the one med student I taught in anatomy who repeatedly got the arm and leg mixed up.
The Harvard Divinity route is a different animal altogether, especially at the graduate level. Duke has only improved its MBA program appreciably over the past 10 years. Prior to that, it was a Vandy style program.On the other hand, the densest SOB in our law class had a degree in Divinity(or some other religious hooey) from Harvard and an MBA from Duke.
This sad story has nothing to do with football. Universities could stop wasting tons of money if they would wind down all of the liberal arts garbage that's found it's way into the system over the past 30 years. Shut down all fill in the blank 'Studies' nonsense. That would save building costs and tons of useless tenured teaching salaries and would also quit wasting student's time who nievely take this junk. Any liberal arts teacher teaching political propaganda instead of real literature or real history should be fired.
It's great to see this topic getting some attention on here. My mom has a degree from UT in speech pathology. It's a great program whose graduates are in high demand. Why it was chosen to be cut is beyond me.
This sad story has nothing to do with football. Universities could stop wasting tons of money if they would wind down all of the liberal arts garbage that's found it's way into the system over the past 30 years. Shut down all fill in the blank 'Studies' nonsense. That would save building costs and tons of useless tenured teaching salaries and would also quit wasting student's time who nievely take this junk. Any liberal arts teacher teaching political propaganda instead of real literature or real history should be fired.
Because to Ol' Petey and his boys and girls, a program only has worth if it has enough kids in it to make money. A program with 100 students x 6 grand is WAY more important than one with 25 folks x 6 grand. I mean, it's $450,000 more important! :ermm:
If they can pack 100 kids into a lecture with one Dr. and a ton of grad assistants, rather than a specialized program requiring more faculty, they'll do it in a heart beat. Not that you can't learn from large lecture, but there's something lost when you can't go one-on-one with a professor that has 20-30 students studying under them. A lot can be said for small-group instruction. Unfortunately, it all can't be that way. The admin would rather it all be the opposite, though.
This is where we're gonna lose specialized instruction. Why have History of Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Italy, etc when you can pack it in to one big class lecture on colonial powers in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries?
I think with the loss of Crabtree, the university lost a lot of the purpose of education. It's not measured in dollars and cents. It's a part of it, as you have to keep the lights on, but there's certainly more to it.
What? You think universities shouldn't be glorified ITTs that produce a bunch of mindless automotons who can't think for themselves? That's just silly.Propaganda can't teach anything? Hm...I'd better stop using it in my classroom. Guess we ought to let all these professional educators creating curriculum standards that propaganda is useless. Certainly it can't teach history, politics, culture, identity, and foreign relations. Hm...how was I so misled thinking you can only learn from straight lecture on rote memory items!