Some Thoughts on Higher Education

I'm in an emotional state and will probably disagree with this analysis to some extent at a later, cooler date, but here goes anyway.

College is a waste of time. The majority of my experience thus far has been an abject farce. In a capitalist society, these atavistic juggernauts would have died long ago, but the mixed economy has a special talent for preserving the worthless at the expense of the innovative.

My two freshman semesters were spent in a monstrosity euphemistically named "First Year Engineering." We learned nothing. Project Lead the Way taught the design process much more accurately to students four years younger in an hour. We waddled our way through the usual "diversity" bullshit and all the non-technical garbage of that nature.

First Year Engineering did teach us one thing: MATLAB, the primary calculating tool used here. But I think it's safe to say that only a blubbering moron could have done a worse job. Six weeks of variations on descriptive statistics--really? Then slamming us with graphic user interfaces--which naturally have so much to do with anything we'll be doing.

But what makes me write tonight is the science departments, though FYE fits into the broader theme. The individual engineering departments I've taken course in (to date, Aerospace and Mechanical) have generally been pretty well managed, though of course they had considerable room for improvement. But the pre-requisite classes in the mathematics and sciences divisions are absolutely disastrous. Why is that?

I think it's because students have no where else to go. Engineering students such as myself have to choose what flavor they want to take, and (especially in the first semesters) students will change if they decide that it isn't their cup of tea. The departments are in competition for students, even if they have a large base that will struggle through so long as the money hold out (myself with aerospace, for example).

But the basic math and science courses don't have that problem, do they? Once a course is added to an Engineering Department Plan of Study, they have a steady supply of students. It's very rare for a course to be struck from a P.O.S.

And we see the natural failure of a bureaucracy not subject to competition. Without the need to attract students, the professors have no strong motivation to correct mistakes in their content, improve their teaching methods, and so on. Only when too large a percentage of students start failing--and suddenly their tenure becomes suspect--does anything change.

First Year Engineering fits this mold, interestingly enough. They have a steady supply of students, most of whom will stick it out till they can move on to the greener if more arid pastures of their majors. They have absolutely no incentive to improve, and the bureaucracy there is worst than anywhere else. (From what I've heard described, I couldn't design a less-efficient system if I tried.)

How do we fix this problem? Here are a few suggestions:

• Just abolish set plans of study. Let students pick and choose what courses they want to take.
• Abolish tenure. Professors that can't teach, should either be taken away from teaching or forced onto the labor market.
• Increase the test-out options for students. If you can demonstrate you know the material, you shouldn't have to sit through useless introductory classes, forgetting more than you learn.

What I can say is this: if the problem isn't fixed by the time my children are ready to attend college, I'm not going to send them. Period. If they want to get ripped off, they can do it on their own dime.

In fact, I'd advise everyone to opt-out of college to the maximum extent possible. Our educational system is broken, and no amount of tinkering is going to fix it. We need to throw it out and start over, but that will never happen until we're willing to stop feeding the beast.

The High School Research Paper: A classic exercise in futility

It's one of the classic rites of passage in high school. Choose a topic you know little or nothing about, pull a thesis out of thin air, find a number of sources that somehow seem to support it, and slap the whole thing together into something generously called a paper. Rinse and repeat yearly, without learning anything significant in the process.

It's absolutely worthless, and an incredible waste of time.

Presumably, the high school research paper was invented to prepare students for the papers they would have to write in college. In practice, the value of the research paper, as opposed to other sorts of reports, is nil. Let me explain.

In college, one's studies are very concentrated, and few students write papers outside of their major after the introductory years, if at all. The key difference here: college papers are almost always on a topic the writer knows a great deal about.

High school papers are almost always about a topic the student doesn't know much about, which negates any value that the assignment might have in teaching methods. The high school student doesn't know the relevant academic journals and where to get them, has little or no access to specialized libraries, feels little love for the subject.

The value in high school research papers is to teach the methods, but in nearly every case, the elements are overlooked in the desperate struggle to collect sources and cobble together a reasonable theme. The value in citation, communication, and nuance is lost.

In my personal experience, a variety of smaller assignments were more conducive to teaching the desired skills. Short reports can teach sourcing and research methods without the pressure of collecting a great number. Citation-free themes can teach students to organize their thoughts. More reasonably-sized research papers can teach the integration of these techniques.

As with so many problems in education, it's the one-size-fits-all mentality to blame. All students are going into liberal arts , so naturally they need to know the methods that English majors use to write their analyses of limericks. But many students aren't. Engineers and scientists need to write lab reports. Historians need to instruction in finding materials. Educators need to know lesson planning. No two students have precisely the same needs. But onward we march, Taylorist machines, towards the future the central-planners have designed for us.

Suggestions for creating a libertarian country

If you spend much time around libertarians, you'll inevitably run across the totally genius idea of creating a new, libertarian nation. This has been tried in various ways before, and it usually fails quietly or catastrophically. That said, there's still a lot of unrealized potential for new country projects.

Since first encountering this idea, I've had a few insights about why it usually doesn't work out.

Be realistic

Most new country projects are handicapped by their founders rosy visions of utopia. A perfect anarcho-capitalist Free Territory or minarchist republic isn't going to happen anytime soon, and getting hung up on this accomplishes nothing. Going for a basic liberal capitalist democracy with a good constitution and above-par citizenry is much more practical.

A country is not a business model

Perhaps because new country projects are often cultish in nature, they often appropriate some of the worst ideas of new religious movements. In particular, running the new [thing] as a business.

Neither a nation nor a religion is a business model. A religion is a means for gaining moral guidance; a nation, safety and stability. Nations and religions develop for pragmatic reasons, and are only subverted by others at a later date.

Now, in the case of our libertarian micronation, the pragmatic reason is to develop a state that's capable of defending laissez-faire. Once that system is established, becoming wealthy from it is your own responsibility. Otherwise, the erstwhile libertarian is just another statist moocher.

Political Parties > Constitutions

Practically all of the libertarian new country proposals put their emphasis on the constitutions of these new countries, trying to avoid thinking about political parties. While building the legal framework for maintaining freedom is essential, I think that setting up the philosophical and social institutions necessary for preserving liberalism is an equally important job. A good constitution will not constrain those bent on perverting it (consider our own).

Instead, I think the nation-architects should focus on planning one or more liberty-minded political parties. I say multiple, because a duo or trio of parties might maintain equilibrium better than a single movement. Have these planned and ready to roll out upon independence, and you might be able to sustain freedom for a few generations.

Obviously, none of these solve the basic problem of raising the necessary funds to convince a government to part with some of its territory, or to build some of your own.