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On June 06 2012 06:06 Kyrillion wrote:Show nested quote +If you have a better solution that doesn't encourage kids to do as little as possible then by all means I am all ears. What he just said. The right system is one with grades that actually reflect the student's level. I don't see how to make that clearer.
Except that there's no reason for it to work like that. Grades are in part reflective of your work ethic, so they can serve as proper signals to Universities (if you're in high school) and employers (if you're in university). If you only cared about knowledge, and not having grades as signals to other entities, why would you even care if you're not getting top marks? Fuck it, you know the material, good for you, right?
But if other people want to see how hard you tried in that class, they'll see that reflected in your grades as well.
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On June 06 2012 07:27 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 05:53 killa_robot wrote:On June 06 2012 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 05 2012 15:02 Xapti wrote:On June 05 2012 14:50 FabledIntegral wrote:
Most jobs in the world value your degree because it shows your work ethic, not what you learned. Of course, there are exceptions, such as engineering, people going into premed, etc. but the vast majority of fields don't care about anything, or possibly just a very basic understanding. Good marks show good work ethic, generally speaking. Or it's the best indicator they can get. News to me. I'm not saying they don't care about the degree, but moreso that it's due to hard work, or their mark. Do you have a good source of information to confirm this?Most employers I know care about official education (for knowledge purposes) and experience, usually the experience part and even throw away official education (but obviously you can't get experience without some starter jobs which do look at official education and/or experience) I know lots of schools that don't grade much on attendance, you think they'd be good workers since they do their homework (assuming they did), or no? What about attitude? Usually those two things attendance and attitude get put into like 5-10% of a grade (if at all, I suppose). Do you think that doesn't matter? I would assert that it's not the school's job to grade those things much, because the school is for teaching, not for grading someone for workforce competency. Most people I know who deal with employers, including college teachers and students have told me that employers don't care too much about grades, this seems to be in contradiction with what you're saying. Well, nearly every economics textbook that goes into signaling (as well as class that teaches signaling) uses grades as the primary example. How many times have you heard that you only use 10% at most of what you learn in college at your job? That's because the purpose is to show work ethic - it's a signal on how hard you try to achieve those grades. Someone who gets mostly A's, all else equal, tried harder than someone who got a B. While far from a perfect method, when an employer doesn't really have anything to base your work ethic on, it's the best available source of information to them. In classes, at least, it's taught that that IS the primary purpose of school - a signal to your employers, not necessarily to learn. Also, maybe it's like that in Canada, but I'd say over 80% of the jobs (and nearly 100% of good jobs) require at least a decent GPA. If you go on the UCI (my school) job website, there isn't a single job that pays over 50k per year that doesn't have a minimum GPA requirement, I believe. I have never heard from a single employer that doesn't care about grades that I have interviewed with, every single one put a fairly heavy emphasis on them. Multiple jobs interviews I attended had minimum GPAs of 3.5 only, and some were only paying ~$45,000, etc. Grades are huge. http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/the_surprising_importance_of_gradeshttp://epa.sagepub.com/content/20/4/299.abstract Grades don't matter at all in Canada. If you pass you pass, end of story. Oh, well it's completely different in the States. That sounds like a poor system to me.
It is. You have no idea how demotivating it is for there to be no difference at all when you get As and others get Cs.
The entire scholarship system is a joke too. Either you're a woman,minority, or some superhuman who is good at everything, otherwise you don't qualify for shit.
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On June 06 2012 07:43 killa_robot wrote:
It is. You have no idea how demotivating it is for there to be no difference at all when you get As and others get Cs.
The entire scholarship system is a joke too. Either you're a woman,minority, or some superhuman who is good at everything, otherwise you don't qualify for shit.
This is off topic but I laughed because that is a little bit of my perception of what it's like for scholarships (although there are plenty to go around for people who hunt hard enough for them).
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He shouldn't give zeros, it's just mean. Usually in life things come for free, no work required.
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On June 06 2012 07:43 killa_robot wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 07:27 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 06 2012 05:53 killa_robot wrote:On June 06 2012 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 05 2012 15:02 Xapti wrote:On June 05 2012 14:50 FabledIntegral wrote:
Most jobs in the world value your degree because it shows your work ethic, not what you learned. Of course, there are exceptions, such as engineering, people going into premed, etc. but the vast majority of fields don't care about anything, or possibly just a very basic understanding. Good marks show good work ethic, generally speaking. Or it's the best indicator they can get. News to me. I'm not saying they don't care about the degree, but moreso that it's due to hard work, or their mark. Do you have a good source of information to confirm this?Most employers I know care about official education (for knowledge purposes) and experience, usually the experience part and even throw away official education (but obviously you can't get experience without some starter jobs which do look at official education and/or experience) I know lots of schools that don't grade much on attendance, you think they'd be good workers since they do their homework (assuming they did), or no? What about attitude? Usually those two things attendance and attitude get put into like 5-10% of a grade (if at all, I suppose). Do you think that doesn't matter? I would assert that it's not the school's job to grade those things much, because the school is for teaching, not for grading someone for workforce competency. Most people I know who deal with employers, including college teachers and students have told me that employers don't care too much about grades, this seems to be in contradiction with what you're saying. Well, nearly every economics textbook that goes into signaling (as well as class that teaches signaling) uses grades as the primary example. How many times have you heard that you only use 10% at most of what you learn in college at your job? That's because the purpose is to show work ethic - it's a signal on how hard you try to achieve those grades. Someone who gets mostly A's, all else equal, tried harder than someone who got a B. While far from a perfect method, when an employer doesn't really have anything to base your work ethic on, it's the best available source of information to them. In classes, at least, it's taught that that IS the primary purpose of school - a signal to your employers, not necessarily to learn. Also, maybe it's like that in Canada, but I'd say over 80% of the jobs (and nearly 100% of good jobs) require at least a decent GPA. If you go on the UCI (my school) job website, there isn't a single job that pays over 50k per year that doesn't have a minimum GPA requirement, I believe. I have never heard from a single employer that doesn't care about grades that I have interviewed with, every single one put a fairly heavy emphasis on them. Multiple jobs interviews I attended had minimum GPAs of 3.5 only, and some were only paying ~$45,000, etc. Grades are huge. http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/the_surprising_importance_of_gradeshttp://epa.sagepub.com/content/20/4/299.abstract Grades don't matter at all in Canada. If you pass you pass, end of story. Oh, well it's completely different in the States. That sounds like a poor system to me. It is. You have no idea how demotivating it is for there to be no difference at all when you get As and others get Cs. The entire scholarship system is a joke too. Either you're a woman,minority, or some superhuman who is good at everything, otherwise you don't qualify for shit.
Well I can definitely have an idea. For non major classes, you're allowed to take SOME classes as "pass/no pass." Now, you typically don't want more than 2 your entire college career if you're going to grad school or something, I know I only took one. But my god, in that class, I simply did not give a fuck, because I knew I was going to pass by putting in substantially less effort. It's crazy for me to try to comprehend EVERY class you guys take, especially you're major classes, are like that.
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Russian Federation748 Posts
The students level of what? You are not acknowledging the hidden curriculum which is an important part of attending school...
I did not know that expression. I looked it up and it all seems a void concept to me.
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On June 06 2012 08:21 Kyrillion wrote:Show nested quote +The students level of what? You are not acknowledging the hidden curriculum which is an important part of attending school... I did not know that expression. I looked up for it and it all seems a void concept to me.
If you had read through the thread it would be quite obvious...
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Russian Federation748 Posts
I remember proving the thread was pointless a few pages ago. Besides, I have browsed it and most of it is not worth reading anyway. So, sorry, still not obvious.
Except that there's no reason for it to work like that. Grades are in part reflective of your work ethic, so they can serve as proper signals to Universities (if you're in high school) and employers (if you're in university). If you only cared about knowledge, and not having grades as signals to other entities, why would you even care if you're not getting top marks? Fuck it, you know the material, good for you, right?
But if other people want to see how hard you tried in that class, they'll see that reflected in your grades as well.
But grades do not reflect what you call work ethic (which does not look like a legitimate expression at all by the way). I'd be surprised if that analogy hasn't sprung up in the thread already, forgive me then, but unless I'm misunderstanding you're claiming that compelling students to handcopy a 300-page book and deliver grades according to the degree of completion (say, proportionnally) would be a perfect system, and moreover would enable to rule out the lazy and keep the serious and hard-working students in. I'm definitely dubious as to how our society could even exist if we applied that.
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On June 06 2012 04:48 Heh_ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 04:44 Gnosis wrote:On June 06 2012 03:40 Dekoth wrote:On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it. Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy. Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.) Example 1 without zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0 Average - 65 Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail. Example 2 with zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score. Average - 80 Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility. Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness. Grades aren't infallible indications of what a student has or has not learned. That must be considered. Do you have an infallible solution that can be widely implemented without spending billions, or trillions of dollars?
An infallible solution, no; a better solution? I have my thoughts. But if you had paid attention to the context of my post, you'd have realized I wasn't posting with the intention of providing a educational treastise.
On June 06 2012 05:50 Dekoth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 04:44 Gnosis wrote:On June 06 2012 03:40 Dekoth wrote:On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it. Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy. Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.) Example 1 without zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0 Average - 65 Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail. Example 2 with zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score. Average - 80 Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility. Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness. Grades aren't infallible indications of what a student has or has not learned. That must be considered. If you have a better solution that doesn't encourage kids to do as little as possible then by all means I am all ears. Otherwise if you have nothing of value to add, please refrain from uninformed statements like that. As to the person on the 60% bit, I don't know what Canada specifically does but either way it impacts the average. After some research I found out a school here in Georgia does this and the lowest is a 60%, so those were the numbers I used. I have to assume the Canadian system is doing something to the effect of just eliminating the grade from the average calculation completely, which really screws up the numbers and basically makes it work the same as above. Now if they are counting an "incomplete" as part of the average, then that in turn forces it to be a zero. However if they were doing that we wouldn't all be up in arms about this. No, the current grading system isn't perfect. However right now it is the best system available and not penalizing students for flatly not doing work is not an acceptable option. We got zero's in school and good teachers allowed extra credit and makeup work to help offset those. The system worked just fine as it was. I am sick and tired of this "everyone is a winner" politically correct bullshit. Our students progressively perform worse, our academic system is a joke, our teachers are beyond frustrated and yet they keep trying to make it easier. It really is a black and white issue. You do the work and you get the appropriate credit for it. If you don't then you don't. If you don't like doing the work and think you are smarter than everyone else that is fine. I know lots of people who were smarter than everyone else and they serve me lunch regularly.
One of the assumptions with grades is that they are reflective of acquired knowledge, or work ethic. There are rare situations, though still common enough, which influence a grade a student recieves. I might be a poor professor, for example, and my tests might cover material never covered in the course or text books. Circumstances out of the students control might impact the grade he or she recieves if, for instance, she misses a due date, or the expectations I set weren't clear, or some other circumstance the student doesn't nor shouldn't be expected to account for. Perhaps I'm a professor of physics at a University and decide to teach a grade 9 physics class. I mark extremely hard because I'm used to University, and don't grasp why 13 year olds can't quickly learn concepts. There are many variables in the grading process.
Then there are clear cases of students failing courses, only to become massive successes in the same or related fields. That's all I'm saying, and context should have made that clear.
Now as to this matter of making "uninformed statements", you're in no position to judge whether I am informed or uninformed from a one-sentence post, best keep that in mind for the future.
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On June 06 2012 09:07 Gnosis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 04:48 Heh_ wrote:On June 06 2012 04:44 Gnosis wrote:On June 06 2012 03:40 Dekoth wrote:On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it. Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy. Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.) Example 1 without zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0 Average - 65 Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail. Example 2 with zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score. Average - 80 Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility. Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness. Grades aren't infallible indications of what a student has or has not learned. That must be considered. Do you have an infallible solution that can be widely implemented without spending billions, or trillions of dollars? An infallible solution, no; a better solution? I have my thoughts. But if you had paid attention to the context of my post, you'd have realized I wasn't posting with the intention of providing a educational treastise. Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 05:50 Dekoth wrote:On June 06 2012 04:44 Gnosis wrote:On June 06 2012 03:40 Dekoth wrote:On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it. Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy. Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.) Example 1 without zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0 Average - 65 Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail. Example 2 with zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score. Average - 80 Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility. Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness. Grades aren't infallible indications of what a student has or has not learned. That must be considered. If you have a better solution that doesn't encourage kids to do as little as possible then by all means I am all ears. Otherwise if you have nothing of value to add, please refrain from uninformed statements like that. As to the person on the 60% bit, I don't know what Canada specifically does but either way it impacts the average. After some research I found out a school here in Georgia does this and the lowest is a 60%, so those were the numbers I used. I have to assume the Canadian system is doing something to the effect of just eliminating the grade from the average calculation completely, which really screws up the numbers and basically makes it work the same as above. Now if they are counting an "incomplete" as part of the average, then that in turn forces it to be a zero. However if they were doing that we wouldn't all be up in arms about this. No, the current grading system isn't perfect. However right now it is the best system available and not penalizing students for flatly not doing work is not an acceptable option. We got zero's in school and good teachers allowed extra credit and makeup work to help offset those. The system worked just fine as it was. I am sick and tired of this "everyone is a winner" politically correct bullshit. Our students progressively perform worse, our academic system is a joke, our teachers are beyond frustrated and yet they keep trying to make it easier. It really is a black and white issue. You do the work and you get the appropriate credit for it. If you don't then you don't. If you don't like doing the work and think you are smarter than everyone else that is fine. I know lots of people who were smarter than everyone else and they serve me lunch regularly. One of the assumptions with grades is that they are reflective of acquired knowledge, or work ethic. There are rare situations, though still common enough, which influence a grade a student recieves. I might be a poor professor, for example, and my tests might cover material never covered in the course or text books. Circumstances out of the students control might impact the grade he or she recieves if, for instance, she misses a due date, or the expectations I set weren't clear, or some other circumstance the student doesn't nor shouldn't be expected to account for. Perhaps I'm a professor of physics at a University and decide to teach a grade 9 physics class. I mark extremely hard because I'm used to University, and don't grasp why 13 year olds can't quickly learn concepts. There are many variables in the grading process. Then there are clear cases of students failing courses, only to become massive successes in the same or related fields. That's all I'm saying, and context should have made that clear. Now as to this matter of making "uninformed statements", you're in no position to judge whether I am informed or uninformed from a one-sentence post, best keep that in mind for the future.
I may not be, but now you have two posts and have yet to offer anything substantial to fixing the problem you claim.
There are always going to be exceptions to the rule and no system will ever be able to account for all exceptions. However giving a free pass to basically everyone is not the answer. It is demeaning to the effort the ones who want to get an education put in and it lowers the standard of education across the board. The entire concept of no zero's is completely asinine. Go back and read one of my earlier posts where I talk about some solutions when it comes to the teachers themselves. Certainly there are teachers out there who aren't doing their job right, that doesn't make this a viable solution. Allow me to put this into SC2 terms since this is an SC2 forum. This is on par with Blizzard patching the SC2 ladder and moving everyone in bronze up to master for playing x number of games even if they haven't improved a bit.
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On June 06 2012 08:24 Kyrillion wrote:I remember proving the thread was pointless a few pages ago. Besides, I have browsed it and most of it is not worth reading anyway. So, sorry, still not obvious. Show nested quote +
Except that there's no reason for it to work like that. Grades are in part reflective of your work ethic, so they can serve as proper signals to Universities (if you're in high school) and employers (if you're in university). If you only cared about knowledge, and not having grades as signals to other entities, why would you even care if you're not getting top marks? Fuck it, you know the material, good for you, right?
But if other people want to see how hard you tried in that class, they'll see that reflected in your grades as well.
But grades do not reflect what you call work ethic (which does not look like a legitimate expression at all by the way). I'd be surprised if that analogy hasn't sprung up in the thread already, forgive me then, but unless I'm misunderstanding you're claiming that compelling students to handcopy a 300-page book and deliver grades according to the degree of completion (say, proportionnally) would be a perfect system, and moreover would enable to rule out the lazy and keep the serious and hard-working students in. I'm definitely dubious as to how our society could even exist if we applied that.
Except it does act as an appropriate signal. There have been multiple studies into in fact and they nearly always yield the same results. Those with higher grades score better in annual reviews and have a lower turnover rate with the company.
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On June 06 2012 09:22 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 08:24 Kyrillion wrote:I remember proving the thread was pointless a few pages ago. Besides, I have browsed it and most of it is not worth reading anyway. So, sorry, still not obvious.
Except that there's no reason for it to work like that. Grades are in part reflective of your work ethic, so they can serve as proper signals to Universities (if you're in high school) and employers (if you're in university). If you only cared about knowledge, and not having grades as signals to other entities, why would you even care if you're not getting top marks? Fuck it, you know the material, good for you, right?
But if other people want to see how hard you tried in that class, they'll see that reflected in your grades as well.
But grades do not reflect what you call work ethic (which does not look like a legitimate expression at all by the way). I'd be surprised if that analogy hasn't sprung up in the thread already, forgive me then, but unless I'm misunderstanding you're claiming that compelling students to handcopy a 300-page book and deliver grades according to the degree of completion (say, proportionnally) would be a perfect system, and moreover would enable to rule out the lazy and keep the serious and hard-working students in. I'm definitely dubious as to how our society could even exist if we applied that. Except it does act as an appropriate signal. There have been multiple studies into in fact and they nearly always yield the same results. Those with higher grades score better in annual reviews and have a lower turnover rate with (the company.
Exactly. The only conclusion that I can draw is that Kyrillion and Gnosis are simply too young and immature to understand this. Probably stuck in an escalator system where there's zero motivation to excel. If you've been to college and/or started working, you'll realize that grades are pretty damn important to separate the wheat from the chaff. Grades aren't infallible, there's always exceptions to everything. If Kyrillion or Gnosis claim to have a better solution, let's hear it. Otherwise, you're just another anonymous keyboard warrior.
Edit: Changed to plural because I realized that there's two of them...
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Russian Federation748 Posts
What you call a signal is not clear at all. Those studies, if they exist, prove nothing against what I said, but I'm not sure what you're trying to prove yourself. If employers had nothing but photos of the candidates, they would always pick the most beautiful. Hurray, we just proved beautiful people are the most hard-working.
As for you, Heh_ , perhaps you should start argumenting instead of trying to imagine my life (and completely failing at that). I You ask for a better way to handle things, I reckon I phrased it just last page.
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While I agree that this is an important topic, and agree with the thesis statement of your post, I stopped reading at:
"give me a fucken break. I can't believe education is the way it is right now".
The irony was *almost* hilarious.
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On June 06 2012 10:14 Kyrillion wrote:
What you call a signal is not clear at all. Those studies, if they exist, prove nothing against what I said, but I'm not sure what you're trying to prove yourself. If employers had nothing but photos of the candidates, they would always pick the most beautiful. Hurray, we just proved beautiful people are the most hard-working.
As for you, Heh_ , perhaps you should start argumenting instead of trying to imagine my life (and completely failing at that). I You ask for a better way to handle things, I reckon I phrased it just last page.
How is who they pick relevant to the performance of the actual employees?
What I call a signal is extremely clear. It's a very defined concept, and it's not new whatsoever. It's even the prime example used on the Wikipedia page, very first paragraph.
In economics, more precisely in contract theory, signalling (or signaling: see American and British English differences) is the idea that one party (termed the agent) credibly conveys some information about itself to another party (the principal). For example, in Michael Spence's job-market signalling model, (potential) employees send a signal about their ability level to the employer by acquiring certain education credentials. The informational value of the credential comes from the fact that the employer assumes it is positively correlated with having greater ability.
If you're telling me that, all else equal, if you were told prospect #1 had straight A's and prospect #2 had straight C's, and they both came from the same school, and you had to pick the hardest worker for a project that had the potential to make or break the company, you wouldn't pick prospect #1? You'd be indifferent between the two?
Sorry to say it, but your view on reality is distorted. That's how the world works, whether you think it should or not. And I think it's a great system.
Because if I were to hire someone for a entry level business position, I don't really give a fuck if they're really good at biology - I care that they made an effort to do what was asked of them to achieve the A in biology. Whether the grade in the class was comprised completely of your midterms and final exams, or if it was composed almost entirely of busy work, you made it happen. And that's what counts in the real world. Making it happen. You either noted that it was composed entirely of exams, figured out what the professor was looking for, and scored high (great skill to have, giving your superior what they're looking for), or you took in a ton of busy mind numbing work (great skill to have, even if you're presented with something not super stimulating, you can still be counted on to do what needs to be done).
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On June 06 2012 07:53 zanzib wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 07:43 killa_robot wrote:
It is. You have no idea how demotivating it is for there to be no difference at all when you get As and others get Cs.
The entire scholarship system is a joke too. Either you're a woman,minority, or some superhuman who is good at everything, otherwise you don't qualify for shit. This is off topic but I laughed because that is a little bit of my perception of what it's like for scholarships (although there are plenty to go around for people who hunt hard enough for them).
This is the best part about going to a small school. I got $20k in scholarships for getting the highest marks out of my grad class of 30 students 
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Russian Federation396 Posts
On June 05 2012 15:02 Xapti wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2012 14:50 FabledIntegral wrote:
Most jobs in the world value your degree because it shows your work ethic, not what you learned. Of course, there are exceptions, such as engineering, people going into premed, etc. but the vast majority of fields don't care about anything, or possibly just a very basic understanding. Good marks show good work ethic, generally speaking. Or it's the best indicator they can get. News to me. I'm not saying they don't care about the degree, but moreso that it's due to hard work, or their mark. Do you have a good source of information to confirm this?Most employers I know care about official education (for knowledge purposes) and experience, usually the experience part and even throw away official education (but obviously you can't get experience without some starter jobs which do look at official education and/or experience) I know lots of schools that don't grade much on attendance, you think they'd be good workers since they do their homework (assuming they did), or no? What about attitude? Usually those two things attendance and attitude get put into like 5-10% of a grade (if at all, I suppose). Do you think that doesn't matter? I would assert that it's not the school's job to grade those things much, because the school is for teaching, not for grading someone for workforce competency. Most people I know who deal with employers, including college teachers and students have told me that employers don't care too much about grades, this seems to be in contradiction with what you're saying.
my university prof's have also stated this exact same 'theory' that getting a degree in several majors means nothing to the employer about the major itself but rather that you have a degree and are hardworking, dedicated, etc
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Some of these last posts are just ridiculous.
Let me spell out how school is supposed to work:
Do work: Get grade proportional to effort.
Don't do work: Get a 0, which is proportional to effort.
How school works right now:
Do work: Get grade proportional to effort.
Don't do work: Get a 60, which is NOT proportional to effort.
How hard is that to understand? The teacher gave those little shits a million opportunities to do their work, and they failed. Now, I was no model student (I once missed 25% of a school year), but I put in enough effort to average a B that year, and an A my senior year. High School is not hard: it is literally one hundred percent work ethic.
Now, as to whether or not grades accurately represent a good worker, that's debatable. I'm better at my job than some people with degrees (I've met them), and I haven't even taken a full year of college yet because I can't afford it. Some kids spend their whole life in school because that's all they can handle.
On behalf of my generation, I apologize. We are truly fucked.
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On June 06 2012 10:57 JitnikoVi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2012 15:02 Xapti wrote:On June 05 2012 14:50 FabledIntegral wrote:
Most jobs in the world value your degree because it shows your work ethic, not what you learned. Of course, there are exceptions, such as engineering, people going into premed, etc. but the vast majority of fields don't care about anything, or possibly just a very basic understanding. Good marks show good work ethic, generally speaking. Or it's the best indicator they can get. News to me. I'm not saying they don't care about the degree, but moreso that it's due to hard work, or their mark. Do you have a good source of information to confirm this?Most employers I know care about official education (for knowledge purposes) and experience, usually the experience part and even throw away official education (but obviously you can't get experience without some starter jobs which do look at official education and/or experience) I know lots of schools that don't grade much on attendance, you think they'd be good workers since they do their homework (assuming they did), or no? What about attitude? Usually those two things attendance and attitude get put into like 5-10% of a grade (if at all, I suppose). Do you think that doesn't matter? I would assert that it's not the school's job to grade those things much, because the school is for teaching, not for grading someone for workforce competency. Most people I know who deal with employers, including college teachers and students have told me that employers don't care too much about grades, this seems to be in contradiction with what you're saying. my university prof's have also stated this exact same 'theory' that getting a degree in several majors means nothing to the employer about the major itself but rather that you have a degree and are hardworking, dedicated, etc
I don't really understand why he quoted me anyways. He said it was news to him, then stated he was under the impression that "it's due to hard work, or their mark." Yes, of course experience is super valuable, as it also is a very strong indicator on what your future performance will be, but I never said it wasn't...
His second paragraph was unfortunately sort of a run on sentence, and I'm not sure exactly what he was looking for, so I can't really respond appropriately.
On June 06 2012 10:59 jeeeeohn wrote:
Some of these last posts are just ridiculous.
Let me spell out how school is supposed to work:
Do work: Get grade proportional to effort.
Don't do work: Get a 0, which is proportional to effort.
How school works right now:
Do work: Get grade proportional to effort.
Don't do work: Get a 60, which is NOT proportional to effort.
How hard is that to understand? The teacher gave those little shits a million opportunities to do their work, and they failed. Now, I was no model student (I once missed 25% of a school year), but I put in enough effort to average a B that year, and an A my senior year. High School is not hard: it is literally one hundred percent work ethic.
Now, as to whether or not grades accurately represent a good worker, that's debatable. I'm better at my job than some people with degrees (I've met them), and I haven't even taken a full year of college yet because I can't afford it. Some kids spend their whole life in school because that's all they can handle.
On behalf of my generation, I apologize. We are truly fucked.
We're a super entitled generation that doesn't have a grasp on reality. =/
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Russian Federation396 Posts
On June 06 2012 10:52 politik wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 07:53 zanzib wrote:On June 06 2012 07:43 killa_robot wrote:
It is. You have no idea how demotivating it is for there to be no difference at all when you get As and others get Cs.
The entire scholarship system is a joke too. Either you're a woman,minority, or some superhuman who is good at everything, otherwise you don't qualify for shit. This is off topic but I laughed because that is a little bit of my perception of what it's like for scholarships (although there are plenty to go around for people who hunt hard enough for them). This is the best part about going to a small school. I got $20k in scholarships for getting the highest marks out of my grad class of 30 students
meanwhile, i took private school, summer school, nightschool, and also a full course load for 4 years of highschool (many students take spares in grade 11 and especially in grade 12), graduated with 6extra credits than was required (i believe you need 30 to graduate, which in this case i had 36) and for all this, all my hellish nights doing extra work, all the beautiful summer days i missed out studying inside, i earned $3500... i spent $2200 alone on just private school, and all the time i put into all these things as well...
I applied for ~8 scholarships and got 1, 1 scholarship that i didnt even apply for manually but got put into automatically when i applied for OSAP (Queen Elizabeth The Second Scholarship)
for the record, i also worked part time 20hours a week at mcdonalds, kept a steady girlfriend (to this day), and graduated as an ontario scholar with an 88% avg
tl;dr, ontario (canadian?) scholarship programs are shit, work too hard for a minimal reward, regret not spending more time with friends, family during highschool years
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EPT
