Comments on: Ideas for a Home University

By: etbe

etbe — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:01:32 +0000

http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=460

The above URL with significant recorded speeches could be used when devising a free university curriculum.

By: Felipe Sateler

Felipe Sateler — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 05:21:30 +0000

In Chile most universities are private (although some receive a subsidy from the state). In mine, at least, most teachers have a Master or a PhD. Sometimes you get people who are graduate students themselves, where the field of their investigation is the same (or at least, tightly related) to the course.

As for having incentives to do stuff… I don’t really know: there are numerous labs, and people who are doing active research on several subjects. I understand it is “encouraged” (ie: an unwritten section of the contract) to do active research, measured in mix of number of published papers, and references from third parties to papers they participated in. Of course, all papers must be published to a relevant magazine.

I agree that this is a good strategy (of course assuming you do a great work on free software), but that doesn’t really fit with me, as I currently don’t see myself working on the technical side of things (ie: not a programmer, sysadmin, etc).

By: etbe

etbe — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:36:32 +0000

Felipe: The concept of a university staffed by people paid a moderate (not great) salary by the government who (in Australia) gain little respect in society and have few other benefits is not a great one. The concept of university staff having little incentive for doing new and exciting things once they gain tenure and for doing nothing to upset people before they gain tenure is not great either.

Probably the best strategy for Chileans who are interested in technology is to do as much free-software work as possible and blog about it in English. Then it’s only a matter of time before Google recruiters contact you!

By: Felipe Sateler

Felipe Sateler — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 19:04:12 +0000

etbe: It seems you are not talking about universities as a concept, but as its current implementation. I partly agree with you there: sometimes the execution is not optimal, but I think that as a concept, they have a huge potential.
As for the IT sector in Chile, you are right, it is not doing well: most companies see IT as a cost, not an investment. This means they will try to avoid spending money in IT as much as possible, which reduces the job offer.
Plus, computer science is not actually the degree you want: you need a diploma Civil Engineering with a Computing mention. For some strange reason, this gets you a better pay, but it also reduces the job offer (this is probably associated with the fact that you had to go 6 years to the university instead of 4 or 5).

By: etbe

etbe — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 02:37:07 +0000

Felipe: If your university is like the one I attended then “show them what you know” means “completing assignments” which are often not overly difficult.

The advantage of Computer Science over many other subjects is that there are objective criteria for being right. If a program doesn’t compile or gives a SEGV then it’s not a matter of opinion whether the program is buggy or not. Fooling a professor with bad code is MUCH easier than fooling a compiler!

As for the need for a degree in Chile, that probably means that the IT sector is not doing well and there aren’t many jobs open. If there are many open positions and few candidates then recruiters will be a little less fussy. Are there any other countries that you can easily migrate to which have a more successful computer industry?

By: Felipe Sateler

Felipe Sateler — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 23:58:39 +0000

Hmm, my experience is that teachers are most of the time, skilled (of course this varies from university to university). The advantage of teachers is that they require you to show them what you know, so your chances of thinking you’re right but actually be wrong are diminished.
Also, (at least here in Chile), a university diploma is _very_ important. Most people won’t even look at you if you don’t have a diploma from the right universities.