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Comment by splatterdash

I think this will highlight differences among fields of education (?).

Programming is a very pragmatic field. Your ability to code is at its core judged by whether you can program something that works. Don't have a formal education? Whip up several interesting programs / websites on your own, and less people will care about your degree. In addition to that, it's becoming increasingly easy to learn the subject on your own.

Not many other fields are like that. Medicine for example. Sure, you can learn the names of the bones in your body, understand the use cases of different drugs in the market, but can you diagnose a patient? To learn that, you need access to training in real hospitals which are only given to students enrolled offline.

Same thing with biochemistry (needs access to labs and direct mentorship), law (access to courtrooms? or certification from proper boards). Many of these other disciplines are based on initial trust. It takes time for a biochemist or a lawyer until their work results in something. Having an actual (offline) degree places some kind of 'proxy' for the work result, until they actually appear.

I'm not that certain that they can be replaced / revolutionized by online classes. I'm all for revolutionizing education, but I don't think this new approach is able to revolutionize all fields of education.

parent splatterdash 14 years ago

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