/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18847199]

>I fucking LOVE university, bro!!! It's an epic INTELLECTUAL environment for OPEN-MINDED people!!! It has DISCUSSIONS and you NURTURE your mind!!! You become EDUCATED!!! Hahaha, YASSS, academic life FTW!! Studying is so awesome, man!!! You read BOOKERINOS, TEXTBOOKS, ESSAYS and all sorts of epic WRITTEN things!!!

[Anonymous No.18847206]

The easiest way to know if someone is a retard is to ask whether they have a liberal arts degree.

[Anonymous No.18847211]

>>18847199
>I heckin love making friggin moneyrino for my boss!

[Anonymous No.18847214]

I study engineering and read in my free time like a sensible person

[Anonymous No.18847258]

>>18847214
Tell me how you manage to do it, I'm an engineering students and I either have no time to read at all or I'm so mentally exhausted the only thing I can do is browse this hellhole absent-mindedly.

[Anonymous No.18847270]

>>18847206
Depends. Humanites was historically the purview of the nobility who could afford leisurely intellectual pursuits. If you're rich and like liberal arts it just makes sense. STEM is for soulless bugmen who need to wageslave.

[Anonymous No.18847276]

This is your aether in the year 2021 within the solar planetary system

[Anonymous No.18847284]

>>18847206
This. Fuck arts and literature. We only need stem autists and crypto traders to have SOVL

[Anonymous No.18847293]

>>18847199
As a heckin college graduate, I feel comfortable saying that college is basically paying tens of thousands a dollar a semester to have a really large social networking experience, except you’re networking with people who will most likely drop out or work retail after they graduate
Also you’re better off just reading textbooks and watching youtube study guides for subjects you’re interested than paying to go to a class.
Never learned a thing in any of my chem classes, I passed through YouTube

[Anonymous No.18847295]

>>18847284
There's nothing wrong with the arts. There's everything wrong with how they are currently taught.

[Anonymous No.18847306]

>>18847258
Personal convictions. Both of my parents are the typical middle class people that are too tired to get involved in something productive than picking out counter tops for the kitchen or shopping for new furniture. It's hard, especially since I have a job, but I try to keep things in perspective and believe that what I'm doing can only lead to good things.

[Anonymous No.18847309]

>>18847293
>Never learned a thing in any of my chem classes, I passed through YouTube
You're probably not as smart as you think you are.

[Anonymous No.18847313]

>>18847295
>There's everything wrong with how they are currently taught.
how would you fix things then?

[Anonymous No.18847315]

>>18847295
>There's everything wrong with how they are currently taught.
Are you implying WOKE stem which imports foreign labor to replace natives and hires women in all the HR departments is better? Both STEM and humanities are equally pozzed.

[Anonymous No.18847317]

>>18847293
The problem with modern education is that it's only a certificate and the only value education has is to serve corporations and capital. If education doesn't produce profit then it's useless.
Simply reading books and watching youtube isn't enough, though. People wont take you seriously if you say you've read a bunch of books. You need to have a certificate to convince people.
>>18847295
Nah we need corporate bugmen bro

[Anonymous No.18847323]

>>18847313
I honestly don't know. The problem is deeply rooted.

[Anonymous No.18847329]

>>18847323
what is the problem

[Anonymous No.18847669]

>>18847295
Are you an anglo, or from other such country where universities are paid for by the students rather than the state?
Because then you do not get educational institutions with students, but daycares with customers, and how things will be taught will depend on consumer demand.
Enjoy the gay fruits of the free market, faggot.

[Anonymous No.18847694]

>>18847295
plastic arts should be treated as a trade desu

[Anonymous No.18847802]

>>18847323
There's a good recent Brendan O'Neill Show episode about it. They discussed his book "Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century". https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast-episode/how-the-cognitive-elite-took-over/

The gist of it is that university education and the kind of intelligence that is required for university is overvalued in modern western society when you compare to history. He also points out that there's no point sending retards and midwits to university and that it can actually be harmful in the long run, only the brightest should go. I definitely agree with the last point. I'm probably average intelligence at best and it was wasteful of me to pursue higher education with regards to what I actually did and learned there. I have been helped by my credentials from university, but rarely from the knowledge I gain there. There were also loads of people even dumber than me in my classes.

[Anonymous No.18847816]

>>18847293
This except I went to Duke so I networked with a lot of super rich kids and it got me a very high paying job. Definetly the main benefit of the top 10 schools is being surrounded by the kids of elites. Also had former cabinet members or under secretaries dropping by for lunches with you doesn't hurt.

[Anonymous No.18847835]

>>18847802
We need to encourage more people to go into trades and learn practical skills. There's a stigma attached to it though and you're brainwashed in high school that you have to go into the university system.

[Anonymous No.18847836]

>>18847802
Did you learn about social justice?

[Anonymous No.18847880]

>>18847309
This is a strange position though. Why would a lecturer by any chance be as good as a video you can digest in your own speed?

[Anonymous No.18847920]

>>18847199
>t. didn't get into a good university

[Anonymous No.18847935]

>>18847206
I have a math and classics degree.
Am... am I retarded?

[Anonymous No.18847944]

>>18847669
Are you retarded? State schools are the most pozzed. The market means there are still lots of schools which are still religious, teach Latin, do not teach CRT, have a uniform, etc. Because there are still people who want their kids to go through that schooling and educators who are interested in providing it.

[Anonymous No.18847947]

>>18847835
The problem is you need a degree if you hope to get a half-way decent job that pays well. Also the book has “The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century" because people working blue-collar jobs get treated like dirt by the rest of society. Coastals look down on midwesterners for not going to uni.
They talk about ending racism, sexism, homophobia how about ending classism for once?

[Anonymous No.18847957]

"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost.”

― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (PBUH)

[Anonymous No.18847961]

>>18847935
>anime joker
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18848002]

>>18847961
you take that back

[Anonymous No.18848011]

I feel like academia in its current state is irreversibly rotten and broken, but what could possibly replace it?

[Anonymous No.18848018]

>>18848011
indians lecturing on youtube

[Anonymous No.18848020]

>>18847199
I always see these memes on 4chan, but I've literally never met these "FUCK YEAH SCIENCE!!" types IRL, and I've been in three different universities in my lifetime (both as a student and as a teacher in STEM).

[Anonymous No.18848026]

>>18848020
i have meant plenty.

[Anonymous No.18848029]

>>18848026
where?

[Anonymous No.18848033]

Although I despise the privileged background of most of the people I live with (student house is 1700s townhouse, obviously going to be rich kids) I can honestly say that I don't get intellectually stimulating conversation from anyone else at home.

None of my family are particularly readers (mum reads poolside paperbacks - still something at least) and the people at my old job laughed at me for bringing in a copy of Great Expectations to read on my lunch break.

Although these guys have zero experience with the real world, I still appreciate that we can talk together about philosophy / classics / medieval literature etc. I never felt more isolated than when I was reading and had nobody to talk to about my books.

[Anonymous No.18848036]

>>18848029
in my life.
what do you want me to send you fucking coordiantes?

[Anonymous No.18848041]

>>18848020
Thats cause once you see STEM academia from the inside, you dont "fucking love science!" anymore, and you also realize that part of the appeal for such people is the mystique around science. They think that science is making pretty pictures of planets or cells, and that experiments happen within some kind of utopian structure of reason where everything and everyone is purely devoted to reason and truth. But once you know what really happens, that just disappears.
t. MolBio grad

[Anonymous No.18848042]

>>18847306
Are you me ?

[Anonymous No.18848046]

>>18848036
No give me an example of an institute, where did you meet them?

[Anonymous No.18848056]

>>18848018
The problem with public access education is that you cant have the hands-on guidance needed.

[Anonymous No.18848057]

>>18848046
one of them is my uncle.
an old self-taught software developer

[Anonymous No.18848061]

>>18848041
Is there any field that is exempt from this? Is there any way to prevent matters from reaching this point?

[Anonymous No.18848062]

I actually did love the university though. Lots of hot you girls to have sex with. Culture of casual sex. Pretty easy to get gold drug hook ups. Parties. Cool out door club where I learned to climb and went climbing or caving most weekends, then came back at night for parties. Classes were fun, at least some of them. Read interesting stuff, then you get to discuss it.

Graduate school was fun too, but a little less so.

Beats the absolute fuck out of work, where instead of reading and discussing you have to do bullshit and deal with minute details and recurring tasks, as well as office politics, all while not having hot girls around, not going to parties, not having a gym you get to go to and lift and hit the sauna in the middle of the work day, and having to do routine shitty chores like fix your house.

Also dating sucks way more after school. I miss college. Even without the partying it would be fun. I wish I could be a professor.

[Anonymous No.18848063]

>>18848041
So I'm assuming the stereotype being mocked here is either a high-schooler or early twenty-something that get all their knowledge of "science" from pop-media, yes?

[Anonymous No.18848072]

>>18848020
Not him,
First years are like that, then they either get disgusted or adapt to the true world of science that is filled with arrogant idiots and literal retards thinking they are above everyone because they graduated in neuroscience.
I wish I didn't speak from experience but alas, I do.

[Anonymous No.18848076]

>>18848063
yup

[Anonymous No.18848083]

>>18848062
Also, I took 19 credits one semester and still had a fuckload more free time. You can get college work done in like 25 hours a week, and you live near campus. I got to longboard for a commute.

Now I have an hour and a half of sitting in traffic a day and 40 hours of work if In lucky, often more like 50, then I come home tired and just watch TV, jerk off, smoke a bowl, and go to sleep. The gym on my lunch break became the high point of my day after school.

[Anonymous No.18848087]

Is 31 too old to go to college and get a valuable social experience?

[Anonymous No.18848100]

>>18848087
Mmmmm kinda? I mean, there are always the odd 3-4 30-somethings in any given class, but the rest of them will be 18-22.

[Anonymous No.18848103]

>>18848087
College is not for socializing. At 31, you will be unable to relate to other students. If they're sufficiently prejudiced, they may dislike you simply because of your age.

[Anonymous No.18848104]

>>18848020
I have normalfag friends who in the last year posted shit in slack like “in these trying times I like to look to scientific discoveries to give us hope” while linking some generic pop science bullshit article about how we discovered some new space whatever. Also back in university we had some god hates fags type protestors (not the same people but same type of idea) on campus for a couple days and I saw several I fucking love science types try to debate them, one schlubby bearded dude actually got up in their faces and said verbatim “Science is going to kill your God!”

[Anonymous No.18848114]

>>18848104
>Slack
Do people actually use Slack? Whatever for?

[Anonymous No.18848116]

>>18847835
Yes, and especially for women since they're overrepresented to begin with. There were so many dumb and average intelligence women there studying just because you're supposed to go for higher education after school. Otherwise you won't become a strong, successful woman. It's a shame caring professions have poor working conditions and are so looked down on. These women tend to instead focus on the form and tone of the education and social dynamic since they have little genuine interest in the subject. The way they get an edge over their peers is not through intelligence and good coursework, but through social and ideological gatekeeping towards the teachers and students.

Not all women of course...

>>18847836
Yes, I studied languages/philology/linguistics and there are quite a lot of gender courses, post-colonialism tucked in there below the surface where you would not think it.

Literary theory was the worst of all. I don't see the point in including Butler, Derrida and queer analysis in an introduction course. First of all, it's quite hard to understand and it's not very useful to a beginner.

Marxist literary analysis and socio-linguistics or whatever can be really interesting and good, but I often found the study of these subjects uncomfortably ideologically driven. My classmates were all also considerably more progressive-leaning than me and egged the professors on in these subjects.

[Anonymous No.18848119]

>>18847199
Aww mustard! Come on man, now don’t put no mustard on that you need to put a little season on that thing! WHAT! Man come on get that pepper off there! Come on somebody come get this man! Come on now, come on get that pepper of there, that’s just too much doggone pepper. I dont wanna see this no more

[Anonymous No.18848130]

>>18847309
What makes you think I’m proud of not being able to focus in a classroom? But for the record, I’m smarter than you
>>18847317
Sure, self taught education won’t impress wagies or get you hired, but if you’re into the science just for understanding’s sake, that’s the way to go
>>18847816
I ended up getting a great job. Didn’t network into it, but I did network my bros into it so that’s nice. I don’t make friends easily so getting my college roommate into the business to hang out was pretty cool

[Anonymous No.18848138]

>>18848114
I don’t know, they are all my older brothers friends and told me to download it because they use it for making plans and stuff. I guess they already used it for work or something so they used that instead of explaining to the women what discord is. Very nice people but they do sometimes exude complete bugman cringe.

[Anonymous No.18848148]

>>18848087
Same situation but I'm 24. How fucked am I?

[Anonymous No.18848149]

>>18847199
The most erudite guy I know - and the person who introduced me to literature - has not finished high school. He worked his whole life, reading books while not working.
Universities are a meme.

[Anonymous No.18848235]

>>18848116
I think that anyone who supports social justice would have good reason to be very happy about the fact that increasingly large numbers of Americans will be forced to go to university, where they will be able to learn all about it. One day, everyone will have learned about social justice.

[Anonymous No.18848249]

>>18848061
Nope, all of it is like this.
I often hear commies say that it's the fault of capitalism, but i dont really agree, as there will always be a scarcity of materials, supervisors, working places, which creates some kind of competition for where funds will be allocated.
And on a personal level, i also find that those commies tend to be the most gleeful contributors to this dysfunctional system, as it gives them prestige and power.

[Anonymous No.18848282]

>>18848087
I will finish my master's by 30, and conversing with ~22 year olds was awkwardish.

[Anonymous No.18848327]

>>18848249
I know what you mean.
>Prestige and power
Maybe if neither power nor prestige attached to these things, we wouldn't have these problems.

[Anonymous No.18848348]

>>18848249
Also, where are you meeting communists in the sciences? I've met only one guy who could possibly qualify as a communist, but he wasn't like that until he went to Europe.

[Anonymous No.18848355]

>>18847199
>has never gone to uni
>didn't finish community college
>studies STEM, Medicine or Law

[Anonymous No.18848370]

>>18848327
True, but in that case youre also asking people to do a shitload of work and sacrifice a lot without getting anything for it in return (cause academia doesnt pay well).
And the power they get is part of being considered important in their field. Theyre the ones who do peer review, who decide over grants, are in the editorial boards of papers, or decide over policy. If you want to cut down their power, then you'll have to abolish these things altogether, which would be disastrous.

>>18848348
I dont, i just met some via general student organizations. No one in the deps i worked at was a commie. Most were moderate to right wing.

[Anonymous No.18848376]

>>18847199
ITT: Ressentiment-filled Wikipedian high school dropouts that believe random anonymous stories like >>18847293

[Anonymous No.18848377]

>>18848148
>How fucked am I?
Not at all. But you will be far more mature than most of the other students.

[Anonymous No.18848389]

>>18848083
>Things that never happened

[Anonymous No.18848398]

>>18848041
>>18848072
This
>>18848057
>self taught codemonkey
yes those are the kind of people who are "FUCK YEAH SCIENCE!!. A lot of CS codemonkeys are like that.

[Anonymous No.18848402]

>>18848370
I don't really know about that. I don't know how people used to fund science back in the 17th century, and I don't know whether or not the federal government really needs to be handing out money to our educational institutions. I also wonder if anyone has ever stopped to ask how much in opposition someone can be to a government that provides them with their funding and equipment.

[Anonymous No.18848430]

>>18848377
>But you will be far more mature than most of the other students.
t-thanks

[Anonymous No.18848436]

Take the Trivium pill and everything else becomes a meme in terms of learning difficulty, so you only need uni for the networking and the paper.

[Anonymous No.18848443]

>shitty edit #1572 of the pasta I created
I regret everything.

[Anonymous No.18848446]

>>18848033
>the people at my old job laughed at me for bringing in a copy of Great Expectations to read on my lunch break.

I call bullshit on that.

[Anonymous No.18848451]

>>18848402
Science used to be more of the past-time of rich people, or people who were otherwise very accomplished. But that's not really possible anymore, because equipment has become too expensive, and because the topics in question have become so deep specialized that you cant treat it as anything other than a full-time job. The age of polymaths is over.
I'd say liberal democracies are quite tolerant of funding programs that are critical of them. Too tolerant, even. But in the case of hard science, it's extremely rare for a program to be explicitly at odds with liberal democratic values to such an extent that it might affect funding. The only case i can think of are the inheritability of IQ and biological aspects of race. But besides that, most research isnt political.

[Anonymous No.18848455]

>>18847270
I enjoy STEM just as much as humanities. I am studying mechanical engineering which interests me greatly. I feel like you cant be a great thinker in the 21st century without knowledge of physics.

[Anonymous No.18848491]

>>18847199
Universities are good because you can't just run away and hide from criticism, you're forced to respond to it and change. So it's better than all of your autodidact /lit/ posters who descend into shitposting as soon as they get exposed for having shitty ideas.

And unlike what you think, unless you go out of your way to take shitty classes you won't see SJW crap.

[Anonymous No.18848505]

>>18848491
>Universities are good because you can't just run away and hide from criticism, you're forced to respond to it and change.
On the lowest levels, yes. But professors have more freedom.

[Anonymous No.18848518]

>>18848505
true, but nobody here is ever going to become a professor.

just saying, your average ba in philosophy is actually going to be able to converse about philosophy like an adult, unlike the vast majority here who a) talk about shit they haven't read and b) go spastic when called out for misreading stuff.

it's definitely good for people to be forced into reading more broadly and getting challenged on their interpretation. as much as people bitch about stuff universities are still the best place for this.

[Anonymous No.18848576]

>>18848518
>true, but nobody here is ever going to become a professor
There are professors and PhD students here. Some of them have revealed themselves.
>just saying, your average ba in philosophy is actually going to be able to converse about philosophy like an adult, unlike the vast majority here who a) talk about shit they haven't read and b) go spastic when called out for misreading stuff.
I don't know what you mean by that. My understanding is that philosophy BAs, and a lot of professional philosophers, read excerpts of sources and then read a lot of secondary literature. So a lot of discussion ends up being about things that people haven't read in toto, but have read partially and then read about. I am also not sure about your confidence in the intellectual ability of philosophy BAs.
>it's definitely good for people to be forced into reading more broadly and getting challenged on their interpretation. as much as people bitch about stuff universities are still the best place for this.
They are, but the trouble is that there is a lot of pretending not to understand what other people are saying, strawmanning, and summary dismissal of the views of one's opponents. The attempt to cast Straussians as some sort of neoconservative cult comes to mind.

[Anonymous No.18848667]

Most of my college years were spent smoking weed, playing vidya, watching anime, and drinking beer desu.

[Anonymous No.18848674]

>>18848455
>I feel like you cant be a great thinker in the 21st century without knowledge of physics.
define "knowledge" of physics. Are we talking pop-physics? physics 101? or advanced physics? I think most people know gravity is a thing n sheeit.

[Anonymous No.18848690]

>>18847935
I was thinking of going back to university to do this (math major classics minor), since I flunked out before and have nothing else going for me aside from a cozy desk job, but that won't take me anywhere. I am incredibly lazy and there isn't a line of work that really appeals to me.

[Anonymous No.18848755]

>>18848376
Not, more like disillusioned graduates.

[Anonymous No.18848761]

>>18847329
It's a long story anon

[Anonymous No.18848766]

>>18848761
Peter Salovey is aggressively jewish

[Anonymous No.18848791]

>>18848766
>aggressively jewish
lel

[Anonymous No.18849133]

>>18847199
Anyone else going back to school?

[Anonymous No.18849745]

>>18848446
You underestimate the dunces I worked with

[Anonymous No.18849756]

>>18848376
>the idea of youtube being more useful that shitty wagie professors is somehow hard to believe

[Anonymous No.18849787]

>>18847199
Im honestly only in university because im not cut out for things like trades no matter how much I try to make it so and need something in my field of interest but to get the job I need university unfortunately. Honestly see uni more as a barrier more than anything else but while im here ill try to enjoy myself and also use it to my benefit to get out of the country.

[Anonymous No.18849790]

>>18847293
there's unfortunately little actual value in most degrees. but i studied engineering and engineers are part of a professional order which require an engineering bachelors.
but thankfully where im from, college is fairly cheap that regardless of what you actual study, it can be a decent investment

[Anonymous No.18849832]

>>18848061
i feel like some of my classmates in mechanical engineering maintained their optimism. those that join design teams and build cars, robots and rockets make something to be proud of.

[Anonymous No.18849837]

>>18848103
>College is not for socializing
couldn't be more wrong

[Anonymous No.18850031]

>>18848087
IT depends what you mean by "valuable". Hanging with normies and partying probably not. Professional/networking events you'd probably be better off than younger students desu.