I studied computer science at university. One year after graduating, when I was cleaning my room, I found a paper with questions from various subjects I studied. When I started reading it, I was shocked: half of the questions… not only I couldn’t answer them, but I couldn’t even understand what the question meant. I would need to study the topic again merely to understand what the words in the question meant.
Partially, I blame myself for not having a good note-taking system back then. With good note system, I could reconstruct some of the knowledge on demand.
But frankly, we learned many things I was not really interested in; where often I had no clue why are we even studying this; and where the standard approach by most people I believe was to learn quickly and forget quickly. The knowledge didn’t feel like something valuable, but rather an arbitrary obstacle. Well, this type of knowledge seems to evaporate quickly; should not be too surprising.
I wasn’t familiar with the signaling theory back then, so my model was just the usual misalignment of incentives: The teachers have to teach us something, otherwise they wouldn’t get paid. But they get paid the same whether the subject is interesting or boring, useful or useless. Thus many of them teach boring and useless stuff. And “the real skill we teach them is how to learn anything” is probably just something they tell themselves to sleep better at night.
From this perspective, the signaling theory sounds naively optimistic, because it assumes that everything actually happened for a reason, however indirect. It probably didn’t.
From this perspective, the signaling theory sounds naively optimistic, because it assumes that everything actually happened for a reason, however indirect. It probably didn’t.
For what Signaling Theory (ST) points at to be right:
There has to be a reason. (Not just because.)
That reason is something like: ‘People want to look good, and people get something for looking good.’
So people do/try to do things that:
make them look good
or that they think make them look good
Or at the next level up, acting like they believe X makes them look good...
ST isn’t necessary if you’re not buying something useless, unnecessarily expense, or in fashion—It tries to be the why of fashion.
If you studied at the university because you thought it would be useful....
a) Was it useful enough?
b) ST (as I stated above) isn’t required to explain “people buy things that they think are useful but aren’t”.
Law school professors will hate changing how they teach. They didn’t get into their prestigious jobs to develop mnemonics for fully-grown adults. It’s beneath their dignity. The responsibility for retaining information rests with their students. I get it. It does seem silly to suggest that famous credentialed lawyers spend their time treating their adult students like high-schoolers.
I prefer the OP’s theory of dignity, prestige, and seriousness (DPS), over ST. (If you can decide what serious people do, then you rule the world. All hail our serious overlords.)
The only thing missing (if studying at a university isn’t useful), to explain why it persists is:
Why isn’t this communicated?
Do we listen to more successful people (and ignore less successful people to our detriment)? (“Here is the secret to getting rich: Just buy lottery tickets!” says the winner of the lottery.)
People who take a test and do well on it are inclined to think well of the test.
I studied computer science at university. One year after graduating, when I was cleaning my room, I found a paper with questions from various subjects I studied. When I started reading it, I was shocked: half of the questions… not only I couldn’t answer them, but I couldn’t even understand what the question meant. I would need to study the topic again merely to understand what the words in the question meant.
Partially, I blame myself for not having a good note-taking system back then. With good note system, I could reconstruct some of the knowledge on demand.
But frankly, we learned many things I was not really interested in; where often I had no clue why are we even studying this; and where the standard approach by most people I believe was to learn quickly and forget quickly. The knowledge didn’t feel like something valuable, but rather an arbitrary obstacle. Well, this type of knowledge seems to evaporate quickly; should not be too surprising.
I wasn’t familiar with the signaling theory back then, so my model was just the usual misalignment of incentives: The teachers have to teach us something, otherwise they wouldn’t get paid. But they get paid the same whether the subject is interesting or boring, useful or useless. Thus many of them teach boring and useless stuff. And “the real skill we teach them is how to learn anything” is probably just something they tell themselves to sleep better at night.
From this perspective, the signaling theory sounds naively optimistic, because it assumes that everything actually happened for a reason, however indirect. It probably didn’t.
For what Signaling Theory (ST) points at to be right:
There has to be a reason. (Not just because.)
That reason is something like: ‘People want to look good, and people get something for looking good.’
So people do/try to do things that:
make them look good
or that they think make them look good
Or at the next level up, acting like they believe X makes them look good...
ST isn’t necessary if you’re not buying something useless, unnecessarily expense, or in fashion—It tries to be the why of fashion.
If you studied at the university because you thought it would be useful....
a) Was it useful enough?
b) ST (as I stated above) isn’t required to explain “people buy things that they think are useful but aren’t”.
I prefer the OP’s theory of dignity, prestige, and seriousness (DPS), over ST. (If you can decide what serious people do, then you rule the world. All hail our serious overlords.)
The only thing missing (if studying at a university isn’t useful), to explain why it persists is:
Why isn’t this communicated?
Do we listen to more successful people (and ignore less successful people to our detriment)? (“Here is the secret to getting rich: Just buy lottery tickets!” says the winner of the lottery.)
People who take a test and do well on it are inclined to think well of the test.
How would you teach someone how to learn things (better)?