Cheeky answer: I ignore all enrolled students, and simply award the degree to anyone who succeeds in the real world, however they do it.
I will give a more academy-oriented answer that ensures the degree recipient has actually assimilated rationalist thought modes and practices after I’ve had more time to think about this.
simply award the degree to anyone who succeeds in the real world, however they do it.
How about converting credit hours into a point based system (x points = 1 credit hour towards degree)?
Have the students identify a project/goal to pursue which they will submit to you, assign maximum points for rational actions that turn out well; decrement points for clearly harmful actions; assign half points when they have devised a good rational argument for pursuing the action ahead of time, even though it didn’t work out so well.
The only unclear case is when it works but ‘shouldn’t have’, which often times deserves a reward, because it isn’t good to criticize people when they are right, but what if they simply bought a lottery ticket on a whim and one of their goals was to become rich? What if they admit they had no extra-normal reason to think that this method would work? Should you award them points or not?
Cheeky answer: I ignore all enrolled students, and simply award the degree to anyone who succeeds in the real world, however they do it.
I will give a more academy-oriented answer that ensures the degree recipient has actually assimilated rationalist thought modes and practices after I’ve had more time to think about this.
How about converting credit hours into a point based system (x points = 1 credit hour towards degree)?
Have the students identify a project/goal to pursue which they will submit to you, assign maximum points for rational actions that turn out well; decrement points for clearly harmful actions; assign half points when they have devised a good rational argument for pursuing the action ahead of time, even though it didn’t work out so well.
The only unclear case is when it works but ‘shouldn’t have’, which often times deserves a reward, because it isn’t good to criticize people when they are right, but what if they simply bought a lottery ticket on a whim and one of their goals was to become rich? What if they admit they had no extra-normal reason to think that this method would work? Should you award them points or not?
Cheeky, but a fair point.
I edited the scenario slightly, so that students had been pre-screened for some indication of potential in the real world.