Think of the quickly growing popularity of tags on the internet which show graphically the (expected and often unexpected) relationships between ideas and concepts in the results of a topic search.
Or think of the movie Cube (also Cube 2, Cube 3) which is essentially about some mathematical construct that shows that when you are positioned inside a cube that theoretically all six of the inside walls of your cube are simultaneously acting as the outside wall of a whole set of cubes that are all pressed against each of the walls of your cube. And all those cubes have more cubes pressing against their walls. Creating this infinite expanse of cubes that are all interlocked by the touching cube walls. I forget even the theoretical purpose of this infinite cube construct or why scientists have devised it, but it does seem to vividly show how everything is connected rather infinitely and complexly. And that nature is infinitely complex and interrelated at all levels from micro to the massively macro scale of super complex galaxy groups that are bonded by gravitational pull. Bear in mind there is a known psychological profile that shows that some people really don't want maximum success, that they purposefully self-sabotage their maximum career success because they have deep personal feelings that are at odds with their ambitions. Commonly, as it turns out, on a deeply personal level many people really just don't like the constant responsibility associated with maximum career success. Or, of course, many people have serious issues with money: they feel it is dirty, not a noble objective, very material and that the desire to gain heaps of money is a bad reflection on their otherwise more pure personal ethic. And if money was a bitter family contention when one was a child, those bittersweet memories may make many like kryptonite in your hands. The net net of this note is that this webmaster test discussion quickly uncovered how everything that is going on in one's life is all intertwined: business choices and paths, education history, friendship model, the feng shui of your home and neighborhood, even your health issues and how you eat, how you decide to express and present yourself, even how you deal with your sleeping dreams: all these matters are interrelated and affecting the moment by moment outcome of everything in your life. (Did you know it has been shown that people who sleep next to each other affect the content each other's dreams, even causing each other's dreaming to start and stop in harmony.) One may need to look into many aspects of their life to find where is the crux of the current obstacle/problem/issue(s) at hand: is the stumbling block here in the task that is before me or over there where I never eat right at breakfast and then I cannot concentrate. Or eating too little for extended periods makes me somewhat grouchy and sharp tongued causing me to appear flinty with coworkers when not intended. Or is a toothache I don't correct distracting me at all times... The webmaster test thread shows clearly how everything (seems like everything) is interrelated and you cannot discuss or look for the answer to an issue within a single sphere of life/business. Look a layer up or down, look a strata to the left. It is all a sliding scale of grays, even what appears black and white is just real dark and very light gray. Peter -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Krings Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:43 PM To: NYPHP Talk Subject: Re: [nyphp-talk] Re: OT: webmaster test Christopher R. Merlo wrote: > On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 5:02 PM, David Krings <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > A university is supposed to train interested candidates in a field > of choice with the goal to make them subject matter experts in that > field. > > > That's actually not true, and your apparent belief in this untruth is > probably what has led to your seemingly very strongly felt distaste for > university education. Huh? I got two university degrees and did so voluntarily. So what you say is clearly not the case. My point is that someone who for example takes a BSEE program at Alfred State College is required to have 132 credits for graduation. From those 132 credits 60 credit hours are for liberal arts classes and other sciences that are non-major. Not all of those may be totally off topic, but I don't get why a BSEE student has to take american history again or take an arts course (or even more than just one). The 13 years K-12 ought to have covered that. I also think that a high school graduate should be capable of properly expressing thoughts in speech and writing and not needing yet another round of English courses. I got my BSEE degree at a non-US university in a seven semester program with a total of 154 credits and as mentioned before only 3 courses were not that much related to engineering. > The purpose of a college or university is to provide the student with an > education, so that the student may go on to contribute back to society. Ah, c'mon! Reading books to children or planting trees or donating blood or driving people to their doctor's appointments - that is giving back to society. Getting a university degree is for the sake of getting a better job with better pay and ideally get some more exposure to a subject that one likes. How does getting a degree in finance and becoming a greedy investment banker give back to society? I can see getting a degree in social work being something that gives back to society. Or do you mean that graduates get better paying jobs and thus pay more taxes and that helps funding government programs? I agree with the rest that you wrote and I don't think it collides with what I wrote earlier. My point is that compared to other countries US universities focus way too much on a broad education rather than on transferring specialized skills and knowledge of a specific subject. And I think that is why foreign workers especially in IT have an advantage. I'm not saying that an extra writing course is useless or that art history is utterly unimportant, but I think that is something that shouldn't be part of a university program. David _______________________________________________ New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online http://www.nyphpcon.com Show Your Participation in New York PHP http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php _______________________________________________ New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online http://www.nyphpcon.com Show Your Participation in New York PHP http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php
