Can youtube STEM videos from universities replace higher learning?

[Beamin]

So my official job is go to the doctors take pain medicine and lie around in bed educating myself through youtube since I cant afford or physically am able to attend college due to my disabilities.

I saw a RBMK reactor simulator and tried playing with it(I posted the link to download on this forum, you try to make the disaster occur). Not only was it not fun but I couldn't make it work, I just wanted to make it melt down. So I found "openCourse" from MIT on nuclear physics. I got out a note book and watched fifty hours of class and googled sources to use as my text book. Now after about 50 hours of learning I still cant make the RBMK work, mainly because I dont remember the math, but at least I now know why its not working.

Shouldnt you be able to use this as "relevant experience" when looking for a technical job? The instructor asks the students questions and I can answer them even though the grad students are stumped. A fun example is the you have to eat,sit on, and throw out the window three radio active cookies, what should you do?

[Beamin]

Answer: try to figure it out with an alpha beta and gamma source...

























You eat the gamma throw the beta out the window and sit on the alpha. Why? It should be obvious but the student count figure it out.

[Rick Law]

There is a difference between being credentialed and being educated.

At college, you can get the credential (degree, etc) and may be educated (or not).  Taking courses on-line can for sure educate, but credential is harder to come by.  You have to figure out for yourself how you would get it.  The "how" would depend on where you are and what kind of credential you want:  Degree? Certification? Whatever...

If being credentialed is not important to you, on-line courses is an excellent way to learn.  Some real big draw backs that you have to solve:
1.  What to do if you have a question.
2.  Labs and hands-on, at college, there would be a properly equipped lab.
3.  On-line lacks a well defined curriculum.  For example, if you are getting a STEM degree College, you go from physics 100 level, to 200 level, math 100 level to 200 level... then the discipline-dependent course at higher levels.  If you are going for math, then of course it would be the 300 level and 400 level math.  So on, so on.  On-line, you can do it "out of order" and begun things that you have not yet learn the backgrounds for.  So that would make it so much harder.

If you are series about being educated, understand that issue.  Be ready to put aside what you are learning now and switch over to "boning up" certain things that you are weak on before switching back.  Best of course is to work out the proper pre-requisite courses and do those first so you don't need to switch back and forth.

[Beamin]

There is a difference between being credentialed and being educated.

At college, you can get the credential (degree, etc) and may be educated (or not).  Taking courses on-line can for sure educate, but credential is harder to come by.  You have to figure out for yourself how you would get it.  The "how" would depend on where you are and what kind of credential you want:  Degree? Certification? Whatever...

If being credentialed is not important to you, on-line courses is an excellent way to learn.  Some real big draw backs that you have to solve:
1.  What to do if you have a question.
2.  Labs and hands-on, at college, there would be a properly equipped lab.
3.  On-line lacks a well defined curriculum.  For example, if you are getting a STEM degree College, you go from physics 100 level, to 200 level, math 100 level to 200 level... then the discipline-dependent course at higher levels.  If you are going for math, then of course it would be the 300 level and 400 level math.  So on, so on.  On-line, you can do it "out of order" and begun things that you have not yet learn the backgrounds for.  So that would make it so much harder.

If you are series about being educated, understand that issue.  Be ready to put aside what you are learning now and switch over to "boning up" certain things that you are weak on before switching back.  Best of course is to work out the proper pre-requisite courses and do those first so you don't need to switch back and forth.

Yeah I struggle with the math even though I made AP in high school I just dont remember it anymore.

[Rick Law]

I know you said besides mobility, financial is also an issue.  Beside on-line stuff, there may be one more option.

If you can overcome the mobility issue, you should check with your local community college and see if they allow "sit-in", also known as "auditing the course" and perhaps by other names as well.  That is: merely you go to the class/lecture room as a non-student and just "sit-in" the room to listen to the lecture. You get to learn but no access to labs or TA help.  No one will grade your home work nor are you allowed to take exams.  This may also be USA college only.  At our near by state university, the univ itself appears to have no policy on that and left the decision to professors of the specific course in question.

That used to be a good way to learn, but may not be for now.  This virus thing would probably get in the way since many of the courses priorly in-person now is in remote because of the virus thing.  Stranger may not even be allowed into a building as many State owned/operated buildings (like the DMV) screens whoever enters.  Once things "get back to normal", you should consider this path.

[Kerlin]

I watched the 23 lectures from MIT by Alan Guth on inflationary cosmology. I believe he is the one who mostly conceived and proved the idea.
I did not follow some of the maths as he some times used his knowledge of cosmology to introduce changes into the calculations and introduce new formulas.
I decided to just follow as best I could as I didn't think he needed to prove it because other well know academics have already checked it.

With the outcomes the LHC is providing and the advancement of current physics it seems that we are entering a new age of understanding.
Details of these advances will be in the media. Albeit further down the news pages than the political, crime, football and baby competition winners.
I wanted to be able to have a basic understand of some of the theory behind these advances.
From the lectures I was able to pick up the whole of the theory and was able to achieve what I wanted.
Even this morning there was a article on how time doesn't actually exist, so now I follow it much better.

Conclusion- You can still get a lot from it. I am sure the same will apply to STEM lectures.

[Kerlin]

Just further to that -
I read an article that pointed out that you should pay attention to what catches your attention.
Seems a strange concept but the author pointed out that he noticed that he always paid attention to new information on UFOs, but wasn't aware that he had an interested in the topic.

When I checked mine the advances in physics and cosmology hit the top of the list.
To my surprise I found electronics was not high on the list.

I found some of the problems with youtube lectures are heavy American accents and poor quality video.
Alan Guth's were great.

[tszaboo]

No. About 50% of otherwise smart people fail higher education. It is not just soaking up knowledge, you need to be able to do it in a certain timeframe, and under stress, being able to prepare to several tests at the same time. Having a degree is not that you know which way the electrons flow, but a certificate for that.

[Ground_Loop]

College is a lot more than learning a topic or getting a credential. A degree demonstrates to an employer (or anyone really) that you can set a goal and achieve it, that you can 'play the game,' that you can work on teams with other people you probable don't know, that you have education in areas beyond your field, that you can probably communicate effectively, and on it goes.

[armandine2]

There aren't (in the UK) individual subject benchmark statements (QAA) for electrical or electronic engineering.

[Just_another_Dave]

In case you are interested in higher education but you can’t attend college, there are several online universities (as well as other organizations providing official technician degrees). Some of them offer completely online degrees and the total cost is usually lower than the one for traditional universities. For example, studying a technician degree online in Spain at a private institution has a total cost of around 2000 euros (it takes 2 years to complete it) and, as far as I know, you can apply to them even if you don’t live in Europe

The Open University from UK is also a quite well known option for studying online degrees and it also accepts students from other countries

However, most countries I’m aware of don’t require having a degree on electronics engineering to work in this field and nowadays there are really good online resources made by universities that can help you get started. In addition to that, most of them have public listings of the reference books they use and there is also a list on good ones in the EEVBlog wiki. In the end, engineering is learned by practice, so the most important thing is to start designing circuits and debugging them

Edit: Just to clarify my answer, there are many types of technical jobs and some of them are more suitable for self-students than others. Controlling a nuclear reactor is hard and your country might require you to have a degree to get that job due to the risk it involves. However, there are technical jobs in which self-students aren’t that uncommon, like programming and maintaining websites for small companies or repairing mobile phones, as experience can be more important in them than theoretical knowledge. Self-studying an engineering can be hard due to the lack of help if you don’t understand something, specially when advanced calculus is involved, so achieving it will require a lot of self-discipline and investing in lab equipment to be able to put in practice the acquired knowledge

[olkipukki]

You can get EE master from Stanford almost online that literally watching online classes and sitting same exams regardless where are you from.

https://online.stanford.edu/programs/electrical-engineering-ms-degree

Of course, you will need either a sponsor (aka employer, used to be only option) or pay privately, and you can reckon it would cost in $50K-$60 range...
Alternatively, a financial aid (I believe US only)

Pre-COVID time, it solved only and only issues to remove physical obstacle to uni and time allocation at expense of  -  speak to classmates, participate on site activities and access to labs.
At the moment, most traditional universities around the world still 'working' in a remote mode

[olkipukki]

Shouldnt you be able to use this as "relevant experience" when looking for a technical job?

Sure, it can, why not if somehow related to your main activities.

ow after about 50 hours of learning

Otherwise, how you will "sell" two full-time weeks of academic study as "relevant experience" to potential employer?

[rstofer]

There are lots of sites with tutorial videos.  Khan Academy is excellent as is 3blue1brown.  But these tutorials aren't necessarily in the proper order for a class.  CalcWorkshop is excellent and properly ordered.  It costs somewhat north of $100 per year and how much you get done in a year is up to you.  I paid for a couple of years to help my grandson.  He now has a BS in Applied Mathematics and is headed to grad school next semester.

Junior college level classes (first 2 years) are often quite good and reasonably inexpensive.  Grants are available as is tuition aid.  If you register and get a .edu email account, MATLAB is free!

Important resources:

Symbolab.com for problem solving - if you subscribe (costs money), you get more detailed solutions.  Yes, I subscribe...
Desmos.com for graphing

For fun:

Numberphile.com
Computerphile.com

Tools:

MATLAB (student version (FREE) or personal version (costs money))
Octave (MATLAB workalike - up to a point.

[rstofer]

You can get EE master from Stanford almost online that literally watching online classes and sitting same exams regardless where are you from.

https://online.stanford.edu/programs/electrical-engineering-ms-degree

Stanford was televising classes to their local students and non-registered students at various companies clear back in '78.

[olkipukki]

If you register and get a .edu email account, MATLAB is free!

....
MATLAB (student version (FREE) or personal version (costs money))

Must be US deal only. Never saw free MATLAB for students or home users (exclude who has access via college/uni), you either buy a book or pay around ~$40 for base plus ~$10 for each interested package.

[daqq]

Concerning STEM universities: I do not believe so.

IMO:

Videos and courses can complement it - greatly. And can get you a lot of the knowledge you would get at a uni, possibly with a better explanation. But they lack:

1. Feedback - Testing is important. While the exact methods may be better or worse depending on the university/country, solving a complex problem that can't be fitted into A, B, C or D in a limited time frame with whatever resources you are given teaches you something.
2. Lab experience - Universities have some nice toys. Depending on your setup you may not be able to recreate it at home. And some of the experience is not so much of a technical nature, rather than a general organization nature - how to record measurement, organize data...
3. Talking and interacting with your peers - If you put enough smart people in a room, they eventually come up with something awesome. Or get fiendishly drunk or high in illegal herbage. Anyway, talking to people who are studying the same things that you are, are in the same situation, in the same context is valuable.
4. The boring stuff is important - Math was mentioned here as being problematic. Yes, most of the time you will not sure a lot of the higher math and can generally manage without a mathematical feel for it. But for a title and the advanced work that you may be expected to do, at least some of the boring stuff will come up occasionally.
5. Recognized title - If you get a Bc. or Ing. ("bakalar" and "inzinier" here) title, it should mean something. While it is true that there are "universities" that, let's say, are of dubious nature, they are quickly recognized and people who flaunt ther Ing. from certain schools will get ignored by any competent HR people. There are certain expectations that come with the title. True, it may be more diluted than it was in ye olden days, but it still means something.

During my university years, there were times where I was this close to giving up on it. In retrospect, I was right to continue.

Talking MATLAB: Try octave.

[Kasper]

Sorry to hear about the Drs and meds.  But it's good you've found a productive hobby.

I think respect for 'youtube university' is growing and there are plenty of opportunities for people with good experience and knowledge even without formal credentials.

Are you trying to decide if you should get a formal education or are you trying to decide if hobbyist learning is worth the effort?

It sounds like you enjoy learning about STEM so that's good in any way you do it, even if it's just a low cost hobby that is good exercise for your brain. If you decide later that you want a formal education this could be a good headstart so you can enjoy your formal schooling and learn a lot while your classmates stress, cram and forget.  If you have prior experience and maybe some projects to show off, that can help your resume stand out against your competition (classmates) when you all enter co-op or graduate.

Can you get a technical job without formal schooling: yes. Will you get paid less? I dunno, maybe.  But what about starting your own company, either to sell products or sell yourself (as a consultant)?  Formal education might not be as important there. If you start a company, is it going to rely on government funding or investors? Some of them like to see formal credentials but some might not care.

If it's hard to go to formal schooling, is it going to be hard to be an employee?  You might find more flexibilty while working for yourself.

I work for a tech startup and when we consider hiring design firms or consultants, we talk about what they've designed in the past and who they've worked for not what school they went to or even if they went to school.

Having STEM knowledge is valuble in many ways. Having formal university credentials is also valuble.  Nothing wrong with starting as a hobbyist and maybe getting formal education later. 

It also depends what area you want to work in. If you want to make consumer grade apps, some online courses could be plenty, if you want to design bridges or other life dependant grade things then formal education is probably required.

If I were to start over, I think I'd be better off if I thought of something I wanted to make and sell and then learned whatever is needed to accomplish that.

[Rick Law]

I watched the 23 lectures from MIT by Alan Guth on inflationary cosmology. I believe he is the one who mostly conceived and proved the idea.
I did not follow some of the maths as he some times used his knowledge of cosmology to introduce changes into the calculations and introduce new formulas.
I decided to just follow as best I could as I didn't think he needed to prove it because other well know academics have already checked it.

With the outcomes the LHC is providing and the advancement of current physics it seems that we are entering a new age of understanding.
Details of these advances will be in the media. Albeit further down the news pages than the political, crime, football and baby competition winners.
...
...

(Just as I was previewing and editing before post, another reply by daqq brought up the importance of interaction.  What goes here will serve as a "supplement" to daqq's point #3...)

This actually reminds me about an additional draw back of "remote learning" which applies whether you are self-learn or "remote" on-line student due to whatever reason.  That additional draw back is interaction.

When you are at a lecture or in a university, surely you will have some interaction with others.  Particularly useful would be Q&A from others to the teacher.  Some questions may be same as yours, other questions may be something you just have not yet thought of.  Besides Q&A, there is the "hall way discussions" or "things said by around the water cooler" where informal brief discussions occur.  From that, you learn additional useful knowledge.

Don't get me wrong, Physicists like Alan Guth and Lawrence Krauss are Physicist I much admired and still do.

"Cosmic Inflation" is just a mean to interpret the information we are able to grasp.  Neither space nor time are well defined in physics.  Some would even argue that we don't even understand them.  Consequently, space (which we can't define well) expanded in a very short time (which we can't well define) is a concept that we can't truly define well.  But, that it is "a way to interpret the data" often got morphed into "that was it."  In Q&A and informal discussions, that it is but "a mean to interpret the data" would surface.

The same applies to LHC's "accomplishments".  At the time of LHC's creation, many Physicist were ask, and repeated since: "If the Higgs particle is the only new particle that LHC could find, what would you think?"  The answer was almost universally "that would be quite a disaster."  You can see some of those Physicist on videos saying it on "World Science Fair" and similar shows.  There was expectation that SUSY particles will come out; the "Standard Model" of Particle Physics would be verified.  Not a single SUSY was found.  Not a single one other than Higgs boson which was proposed in the 1960's!

Many Physicist consider the last half century a time waster.  In business terms: no new strategy, just plenty of new tactics.  The generation of  physicist like Eisenstein, Paul Dirac, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, so on.  They created new paradigm.  They created new concept.  Those concepts lead to new ways of thinking about Physics and new understanding.  Since then, most Physicist merely developed new techniques.  String Theory was to be the new paradigm, that didn't work (or if you prefer, hasn't work yet).  The "Standard Model" of Particle Physics remains a mass of kluges...

I suspect a few years of interaction (4 for college alone and perhaps more), one would have heard and know of these kinds of view points (or facts if you prefer).  Lacking interactions with others and taking just a few on-line courses, many such important facts or view points would be missing.

EDIT: "...said by the water cooler" replaced with "said around the water cooler" and added Werner Heisenberg to the list.  There are more such Physicist for sure, but Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal is too important to miss.

[rstofer]

If you register and get a .edu email account, MATLAB is free!

....
MATLAB (student version (FREE) or personal version (costs money))

Must be US deal only. Never saw free MATLAB for students or home users (exclude who has access via college/uni), you either buy a book or pay around ~$40 for base plus ~$10 for each interested package.

My 'personal' edition cost $149 plus $49 for every add-on package and I have several.  But that's just the first cost because there is an optional upgrade fee of about 50% that comes up every year.  I have about 8 add-on packages so annual 'renewal' is a bit pricey.  Nevertheless, I really like MATLAB.

These days, I'm playing with machine learning and MATLAB->Simulink->Deep Learning toolbox is a very nice setup.  If I had a video card with CUDA units, I could add on the parallel programming toolbox and speed up the production by a LOT.

All of this machine learning stuff can be done using any tool that handles matrices and vectors even, or maybe especially, Fortran.  I haven't seen any literature talking about using Octave for this application but it is clearly capable of handling the math.  The math isn't hard but the array size is often fairly large.  Even digit recognition turns out to have a 784 element input vector (an unwrapped 28x28 array).  Not the kind of thing you want to do by hand!

[rstofer]

I suspect a few years of interaction[/b] (4 for college alone and perhaps more), one would have heard and know of these kinds of view points (or facts if you prefer).  Lacking interactions with others and taking just a few on-line courses, many such important facts or view points would be missing.

The interaction is terribly important and the last year or so has been a struggle for many.  Things are loosening up and professor/student interaction is at least possible.  Zoom was not a great learning environment.  Sometimes remote learning covers continents not just city blocks.

Want to really know the material?  Hang around a semester beyond graduation picking up some other classes and then get hired by the university as a paid tutor.  There's no faking it when you have to teach it.  You need to bring your 'A Game'.

[Kerlin]

Lets not get into practical Vs theory argument here, save that for the beginners section. I am never making another post there, its the inexperienced leading the inexperienced.
 
After a life long extended stretch of formal learning, except when I am working O/S, I offer my observations on formal class room learning.
I do find classroom interaction is distracting. I have seen some lecturers announce at the start "Save any questions for the end", I agree.

For me the key part of a good lecture is "The delivery", similar to the singers of the Frank Sinatra era who perfected the art known back then then as "Delivering the lyric".

A good lecturer can deliver a concept or idea, its an ability some have or gain from experience.
That's a very subtle art and one I don't fully understand and cant fully explain.
It seems that it is developed over time. Experienced lecturers show it straight up front.

One of the things which I have noted that is used by good lecturers and is in common with the singers and comedians - they use the pause.
I deliberately mentioned Alan Guth in my earlier post. In this case it was not for his knowledge or subject matter, it was mainly so that if the thread turned to it I could make this following point about the pause.
Watch him scribble away on the black board narrating the calculations, note how some times he steps forward, makes a point, pauses then looks at the class in way that enables him to look at every one in the class, he pauses till he feels they have digested the point made. Then when he feels the majority are with him he goes back to it. If he feels they are not with him then his experience tells him that and he then expands on it or goes back over it.
For me that is the one of the many signs of the master lecturer that I have observed and he has that, it does come across on line.
Just like the comedian timing, feedback and interpretation is important. Do you really want to interrupt a delivery like that with a question?

The pace that he delivers at is also spot on, won't put you to sleep, almost too fast - timing.
No accent, no drawl, easy to lip read and projects his voice, a very basic requirement that most don't have.
He is not one who needs to throw chalk dusters at students to keep them awake, ha ha.
He is not the only one I have seen. In my decades in Unis I have seen a few who operate at this level. We need more lecturers like that for on line learning.
 

[rstofer]

As I see it, interaction includes out-of-class access; the ability of the student to go to the prof's office and ask a question directly.  Of course, the question has to show some insight and prior effort but good professors have no problem with direct student interaction.  That's what 'office hours' are for!

Then there are the TAs (Teaching Assistants) that conduct group learning sessions out of class.  And let's not forget the tutors!  In some cases they are paid (likely minimum wage) by the university and they better have the material down cold.  The students are stumbling over the very same questions the tutor stumbled over a couple of years ago.

None of these interactions were as successful under the Covid restrictions as they were before.  Thankfully, things are returning to normal.

Not all video classes were real-time.  Sometimes is was a video recorded days earlier and no student interaction is possible.  Not ideal.  Coupled with no tutors or TAs, last semester was pretty grim.

Stanford proved that real-time video broadcast lectures could work clear back in the late '70s.  The only difference between campus students and off-site students was that the campus students had microphones and could ask questions.  Not to worry, off-site students were normally working in the field and surrounded by practicing engineers.

There's another facet to online education in which the web is used beyond simple videos.  There is a written discussion of the material, there may be some short video clips on specific points but, more important, the homework problems have online solutions.  You do your work, pick the ABCD answer and, if you got it right, you can move on.  Otherwise, you now have the right answer, rework the problem to match.  Immediate feedback is very useful.  These programs can be highly interactive.

Cengage.com provides course access with the purchase of a textbook.

I could see the demise of universities.  Universities were forced to refine online learning and it worked out pretty well.  It seems that some universities see remote learners as another revenue stream and are beginning to embrace the concept.

[Just_another_Dave]

As I see it, interaction includes out-of-class access; the ability of the student to go to the prof's office and ask a question directly.  Of course, the question has to show some insight and prior effort but good professors have no problem with direct student interaction.  That's what 'office hours' are for!

Then there are the TAs (Teaching Assistants) that conduct group learning sessions out of class.  And let's not forget the tutors!  In some cases they are paid (likely minimum wage) by the university and they better have the material down cold.  The students are stumbling over the very same questions the tutor stumbled over a couple of years ago.

None of these interactions were as successful under the Covid restrictions as they were before.  Thankfully, things are returning to normal.

Not all video classes were real-time.  Sometimes is was a video recorded days earlier and no student interaction is possible.  Not ideal.  Coupled with no tutors or TAs, last semester was pretty grim.

Stanford proved that real-time video broadcast lectures could work clear back in the late '70s.  The only difference between campus students and off-site students was that the campus students had microphones and could ask questions.  Not to worry, off-site students were normally working in the field and surrounded by practicing engineers.

There's another facet to online education in which the web is used beyond simple videos.  There is a written discussion of the material, there may be some short video clips on specific points but, more important, the homework problems have online solutions.  You do your work, pick the ABCD answer and, if you got it right, you can move on.  Otherwise, you now have the right answer, rework the problem to match.  Immediate feedback is very useful.  These programs can be highly interactive.

Cengage.com provides course access with the purchase of a textbook.

I could see the demise of universities.  Universities were forced to refine online learning and it worked out pretty well.  It seems that some universities see remote learners as another revenue stream and are beginning to embrace the concept.

Remote learning opens the possibility to people who have a full time job to get a degree, making it an interesting option for universities. In Spain we have UNED since 1972, a university that just offers distance learning courses, and it works really well (I’ve seen the material from the physics degree that a friend was studying while we were studying our engineering degree and it was completely worth it). Additionally, distance learning is usually cheaper

[Rick Law]

...
The pace that he delivers at is also spot on, won't put you to sleep, almost too fast - timing.
No accent, no drawl, easy to lip read and projects his voice, a very basic requirement that most don't have.
He is not one who needs to throw chalk dusters at students to keep them awake, ha ha.
He is not the only one I have seen. In my decades in Unis I have seen a few who operate at this level. We need more lecturers like that for on line learning.

Those are indeed pluses.  But, effectiveness of the delivery would depend highly on the composition of the students.  Students are not there to watch a professors' lecture delivery skills, they are (should be) there to absorb the content being taught.  So effectiveness of a lectures in my view should be: how much the student actually got out of it.

No doubt, some students are there because they must, and just want to get done with the course at minimal work.  They don't care about learning that specific subject.  They just want to pass it to meet requirements.  That skill of the lecturer may "shove" a little more into those students.   Interaction will not benefit those student one iota anyhow.  They are likely to disappear as soon as the lecture is over and by Q&A time, the lecture hall would be half-empty.

I was a teaching assistant (TA) almost half a century ago.  Then, professors do the lectures and (graduate students with a degree in the discipline) TA's do the teaching in smaller groups.  For the students who is there "just to get the course credits", there is not much one can do for them.  They are there just to get help to complete the class work.  For the students wanting to really learn, my experience is: a very effective way for the "wanting to learn" group is to start by asking the students questions.  Since they are students, likely they don't know the answer.  In that case, I ask for best guess and why.  Expanding from that answer and then engage the entire class in discussion.  That interaction help the students not just for the class material in question, that interaction helps the student in how to approach a problem and understand the related issues.  Most interesting is when students who really doesn't need help with the class work, but drop by just to further discuss the topic further at their own will.  An on-line course would have difficulty doing either, however, difficult != impossible.

These days, depending on university, TA isn't always graduate students (this is what I gathered from discussions with recently graduated from college).  They are upper-classman who had taken the course prior and may not even be majoring in the discipline they are "teaching".  They would themselves be rather limited in the scope of knowledge.  Interaction could be less beneficial but still should be of benefit.

Projected from the experience I discussed above to on-line learning:  For those who really want to learn, they will find ways to get the knowledge from further on-line research, or even on-line discussions.  For those who merely want the credits for graduation or pre-requisites, beyond the course credits, they would not gain much from having taken and passed the course.

So bottom line in my opinion with on-line learning, you get just what you put in.  Additional work (research on content) is require if you truly want to learn and gain a wider scope of the subject.  Otherwise, you got what just the on-line course has which would be a very limited view of a subject.

[eti]

Can a photo of a bowl of rice nourish you as much as a bowl of rice?

 

[daqq]

Can a photo of a bowl of rice nourish you as much as a bowl of rice?

 

That's not a reasonable comparison. While this kind of education does lack many of the benefits of a real University education, it is far from worthless. It is also a great supplement to it.

[PKTKS]

College is a lot more than learning a topic or getting a credential. A degree demonstrates to an employer (or anyone really) that you can set a goal and achieve it, that you can 'play the game,' that you can work on teams with other people you probable don't know, that you have education in areas beyond your field, that you can probably communicate effectively, and on it goes.

I spent a lot of time in Academia...

My bottom line conclusion is that Corporate IT is a Whorehouse Nazi Mafia... 

**BUT**  You made me rethink the perspective quite a bit...

More like a gymkhana   for PETs..
Roll over .. swing your tail do not  growl  and do not question..
Fill the circuit in time and be a good pit bull

Nirvana came t o my mind instantly.. 
they are right 

cheers
Paul

[Rick Law]

College is a lot more than learning a topic or getting a credential. A degree demonstrates to an employer (or anyone really) that you can set a goal and achieve it, that you can 'play the game,' that you can work on teams with other people you probable don't know, that you have education in areas beyond your field, that you can probably communicate effectively, and on it goes.

I spent a lot of time in Academia...

My bottom line conclusion is that Corporate IT is a Whorehouse Nazi Mafia... 

**BUT**  You made me rethink the perspective quite a bit...

More like a gymkhana   for PETs..
Roll over .. swing your tail do not  growl  and do not question..
Fill the circuit in time and be a good pit bull

Nirvana came t o my mind instantly.. 
they are right 

cheers
Paul

re: "...My bottom line conclusion is that Corporate IT is a Whorehouse Nazi Mafia...  "

It is not just Corporate IT.  I bet you, 9 of out a 10 companies/corporations, Corporate Marketing/Sales would be worst, and Corporate "HR" would even beat Marketing/Sales.  If you even made a joke in the present of anyone who may object, HR will come down on you like a ton of bricks.

re: "College is a lot more than learning a topic or getting a credential...that you can probably communicate effectively, and on it goes."

That really is the point of going to College, you can get a well rounded education.  As important as demonstrating "...you can work on teams with other people...", it also allows you to demonstrate when given a goal, you got it done.  College, like any other projects at work one must complete, there are tasks (subjects) within the project you love doing and there are tasks you are uninterested in or even hate doing.  But, when you graduated, it is statement that "I got it done - even the unpleasant tasks".

That said, no doubt college education is on a decline.  I do not have the same "feel of quality" I got from recent graduates as compared to graduates who did it say a 15 years ago.  Then, I knew many who were working part time, or even full time to pay for college while taking what would be considered hard courses.  Now, I see more coasting with their student loans enjoying "studying abroad" for part of their college years.

Oregon dept. of education email newsletter said: "asking math student to show their work is racist."  This is not a direct quote because they use terms much stronger than "racist" and I do not feel comfortable repeating it even in quotes.  I will leave you to read the link from a couple of sources.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/asking-students-to-show-their-work-in-math-class-is-a-form-of-white-supremacy
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/education-oregon/

That mindset will no doubt sip into higher ed, and then to college soon enough.  Personally, I have done math tutoring to supplement my income since high school till graduate school (by then I was a paid TA).  I don't know a better way to see where the student went wrong without seeing their work.

I was paying a lot of attention to education when my kid was young.  My concerns grows as the calendar moved forward.  I am glad my kid is now a college graduate.  I don't have to worry about that anymore..

But in truth, I worry very much how we are training kids.  Kids are our future.  I worry that in the near future, we may not have the knowledge (spread within the society to adequate depth) to support an economy comparable to today with a the standard of living we are accustomed.

[PKTKS]

It is not just Corporate IT.  I bet you, 9 of out a 10 companies/corporations, Corporate Marketing/Sales would be worst, and Corporate "HR" would even beat Marketing/Sales.  If you even made a joke in the present of anyone who may object, HR will come down on you like a ton of bricks.
(..)

That is true..

HR NAZI MAFIA wants to put nice pitbulls on a short leash ...
Patronize them until they got whatever it fits..

They have a big EXPENDABLE PET SHOP  to gather from..

Sick mentality... deliberately coming from Academia ..

I got sick of it,

Paul

[Just_another_Dave]

re: "College is a lot more than learning a topic or getting a credential...that you can probably communicate effectively, and on it goes."

That really is the point of going to College, you can get a well rounded education.  As important as demonstrating "...you can work on teams with other people...", it also allows you to demonstrate when given a goal, you got it done.  College, like any other projects at work one must complete, there are tasks (subjects) within the project you love doing and there are tasks you are uninterested in or even hate doing.  But, when you graduated, it is statement that "I got it done - even the unpleasant tasks".

That said, no doubt college education is on a decline.  I do not have the same "feel of quality" I got from recent graduates as compared to graduates who did it say a 15 years ago.  Then, I knew many who were working part time, or even full time to pay for college while taking what would be considered hard courses.  Now, I see more coasting with their student loans enjoying "studying abroad" for part of their college years.

When I was studying I got a part time job at one of the labs of the university. I think it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever taken, as it allowed me to learn a lot about power electronics (I loved that job indeed). That experience clearly makes a difference if you want to design electronic circuits.

However, many other students just wanted the degree to get a job at a strategic consultancy firm…

[Bassman59]

If you register and get a .edu email account, MATLAB is free!

....
MATLAB (student version (FREE) or personal version (costs money))

Must be US deal only. Never saw free MATLAB for students or home users (exclude who has access via college/uni), you either buy a book or pay around ~$40 for base plus ~$10 for each interested package.

My wife works for the local public Land Grant Research University (the one with the shitty football team that's a drain on resources) and there's a decent list of software which is site licensed for students, faculty and staff. So I have MATLAB with the signal processing and the FPGA generation packages. It's possible these deals are either US-only, or on a per-institution basis.

The other option is what @rstofer chose, a "personal" license which is actually quite reasonably priced.

[RJSV]

rstofer has it right, regarding having 100 percent on-line missing the human interactive benefits.
  During COVID I experience INCOMPATENCE delivery, as 'they' sit, in bedroom 'study' areas.
   Can't hear them, in their masks, as they spout simple nonsense, stupid bookcase set up behind them.
Literally, I'm going to remember, bookcases, those stupid fake bookcases.
  One public service agency seemed way to focused, on that phoney, mock-up 'bedroom office', and new rules, now, you get 2 tries, to answer your phone call-back.
I can't hear most of the incompetence, and, oh shiii, another mask just broke, putting it on.
  That about sums it up: Required masks, too cheaply made, 4 out of 10 break, as you try to attach elastic around face... (Sigh...)

[RJSV]

Uh, previous post, not meant to focus on COVID Dynamics, what I mean is the bedroom office, along with all the various media based training, cannot replace or supersede the regular face to face dynamic.
   When I have a person, I have to interact with, a regular face to face meeting, (with a lawyer), he wants to 'glance' at some documents I've brought to the meeting, no big deal.
Today, he is going to ask: Please FAX SCAN and those.
...That's like 24 pages, ( $ 1.50 per page, at store).

   I just feel, many of these 'remote' solutions fall short and encourage (incompetence), while focus on many distractions, not tolerated in a 'real' office setting.

   A book store owner, other day, didn't want to open door, transact my paid order,... now that's just bad feeling, all around. This temporary state of business, it's no model for future.

[armandine2]

https://www.math.uchicago.edu/~luis/pde/wave.html

a distraction, of sorts, is to try and draw an initial cosine wave displacement with sinusoidal velocity that appears to stand still.

[Galenbo]

No. About 50% of otherwise smart people fail higher education. It is not just soaking up knowledge, you need to be able to do it in a certain timeframe, and under stress, being able to prepare to several tests at the same time. Having a degree is not that you know which way the electrons flow, but a certificate for that.

Most dropouts I saw missed 1 important property:
Being able to shut up, sit down, do what is asked, don't ask questions, and wait.

And now, 30 years later, I see it was also the most important property that was needed in careers.