Today is the last day of our Bachelor’s Program. This post is written by me and my close friend Hrithikesh C. This post is an open letter to all universities and students alike on how to make our current education system better across the board from administration to academics (from the perspective of Student). This was prompted as a thought experiment, “What would we do if we replaced the person with the highest agency and authority, who is responsible for the university”.
A Quick Disclaimer
Before you dive into the post and read about it. It’s better you know a little about us. We are regarded as the part of the “Covid Batch” throughout the college. It did have it’s merits and disadvantages, but this post is not about those. We’ve both pursued Computer Science Engineering with specialization in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at VIT Chennai, and both us have decided to study further, so we’ve decided on pursuing MS in United States. We aren’t in the top 10 percentile as per grades, but we believe that we’ve gained a lot of knowledge just by being with each other throughout these 4 years. You can contact both of us through our 𝕏 profiles. @pranav_techie& @emiraquent.
We don’t know the purpose of higher education and if it will change a lot because most of it can be passed very early on in the childhood
However, we believe that what higher ed has stood for in the past that making students ready to enter the workforce and become productive members of the society
What principles does a University invite?
First, we defined the end goal, which are students who wield what they know with optimism for the future, curiosity, and high agency.
We’ve battled with each other, until we’ve reached a few first principles that both of us agree on, the following paragraphs, will list each of them and why do we think these principles are non-negotiable in any kind of higher-educational environment, or any educational environment for that matter.
A transparent and an active feedback loop
Yes, so what does it mean? Well, this point of this loop is to always make sure the “administration” which is working for the betterment of the students’ is not disconnected from the reality faced by the students. The “administration” here could refer all people who are not the students but support them in any manner.
The student’s the are the ultimate judge of your activity, however, this loop is clearly absent across every single institution. Mid-semester and end-semester’s feedback aren’t gonna cut it, the student’s don’t know the common consensus feedback that was given. The stats of the feedback are never shared publicly after being collected, the actionable items decided by the administration aren’t shared with the students and especially the reasoning behind those actions aren’t.
So what happens if this continues to happen at a regular intervals, well the students who have given the feedback might leave the educational institution before they even get to see the fruits of the actions. So, you’re literally running a generation of student’s behind when implement actions. There should never be any sugarcoating of the feedback or the stats. It’s supposed to be very transparent, you, a student and the head of the institute get to see the same feedback board.
All actions taken based on the feedback and similarity present and can be viewed any stakeholder at the same-level, there are no divisions, no clearances.
Individual Growth over the group
If someone in their life hasn’t realized that now to individuals learn at the same pace or understand the same material / science at a different pace. I’m unsure if they belong in the same reality as we do. However, the reasons a one-on-one teaching doesn’t exist is due to cost associated with it. However, since the dawn of the internet that was no longer the case, however, no one has developed a system or a framework that can be widely-adopted across the entire world to promote such learning, we’re not sure who to blame here, but this is a trend we wish didn’t happen.
So, the concept of classes as it exists was never contested, we don’t fully know if eliminating the concept of the class is even the right move. But, we know the principle we’re rooting for here. “Individual learning over group”, no student should be ever held back from learning either in any form of resources or services provided by the faculty. In no universe does this have a positive outcome.
A permission-less culture
Unless you’re in the 𝕏 tech-bro bubble, you probably wouldn’t have heard the phrase “You can just do things!”, which means, you don’t need to wait for someone to say or approve of your idea before you can ideate, build and iterate on it. There are many projects, ideas, and features that weren’t built because someone was afraid of their peers or boss, that could’ve turned out to be their linch-pins or worst disasters.
Most of the best things that we have today, weren’t invented after receiving an approval from a sub-committee, of a committee of a board of an organization. They are built and spear-headed by single individuals who wanted to bring their idea from imagination to reality, and the outcome of that is everyone on the planet benefits from their pursuit, either directly or indirectly.
Laser-focussed elimination of Disguised Unemployment
This is equivalent to the “DOGE initiative”, but to the fullest extent. If the net utility and outcome of adding an individual doesn’t improve the outcome more than marginal, than the requirement of that individual needs to be questioned.
There’s no other simple way to put this. Most people like comfy-cushioning jobs, if that someone wants to work in an education institution, no such option should be present in anywhere around the world.
Technology as the highest leverage
The invention, discovery and innovation is a cycle that can’t be stopped, however it can be further accelerated. However, what’s the point of accelerating such endeavors if the fruits of those aren’t utilized to their fullest potential.
Every working individual of an educational institution and students themselves, should utilize technology in the many forms it’s present around us to improve the utility and well-being of everyone around them.
Utility over dogma
This is something that’s hard to grok, if you’re not familiar with either of these terms. So for the sake of everyone reading this to avoid any argument over the definitions of these words, this is what we meant by them
Utility: the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial, useful, especially through being able to perform several functions. Dogma: a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.
Some might define this in other terms like “first-principles thinking” or “Elon’s 5 step algorithm”, etc..
However, the reason this statement exists is to simplify what we’ve understood. Always prefer utility over dogma. It’s that simple. If any principle or rule was ever set forth, and the opposite of that argument or rules has a higher utility that it being place, the rule is removed instantly.
Sense of Urgency
DRAFT POINTS
Main concepts:
- Proper feedback loop between students and university, with complete transparency for what is done with the information that flows in the feedback loop, what decisions are made with this information, if any. (Something that is ideally a mix of meritocracy & direct-democracy)
- A system where a student is not bound by their peers to complete courses or take exams.
- A permission-less culture where you don’t need someone’s approval to start working on an idea.
- Our opinion about disguised unemployment.
- Technology being the highest leverage unit
- Utility over dogma
- Sense of Urgency