Re: the role of courses<br><br>I still think there is a value to a small group of individuals coming together over a limited period of time to discuss something in depth. Whether online or offline. Like a reading circle for a book - it's nice to randomly discuss books you have read with people you meet, but it's also nice to have a group of people that have all committed to reading a chapter by a certain time, and meeting up. However this is far from the only model for how education can or should work. <br>
<br>As for university, it might be worth looking at Sweden, where they only study one subject at a time in university. There is no concept of majors, etc, rather to get a degree you have to study at least a certain number of different courses (breadth) (each course = half a year full time) and taken a certain number of courses in one topic (so that you reach a certain depth, and don't just do all the introductory courses). I never finished my degree in Sweden, but when I signed up, I applied for half a year of Chinese (not to be generally enrolled as a student, but just to do that specific thing). <br>
<br>After I had done that half year, the university sent a letter saying "would you like to keep studying? if so, what?". I signed up for the second half year of Chinese, and studied that. I could then go to another university in Sweden, if I wanted, and do anthropology. Previous studies are transferred time for time, and since you are studying something very different from scratch, there is much less problems about the same subject being taught in a different way, etc. At the end, you can graduate from any university, as long as you fulfill the two requirements (breadth and depth) mentioned above, and you have certain total number of courses, and you spent at least one year at that university.<br>
<br>Anyway, not saying that's the future in any way, but I think whenever we get too focused on the five courses per term credit system in North America, and it's nice to get perspectives from other places. The nice thing about it is that after half a year of philosophy, you actually have people who have a real appreciation of the history of the subject, and are able to do an 8 hour written exam that is not asking you to check little ovals about when Plato was born, but actually asks challenging long essay questions.<br>
<br>Stian<br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><a href="http://reganmian.net/blog">http://reganmian.net/blog</a> -- Random Stuff that Matters<br><br>