Importance Of Going Into A University
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I have been wondering if going into a University is so important , people told me that if u go into a university u will be more sucessful and have a easier life after u get the diploma but is it true that going into a University is so important? I have ask a lot of people and they said that if they only have Poly Dip. , its hard to find a job.. and very "no face" but if u have University Deg. , you can find job easily and also when people ask about your level of education u can proudly say u are university graduate. So far i have seen other exception whereby its the poly student who is more sucessful then the University students.
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You get a DEGREE upon graduation from a university and a DIPLOMA upon graduation from a polytechnic.Originally posted by ViRuSKiD:I have been wondering if going into a University is so important , people told me that if u go into a university u will be more sucessful and have a easier life after u get the diploma but is it true that going into a University is so important? I have ask a lot of people and they said that if they only have Poly Deg. , its hard to find a job.. and very "no face" but if u have University Deg. , you can find job easily and also when people ask about your level of education u can proudly say u are university graduate. So far i have seen other exception whereby its the poly student who is more sucessful then the University students.
Why succumb to society's standards? Just do what you desire to do most as a career and take the path that's most suitable for yourself. With enough determination, perseverance and passion, one will succeed no matter whether he or she is holding a diploma or a degree.
And someone holding a diploma only can go and study for a degree mah. Aiyoh. -
University of the Society is the best.
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experience....experience........ got degreee no experience.....
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I agree..but everyone has to start somewhere...dun need to envy those ahead of u... cos one day u will be there...and those juniors will be there to envy u one day too.Originally posted by duotiga83:experience....experience........ got degreee no experience..... 
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a good degree may open more doors in the first 2 years after graduation IF the economy is doing ok...
bad economy means that u won't get a job easily anyway... whether u got a dip. or a deg.
and they're two different things lah... there are job openings for deg-holders AND dip-holders... and deg. jobs don't always pay better... it really depends on where your interests lies. no point feeling "tui" only after u get your qualifications.
so the answer: just follow your interests. if a uni offers a course u are interested in, go for that. if a poly offers something u're more interested in, go for that. -
Hmm - good question.
Can't say I've ever had difficulty finding a job - in the last 10 years (apart from when university semesters were on) I have been unemployed for a maximum of four days at a stretch, and I have only been turned down for a job twice. The question is, did the degrees make it easier?
Certainly, at the end of my undergraduate years, my degree paved the way for me to breeze through the selection process. However, in 2000 I beat a number of more qualified applicants for a job as well, and the reverse happened in 2002. In both cases, the decisions were close, and personal qualities ultimately constituted the deciding factor.
Certain professions require educational prerequisites, of course. Not any Tom, Dick or Harry may walk in and become a lawyer or doctor, although the rules seem to vary across countries in psychology, which is my profession. In countries like Australia, Britain and the US, you need professional registration to practice; this does not apply in Singapore.
The question is, what do you want to go to university for? If it is for future employment prospects, a degree is good for helping you get shortlisted, but ultimately your personal qualities will be the clincher.
Personally, I did my doctorate for the fun of it. Yes, it does tend to slingshot me past some other job applicants who hold Honours or Masters degrees, but I normally let my curriculum vitae do the loudest talking.
Call it indulgence if you will, but I make a point of doing something only because I want to, and never because I have to, be it education or work. Right now I've decided that I want to return to Singapore to work, but in a few years' time I will probably start a PhD in Strategic Planning - I've taken a sniff at it and it looks like it's going to be a real gas. -
If you have a degree, it makes you a more confident person. You also earn more than others for the same job(because of the qualification). Success cannot be measured by level of education alone. Some people who earns a lot but have no university education may say university sucks big time but they will most likely still want their sons/daughters to get into a university. Getting a degree is not a must but it will be good to have one. Plus points if you get top class honours, Masters, PHD.
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It is important if you think it is. Nothing wrong with thinking its important neither is it wrong to think otherwise.
I think most young people nowadays do not realise that straight after ur university days, you will jump straight into the working world and most likely thats where you will stay for the rest of your life, albeit in different jobs. You got to know what you want in life. I got frens who study study study then now suddenly graduate came to realisation that its too late to regret. I also have frens who quit school early to do business, one is doing well in his transport business, one is going to fold soon...one have already given up and join the police force...
If university can give what you want in life later on, go for it. If you do not even know what you want in life, then the question does not even matter anymore. -
This society sees too much in paper grades. Those of us who are in the working world know all too well that scholars move up corporate ladders faster than the average employee, that scholars are offered opportunities wider than the average employee, and more often than not, scholars are at the pinacle of each conglomerate.
It seems experience and capability fall short of 'unquestionable' As and Distinctions on your degree, along with an ink chop that stamps "scholar".
Is there anyone out there who runs a company who was not a scholar? Very few, and fewer still as this absurd trend continues. Therein lies the problem.
We think of a uni degree as a doorway by which greatness follows. We stereotype an obsolete thinking: Those that do not make it to a uni are failures.
Was it not all too recently that we looked upon normal/technical stream students as the bottom of the barrel? Do we not continue to do so?
It is in this nature that we should be deemed short-sighted. It would be conceited to think that a uni degree holds all the answers to a prosperous and comfortable life...
It merely holds a higher educational standard, but proves nothing if you already have the focus and desire of blossoming entrepreneurs like Dennis Wee. -
I am not sure if there are enough ‘Scholars’ to spread around to provide Leadership in all the large, medium and small businesses in the various industries and commerce.
Chances are a Graduate with a Degree will stand a better then equal chance at an interview over someone with a Diploma qualification – if work experience is considered with other considerations.
The question of the ‘Importance of going into a University’ is equivalent to asking the ‘Importance of Education’.
At the Primary, Secondary and High School levels, the education process leaves one with little choice in the courses to study; while at the Tertiary Level, one can decide and choose the course of study that will be relevant to the intended goals in Life.
Tertiary Level of Education will certainly help to open doors to occupational opportunities; however, it will be the individual performance on the job that will count in the success of an individual at the job of choice.
The individualÂ’s performance will depend on how much the Education Process has molded the thought process, ability to think, judgment, resourcefulness, character, social process, and self-discipline.
Ultimately, whether one should obtain any level of education will depend on one’s goals in Life – whether you wish to work for others, or if you wish to be your Own Boss.
Whichever way that one decide, Education can only help by way of training and information.
However, not having a full education does not necessarily make one inferior to a Scholar.
While most Scholars make good Managers (up to CEO levels), it is sad that not all Scholars are good at being Entrepreneurs.
There are not too many Scholars who can withstand the 'pressure cooker' environment of investing their own money in some new unknown and untried ventures.
The Owner of Tee Yih Jia - known as the King of Popiah Skin - started out as a machine technician, and is now owning and managing several manufacturing plants in South-east Asia, PR China, and the USA; and has spread his marketing arm to Europe, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Middle-East, South Africa and Latin America.
The Owner of Creative Technology has only a basic Polytechnic Diploma when he started his business.
We should use 'Education' as a resource to achieve our Goals in Life, and not become a slave to the education and information processes. -
Please proceed to National University of Nuns (NUN)
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One of the things that many people fail to realise about tertiary education is that the object is to teach one how to think, not what to think. The level at which teaching takes place moves from the concrete to the abstract – you are expected to look beyond individual facts and pull all of these facts into concepts. Sadly, many university students I have seen seem to be challenged even by handling facts, and instead often lapse into opinion.
The raison d’etre of university is to impart the techniques of tuning one’s intellect towards dealing with concepts – to take individual points of information and to analyse and synthesise them into a cogent argument in favour of a concept. The question then is, is that entirely necessary?
In the case of the examples that Atobe cited, the answer would be no. They already knew these things, so putting them through university is simply overkill. On the other hand, most of us need such an environment to cultivate such qualities in us. On the flip side, I have seen many graduates leave university no smarter than they were when they entered – you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. -
Originally posted by Gedanken:
what's wrong with having an opinion?
One of the things that many people fail to realise about tertiary education is that the object is to teach one [b]how to think, not what to think. The level at which teaching takes place moves from the concrete to the abstract – you are expected to look beyond individual facts and pull all of these facts into concepts. Sadly, many university students I have seen seem to be challenged even by handling facts, and instead often lapse into opinion.
over-conceptualising and over-intellectualising is just plain lame. the most important aspect of education is not to find answers, but to formulate questions.
discrete facts are everywhere. u have to know HOW to ask yourself questions to know WHAT these facts MEANS to u... part of this is training, part of this is applying a concept/framework that at best, only fits partly, and most of it is just plain informed OPINION.
what matters is not how esoteric your concept is at the end of the day... what matters is that your conclusion makes sense and WORKS.
most of the management theories and human resource management theories that are taught are just normal insights dressed up with flashy jargon. what's there to conceptualise in that? the application of such theories again, relies on one's discretion and opinion.
i just don't like believing that there are neat little "concepts" that can conclusively group knowledge into different categories or sort them into any sort of simplistic framework that are necessarily reductionistic...
the world's more complex than that and i recognise the genius behind some opinions. they really shouldn't be forced to integrate it into some flashy theories just to make it seem more intelligent. -
i think ultimately, its not about going to uni or not. its about studying something u are interested in, or even about what u want to do in life. if there is no more studying in your plan for your life, then u should start focusing on the next step. There is no must to go to uni.
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i think he probably meant opinion formed not from thorough analysing of facts, but from a gut feel coupled with some wild guesses.
uninformed opinions form weak arguments. -
CX, I expect that by “over-conceptualising” and “over-intellectualising”, you mean spouting a whole lot of jargon without knowing what it really means. If that is the case, I would agree with you – there are way too many snake-oil salesmen out there who crap on using heaps of syllables.Originally posted by CX:what's wrong with having an opinion?
over-conceptualising and over-intellectualising is just plain lame. the most important aspect of education is not to find answers, but to formulate questions.
discrete facts are everywhere. u have to know HOW to ask yourself questions to know WHAT these facts MEANS to u... part of this is training, part of this is applying a concept/framework that at best, only fits partly, and most of it is just plain informed OPINION.
what matters is not how esoteric your concept is at the end of the day... what matters is that your conclusion makes sense and WORKS.
most of the management theories and human resource management theories that are taught are just normal insights dressed up with flashy jargon. what's there to conceptualise in that? the application of such theories again, relies on one's discretion and opinion.
i just don't like believing that there are neat little "concepts" that can conclusively group knowledge into different categories or sort them into any sort of simplistic framework that are necessarily reductionistic...
the world's more complex than that and i recognise the genius behind some opinions. they really shouldn't be forced to integrate it into some flashy theories just to make it seem more intelligent.
“Informed opinion” is an oxymoron. An opinion is a belief or judgement that is NOT necessarily based upon facts or knowledge. An “informed opinion” is therefore not truly an opinion, but is instead a conclusion. Trying to slip it past that opinion and conclusion are one and the same is a cheap trick, and one that is easily spotted by people who do not place their money on opinions.
Even with a cogent argument backing a conclusion, one cannot necessarily impose a conclusion upon another person. Ultimately, you present the facts and let other people assemble those facts into their own conclusions. Providing them with you opinion is only cheating them, since it does not allow the other person access to the substance from which your opinion is formed, thereby closing off any analysis, review or debate.
If you think that concepts categorise and reduce, you obviously have not taken a careful enough look at them. If anything, concepts are anti-reductionistic. Development of concepts more often than not highlight missing elements that are needed for the concepts to hang together and make sense. Categorisation, by definition, is also contrary to conceptualization – you only categorise to move something from the abstract to the concrete. The very fact of your statement leads me to question if you have any clue what a concept really is.
Sure, I agree with you that things have to be made to work – do you think that opinions are the way to go? Fine – my OPINION is that I’ll make a million bucks in a month selling pink tutus because my OPINION is that everybody loves pink, and my OPINION is that everybody loves the ballet, and my OPINION is that even if people don’t dance, they will want to own a tutu for their love of the ballet.
Makes as much sense as your proposal of going with opinions, doesnÂ’t it?
To quote an old American idiom: "Opinions are like assholes - everybody's got one". The issue here is simple: what good is an opinion, if there is no substance to convert it into action?
On your point about management and human resource theorists, many people in the business tend to use jargon in place of opinions, which is just as bad as going with opinions alone, since it produces no result either. In my line of work, I absolutely loathe human resource people who have this big chip on their shoulder and try hurling a lot of useless jargon and research at me to try and make themselves look good. I simply pick at their understanding and application of the terms that they use, and debunk the methodology of the research that they quote. It was fun when I started out, but I have to admit that doing so has gotten pretty boring – they keep coming up with the same tired old stuff.
As for your assertion (or is it opinion?) about management and human resource theories being “normal insights”, answer this simple question. If these insights were indeed “normal” (as if there were any such thing as normal in the first place), why do we hear people bitching about their jobs and bosses? After all, if everybody knew it already, would such problems arise?
Ultimately, the biggest indictment against opinions is how easy you have made it for me to pick your post apart. The lack of facts and logic have left gaping holes for me to take advantage of. -
Originally posted by Gedanken:
haha... haven't we all seen them... but no... i mean it in a sense when we force facts into a crude framework to justify our agendas and think beyond a text in interpreting meanings that were never intended by the author. it is commendable to read critically to identify biases, but its just plain retarded to make wild, loosely substantiated claims and attempt to back it up with intellectually pretentious "theories"...
CX, I expect that by “over-conceptualising” and “over-intellectualising”, you mean spouting a whole lot of jargon without knowing what it really means. If that is the case, I would agree with you – there are way too many snake-oil salesmen out there who crap on using heaps of syllables.“Informed opinion” is an oxymoron. An opinion is a belief or judgement that is NOT necessarily based upon facts or knowledge. An “informed opinion” is therefore not truly an opinion, but is instead a conclusion. Trying to slip it past that opinion and conclusion are one and the same is a cheap trick, and one that is easily spotted by people who do not place their money on opinions.
your cynicism with regards to opinion is noted, but isn't it as futile to place blind faith in letting facts "speak for themselves"? or worse, expecting pple to come to an informed conclusion by providing them with "all the facts"?
Even with a cogent argument backing a conclusion, one cannot necessarily impose a conclusion upon another person. Ultimately, you present the facts and let other people assemble those facts into their own conclusions. Providing them with you opinion is only cheating them, since it does not allow the other person access to the substance from which your opinion is formed, thereby closing off any analysis, review or debate.
if u ask me, facts are as contentious as opinions. what makes u think that a fact cannot be presented in such a manner that will cause the reader to come to a certain fixed conclusion? that conclusion arrived at may be the result of a faulty pre-conceived notion that has been acquired from the process of education in the first place. does it mean that a "fact" is "true" just because everyone thinks it is? didn't magellan prove that the world was round rather than flat?
knowledge is not neutral. knowledge is manufactured by a human process, and every human process contains an agenda, hidden, devious, or otherwise. pple do not "make" knowledge with the conscious intention to mislead, but we are all products and to a great extent, prisoners of our context.
doesn't the process of selecting the facts to present to your audience imply a series of omissions on your part as well? we never have perfect information despite our most noble intentions. the intention is not always devious, but we have already shaped the nature of the discussion and very possibly, the conclusions by presenting the "facts". u can't go "wrong" with "facts" right? or can you...If you think that concepts categorise and reduce, you obviously have not taken a careful enough look at them. If anything, concepts are anti-reductionistic. Development of concepts more often than not highlight missing elements that are needed for the concepts to hang together and make sense. Categorisation, by definition, is also contrary to conceptualization – you only categorise to move something from the abstract to the concrete. The very fact of your statement leads me to question if you have any clue what a concept really is.
state a concrete example on your point on "concepts"... jargons and semantics do not properly illustrate the point.Sure, I agree with you that things have to be made to work – do you think that opinions are the way to go? Fine – my OPINION is that I’ll make a million bucks in a month selling pink tutus because my OPINION is that everybody loves pink, and my OPINION is that everybody loves the ballet, and my OPINION is that even if people don’t dance, they will want to own a tutu for their love of the ballet.
there is a serious difference between having an informed opinion and indulging in senseless polemics... how did u arrive at the "informed" opinion that pink tutus are gonna be all the rage this spring/summer(since i think pple won't normally wear tutus in fall/winter right? a bit the cold lah...)?
Makes as much sense as your proposal of going with opinions, doesnÂ’t it?
frankly, your opinion would be valid if it was packaged with some information... like your statistical basis for claiming that everybody likes pink, everybody likes tutus and everybody likes ballet... otherwise, what claims do u have that your assessment is accurate?
not every opinion is an informed opinion. not every informed opinion is a "fact". not every "factual" conclusion is true.To quote an old American idiom: "Opinions are like assholes - everybody's got one". The issue here is simple: what good is an opinion, if there is no substance to convert it into action?
i agree with your point generally. opinions are like arseholes... everybody has one. but has it ever occured to u that some arseholes function better than others?
and why should an intellectual discussion ever have to be "converted" into action? an informed opinion should be valued because u respect the right of the person making it and he respects your rights to dispute him.On your point about management and human resource theorists, many people in the business tend to use jargon in place of opinions, which is just as bad as going with opinions alone, since it produces no result either ... It was fun when I started out, but I have to admit that doing so has gotten pretty boring – they keep coming up with the same tired old stuff.
same... i stopped trying after awhile... stubborn prigs... there's nothing worse than talking to someone who is closed-minded.As for your assertion (or is it opinion?) about management and human resource theories being “normal insights”, answer this simple question. If these insights were indeed “normal” (as if there were any such thing as normal in the first place), why do we hear people bitching about their jobs and bosses? After all, if everybody knew it already, would such problems arise?
because everyone knows it, but different pple have different opinions about them. wouldn't that explain your point about the pink tutus as well? hypothetically speaking, even if pink tutus were all that popular, it doesn't automatically follow that "everybody" would buy them. could it be that u're applying your overly reductionistic conceptual framework onto this overly simplistic illustration to prove a weak point? could it be that u're just "opinionated" against opinions?Ultimately, the biggest indictment against opinions is how easy you have made it for me to pick your post apart. The lack of facts and logic have left gaping holes for me to take advantage of.
i don't see how my argument has been destroyed... i find your position on facts rather dubious as well. have u ever stopped to think what a "fact" is? laying claims to factuality is in fact, more destructive to discussions because it implies the existence of one fixed truth that gives the "fact" the legitimacy to make whatever claims you are using it to make.
i do not deny that my point is nuanced and abstract. but just cos u prefer a more tangible approach doesn't mean that your point is more valid. thats just your opinion.
i'll be willing to meet u halfway and agree that opinions need to be substantiated with facts to be sensible (and what else might we call that, but an informed opinion?). and frankly, i don't see an opinion as polemical... u are free to dispute the claims and present your own understandings of the situation. thats what a conversation and a discussion is about.
nobody has a monopoly on truth. -
CX, what exactly do you mean by “informed opinion”? If it means what you seem to be getting at, which is in fact a properly founded conclusion, then we do indeed have a meeting point. Perhaps further clarifying my terms would help here.
Let’s start with facts. A fact is an observable and measurable object, action or event. For example, “He accesses the Internet five times a day, spending a total of eight hours” is a fact, while “He’s on the Internet a lot” is not. Said person’s use of the Internet can be measured by frequency and duration, providing hard facts, while “a lot” does not constitute a fact.
A number of facts, assembled in a logical manner, can lead to a conclusion. For example, adding logic to the first statement can make the second statement a properly founded conclusion. “He accesses the Internet five times a day, spending a total of eight hours. Given that the average person accesses the Internet once a day and spends half an hour, we can say that he spends a lot of time on the Internet”. Even so, the use of a vague term like “a lot” can put this conclusion under question. If there are a number of people out there who spend 16 hours a day on the Internet, this person’s usage will not seem like a lot.
If it is a proper fact, it is neutral and one can assemble a set of facts in a certain manner to reach a conclusion. That the person spends eight hours on the Internet is a measure that stands by itself. Its implications, however, can be modified according to what other facts are presented alongside it. As above, if the person is compared to an average user, he looks like a heavy user. On the other hand, next to a 16-hour-a-day user, he looks like a light user. Along these lines, you seem to have mixed facts and knowledge together inappropriately to conclude that facts are contentious. Facts stand by themselves and are therefore neutral by definition, while knowledge, as a collection of certain facts, can take a bent in a certain direction.
It is not a case of “you can’t go wrong with facts”. Regardless of definitions of opinions and conclusions, they both attend to the question “What?”, which, by itself is not good enough. If someone tells me “what”, I would certainly want to know the “why” part of it. For example, if someone told me “Put ten thousand dollars into stocks of X company”, I would not immediately go off to the bank and sign my life away. I suspect you would not either. The first questions I would ask is “Why should I do that? Has X company been doing something that is likely to make their share prices rise?”. If X company has indeed been making some good moves, that might be the basis for investing in them.
My point here is: donÂ’t go providing an opinion or conclusion without backing it up. Without that foundation, they are useless. You cannot automatically trust the source of the statement. Fine, if Bill Gates was to provide an opinion of where the computer industry is going, his word may have some credence given his track record in the computer business. However, he probably knows jack squat about the pink tutu business, and I would not automatically take his word for it in that particular arena.
Hmm. You want an example of a concept? OkayyyyyÂ…
“However, IRT models with more parameters may sometimes be preferable (Suen, 1990). For example, selecting a homogeneous set of items with equal discrimination may not always be possible. With sets of items with varying levels of discrimination, using the more complex 2PL model may be more suitable than attempting to apply a 1PL model where the assumption of homogeneity in item discrimination is not supported. Hambleton (1989) also notes that items that fit a 1PL model are harder to find than for other models, and a 2PL model may in this way be more attractive than a 1PL model from a practical perspective.”
Okay, I took the lazy way out and cut-and-pasted from my doctoral thesis. One of the points of my thesis was to test if a two-parameter model (2PL) IRT model provides more accurate results than a 1PL model. I took actual examples of undergraduate exam results to produce mathematical models that showed that the 2PL model did indeed produce more accurate results, but that they were more sensitive to disparities between the difficulty of the exam and the ability level of the examinees. While I prefer 2PL models personally (accounting for more parameters makes more sense), I examined the facts – the actual exam results, the data from the exams (and the resulting mathematical models), correlations between the model results and the actual results, estimated difficulty levels and the examinees’ estimated ability levels. Looking at these facts, I demonstrated the point I wanted to, which was that 2PL models indeed provided more accurate results. However, at the same time, the results revealed that 2Pl models can be twitchy and need careful use – that part I did not want to demonstrate. However, being intellectually honest, one has to provides both the pros and cons, and the facts would not let me get away with providing the pros alone. If I had glossed over the limitations of the 2PL model, the examiners would have crucified me.
This leads me to my next point, addressing your issue about facts being presented in a biased manner. With the examiners, I could not have possibly gotten away with it, because their analysis of the facts I presented would have highlighted the things that I omitted. With an ignorant audience, it is extremely easy to get away with chucking out a whole lot of facts and stunning them into silent agreement. Hell, I’ve done it enough times at board meetings – some so-called human resources professional with a chip on his shoulder questions my assertions, and I drown him or her in a sea of relevant facts and statistics. However, it is not a cop-out; if someone of an equal level of knowledge were to analyse my facts and stats, they would see it as logical.
In my line of work, there is always the chance of someone questioning what I say, and I always make a point to be prepared to provide a detailed answer to a fine-point question. My professional reputation hinges on my ability to provide these answers, and my obligation to my clients is to provide sound advice.
This brings me to my point about students who lapse into opinion. I will not send out a student to go make a fool of himself by trying to slip an unfounded opinion by a future client. Every student that I have taught has at some point been hammered by me for doing that in their university assignments, and every single one has learned to ask themselves “is this opinion or conclusion?”. I had the advantage of having individual students referred to me by my lecturers, and I’m not quite sure if I could have done that at a class level. However, my former students have gone on to be manage university departments, run war-trauma programs in third-world countries and set up their own consultancies. And all of them have stuck by that one simple question in everything they do: “is this opinion or conclusion?”, and it has worked very much in their favour.
I don’t have a problem with polemic opinions – if you’ve read my posts on previous threads, you will know that I am not at all uncomfortable with controversy. I do, however, have a problem with unfounded opinion, and again my previous posts have reflected that. -
yes... i would appear that we have much common ground.
Let’s start with facts. A fact is an observable and measurable object, action or event. For example, “He accesses the Internet five times a day, spending a total of eight hours” is a fact, while “He’s on the Internet a lot” is not. Said person’s use of the Internet can be measured by frequency and duration, providing hard facts, while “a lot” does not constitute a fact.
i'm glad you addressed that because that's a point i was trying to make. a "fact" being an "observable and measurable object, action or event" therefore, does not exist in itself.
it exists only after a process of active enquiry. so to claim that a "fact" exists by itself, in self and is self-justifying is absurd.
we would not know (nor care) how much time the subject spends on the internet unless we engaged the subject in a process of enquiry. this process might be straightforward in your case of a subject's average internet usage, but would easily be contentious within a more complex framework. ultimately, it depends on what questions u have asked yourself and what questions u are trying or able to answer.
that a subject spends 8 hours, or 10, or 15, is not a fact until u decide to integrate it into your framework to support your arguments/conclusions/opinions.Along these lines, you seem to have mixed facts and knowledge together inappropriately to conclude that facts are contentious. Facts stand by themselves and are therefore neutral by definition, while knowledge, as a collection of certain facts, can take a bent in a certain direction.
its always nice to talk to an "old one" that has not lost their innocence in the current scholarship. so how does a fact remain "neutral" in itself if a collection of them can skew the conclusion in certain directions? there must be something inherently unstable about them in the first place now isn't it?
i'm not trying to be academically showy here... you're an intelligent and well read individual... you've probably seen or heard such views before... they're VERY popular in the social science discipline and they're not founded on loose, pedestrian opinions...
a friendly conversation doesn't require footnotes does it?My point here is: donÂ’t go providing an opinion or conclusion without backing it up. Without that foundation, they are useless. You cannot automatically trust the source of the statement. Fine, if Bill Gates was to provide an opinion of where the computer industry is going, his word may have some credence given his track record in the computer business. However, he probably knows jack squat about the pink tutu business, and I would not automatically take his word for it in that particular arena.
no arguments with that.Hmm. You want an example of a concept? OkayyyyyÂ…
sigh... jargons with more jargons...This leads me to my next point, addressing your issue about facts being presented in a biased manner. With the examiners, I could not have possibly gotten away with it, because their analysis of the facts I presented would have highlighted the things that I omitted.
you are assuming the fact that one has perfect knowledge, or that your discipline is defined by a norrow corpus of knowledge... i dunno which is worse... to claim to know everything or to claim that everything u know is understood on your narrow terms... or maybe i just misunderstand the simplicities of your work.This brings me to my point about students who lapse into opinion. I will not send out a student to go make a fool of himself by trying to slip an unfounded opinion by a future client.
i don't think anyone who prides themselves as serious thinkers does that. nobody gets away, or deserves to get away with nonsense.And all of them have stuck by that one simple question in everything they do: “is this opinion or conclusion?”, and it has worked very much in their favour.
thats the basics... my discipline requires substantially more vigour in interrogating "factuality" and supposed "truths". thats probably the difference between u and me.I don’t have a problem with polemic opinions – if you’ve read my posts on previous threads, you will know that I am not at all uncomfortable with controversy. I do, however, have a problem with unfounded opinion, and again my previous posts have reflected that.
i don't have a problem with them as well as long as the door is left open to further engagement.
its not just the controversy that bothers me. it annoys me tremendously because polemics, and pple who indulge in them, are usually closed. what more can i say if you already have an extreme, firm conclusion/fixed opinion and already know all the answers? -
Don't believe what society, peers or the norm that University is the way to go.
Being a graduate myself- Let me tell you now- its not the paper that counts- its your brains and what you do that is marketable that counts. Look at who are living in Banglows in Singapore- Real estate agents, Insurance agents, Hawkers, Businessman, Fund traders, etc.
Most of them - if you do your research- DO NOT have a degree.
However if you do want a degree- do it because of your own personal development and not for making a living. Its value is getting lower by the day!!!! OR unless you want to waste your time toeing THE line in government or if you get a scholarship. Then maybe...... -
i'm glad you addressed that because that's a point i was trying to make. a "fact" being an "observable and measurable object, action or event" therefore, does not exist in itself.
I disagree. A fact exists and remains a fact regardless of its integration into a framework. If this person spends 8 hours a day on the Internet, that amount of time spent does not depend on our observation. The distinguishing feature of a fact is that it is observable, not that it is observed.
it exists only after a process of active enquiry. so to claim that a "fact" exists by itself, in self and is self-justifying is absurd.
we would not know (nor care) how much time the subject spends on the internet unless we engaged the subject in a process of enquiry. this process might be straightforward in your case of a subject's average internet usage, but would easily be contentious within a more complex framework. ultimately, it depends on what questions u have asked yourself and what questions u are trying or able to answer.
that a subject spends 8 hours, or 10, or 15, is not a fact until u decide to integrate it into your framework to support your arguments/conclusions/opinions.
I am not a subscriber to Cartesian logic – “I think, therefore I am” does not apply to the non-living, which nonetheless exist. The fact exists by itself – it is the observation of the fact that is dependent upon the observer’s actions. Self-justification is not a factor here, since the fact itself exists independent of our observation. For example, the red car sitting in front of my house exists regardless of whether I choose to take note of it or not.
I suspect that you might be alluding to the changes in the fact that may be brought about by the act of observation. On that I agree with you. In fact, that is the meaning behind my name on the forum – it was based upon Erwin Schroedinger’s gedanken experiment with the cat.its always nice to talk to an "old one" that has not lost their innocence in the current scholarship. so how does a fact remain "neutral" in itself if a collection of them can skew the conclusion in certain directions? there must be something inherently unstable about them in the first place now isn't it?
Facts themselves are neutral – it is the relationship between a presented set of facts that can be skewed. In the example of the Internet user that I provided in my last post, it was the relationship between the facts that changed. Specifically, the person’s usage looked like high in relation to the average user, but this relationship changed when the person was compared to someone who used the Internet 16 hours a day.
i'm not trying to be academically showy here... you're an intelligent and well read individual... you've probably seen or heard such views before... they're VERY popular in the social science discipline and they're not founded on loose, pedestrian opinions...
As an analogy, ammonium nitrate is in itself not a harmful substance – it is in fact useful as a synthetic fertilizer. However, pack it around a block of C4 and it amplifies the explosive effect.
I hope you can see what I mean here. When someone presents an argument, we need to pay attention not only to the facts but to the relationship between the facts.sigh... jargons with more jargons...
Hey, donÂ’t look at me! YouÂ’re the one who asked for a concrete example of a concept!you are assuming the fact that one has perfect knowledge, or that your discipline is defined by a norrow corpus of knowledge... i dunno which is worse... to claim to know everything or to claim that everything u know is understood on your narrow terms... or maybe i just misunderstand the simplicities of your work.
Good lord, no! If we already had perfect knowledge, why would I have performed research on it?
It is not that the examiners have perfect knowledge of the subject matter, but instead their ability to use their ability to handle the subject matter on a conceptual level, that would have allowed them to spot the holes in my argument.
In fact, this is exactly what I am talking about. Only one of my examiners was required to have knowledge in Item Response Theory, because the main aim of the examination process was to verify the logical consistency of my research. I’m not sure if you have done postgraduate research before, but a postgraduate thesis is required to be “an original contribution to the field”. If it is original, how could someone know more about it than the researcher?
Instead of falling back upon their existing knowledge of the subject, the examiners take what is written, and extrapolate it to their own conclusions. If these conclusions are not addressed, it highlights shortcomings in the research.
This principle all seems random unless you consider that the examiners themselves employ methods of properly assessing concepts through the use of rules governing logical structures. These rules have been developed since the days of the early philosophers, in order to assess the soundness of their arguments. For a good description of these rules, I would recommend Trudy Govier’s “A Practical Study of Argument” – it provides a clear explanation of what forms a properly constructed argument.
Continued in next post... -
As you have said before, total dependence on existing knowledge is a flawed approach, and I agree wholeheartedly. First, as you have also said, you cannot assume perfect knowledge of anything. Second, it does not account for learning anything new. What is needed is a way of handling intellectual material without a complete store of specific subject material, and this is where the ability to conceptualise comes in. I occasionally participate in multidisciplinary groups with professionals from other fields such as medicine and law, and I need to be able to understand what these other professionals are saying without being an expert in their field myself, so that I can make a useful contribution to the discussion at hand. While I pick up specific bits of information from their fields, I integrate them into my understanding of the topic by applying them to that conceptual framework, which itself is modified as more information is added to it.
This in fact brings us full circle, and indicates that we are in fact talking about the same thing, only couched in different terms. In a previous post, you said:u have to know HOW to ask yourself questions to know WHAT these facts MEANS to u... part of this is training, part of this is applying a concept/framework that at best, only fits partly, and most of it is just plain informed OPINION.
Well, how do you know what questions to ask? Along the lines of my existing argument, I propose that those questions are the result of applying the rules of logic to the information presented, extrapolating from the bits of information to form conclusions, comparing it to the information presented, identifying aspects that have yet to be addressed, and bringing those aspects to light by asking questions about them.
Perhaps one thing that I am remiss in not making explicit is that this process is not necessarily a formalized process, in that it is carried out consciously. Some people seem to have an innate knack for performing such a process without thinking about the process itself. I believe that the owners of Tee Yih Jia and Creative Technologies, whom Atobe identified, are examples of such people. They think that way as a matter of course – research into people who are successful in their fields indicates that this manner of thinking is common across these people (I’ll follow your lead here in not providing a bibliography in a friendly conversation ).
This brings me back to my original point, and back onto the topic. While there are such talented individuals who think in this manner as a matter of course, the rest of us mere mortals need to learn to think that way. Ironically, therefore, the point for many of us going to university is to learn to think like these people without degrees. The problem is that many university students seem to miss this simple point and end up no smarter than they were when they started, because they were too busy memorizing the basic facts – they have missed the forest for the trees.
WhatÂ’s your discipline, by the way? -
its been fun and stimulating, but i can't help but think that we're talking over each other and engaging OURSELVES rather than each other
our understanding of the world at large is based on fundamentally different benchmarks i guess...
i majored in history and although that might be considered by many to be a discipline firmly rooted in "reality", a degree in it forces us to engage the questions of what exactly that "reality" constitutes and how it has been constructed.
so u really have to indulge my cynicism if they do appear offensive and irrational to you not many pple have the patience or the open mind to engage the abstract. they like the firmness and certainty of "facts" when i will question the very essence of that fact, its very existence and its veracity and validity.
it pisses pple off when they cannot properly understand such doubts. its not cartesian logic. its post-structuralism... started with literature and slowly creeped across the arts and social sciences disciplines... most undergrads who've been through it will attest to how bizarre, esoteric and dense it is
basically, they'll tell u that there's no such thing as "truth" -
To CX and Gendaken
Bravo to two wonderful Gentlemen for the illuminating contributions on a simple topic.
It has certainly been very illuminating in the manner of style, delivery and substance.
If awards are available, both your contributions will have been OSCAR winning for this forum.
Outstandingly brilliant.... when compared to the frequent non-committing 'One Line Remarks' that do not require too much Thoughts.