News

What information are professors giving you that you can’t get anywhere else?

It's more the experience of learning from someone that is highly experienced in their field. They can guide you through multiple sources, and help understand your misconceptions and correct them. There's also the advantage of having a question about a source and having someone who can help bring more context, and additional sources, to the discussion quickly. There's just a lot that I personally gained from learning from another professional and I don't think there's a ton of on the job training, or independent study, that gets you that sort of intellectual understanding nearly as effectively.

Maybe my educational experience varies greatly from yours? There's just an absolute ton I learned in college that wouldn't have been nearly as efficient, quick, broad, or dense compared to doing independent study. I think that's probably mostly true for most people in most fields as well. Having the experience of learning from someone that has already experienced many pitfalls of learning a subject is quite valuable.

I think you have some wires crossed somewhere because I didn't say the thing you quoted me as saying here:

everything they teach should come from a source other than the professor.

I'm not sure how to rebuttal this section because it seems to rest on the fact that I said the aforementioned quote.

However, none of that requires college in order to learn. It’s honestly something that our parents should be teaching us, because it’s relevant to considerably more than history.

I will say I think it's incredibly silly to put the burden of learning a highly specific subject on your parents. There's just no way for anyone's parents to give you a complete understanding of any field out there that's comparable to someone who has devoted decades to a highly specific subject. That's just incredibly naive and honestly gave me a chuckle.