Hi all,

I sincerely appreciate all of the excellent and diverse perspectives
provided here.

You all provide very valuable insights into a vast and ever-changing
unknown state. What I gather is that possibilities, in any given lifepath,
are endless and that any information obtained should be held with
gratitude, not with apprehension or remorse. Indeed, it is the interaction
of humans and the way that they treat others that is the ultimate
determinant of well-being, and thus a crucial perspective to approach the
problem of higher education and information attainment from.

I believe there are several factors, exacerbated in highly competitive
hierarchies such as we see in Western competitive academia, that lead to a
societal organizational structure that breeds maladaptive growth. Primarily
because outcomes are held as paramount, rather than the mutual growth of
the 'state' and the individuals within it. This has been a necessary and
functional structure in the past, but what I see is it leading to harm when
people are objectified as mechanism producers of the outcomes required to
advance the 'state' of the scientific structure therein. Perhaps in this
analysis I am speaking primarily to my own subjective experiences, rather
than a broader characterization of the 'state of things', but I
nevertheless see and recognize the deleterious effects of human relational
value fallen by the wayside and replaced by an outcome-driven
objectification.

I am not sure wherein the solution lies, but I'd love to see the West, and
our broader world, move towards a return to focus on the sovereignty of the
individual as paramount, and well-being and relational value placed at the
nexus of socially structured interaction. The public health and social
issues we are currently encountering only serve to fuel the flames of the
problems I've referenced here.

My best,

Cole Butler
Faculty Specialist
Project Coordinator: Treating Parents with ADHD and their Children (TPAC
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__umdadhd.org_ongoing-2Dprojects-2Dand-2Dfunding&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=4yp6BTIH39tXZBEMhS82XvoMRI3JX82OG8a8Y32HrfM&s=bT9XuZxGf6wNnyEMsKcYJbodNITsEeEP8YF78eCv2sY&e= >)
University of Maryland
UMD ADHD Lab <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.umdadhd.org_cole&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=4yp6BTIH39tXZBEMhS82XvoMRI3JX82OG8a8Y32HrfM&s=yW66XzZwYAKKCUPLYO-19Uj-SIi29iQab1spSyxynEM&e= >
2103W, Cole Field House | College Park, MD 20742
tel 301.405.6163


On Mon, Sep 14, 2020 at 3:32 AM Deepak Loomba <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Eric,
> I side with you, but with caveat. Your statement works for few who are
> self motivated. Majority needs to be directed. For them, education,
> whatsoever it is worth, is sensible.
>
> Secondly, foundationally, the purpose of a degree was to provide a third
> party certification that one knows/has ABC skillets. But with time, marks
> and grades were introduced.
>
> And the whole purpose of education drowned. Think about it you might be
> treated by a certified doctor who just passed in third attempt!
>
> Therefore, surely current education system is under big question mark.
> Part reason is professionalisation of occupations, which are means to earn
> not to enjoy living one's work.
>
>
> On Mon, 14 Sep 2020 00:00 easalien, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I know the original call was for those with advanced degrees, but I may
>> have a different perspective.
>>
>> After graduating high school, I studied epidemiology at USC on
>> scholarship before transferring to Berkeley to study English Lit. However,
>> I decided college wasn’t worth the expense and promptly dropped out.
>>
>> I set out to learn on my own terms, and it’s been remarkably fulfilling.
>> These past few years have taken me on film sets, concert stages,
>> classrooms, and a 2-month excursion through the mountains of Japan. I’m
>> currently preparing for peer-review a scientific paper on consciousness,
>> which I modeled with Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, e.g. Big Bang.
>>
>> With the internet democratizing information, learning is no longer the
>> purview of academics in ivory towers. It’s now accessible to everyone. The
>> Industrial Age metric of inputs and outputs is being supplanted by a
>> continuous learning model of an Information Age. The future is increasingly
>> customizable, and education is no different (we’ll figure it out as we go
>> along).
>>
>> My friends value their degrees, but an increasing number express doubts
>> about the academic-industrial complex. Not denigrating the hard work of
>> anyone in academia, but to quote a favorite movie, “You dropped 150 grand
>> on an education you could’ve got for $1.50 in late charges at the public
>> library.” Good Will Hunting
>>
>> Eric S.
>>
>> On Saturday, September 12, 2020, Cole Butler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I found this brief documentary
>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DNDZ8Eu335Sg&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=1ru1D1zEVx6Qwfp4e3lOF5hyySaK2ksj1ax_lr_jxlg&s=N-9VGpLH3a3flcwA15kVuaKrZcoNfyuuIwmG4C79QEQ&e=>
>>> on Joe Rogan really fascinating, and thought I'd share here. I was aware of
>>> some of his past history, but seeing it all summarized and laid out from
>>> his beginnings in construction and martial arts to being "the most powerful
>>> podcast interviewer in the world" was really interesting to watch.
>>>
>>> It sparks off a lot of ideas in my head about the power of technology in
>>> this digital age. Specifically, how the ability to transfer information
>>> online globally is such a new phenomenon that the traditional methods of
>>> sharing interesting information are quickly becoming dully outdated. This
>>> affords the opportunity to develop individual identity through online
>>> branding and content creation. Joe Rogan is really one of, if not the,
>>> pioneer of generating revenue through idea exchange online.
>>>
>>> I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on the implications of this for the
>>> modern academic space? My university is facing a $292 million budget
>>> deficit for the upcoming fiscal year, resulting in severe budget cuts,
>>> salary reductions, and more. And they claim that they're "not sure they
>>> implications that this has on students' decisions moving forward". What I'm
>>> seeing at the student level is a widespread unrest with the notion of
>>> paying the tuition required to fund the universities, when clearly the
>>> institutions themselves may not be an integral aspect to the process of
>>> education. Further, several courses deemed required may pose no actual
>>> utility to the student's desired goals, resulting in payment for
>>> unnescessary information and a painstaking, and potentially harmful,
>>> student experience. Does this catalyze a shift toward a world in which
>>> information exchange is distributed online, and the high cost of tuition to
>>> sustain universities as centralized locations for information exchange
>>> becomes unnecessary? Why not quantify learned information differently
>>> (e.g., online credits from multiple platforms, online
>>> certificates/degrees), and use that as a basis for evaluation of job
>>> readiness/fitness? I believe we are already seeing the beginnings of this
>>> shift, and I'm interested to see where this all leads us. It certainly has
>>> me seriously reconsidering the idea of investing tens of thousands of
>>> dollars of borrowed money into a formal graduate education, or relying on
>>> stipends and grant funding to barely scrape by in a MS/PhD program for 6
>>> years...
>>>
>>> I know several (most?) of you on this list have graduate degrees, and
>>> some of you are specialists in education, so I'd be quite interested to
>>> hear your thoughts on this.
>>>
>>> My best,
>>>
>>> Cole Butler
>>> Faculty Specialist
>>> Project Coordinator: Treating Parents with ADHD and their Children (TPAC
>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__umdadhd.org_ongoing-2Dprojects-2Dand-2Dfunding&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=1ru1D1zEVx6Qwfp4e3lOF5hyySaK2ksj1ax_lr_jxlg&s=Y52ceKydDc23KDzNpTGZBsF5MvAbSolltMPwRtQR9lA&e=>
>>> )
>>> University of Maryland
>>> UMD ADHD Lab
>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.umdadhd.org_cole&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=1ru1D1zEVx6Qwfp4e3lOF5hyySaK2ksj1ax_lr_jxlg&s=zzsxMmY6k6R7bQqXUdXaUS34GDBp7AF_rlVLk7Velp8&e=>
>>> 2103W, Cole Field House | College Park, MD 20742
>>> tel 301.405.6163
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