August 11, 2009
Edupunks
“Colleges have become outrageously expensive, yet there remains a general refusal to acknowledge the implications of new technologies,” says Jim Groom, an “instructional technologist” at Virginia’s University of Mary Washington and a prominent voice in the blogosphere for blowing up college as we know it. Groom, a chain-smoker with an ever-present five days’ growth of beard, coined the term “edupunk” to describe the growing movement toward high-tech do-it-yourself education. “Edupunk,” he tells me in the opening notes of his first email, “is about the utter irresponsibility and lethargy of educational institutions and the means by which they are financially cannibalizing their own mission.”
The reason this is true (via) is because universities are now essentially trade schools, not institutions of higher learning. They function like guilds and if I wanted to join a guild, I’d go play WoW.
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They function like guilds and if I wanted to join a guild, I’d go play WoW.
While I don’t regret for a minute my decision to attend NYU, I didn’t receive quite the education I expected I would. Instead, I paid for the brand on my resume and the life experience of living and working (cheaply and comfortably) in downtown Manhattan.
This being said, I had a few professors who deserved my entire tuition.
I wish I had gone to USC. If I was serious about film, I would have, but when I was 18, getting a classical education was more important to me.