Saturday 23 July 2016

"Of course I can ride a horse...I've read the book"

Quite what do undergraduate or Masters degrees actually equip young people for? They are certainly not shorthand for intelligence or life skills - just ask employers who have to "re-train" graduate entrants and get them to forget all of the silliness academics have filled their heads with.

So why not design a degree in Common Sense?

Foundation modules in the first year could include:

16CS101 Introduction to hard work
16CS102 Studies in finding stuff out
16CS110 Exploring what stuff actually means
16CS112 Communicating sensible ideas to a variety of audiences
16CS150 Peering outside the box

To be followed in subsequent years by degree level studies in:

16CS201 The 20% of stuff you really need to know
16CS210 Intermediate reality
16CS220 Boosting your CV by working
16CS301 Advanced explaining
16CS350 Planning to do something relevant
16CS360 Final project (making a difference to somebody else's life)

No, it wouldn't really work would it? No real basis in research. Very little academic research is about common sense.





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