Primarily at what is known as PUIs (primarily undergraduate institutions), colleges and universities that either don't have grad students or have such a tiny graduate program that relying on them for teaching roles is unfeasible. In theory this is better for the students because the professors just care about teaching, but the down side is such institutions do little to no research and so the professors may be decades out of touch with current developments in their fields.
I am (temporarily) a prof at such an institution. Most profs in the STEM depts are getting more and more out of date with each passing year. There are no external incentive to learn the latest technical developments. And no time because the teaching load is 5 courses/year unlike 2-3/year at research institutions.
If you are doing research you have to be up to date or you don't get things published. I'm sure there are some professors who don't do research who make it a point of personal pride or something to keep themselves updated, but there's zero pressure to do so.
No, there is tremendous pressure to be up to date with your teaching because if you’re not, then your students don’t get accepted to highly ranked graduate programs, and that is a significant factor in undergrad college rankings.
> If you are doing research you have to be up to date or you don't get things published.
Only within the boundaries of your particular field of study, which in most cases is far narrower than the scope of undergrad classes.
I personally think the truth is somewhere in the middle, but do you see how this explanation is based on a very loose relationship between action and evaluation?
You can also go to a school where professors are employed for their ability to teach.
Choosing to go to a research institution seems like such an obviously poor choice it’s strange people get suckered into it. But it’s clear education is a low priority for both students and collages.
Not really. Small liberal arts colleges offer the chance to be friends with your professors and small classes. Research universities can offer classes that just aren't going to happen at a SLAC. For example, majors in our department have the option to take graduate courses before they graduate.
Many small to midsized universities with masters programs aren’t research institutions.
Higher education is very competitive with a wide range of business models. One of them is to have tight collaboration with industry to have undergrad and masters programs around Mining, Manufacturing, Medicine, etc focused on employability. Some are focused on night classes for government employees who get an automatic pay raise with a higher degree irrespective of what it’s in. Others are focused on continuing education requirements.
The high prestige research institutions can be a good fit, but aren’t the only option outside of small liberal arts schools.
> Choosing to go to a research institution seems like such an obviously poor choice it’s strange people get suckered into it.
The best educations happen in research labs. Undergraduates should get a good foundation years 1 and 2, and then find their way as a junior research assistant years 3 and 4 if they want to make the best of their University years. These days you can follow along with any course you want on YouTube. At University you are paying to get access to top researchers and the work they do.
I find people from research institutions are significantly more likely to misunderstand the fundamentals. Statistics for example is based on very specific assumptions and it’s really important to understand what they are to avoid making huge mistakes.
There’s this unfortunate idea that tests are there for the school rather than the student. Avoiding misunderstanding is critical and getting something wrong is one way to discover them. But that’s really inefficient, the basic question and answers with a professor are why your not simply reading from a textbook or watching a YouTube video.
That said, if you went to a horrible collage I can see why you would think YouTube was just as good and doing research was the real secret to learning.
Strongly disagree with this for CS. At top universities, you’re paying for access to similarly interested/capable students and top internship programs. Having done undergrad research, it was both underwhelming and worse experience than my friends who did internships at FAANG.
I think GPs perspective is not wrong, but assumes (or maybe hopes) that students are at least considering graduate+ level education. like you suggest, I think this is mostly not true of undergrad cs students. if you have no intention of going to grad school, industry internships are a much better use of time outside of class. as a bonus, the internship is a lot more likely to pay enough that you can actually pay bills while in school.
> (or maybe hopes) that students are at least considering graduate+ level education.
I'm not necessarily assuming that. I think there seems to be an assumption here that the choice is research or internship, but not both. That is not the case. Students do research with me during a typical semester, and when they are done the school year, they often go and get industry internships over the summer at top companies around the world. We train them to pass the Google-style whiteboard coding interviews; our students are very prepared for those. I don't know of any students who do internships during the school year. Most of my students who do research with me do not go on to do graduate studies.
I guess I'm just saying there's an opportunity cost to doing research in undergrad. at the school I attended, it was pretty common for students to have part-time internships during the semester. these were not google-tier companies, but rather local companies that liked hiring from that particular school. the time expectation (and pay) made it a good alternative to a campus job. that's what I did, and I got a fairly good offer from one of the places where I interned. once I got involved in hiring there, I found that the number one criterion for new grads was quantity/quality of internships. research was irrelevant unless it happened to be directly relevant to the business, and was still probably no better than having one more solid internship on the resume.
maybe if you're the kind of undergrad that has a good shot at google straight out of college, this doesn't make as much sense. I guess if you do two summer internships at FAANGs, you already look really good and may as well diversify your experience. my guess is that does not apply to the vast majority of cs majors that are just in it to get a decent job.
I'll have to defer to your experience on undergrad research though. what do you see as the value add from doing research as a student who has no intention of continuing school after undergrad?
