GraBlog » Education http://grabic.name just curious Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:20:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Cost of Education http://grabic.name/2009/10/07/cost-of-education/ http://grabic.name/2009/10/07/cost-of-education/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:01:58 +0000 Tomislav Grabic http://grabic.name/?p=511 An article at Mashable  “In the Future, the Cost of Education will be Zero” doesn’t bode well for institutes for higher education. Universities are a different matter, as higher education used to be free in Germany and still is in countries like Sweden – also top students in any country. In the long run, costs will naturally decrease, but I don’t see language teachers being replaced by videos anytime soon. Also, lower costs don’t mean the price will fall as well – especially in education, a high price tag signals quality. Many of the courses universities offer though could be replaced by open source and keep down overall costs – readings first and foremost. Also, education could be introduced to a broader spectrum of the population, but then again, a certain mindset is neccessary to watch an MIT Video lecture about Classic Mechanics instead of a mundane Big Brother episode at Youtube.

A commenter argues that “automatization can go only so far” – but logical essays i.e. can’t be evaluated by a machine. Nevertheless, PearsonVue is attempting exactly that with the new Pearson Test of English. If it’s technically feasible, I don’t see a problem evaluating other forms of academic production as well, verbal or written.

Still, I’ve had the opportunity to both experience face2face as well as online courses: The biggest advantage is direct intellectual exchange between students working on a case – not doable with today’s tools. Many textbooks are definitely going to be free in the future, it’s just a long way. Education is certainly going to get cheaper – but as long as teachers need to be paid and class rooms needed for social interaction, institutes for higher education are not going to be able to offer completely free courses.

]]> http://grabic.name/2009/10/07/cost-of-education/feed/ 0 Düsseldorf Business School http://grabic.name/2008/01/18/dusseldorf-business-school/ http://grabic.name/2008/01/18/dusseldorf-business-school/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:36:09 +0000 Tomislav Grabic http://grabic.name/2008/01/18/dusseldorf-business-school/ Schloss Benrath - Düsseldorf Business School on the castle's grounds I did it! After reading up on further education, thinking over my decision not to do a doctorate, but an MBA program and coming to the same conclusion once again, I started looking for business schools in the area. There are two local schools, FOM and DBS and a number of distance study programs like the ones from Akad and Open University. The latter was really tempting, but I wanted to sit with other students in one room and work on problems together. Since every student has several years of experience in his work field, the mix of experiences a group can offer is unparalleled and can’t possibly be reached by distance learning. The DBS has an English MBA program as well, but it hasn’t started yet for this year so I’m settling for the German one and might switch later one.

Money is scarce as always, so I applied for a scholarship – and obtained it! The first day of school is today. In the next 19 months, I’ll dive into the world of economics and business administration. See you December 2009.

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