Manifestos-a-go-go
I'm taking four courses at the moment. Java programming is in German, which should speak for itself (pretty difficult is the message I'm trying to convey), but the other three are harder to define. Two of them are in the HfK (Hochschule für Kunst, or University of the Arts), which also says a lot, but the remaining course, even though it's more of a computer course than an art course, has many similarities. The three courses range in number of participants from 5 to 15, no more. In America this is unheard-of: courses at Humboldt State University, prized for its "small class sizes taught by professors who know your name" (from the website) get as small as 20 people sometimes, but lately there's been a push (from higher-up, opposed by the students) to add more 150-person lecture-hall courses on basic required general education subjects. They're more cost-effective, certainly, but I can say from experience that it's one hell of a lousy learning environment. I don't know how they afford it, but I certainly appreciate the socratic style of round-table discussion in a small group--although Frieder Nake has a tendency to ramble (I feel tempted to shout out "Digression!" in the middle of class, but I don't think anyone would get it). And yes, that was a name drop--I'd never heard of him, but they say Frieder Nake is very well-known in Germany. Or maybe just in Bremen. (He seriously almost bought half the class copies of the Communist Manifesto, until he found out that English language versions couldn't be had for cheap.)
But anyway, it seems like a lot of the essays I've been reading lately are very... obtuse. Unclear. Using a lot of big words to cover the fact that they're not saying anything at all. And I always hesitate before calling something out as BS, because there's a chance that I simply don't understand, and I'm making the mistake of denouncing something because I don't understand it. I think this is part of what I was talking about in the last post. I prize conciseness. Yes, if you read my LJ you'll often find me using strange phrasings or joking around with the English language (or German, when I dare). That's just for fun, though, because I'm typically trying to entertain more than to inform. But in these essays, it seems like their writing style is running contrary to their purpose--to inform. And it turns me off of the whole educational system. I don't want to constantly read and interpret 20-page manifestos that could have been summarized in a paragraph. I don't want to learn how to write essays to fit a minimum page limit, when I feel that I could be clearer if I said less. In fact, I always feel that one can be clearer by using fewer words, up to a point (the exception sometimes is in highly technical discussions among users of a particular jargon, where bigger words are more precise, but also likely to be understood). It's like the development of computer hardware--by making a processor smaller, you at once make it faster, and more energy-efficient. It's a sign of a novice when one uses newly-learned big words just for their own sake, because they think it represents intelligence. Maybe I'm just being arrogant, but I think that it's a sign of higher intelligence to be able to explain complicated concepts to a young child, not just other "experts". (I go by the assertion that any concept of any complexity can be explained in as little as two words. Not necessarily precisely, but it's a good start. Very concise. :P)
So I'm worried about spending two more years in university. And if I want to go to graduate school, I know I'm going to have to write a thesis or sommat, which is pretty much the very embodiment of what I've been explaining here. I don't want to learn to BS. That's a skill I can do without.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
salvar) wrote,
recumbent
