The future of NCAA amateurism

[betarhoalphadelta]

As Badge has pointed out, economics. Journalism doesn’t pay much. If you had to get eight years of school to do it, it would be more of a poor life choice than it is now.

Not saying 8 years... But maybe you should go through J-school with an "emphasis", i.e. actually have some formal schooling in a topic rather than just a general liberal arts base.

Now the traditional model is, journalists talk to experts, synthesize and write stories, which means they’re kind of at the mercy of their experts. 

In order to accurately restate complicated technical material for laymen, it's imperative to actually have a pretty solid understanding of that material. 

It's why one of the greatest teaching methods is to teach someone something, and then have them explain it back to you. That process of explaining it back to you will prove whether or not they actually understand it. 

I don't think many of today's journalists are capable of this.

There’s also the issue of a death of trust in expertise. Like if all the sports writers knew a crapload about football, they’d be telling you why much of what you think is the QB’s fault is not the QB’s fault. I’ve seen that story, and most people just get crabby about it and don’t listen.

Agreed. There's too much "tl;dr" in the world. 

People don't want nuance and detailed explanation. So yes, part of the reason journalism got this way is that the consumer isn't particularly discerning.

[Cincydawg]

The concept of giving the consumer what she wants is very relevant in this discussion.

Posters around here want depth and detail and check "facts", along with chili with no beans.  "We" are oddballs.

Have a little faith, Baby.

[MrNubbz]

Hey listen kid they haven't got you back in the nut ward do they?

[Cincydawg]

Um, well, "Define nut ward".

What's with the negative waves?

[FearlessF]

Nubbz is a bit sensative to the term "oddball"

only he knows why

[MrNubbz]

calculus was not offered in my high school

but, that was back in the dark ages

Pre-Algebra was and you didn't take that either .I know I didn't take much math after that,saved face with the rest of the subjects

[FearlessF]

hey, I scored a dern fine grade in algebra or pre-algebra or senior math or whatever they called it back then

it was actually called senior math - the teacher was in her late 60's and really hadn't converted to this stuff as she referred to it as "new" math.

[Cincydawg]

We had calculus in our HS in 1972.  I made straight A's.  I learned I had to take it again at UGA, which seemed like a waste to me, but it was a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.  I really struggled with it in college.  I think we spend two days on the basics and went from there, a lot of stuff like Green's Theorem.

Some of the kids in the class had never had any calculus and still did well.  I think that was the smartest class I've ever been part of, not including me of course.  It was an Honors Class, and that was part of it.

I went on and took DiffEq which was not an honors class and it was pretty easy.

[Cincydawg]

I recollect thinking school was not half bad if it weren't for these "tests" and "grades".  

In grad school, we had about a year and a half of courses, and then no more classes.  It was worse.

I did not like grad school at all, thought about quitting many times, but had no clue what I'd do then.

Just sort of hung in there until it was over.

[MichiFan87]

I was actually much more interested in my graduate courses than at least half of my college courses, which is part of the reason I did much better in them (3.8 GPA in my graduate program compared to 2.7 at Michigan). My graduate program is also directly related to my career, whereas back in college, I didn't really know what I wanted to do afterwards.

[Cincydawg]

I was fine with the grad school courses, just not what followed.  The courses were decent, and we had a grading system that was H P L F, and you had to really mess up to get an L or F, and they didn't award Hs (High Pass), and we didn't have GPAs anywhere.  You just got a P for every course and moved on.  I had to adjust to semesters instead of quarters.  

We had one course, first semester, called "Bonding", and I swear I did not understand anything at all, in the class, or in the book.  I figured I was toast, and the first test came and I did poorly, very poorly, but somehow had the 3rd highest grade in the class.  I realized nobody else understood it either.  I don't know why it was being taught at that level, none of us were prepared for it.   The book was awful.

I basically figured out how to work the problems without having any clue what was behind the problems.  P.

[MrNubbz]

We had calculus in our HS in 1972.  I made straight A's.  

Oh we had Trig,Calculus and Physics - I wasn't going near the shit.Passed 1 or 2 classes more after Algebra - Business Math or some such.Backed away from Geometry like a crayfish fending off a bass - hated Postulates & Theorems,at least at the time

[MrNubbz]

I never graduated from Iowa,I was only there for two terms - Truman's and Eisenhower's. - Alex Karras