Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: ix665@sdcc6.UCSD.EDU (Sue Raul)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: University Education and Industry Needs
Message-ID: <1457@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 22 Jan 88 18:59:28 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Organization: The University of California, San Diego
Lines: 69
Approved: taylor@hplabs

Some comments to your University/Business relationship article -

> It's a very symbiotic relationship between industry and universities 
> since neither can exist without the other (Where would the graduates 
> go?  Where would they get trained and qualified employees?).

While there is a symbiotic relationship between the university and 
industry *in practice*, the historical philosophies of both are quite 
different and there hasn't always been this relationship.  A long long 
time ago, businesses got trained and qualified employees from 
apprenticeships they offered.  Universities were there to teach 
"thinkers," where graduates went to earn their living was not a major
concern of teachers.  They existed without the other very well.  It's 
only the problems of making a living that tie the two together in a 
capitalist society.  Since we live in a capitalist society, we are so 
repeatedly shown the patterns of university-graduate-goes-into-business 
that we take that as a given.  It's not a given.

Puristically speaking, scientists seek pure knowledge, businesses seek 
the pure buck.  It gradually became common practice for university 
graduates to find jobs in business since abstract applications for 
knowledge that could bring in enough income to support one's idealized 
fantasies of a high enough quality of life were far and few between, and 
teaching didn't pay.  Those who could live on a meager income went into
teaching or something else they could manage.

Where should graduates today go? That was not the university's concern. 
In some universities, or parts thereof, it still isn't.  I'm faced with 
this problem personally so I can answer from a perspective you perhaps 
hadn't thought about.  I am, for all practical purposes, studying a 
'pure' discipline, not unlike pure science.  Knowing this all along 
I am prepared to have to make a living doing something else besides 
'pure research.'  One gets what one is prepared for.  I am also prepared 
for the intrinsic rewards of having an education.

Roger Revelle talked about this in one of the 'Conversations Around
the Pacific Ring' - Art and Society: Who Pays? [a conference sponsored
by the UCSD Music Department a few years ago]

He (amongst others) pointed out that experimental art and pure scientific 
research are very similar. Those who would do either cannot make a living 
at it and have to do other things, usually by teaching.  College graduates 
that don't want to teach can go into 'applied research' in businesses. 
For some fields there are opportunities like that, for others, such as 
the arts, there are only a few.  Advertising can support a few of the 
artists who are willing.  "Pop" music can support a few willing 'trained'
musicians, etc.

But back to your 'symbiotic' relationship. "Where would graduates go?" 
WHO CARES!?   Where would businesses get trained people?  THAT'S THEIR 
PROBLEM - They have to pay for it, hire consultants, or have training 
programs. At least the difference between 'training' and 'education' is
more clearly defined. 

An interesting statement by composer Morton Sobotnick later on:

  "We are, after all, not artists in order to change society. We're
   artists because somehow we never grew up."

To which Roger Revelle replies:

  "That's exactly the point, and it's also true of science. The best
   scientists in the country are like boys and girls under the age of
   ten."

So, symbiotic relationship, maybe, but not necessarily.  I think that 
less is more in this case...

Sue Raul