Someone who has completed more degrees than me might be able to answer this better than me -- but don't drag me too hard. Mea Culpa for anything wrong here.
Standardised testing is basically the problem. Particularly standardised testing around semi-arbitrary material; or at least material which is not as likely to be applicable to the real world as some other x set of material.
Also doesn't solve the gap between real-world problem solving and learning material. Two distinctly different skills.
If you're going to continue to enforce standardised testing; test people once at 18. And let people take the test as young as they want. Then use the age as a multiplier (like how people try and scale IQ tests) -- this is basically how SATs work, but not everyone gets equal access to SAT prep, and the same prep is usually directed at people of different abilities.
After that you need to basically get rid of academia or the extremely lazy + boring people, with a lack of incentives to do real world work therein. At any point you need someone smarter and more experienced than you to be teaching you -- sometimes that's not possible and you need consistent ways to measure someone's ability without sacrificing too much of their time in this world.
At least in my experience, 'real material' is kept away from your until your final year of college, or until grad school. There are some more timeless, or modern degrees where I'm sure it's better (somewhere has to have an up-to-date CompSci degree. Right? Right?).
Every single university course is like ~10 years behind. This is a problem that should be left with private enterprise but can't be because of the perverse incentives and the fact that certifying, e.g. $4\sigma+$ people is always going to be practically impossible. We simply don't have enough of them. They're always going to need to prove themselves through their life's work. The best we can do is be open minded people (especially in disciplines where rigorous proof isn't always possible -- everywhere except Math). Until we get direct brain scans that can tell you how smart and capable someone is -- there's not gonna be a better solution.
Just let people take whatever classes they want, minimise barriers -- and allow direct contact with students. It's the best you can do TBH. No system has managed to solve this problem. There are people toting your idea -- there are those petitioning that people be able to take Oxbridge tests for a flat fee. I think this is a decent idea (except you'd get test crammers who'd try and pass the test without actually understanding it -- I think this is a separate problem which clearly Oxbridge should ideally try and be immune to).
That's the best I've got. Hope you find relief. Go to some graduate classes in fun subjects and teach yourself some stuff. That's the best option for some, with the shitty system we have. If they let you take graduate classes or test out of the easy stuff then do that!
Someone who has completed more degrees than me might be able to answer this better than me -- but don't drag me too hard. Mea Culpa for anything wrong here.
Standardised testing is basically the problem. Particularly standardised testing around semi-arbitrary material; or at least material which is not as likely to be applicable to the real world as some other x set of material.
Also doesn't solve the gap between real-world problem solving and learning material. Two distinctly different skills.
If you're going to continue to enforce standardised testing; test people once at 18. And let people take the test as young as they want. Then use the age as a multiplier (like how people try and scale IQ tests) -- this is basically how SATs work, but not everyone gets equal access to SAT prep, and the same prep is usually directed at people of different abilities.
After that you need to basically get rid of academia or the extremely lazy + boring people, with a lack of incentives to do real world work therein. At any point you need someone smarter and more experienced than you to be teaching you -- sometimes that's not possible and you need consistent ways to measure someone's ability without sacrificing too much of their time in this world.
At least in my experience, 'real material' is kept away from your until your final year of college, or until grad school. There are some more timeless, or modern degrees where I'm sure it's better (somewhere has to have an up-to-date CompSci degree. Right? Right?).
Every single university course is like ~10 years behind. This is a problem that should be left with private enterprise but can't be because of the perverse incentives and the fact that certifying, e.g. $4\sigma+$ people is always going to be practically impossible. We simply don't have enough of them. They're always going to need to prove themselves through their life's work. The best we can do is be open minded people (especially in disciplines where rigorous proof isn't always possible -- everywhere except Math). Until we get direct brain scans that can tell you how smart and capable someone is -- there's not gonna be a better solution.
Just let people take whatever classes they want, minimise barriers -- and allow direct contact with students. It's the best you can do TBH. No system has managed to solve this problem. There are people toting your idea -- there are those petitioning that people be able to take Oxbridge tests for a flat fee. I think this is a decent idea (except you'd get test crammers who'd try and pass the test without actually understanding it -- I think this is a separate problem which clearly Oxbridge should ideally try and be immune to).
That's the best I've got. Hope you find relief. Go to some graduate classes in fun subjects and teach yourself some stuff. That's the best option for some, with the shitty system we have. If they let you take graduate classes or test out of the easy stuff then do that!