Most undergrad classes are functionally "history of x" or "here are some things that are types of x" or "750 names and/or numbers about x," and even the ones that aren't seem to involve working as hard as possible to keep students from doing or even looking directly at x
Looking back I'm genuinely stunned at how little of anything *happened* in those classrooms, if you exclude monologues & bubble tests. Even student discussions were pretty bad, usually initiated by force by a professor & almost always about a profoundly uninteresting question
Yes, there's great variance between universities, fields, programs, etc. I'm more interested in arguing about what x can reasonably look like with a room full of inexperienced people than trying to explain what "most" means, so please spare me
I actually think this is a hard problem for universities. People seem to do most of their actual learning when they're either operating under direct mentorship/apprenticeship or building/practicing on their own and/or autodidacting with more limited direct mentorship
University structure remains largely unchanged despite broad expert agreement that people don't learn very much that way, and I honestly think most admin think undergrads are too stupid for a real education. And anyway, they seem happy to pay 5-6 figs for lectures + bubble tests
A lot of people *could* hire a very competent expert in their field for 10-15 hours/week to guide a more productive process, but they wouldn't be able to get loans for it, and depending on the field it may be legally or practically impossible for them to work
If you want my maximally cynical take, it's that I think these places mostly exist to provide certificates to the sort of people who will later become major alumni donors, and the especially brilliant professors & prodigies are no less window dressing than the student athletes
