Recently on Hacker News there was a top voted article in which the economist Nassim Nicolas Taleb made the point that a lot of small bets have a higher expected value than one very large bet. But the argument has interesting implications for education. The same reasoning implies that 4 degrees of 1 year should have more payoff to society than 1 degree of 4 years. Likewise, society would benefit more if you got 12 degrees of 3 months each. I wrote more about this here:
Taleb's insight applies where there is no linkage between bets.
The problem is, a 4 year degree "if done right" is building on a body of knowledge. you can't "do" year 4 without the core competencies in years 1,2 and 3.
So, (and I admit I didn't read your article) I ask if you address the neccessary linkage problem.
Because a chain of 4 small bets is what we call a quinella or trifecta, and in betting circles its high payoff, but low likelihood: It may be better to commit to the whole big package than assume you can bite of chunks and always get the same value.
A midpoint model, is to do 1 or 2 years, get a low degree, then do 2 or 3 more and specialize for a high degree.
You miss the point that Taleb is making. His point is something like “Rather than one big bet in biology, what about a small bet in biology, a small bet in physics, a small bet in chemistry.” Likewise, in education, instead of spending 4 years learning one thing, what about spending one year learning one thing, another year learning something else, another year learning something else, another year learning something else, and so on. Smaller, more diverse bets. The argument is especially strong for young people at the start of their career, as the risk of being overcommitted to the wrong thing is strong.
http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/nassim-nicholas-taleb...