<p>As someone who commented on the Caltech thread, let me make sure the intent is understood: the idea there was that perhaps the number of classes and workload is too great to allow for quality appreciation of the material presented. </p>
<p>A major point in favor of the Caltech system was that it exposes people to modes of thought in several directions, and understanding every word is not necessarily the point. </p>
<p>Then again, some Caltech students did have the concern that a more relaxed schedule might be better in terms of letting students spend more time on what they want to spend time on. Reflection time can help. “Learning through problem solving” is not necessarily for everyone either, and Caltech core assigns plenty of sets to complete. </p>
<p>My consensus was that it depends on style. If one is past graduate school and doing research, then sure, spending quality time on a single thing or two is important, but it can be more important to have breadth of exposure to lots of challenging things. The main concern is how much students getting overpressured about achieving perfect grades affects their seeing the big picture. It seems Mudders like rocketDA have said that many times, one may have to compromise on acing classes in order to do what’s necessary to let the necessary things sink in. Rocket seems to be doing extremely well having graduated, though this isn’t to say this mode of doing things is for everyone.</p>