New revelations

May 29, 2006 21:50

So I’ve been writing a block comparison paper on computer science occupations most of the weekend. ( Read more... )

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uh_oh May 31 2006, 02:15:38 UTC
Believe me, if your life depending on it, you'd be doing all the testing and diet modifications I am;)

You know, today in my Advanced Communications class, the instructor asked the class how many people had read the assignment. Turns out about 70% of the class STILL hasn't bought the books! lol. Only three or four of us had books and read the assignment. I continue to be flabbergasted at the shortcomings of my fellow college students. WHY ARE THEY IN COLLEGE, spending thousands of dollars or racking up thousands of dollars of debt, but say the can't afford the books or don't read the assignments when they have the books?! I feel so sad for them. I feel like something is majorly wrong here.

I feel like there's this big problem nobody seems to see or care about, you know? It's like the people who run colleges don't care. My instructors care, they regularly tell the students they need to buy their books, read the assigments, study, but of course many students don't, they shake their heads and piddle along in their learned helplessness. From what I see it's not effective appraoching the students this way. I just get the feeling the college institutions, as a whole, don't really want to help these kids succeed and graduate. If they did want to straighten them out they'd handle things differently. From what I can tell, there's this general expectation that these kids should be MATURE already and behaving sensibly! Now while that may be a resonable expectation, it's not proving practical in reality. Consider the drop out rate for college Freshmen and Sophmores, not just at my college but colleges in general. Consider the low GPA's of many students. There are reasons for this climate and I don't think anyone is taking a serious look into what they are and figuring out new and different ways to change it. I mean, wouldn't it be to the colleges advantage to see to it their students succeed and stick around for a couple more years and graduate? Woudldn't that equate to more tuition and other revenues for the college?

I don't know, it's a very murky subject to me. I haven't done much research to understand why this is going on. (Unlike the "war on cancer" debaucle, I know exactly what going on there...) It just feels like a "sink or swim" environment that purposely doesn't offer any swimming lessons--when in reality it should provide mandatory swimming lessons the very first semester.

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somewherebean May 31 2006, 04:36:13 UTC
You've hit something on the head, there.

Well, two somethings -- yes, if my life depended on it I would master the nutrition stuff pretty fast, but I think I should live as if my life depends on it, because in the long term, it will in one way or another.

On the topic of academia, you have identified one of the most important facts -- that each university or college is actually two institutions. One consists of the faculty, students, and (generally) the classified staff. The other consists of the upper administration and the board of regents. One side wants to educate; the other wants to run a successful business. The tension is constant.

As for getting more money if students stick around, consider this -- lower division classes have much higher credit-hour production than upper-division classes (that is, credit hours earned by students compared to teacher hours paid for by the institution). Think about the huge 100-level lecture courses in chemistry, psychology, etc. that have one professor and a gang of incredibly cheap TAs -- then think about a 400-level lab course that has 20 students, one professor, and maybe one TA. What brings in more money?

Then there's the whole legislature part where they pass bills that have nothing to do with learning, but that's another rant for another time.

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