[HN Gopher] The average college student today
___________________________________________________________________
The average college student today
Author : Jyaif
Score : 230 points
Date : 2025-03-30 10:20 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hilariusbookbinder.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hilariusbookbinder.substack.com)
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Are students failing school at a high rate? Because it sound like
| they should be
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Schools aren't allowed to have standards for student
| achievement levels any more. Thus, everyone passes. This is the
| nash equilibrium of school funding being dependent on "student
| outcomes."
|
| At the college level, rankings also rely heavily on 4- and
| 6-year graduation rates. Administrators notice that and put
| pressure on processors not to fail students.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Not university, but an interesting related post:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1jmsp7n/my_6th_gr...
| DeathArrow wrote:
| No, because the university doesn't want to earn less money. The
| more people the sell diplomas to, the better!
| tekla wrote:
| You're not allowed to fail students. My 10th grade teacher
| friend rants constantly about how parents call his boss
| demanding he pass their kids who haven't handed in a single
| piece of homework and failed all exams, and he gets forced to
| pass them.
| vlan121 wrote:
| 'The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt
| for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter
| in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants
| of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the
| room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company,
| gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize
| their teachers.' -- Socrates (Kenneth John Freeman, 1907 [thanks
| to morsch])
| morsch wrote:
| Apparently, Kenneth John Freeman, 1907.
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/
|
| _Careful about bogus "ancient" quotations on this topic,
| though._ , the article warns.
| andrepd wrote:
| Apocryphal and also irrelevant. If someone were to have made an
| unwarranted criticism in 5th century BCE Athens, that would not
| invalidate that class of criticism forever through the end of
| time.
|
| Plus, we have hard data about reduced attention spans so this
| is not even about moral panic.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Note: The author is aware of this comparison (His reference is
| Gilgamesh). You may still find it relevant.
| arp242 wrote:
| This is such a boring fallacious argument. Are you seriously
| suggesting that over the last 2,500 years there have never been
| any changes to any generation of children/youths due to any
| circumstances? Of course not; that's a ridiculous preposition.
|
| Maybe there's a bit of complaining from old coots throughout
| the ages, but that doesn't mean there are never any structural
| problems ever. Maybe there are real problems today. And maybe
| there were real problems in Socrates' time too. Merely posting
| this without any thought is just dismissive nonsense.
|
| Certainly for the situation today, there are huge changes to
| how kids are raised. Maybe that has zero effect. Or maybe it
| does. Either way, whatever Socrates did or didn't say has
| absolutely no bearing on it.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| this post is ironic given that we're talking about an article
| where a professor is complaining about people's poor reading
| comprehension. the post you're replying to did not explicitly
| make any argument, they only quoted someone, and no the
| quoting of someone with no additional commentary is not an
| argument - lol
| vacuity wrote:
| Exactly. There are always the people who complain and the
| people who defend. They are both not indicative of actual
| social changes. They're just statement factories. Think
| deeper about what a statement is actually saying instead of
| dismissing it for falling under some camp. If it is vapid
| even on its own, then dismiss it.
|
| On this paticular topic, my take is that as technology has
| advanced, we have gone from the "technology is harmless" side
| to the "technology is harmful" side sharply. Books and
| whatnot are great. TV, ehhh. Video games, mobile phones,
| social media, LLMs: dangerous, or more optimistically, very
| tricky to get right. I think it's not strange that these
| three categories I've laid out occupy vastly distinct time
| spans. It's exactly the power of a technology that ties into
| both its development and its impact. I certainly don't get
| similar experiences from reading a book and watching short
| form video.
| like_any_other wrote:
| For all we know Socrates was correct, and the attitudes did
| change during his lifetime. History is turbulent, and there is
| not a straight line from his time to the present. There's
| plenty of examples of people, children included, behaving
| differently through a change in time and place. E.g. the
| difference between a Victorian boarding school and a typical US
| high school, or the difference before and after the Cultural
| Revolution in China. Or the difference in behavior between meth
| addicts and non-addicts.
|
| If meth became widely used, and someone noted the effect this
| had on how children are behaving, would we also just quote
| Socrates at them as 'proof' that nothing has changed, because
| people have been complaining since forever?
| Amezarak wrote:
| Even if we pretend the quote is real (it was invented in the
| 1900s), then as you suggest, Socrates might have had a point:
| Athens was pretty much done for as a meaningful political or
| even cultural entity within a couple generations of Socrates.
| watwut wrote:
| Socrates two most prominent students took power with help of
| the enemy state, dismantled democracy and installed fairly
| cruel tyrantship. Socrates himself was against democracy,
| altrought did not participated nor directly supported the
| tyranny.
|
| For all we know, his quote refers to these political
| conflicts where he preferred hierarchy and young preferred
| democracy.
| doright wrote:
| I feel like this quote exists to be used as an excuse for
| parents to deploy whatever arbitrary discipline is necessary to
| make their tyrant children get in line and comply.
|
| I mean the way it's worded just makes you want to strike back
| at contemptuous kids instead of digging down deeper as to why
| they might behave this way.
| dartharva wrote:
| I think it won't be far-fetched to say the current generation
| of children possibly has the lowest impression of their elders
| as compared to all previous generations in human history.
|
| Not that you can blame them, honestly, looking at the state of
| the world despite all wisdom and knowledge being more
| accessible to everyone than it has ever been...
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| from the literal posted article:
|
| > Worse is the resistance to original thought. What I mean is
| the reflexive submission of the cheapest cliche as novel
| insight.
|
| what a world we live in...
| nicbou wrote:
| I'm in my thirties. I remember most of these things being true a
| decade ago. Engineers in training failed the your/you're test.
| Some people read, but most people did not. We forget that the
| same ignorance is the norm among people our age because our paths
| with those people have split years ago. A lot of the behavioural
| complaints at the end of this post could have been made about me.
| I didn't have enough time to care about all the things that were
| forced down my throat. They seemed pointless anyway. I had
| mandatory French and photography classes to become a software
| engineer. I'd have enjoyed those if I wasn't working night shifts
| at a petrol station to pay for them.
|
| It's important to remember that those are very young people,
| right out of high school. We expect then to have skills they're
| likely not honing in a no-child-left-behind environment. Above
| all we expect them to understand the importance of all this, even
| though they have little to no experience as adults.
|
| Perhaps we're just slowly turning into boomers, shaking our fist
| at "kids these days".
| like_any_other wrote:
| > I'm in my thirties. I remember most of these things being
| true a decade ago.
|
| The author has been a professor and teaching for over 30 years.
| Presumably he would not be writing this if the type and _scale_
| of the problem hadn 't changed in that time.
| nicbou wrote:
| Could it be that the author changed as a person, sees the
| past with rose-tinted glasses, or fails to recognise that the
| context changed in the last 30 years?
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| That seems less likely. What would motivate that change?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, I have an arts degree and twenty years ago I know there
| was chronic absenteeism in sociology classes because I was
| chronically absent in sociology. I also couldn't do all the
| readings each week because I had both homework and other
| readings and so I had to be strategic, especially when I needed
| to start my own readings for all the papers I had to write.
| It's possible this poor professor's readings end up on people's
| ignore pile.
| rchaud wrote:
| Matriculating into college with a phone addiction is akin to
| starting off with executive functioning impairments. I was in
| college 20 years ago and was probably addicted to the Internet,
| but I didn't have wifi and a laptop with me at all times, so it
| wasn't ubiquitous, the way phones are now.
| djaouen wrote:
| I graduated from an Ivy League college with a 3.5 and did
| everything he mentioned in this article, minus the cheating.
| Maybe the problem is him? Just sayin'.
|
| Edit: I should mention I graduated twenty years ago.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| The (unintentional?) irony of this comment is pretty humorous
| andrewvc wrote:
| I can't tell you how many professors I've had this exact
| conversation with.
|
| It's also clear that kids whose parents restrict phone use seem
| to have superpowers compared to those that don't.
|
| A good starting point would be fully banning all phones for the
| entirety of the school day in K-12.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| It seems some are. My kid is in 4th grade in a city public
| school (US) and the district just this year banned all phones,
| tablets, and smart watches during the school day. We'll see how
| it goes.
| hx8 wrote:
| Are laptops also banned?
| nemo44x wrote:
| Tiktoking in the bathroom will be the new smoking in the
| bathroom.
| jaybrendansmith wrote:
| This is the ONE THING I wish I had done with my kids. They are
| both pretty good but the phones did absolutely nothing good for
| them.
| rmholt wrote:
| For what goal? Just for them to get instantly addicted once
| the ban is lifted? For them to lack any communications with
| their friends and to be excluded from their social circles
| discussing the newest tiktoks or whatever?
|
| I think you chose well
| hx8 wrote:
| To the end of reducing exposure during developmental
| periods, with the aim of having a long term benefit.
| rmholt wrote:
| Yeah that's fair.
|
| I still don't believe that it's worth it, with the
| exclusion from their social circle causing a bigger
| health issue than social media, but I get it.
| artursapek wrote:
| That only works if all their friends follow the same rule at
| home. Send your kids to a Waldorf school and thank me later.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| ACT Australia did K-10 starting 2024. It's been great!
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-06/mobile-phone-ban-canb...
| sien wrote:
| Yeah. I was coming here to state this. It is working.
|
| It's surprising that this isn't done everywhere.
|
| Note, kids from year 4 (9 years old) in many parts of
| Australia do have a Chromebook.
| rmholt wrote:
| No. It's not the smartphones that are the problem. Smartphones
| are a wonderful invention, capable of connecting anyone
| anywhere.
|
| It's the apps, which overcharge everyone's (not just kids!)
| brains, by algorithmically "mAxImiZinG eNgaGeMent"
|
| It's time to ban them all. Okay that's a bit much. Ban all
| algorithmic feeds, all apps must adhere to strictly
| chronological feed of the strictly subscribed authors.
|
| There, the phone addiction crisis solved.
| dartharva wrote:
| You sound like one of the author's students. Just restricting
| juvenile phone use to dumb phones is obviously the more
| feasible solution than banning or manipulating entire
| platforms.
| rmholt wrote:
| I never said ban platforms? TikTok, Facebook could still
| very well exist and still make more money than any of us
| ever will. Just without the brain rotting engagement
| algorithm
| anonym29 wrote:
| If we can all agree that cannabis is bad for the still-
| developing mind, and can generally get on board with the idea
| that kids should be kept as far away from it as possible,
| because it's addicting, because it causes long-term
| alterations to brain development, because it diminishes
| motivation and hijacks executive functioning networks, why is
| it so hard for society to consider treating smartphones,
| social media, and highly-immersive video games like MMORPG's,
| with essentially all of the same effects, the same way?
|
| I am part of the generation that grew up with MMORPG's from
| early childhood (I was about 9 years old when I made my first
| RuneScape account), but approaching 30, I don't game at all
| anymore for the exact same reasons I don't touch cannabis
| anymore. Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, it's all the
| same thing for teenagers. At a neurological level, these
| platforms are as highly addicting and neural-network-altering
| as actual psychoactive pharmaceuticals, legal or otherwise.
|
| Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like
| technology is a combination that we're not nearly as well-
| adapted to as we think we are.
| rmholt wrote:
| Because phone is just a box of wires, without apps it's
| inert.
|
| It's the apps, which corrode everyone's attention span. And
| unlike weed, I doubt there will be "algorithmic feed"
| dealers, because no one actually wants an algorithmic feed.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Sure - to be clear, I am not suggesting banning
| technology itself. Computers and the internet were also a
| boon of joy and discovery for me. I self-started
| programming in TI-basic back in middle school because
| "computer science" classes that covered anything beyond
| typing and "here's how to use to a web browser, here's
| how to use a text editor" skills weren't available until
| high school for me. I have vivid and fond memories of
| learning visual basic and making my own GUI apps after
| this, before eventually starting to learn javascript,
| python, and "real" programming languages like C.
|
| None of this exploration ever required or involved
| Facebook or other social media platform or highly
| immersive video game, save YouTube.
|
| And to be clear, I'm no proponent of the state simply
| passing universal bans, or infringing upon privacy of
| adults with facial recognition requirements for using
| social media, this is a responsibility of parents, many
| of whom I fear themselves haven't been adequately warned
| about how addicting these platforms are.
|
| I don't think DARE-style assemblies for both students and
| parents would be the worst idea to warn both groups about
| the risks of these platforms, provided they were done
| honestly, rather than being filled with hyperbole. It
| doesn't infringe upon anyone's rights, and wouldn't
| really "cost" anything, but would help educate those who
| might lack the awareness on the subject.
| rmholt wrote:
| > I don't think DARE-style assemblies for both students
| and parents would be the worst idea to warn both groups
| about the risks of these platforms, provided they were
| done honestly, rather than being filled with hyperbole.
|
| Yeah that's fair. Probably can't hurt anything with that.
| But it's hard to get the actual danger across.
|
| > None of this exploration ever required or involved
| Facebook or other social media platform or highly
| immersive video game, save YouTube.
|
| That's why I am gunning to limit these kind of platforms,
| specifically.
|
| > It doesn't infringe upon anyone's rights, and wouldn't
| really "cost" anything,
|
| Well it depends. If these assemblies worked, they would
| "cost" the platforms potential engagement and potential
| revenue. Which is kind of a pointless distinction, I just
| thought it's interesting
| rmholt wrote:
| > why is it so hard for society to consider treating
| smartphones, social media, and highly-immersive video games
| like MMORPG's, with essentially all of the same effects,
| the same way?
|
| I agree with you. I would consider social media and games
| addictive. It's just that the SMS app on my phone isn't
| addictive. Telegram app, the Photo app also isn't.
|
| > Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like
| technology is a combination that we're not nearly as well-
| adapted to as we think we are.
|
| Agreed. But my paleolithic emotions aren't addicted to the
| radio waves of my phone, but to the TikTok app
| specifically.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Sorry if my post was unclear, when I say "platforms", I
| am talking about Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok,
| open-ended MMORPG's, etc - I agree that the problem is
| the addiction-optimized psychological experiments, not
| the operating system or device itself.
| rmholt wrote:
| Yes!!! That's why I would ban just the "addiction-
| optimized psychological experiments".
|
| I would also ban them globally, not just for kids but
| like I'm sure that would be a whole 'nother discussion.
| ourmandave wrote:
| You'll also have to ban all the addictive games.
| rmholt wrote:
| To be honest I would, if only to be consistent with the
| above policy.
| James_K wrote:
| I've no clue why people have downvoted this; you're right as
| rain. A phone is nothing short of a digital slot machine and
| shouldn't be put in front of adults or children. These
| algorithms are designed for profit, not humanity. They have
| far greater control over us than they should.
| rmholt wrote:
| The funny thing is, they don't even have control. They
| can't push propaganda. They can just accelerate human
| desire. Through all the brain rot they have created, they
| didn't even gain anything significant, just a few % bump in
| "kEy pErFormAnce iNdiCatoRs".
|
| And they doomed a generation in the process
| James_K wrote:
| Capitalism is a system that rewards the selfish and
| greedy. If you don't pursue every bump in key performance
| indicators you can, then someone else will and they'll
| eat your lunch.
| rmholt wrote:
| Agreed, the problem is capitalism /s
|
| But seriously agreed, that's why I propose what I propose
| - when it's banned no-one can do it and no one can eat
| your lunch (*)
|
| (*) Subject to exceptions, as the War on Drugs can
| attest, but I think it would work in this instance
| Arisaka1 wrote:
| Why not educate the users about the dangers misuse and abuse
| lead to the attention span, instead of banning things?
|
| I vaguely recall too students back in the era where our
| biggest distraction was MSN messenger and our university
| forums. They kept both off until late at night.
|
| We're letting people experience the downsides of the
| attention economy when it's almost (if not entirely) too late
| to avoid the negatives.
| rmholt wrote:
| > Why not educate the users about the dangers misuse and
| abuse lead to the attention span, instead of banning
| things?
|
| Because social media is precisely in the short term benefit
| x long term risk that human brains are bad at
| conceptualizing. Same reasons for why we mandate belts in
| cars.
| prussia wrote:
| > Same reasons for why we mandate belts in cars.
|
| Hardly anyone in the "west" gets pulled over by police
| for seat belt checks (unlike say, India, China), yet
| nearly everyone still wears them, because they understand
| if they don't, they'll probably become a stain on the
| asphalt. I imagine if tomorrow, a law passed that seat
| belts no longer had to be worn, most people would still
| use them. Perhaps the regulation and enforcement are only
| needed initially when not everyone is educated on the
| long term risks.
| vohk wrote:
| > There, the phone addiction crisis solved.
|
| I think you're putting too much emphasis on The Algorithm.
| It's a problem, and I agree it's probably the worst offender,
| but similar problems were observed decades ago with children
| (and adults...) allowed to watch too many hours of
| uninterrupted TV. Cutting back to chronological feeds might
| improve some things but I don't think that's the root of the
| issue.
|
| I would suggest the primary difference between then and now
| is accessibility. As a kid, my screen time was limited not
| just by my parents indulgence but the social pressure from
| using a shared device. Smart phones let you carry your
| personal distraction with you.
|
| I agree they are a wonderful invention but I'm not sure grade
| school students need to be connecting to anyone, anywhere
| throughout the entire school day.
| rmholt wrote:
| > I think you're putting too much emphasis on The
| Algorithm. It's a problem, and I agree it's probably the
| worst offender, but similar problems were observed decades
| ago with children (and adults...) allowed to watch too many
| hours of uninterrupted TV.
|
| Yeah that's fair.
|
| > I agree they are a wonderful invention but I'm not sure
| grade school students need to be connecting to anyone,
| anywhere throughout the entire school day.
|
| Well to their friends in other classes ("Wanna go out after
| 3pm lesson").
|
| Additionally, and socially, smart phones, if banned, would
| be instantly seen as a status symbol. And it would also
| accelerate strong anti-autority sentimentality. The kids
| won't understand it, hell adults wouldn't. So it's also the
| case that you can't really ban them without really adverse
| social effects.
| hx8 wrote:
| > And it would also accelerate strong anti-autority
| sentimentality.
|
| Probably something we should be encouraging in our youth.
| rmholt wrote:
| Sure, but the natural consequence is that they will be
| more inclined to distrust society, authority, and vote
| for anti-estabishment populist parties.
|
| To quote a great man, we live in society. And it's better
| to work within a system and get to know it rather than it
| is to just hate it. And if the first experience of a
| large portion of youth is system beating them down, you
| can see how that's gonna grow a strong "tear it all down"
| mentality.
| kmoser wrote:
| I don't buy arguments from parents about why they can't
| just take away their kids' phones, or simply decline to
| buy them a phone in the first place.
|
| My family didn't have a TV growing up. (This was way
| before the Internet, when TV was king and HBO and cable
| were a status symbol.) Me and my siblings tried every
| argument in the book to get them to buy one, to no avail.
| Out of the loop on TV pop culture? Boo-hoo. Peers make
| fun of you for not having a TV? Too bad, so sad. The
| result was that I participated in more activities that
| engaged my body and brain. Aside from being bad at TV pop
| culture trivia from those decades, I turned out just
| fine.
|
| At the end of they day, parents need to set the standards
| that they want their children to live by, and stick with
| them. Even today, a phone is a luxury that a kid doesn't
| really need, and will likely contribute to low attention
| span and cause them all manner of anxiety. Don't take my
| word for it; many studies will back me up.
| layer8 wrote:
| You'd have to ban websites with algorithmic feeds as well,
| like this very site we're on.
| rmholt wrote:
| Fair. I suppose a "highest upvote" kind of feed would also
| be acceptable - so we don't kill reddit or hacker news
| layer8 wrote:
| Reddit and HN can be very addictive, and Instagram and
| YouTube and TikTok with mere "highest upvote" per topic
| would still be. I'm doubtful that your strategy would do
| very much about the problem.
|
| I'd actually prefer HN and Reddit to be just
| chronological (or "newest comment" on the above-thread
| level), like traditional forums.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Call me old fashioned, but I don't think it'd be that bad for
| schools to be almost completely analog. Obviously not for
| classes like CS, but do math class es or English classes really
| need computers? The whole "digital learning" push feels like it
| hasn't resulted in significantly better learning than with a
| book, pen, and paper.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Obviously not for classes like CS
|
| Why is this obvious? Unless you're talking CS = Programming a
| specific language, I think it'd be better for the K-12
| version of CS to be completely analog save for maybe a "lab"
| for students in later years of high school.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| CS at the lower levels should be programming and playing
| with computers. What else should it be? Analysis of
| algorithms? That sounds dreadfully boring for a high
| schooler
| LorenzoGood wrote:
| As a senior in high school, I have wanted the latter for
| most of my time here. I can program and fool around with
| computers on my own time (and more efficiently than in
| class). After taking (and being bored in) AP CS A
| freshman year, I have just dedicated more time to high
| level math classes instead.
| paulcole wrote:
| So except for playing with computers class then school
| should be mostly analog?
|
| Yeah, I do think that kids would get a ton out of hands-
| on analog classes where they learn logic, problem
| solving, etc.
| only-one1701 wrote:
| As the parent of a young kid: how do you do this? Does this
| just mean not giving them a smartphone until they're teenagers?
| Not letting them take it to school. My oldest kid isn't even
| four yet, but I'm already wondering about how to limit his
| eventual phone usage and also not make him a social pariah.
| mrkpdl wrote:
| It should be enforced by the schools: put the phones in a tub
| in home group and hand them back out at the end of the day.
| If there's an emergency call the office or the office calls
| you. Use exercise books for note taking, etc.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The "social pariah" thing is FUD. It's just people repeating
| what other people claim to be afraid of, and then becoming
| afraid of it themselves. Kids can be shitty--if they want to
| exclude someone or bully them, they're going to do it whether
| or not the victim has a cell phone. Conversely, if people
| will only be friends with you if you have a cell phone, then
| I have some bad news for you: They're probably not genuine
| friends.
| pglevy wrote:
| We did this with our kids, now college freshman and high school
| junior, and it was absolutely worth it. In middle school we
| established "screen break" from Friday night to Saturday
| afternoon. It was challenging at first but they came to love
| it. We've had many conversations and read many books on those
| breaks (and still do). Advice to new parents: keep them off
| screens as long as possible, and then build in and enforce
| breaks that become a part of your family routine. Chances are
| they will end up noticeably different from other kids.
| jevndev wrote:
| It really feels the same as weed/nicotine/alcohol/sex/other
| vices. If history has taught us anything, outright banning them
| only makes them into forbidden fruit. We need to explain (and
| frequently reinforce) these negative effects of modern phone
| use so kids can grow up understanding them. Right now, it seems
| like a lot of people really only start to understand the
| impacts of this kind of phone use long after they're addicted.
| Hopefully informing them before that happens would help.
|
| Of course, this kind of thing is easy to do wrong. Programs
| like D.A.R.E. and THRIVE tried going the way of fear tactics
| which seems to really not work well. We need to have an open
| and honest discussion about "yes, this is fun. But it DOES have
| a bad side" instead.
|
| The last sticking point there is that it assumes people will be
| rational and come to the conclusion of using with moderation.
| Hopefully people _can_ be rational... Otherwise I think there
| 's no hope for us in solving the brainrot epidemic.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| I work with several interns who are exceptionally smart, capable,
| and well-read.
|
| I do see an issue with some where they hop around and don't
| finish long form projects. But I think thats a function of
| college where racking up resume filler seems more important these
| days.
| LorenzoGood wrote:
| About the short projects. I am a high school senior, and I
| sometimes jump around between projects / don't finish them
| because I sometimes struggle to see the point in finishing
| them. The only projects I can complete are ones where I can see
| the point of them and how they will be used.
| mxschll wrote:
| I'm glad I completed my bachelor's before ChatGPT existed. Now in
| my master's program, I find myself increasingly dependent on AI.
| It's gotten to a point where professors grade using AI, so no
| brain-to-brain exchange is happening -- just AI to AI.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| You are welcome to eschew AI if you feel like it's hurting your
| own learning outcome.
| m-hodges wrote:
| I believe the choice of the word "dependent" was deliberate
| in their comment.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| For the average student, does it actually matter whether they
| pass the class or not?
|
| The social contract of "do well in school and you'll get a good
| job that allows you to afford live a decent life" is on
| increasingly shaky grounds thanks to things like the property
| Ponzi scheme reaching even higher levels of pressure, hiring in
| knowledge work positions being broken, and understandable
| uncertainty around how AI is going to reshape many positions.
|
| If they're going to be fucked either way, can we blame them for
| not caring and instead focusing on the very little things that
| still bring them happiness?
| jon-wood wrote:
| If that's their attitude why are they paying for college in the
| first place? I could absolutely understand not thinking college
| has any benefit for them, I did exactly that, what I don't
| understand is deciding to go to college and then not engaging
| with it.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| I'm not American here - because "cushy" jobs require degrees.
| Any of them, but you need to have them. And because those
| jobs are often your bland office ones, they don't really
| require a lot of training/skill, so you're free to do them
| even if you were an below-average student at a bad major.
|
| All that matters in paper.
|
| (I'm not condoning it, in opposite - but that's a common line
| of thought)
| ptero wrote:
| If one just needs a paper, not education, there are plenty
| of degree mills that will grant a degree at half the price
| and 10% time commitment.
| plasticchris wrote:
| Maybe they feel it is expected of them and aren't really
| interested in the subject matter? I met an engineering
| student once who told me they hated it but their parents
| wouldn't support them for their true passion (the arts). For
| some I think (given my experience at uni is 2 decades ago)
| they use it as an excuse to enjoy being young rather than do
| serious study.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "They can't sit in a seat for 50 minutes. "
|
| probably because they're bored. Giving a live lecture is the most
| disdainful form of teaching, using the slowest and most
| unbalanced way of passing info.
|
| Video your lecture so that the students can watch it at 1.5x
| speed and do exercises during the class time so that the students
| are engaged if they decide to show up (which they are more likely
| to do if they don't have to sit through your live presentation at
| 1.0x speed).
|
| They'll adjust.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| I had a lecture, where my professor would read from PowerPoint
| slides - that commonly contained 50 lines of text.
|
| He was surprised nobody wanted to attend his lectures.
|
| EDIT: fixed a lot of typos...
| Invictus0 wrote:
| In fairness to the kids, The Overstory is horribly boring.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Author in the start has said, that around 65% of students have
| skipped on getting a textbook.
|
| And thus I have a genuine question to other people here. How
| common it was for students to actually read a textbook, cover to
| cover? I did my CS undergrad in Poland - and talking to my peers,
| I don't think a single of us ever did that. We used lecture
| slides at best and online resources for code.
| xandrius wrote:
| Did over 7 years of university at different levels and never
| ever bought a textbook.
|
| Definitely not important, it mainly reflects on how are
| teachers choosing to disseminate their knowledge.
| thegeomaster wrote:
| Same here. There was a fair amount illicit copying of textbooks
| too. But this teacher doesn't even want to share his lecture
| slides.
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| More than a few times i would re-read the textbook end to end
| in the week leading up to final exam. Particularly for subjects
| that I knew were foundational for future courses. 20 years
| later I still find myself breaking out my old textbooks several
| times a year to refresh a topic. I'm referring to mostly
| engineering, economics, and finance textbooks. As much as I
| enjoyed philosophy and ethics, I don't find myself needing to
| break those books open.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I still have many of my textbooks from College. They are great
| reference books, and yes, I read them all.
|
| But that was pre-internet.
|
| I must say, that was a very structured, well laid out way to
| learn. I mean that as opposed to Googling for each subtopic,
| reading dozens of webpages on that single subtopic, hoping to
| find accurate info.
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| In graduate school, I would spend four to six hours every night
| hand-copying textbook chapters into a spiral notebook as it was
| the only way I could slow down my reading sufficiently to
| actually comprehend the material.
|
| For undergrad, I would always read the 'assigned material'
| (essays, literature, etc.) but only recall opening one or two
| textbooks.
| dml2135 wrote:
| The author of the article is a philosophy professor. In the
| humanities, yes it is common to read books cover-to-cover. They
| are more often just "books" and less the sort of textbooks you
| may be thinking of.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Not cover to cover, but yes, we generally did most of the
| reading most of the time. I don't mean to exaggerate: sometimes
| you skimmed, and I gave up on Kant, but in a lot of classes
| you'd be lost and screwed if you didn't make a plausible pass
| on the reading.
|
| This was 18 years at a massive public university, which by
| design drew students from all backgrounds.
|
| I'm inherently skeptical of "kids these days" arguments, but it
| really seems like the smartphones and the way we approached the
| pandemic was incredibly destructive.
| tim-kt wrote:
| I'm a mathematics graduate student. A good textbook about a
| topic in math is gold. Sometimes I even prefer reading a book
| than going to a lecture because I can skip things that I know
| or take more time on difficult sections. One time, in a
| theoretical physics course, I just didn't like the lecturer's
| style. Fortunately, his lectures were based on a very good book
| (Kuypers, classical mechanics) which I then read. But I don't
| think that I have ever "finished" a textbook from front to
| back. There are always things that are more important.
| AmVess wrote:
| Not CS, but I got a STEM degree from a top university. You read
| all the books to pass the course, and if you wanted an A, you
| also read the material on the suggested reading lists.
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Of course he can't fail them.
|
| More reason why college degrees are worthless signals.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| I'm a bit mixed on all these kind of tirades. I imagine a big
| chunk of most literature undergraduate degrees are people who
| like the idea of being into literature much more than the kind of
| work it involves.
|
| At the same time, as someone who was very addicted to the
| internet but only got a smartphone/broadband (previously having a
| 40 hour monthly limit) in my late teens I do look back at just
| how much I read then compared to ever since mournfully. I didn't
| grow up in a house that valued reading much so it was a lot of
| work to even get started regularly reading stuff with no
| knowledge base of what I might even like to start from. I'm still
| able to read a few semi-challenging novels a year but it's an
| insane amount of work to get into the zone now and I can't
| picture teenage me with a smartphone and constant internet access
| ever managing to build up any kind of habit at all.
|
| As far as writing is concerned, I think how aggressively LLMs
| want to rephrase everything is a big issue and I'm not sure how
| it can be resolved. As autoprompts get more and more florid it's
| probably unsurprising people are going to get lazier and lazier
| at precisely phrasing anything. I tried using them building out
| my CV earlier this year and it was a great sounding board but the
| actual text it was giving me was atrocious.
| acheong08 wrote:
| As a college student, I think I can respond to this.
|
| > Reading bores them, though. They are impatient to get through
| whatever burden of reading they have to, and move their eyes over
| the words just to get it done.
|
| At least for me, it's not that reading bores me - there just
| isn't enough time and benefit to it, especially for novels and
| literature. Literary books aren't going in my CV, nor providing
| any insight into how to write better code. When 1200 people
| compete for 1 open internship position, can I really afford to
| waste my time like this?
|
| Edit: note - we don't have any literary modules in my course -
| any reading would be voluntary.
|
| > What I mean is the reflexive submission of the cheapest cliche
| as novel insight.
|
| I distinctly remember being penalized for any insight that didn't
| fit marking criteria back in high school english lit. If ChatGPT-
| like writing is what'll get me to pass, so be it.
|
| > Attendance is a HUGE problem--many just treat class as
| optional.
|
| Well, most lectures just aren't very helpful. They move slower
| than if we just read the docs. This is very uni/course specific
| though
| cpr wrote:
| > When 1200 people compete for 1 open internship position, can
| I really afford to waste my time like this?
|
| If you think of education as trying to lead people into being
| whole humans, seems like literature and philosophy (properly
| taught) are some of most critical subjects.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I want this to be true, my arts degree says I even put my
| money where my mouth is, but university has largely become
| viewed as vocational training. You do it not to become whole,
| you do it to become employable.
| acheong08 wrote:
| I'll do that when I can be confident in my ability to afford
| food. Being a "whole human" just isn't a priority when you
| might literally become homeless
| sarchertech wrote:
| This feeling will never go away because it's not caused by
| circumstances, it's caused by anxiety.
|
| You're a student ostensibly studying computer science at
| University. Taking a few hours a week to stop a smell the
| roses has zero chance of being the thing that pushes you
| into homelessness.
|
| When you start working the anxiety won't go away. You'll
| always have the next thing to worry about. What if I lose
| this job--I only have 6 months of savings. Then you get
| married and it becomes--if I lose my job my spouse will
| divorce me. You have a kid and it becomes "Sorry honey I
| have to work late. Dinner with the family isn't a priority
| when the kids could literally become homeless if I lose my
| job and we can't afford good schools."
|
| You can't fix the anxiety by accomplishing the next goal.
| It's never going to be enough. You have to learn to live
| with some uncertainty or you'll end up miserable.
|
| Also from a more practical perspective, there are
| advantages to being a more well rounded person. The best
| programmer is rarely the highest paid. Soft skills are at
| least as important. Being a well rounded human is a big
| part of those soft skills.
|
| I'm not saying you necessarily need to be well versed in
| literary fiction. But having a wide breadth of knowledge
| comes in handy.
| rco8786 wrote:
| There's so much to unpack here. I'll start from the bottom.
|
| > better universities like Ivy Leagues where the author works
|
| The author gives their background in the second paragraph of
| the article (did you read it?): "I teach at a regional public
| university in the US. Our students are average on just about
| any dimension you care to name"
|
| > Well, most lectures just aren't very helpful. They move
| slower than if we just read the docs.
|
| a) It appears that no one is reading the docs, as the author
| discussed at length (did you read it?)
|
| b) A lecture is _always_ faster than reading. A lecture is
| cliff notes. A lecture is the person who knows more than you
| teaching you the most important bits of the docs.
|
| > it's not that reading bores me - there just isn't enough time
| and benefit to it
|
| You stated that the lecture was too slow so you just read the
| docs. Here you state that there's not enough time and benefit
| to reading. Which is it?
|
| > It scares me as well how little interest my peers have in
| actually learning
|
| Do you see that you're demonstrating that same disinterest?
| Reading isn't worth your time. Lectures are too slow and the
| professors are dumb anyway. Etc.
|
| > Literary books aren't going in my CV, nor providing any
| insight into how to write better code. When 1200 people compete
| for 1 open internship position
|
| This implies that there is some educational medium by which you
| are so deeply focused and involved in, that the author is
| unaware of, pointed directly at CV building and internship/job
| getting, that you simply don't have time for the lectures or
| books that the author's class covers. Is that correct? What is
| it? How much time are you spending on an average day CV
| building?
|
| > can I really afford to waste my time like this?
|
| Sweet summer child. You are a college student. You have all the
| time in the world.
|
| Your post here, if anything, corroborates the author's
| perspective.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| the author doesn't work at an ivy league, they work at an
| average school (your error here is beautifully ironic...)
| rchaud wrote:
| The Ivy league isn't teaching Dostoevsky any differently than
| from an 'average' school, and have a significant number of
| legacy and preferential admissions who wouldn't otherwise
| pass the academic standards that everybody else had to.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| the aptitude of the students and general motivation is
| different, though.
| rco8786 wrote:
| That's not the point at all though. The point is that the
| author is talking about how college students can't read and
| comprehend material, and the student refuting clearly
| didn't read or comprehend the material.
| acheong08 wrote:
| Yeah I misread by clicking into their profile
|
| > I'm a tenured philosophy professor with an Ivy League PhD.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| > At least for me, it's not that reading bores me - there just
| isn't enough time and benefit to it, especially for novels and
| literature. Literary books aren't going in my CV, nor providing
| any insight into how to write better code. When 1200 people
| compete for 1 open internship position, can I really afford to
| waste my time like this?
|
| This reads as though the goal of reading is to bolster your
| career opportunities as a developer? If it's not connected to
| your career then it shouldn't be viewed that way, it should be
| viewed as a kind of leisure and the challenges/rewards involved
| should be compared to the alternatives there (i.e. is the
| investment in time of being able to understand more complex
| novels returning a level of personal fulfilment that makes it
| potentially a more rewarding focus than some more immediately
| gratifying leisure activity)
|
| It may still be of very low value but viewing the prospect
| specifically as being damaging to your career opportunities
| seems like an incorrect perspective to be starting from.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Seeing everything in an utilitarian pov frightens me. I'm a
| university student, I love reading, I love acting, I love
| spending my afternoons riding my bike to the seaside or to
| the tuscanian hills. Nothing of this is going to make me a
| better developer. But I can't imagine a world in which I
| don't read, in which I don't get to know people acting or
| working at the venue meeting other performers, or feeling
| connected to the Earth with flowers blooming and birds
| chirping
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| I don't disagree.
|
| I think POVs in forums are often much more about framing a
| thing to justify your beliefs than actually hitting at your
| own personal implicit values (it's plausible the poster
| believes leisure is a waste of time and lives by that
| belief but I doubt it) so I wanted to stick with the
| original POV approach to highlight the ways it seemed
| incorrect.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Wait until you work full-time then you understand it.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| What I wanted to say, it is that it might happen in the
| future to not have time or will to do those things. Due
| to stress or long job hours (...) but the guy says that
| as a uni student he doesn't have the time because he
| prefers to focus on being a better developer. I read for
| pleasure especially at evening or at night. in those
| moments, especially when in the bed, I definitely
| wouldn't be coding
| acheong08 wrote:
| I would love to do that. In fact my first year was way more
| relaxed and closer to your experience. I would spend hours
| wandering the countryside on foot and traveling the
| country.
|
| Now that graduation is inching closer with no financial
| backing, it's just not feasible to spend time on anything
| other than maximizing employability
| only-one1701 wrote:
| It makes me so sad how correct this is. I don't know what
| the proper term for it is, but it's the dynamic where
| everyone works 9 - 5, and then someone wants to get ahead
| so works an hour later, and then in 2 months everyone is
| working 9 - 6...until someone else wants to get ahead and
| starts working until 7. The competition is so stark and
| the perceived penalties for not meeting a base level of
| success are so unpleasant, we all need to descend to the
| most boring and lifeless versions of ourselves to match
| those who are naturally boring and lifeless.
| I-M-S wrote:
| Sounds like a version of the tragedy of the commons. Or
| maybe even the prisoner's dilemma, as in every individual
| chasing their narrow self-interest and making the matter
| worse for everyone instead of collaborating and making it
| better for everybody.
| lee_ars wrote:
| > At least for me, it's not that reading bores me - there just
| isn't enough time and benefit to it, especially for novels and
| literature. Literary books aren't going in my CV, nor providing
| any insight into how to write better code. When 1200 people
| compete for 1 open internship position, can I really afford to
| waste my time like this?
|
| The disconnect here is that your professors are assigning you
| work like this because the purpose of a university education is
| to broaden your horizons, challenge you, and force you to think
| about _how to think._
|
| The fact that you're treating it like trade school is your
| problem, not the university's.
|
| > I distinctly remember being penalized for any insight that
| didn't fit marking criteria back in high school english lit.
|
| Good for you. High school writing has nothing to do with
| university-level papers.
|
| > Well, most lectures just aren't very helpful. They move
| slower than if we just read the docs. Some lecturers are also
| just incompetent with barely any understanding of what they're
| teaching in the first place...
|
| Your issue, again, is that you're arrogantly assuming you don't
| have anything to learn from things you personally haven't
| prioritized. A major role of a university education is to beat
| that idea out of you by showing you how wrong you are. Pity it
| isn't sticking.
|
| > ...though this probably wouldn't be as big of a problem in
| better universities like Ivy Leagues where the author works
|
| What the actual fuck, dude? Ivy League? Right in the second
| paragraph: "I teach at a regional public university in the US."
|
| I went into this article kind of annoyed at the stereotyping of
| "these kids today," but way to go reinforcing the article's
| points. Damn.
| PhunkyPhil wrote:
| > The fact that you're treating it like trade school is your
| problem, not the university's.
|
| When (for many people) going to college almost necessarily
| means accruing 5-figure to 6-figure debt at the infancy of
| their careers, they sure as shit better have some sort of
| marketable skill to justify and remedy that debt coming out
| of it.
|
| I understand the sentiment of higher education being useful
| for broadening one's horizons, challenging you, teaching you
| how to think etc; but you should be arguing in the _positive_
| for these things to be available to everyone without a
| paywall.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's hilarious to explain you can't be assed to read a novel
| for a class that is about literary analysis and then also say
| _It scares me as well how little interest my peers have in
| actually learning_.
|
| Part of the idea of courses that aren't direct job skills is
| that you will have done it and learned from it.
| acheong08 wrote:
| Oh we don't get novels to read for class in university. Any
| reading would be voluntary
| sarchertech wrote:
| The article you are responding to was about a professor who
| is assigning his students to read Dostoevsky.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Well, you can't expect him to have read it!
| nicbou wrote:
| This is nice when you have the time to sit down and enjoy
| literature at a leasurly pace. It's not nice when it's one of
| many obligations that comes with its own deadlines and tests.
| raydev wrote:
| In fairness, this is the standard university experience and
| has been for many decades. You either figure out how to
| balance your time and make the grades or you don't.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Making the grade often has nothing to do with actually
| doing the reading. Why there are cram courses and
| distilled notes that students sell.
| sarchertech wrote:
| >When 1200 people compete for 1 open internship position, can I
| really afford to waste my time like this?
|
| The ratio of internships to qualified students is far better
| than 1:1200. You don't need to be in the top tenth of a percent
| to get an internship.
|
| Worst case scenario you don't get the internship you want and
| it takes you an extra year or 2 to get the job you wanted.
|
| Take some time to enjoy your youth without worrying about min
| maxing everything. You're never going to have fewer
| responsibilities than you do now.
|
| >slower than if we just read the docs
|
| Don't take classes where the content of lectures can be
| replaced by reading the docs. Take theoretical classes. Learn
| the practical stuff on your own.
|
| Also seek out the experts. Ask questions. Spend time with them.
| Unless you do to grad school, you'll never have this kind of
| access to experts again.
| doright wrote:
| > The ratio of internships to qualified students is far
| better than 1:1200.
|
| To be fair, for a person with several years of industry
| experience it _feels_ like the ratio of applicants to
| openings for tech jobs _really is_ some absurdly high number
| - high enough to where you can be out of experience-
| appropriate work for years, _plural_.
|
| I don't know if the overall market can generalize to
| university internships however, which may be the disconnect.
|
| However, I remember one time in the recent past where I was
| offered to interview for a position that was designed for
| recent graduates with no industry experience. They offered
| this to me knowing I had graduated long ago and already had
| industry work for a while. My conclusion was that after a
| whole two months of interviewing candidates, they simply
| could not find any recent graduates qualified enough for
| _their own recent graduates opening_.
|
| I did feel some guilt being offered that position knowing it
| was supposed to have gone towards someone with far fewer
| opportunities to get hired than me. I don't know if this is
| an indication of the state of universities, recent graduates,
| hiring managers who write up the postings and don't know what
| they actually want, the job market in general, or some other
| factor I haven't considered...
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > I distinctly remember being penalized for any insight that
| didn't fit marking criteria back in high school english lit. If
| ChatGPT-like writing is what'll get me to pass, so be it.
|
| I Can't Answer These Texas Standardized Test Questions About My
| Own Poems
|
| > Oh, goody. I'm a benchmark. Only guess what? The test prep
| materials neglected to insert the stanza break. I texted him an
| image of how the poem appeared in the original publication.
| Problem one solved. But guess what else? I just put that stanza
| break in there because when I read it aloud (I'm a performance
| poet), I pause there. Note: that is not an option among the
| answers because no one ever asked me why I did it.
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/standardized-tests-are-so-bad...
|
| Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19783650
| ben_w wrote:
| > Well, most lectures just aren't very helpful. They move
| slower than if we just read the docs. Some lecturers are also
| just incompetent with barely any understanding of what they're
| teaching in the first place - though this probably wouldn't be
| as big of a problem in better universities like Ivy Leagues
| where the author works
|
| Memories of my degree 20 years ago. We didn't have (many) pre-
| recorded videos of lectures available to watch whenever we
| wanted at whatever speed we wanted, the way we do now.
|
| Now there's a good range of lectures given away for free, I'm
| not sure even the top 10% of lecturers (beyond the best
| individuals in the world on whichever topic) are adding much
| value -- In theory one could interrupt the lecture to clarify a
| point, but that's also a thing one can often do alone with the
| internet.
|
| And that's for the best lecturers. We had some good teachers,
| but also some bad ones.
|
| The C lectures were fantastic, the practical security sessions
| were fun (started with ~ "if you've already hacked this WiFi
| box, please log out so I can show everyone else how to break
| into it"), etc.
|
| For the bad ones... there was one in my final year where I was
| using my laptop to record the whole session at 44 kHz (audio
| only), and the lecturer claimed that motion capture recordings
| couldn't go for more than a few minutes because that would be
| "several megabytes" of data. There was another who was giving
| us an example of formal methods, but they got the proof wrong
| and didn't notice (and had a voice that meant nobody cared).
| Another had an impenetrable accent, I might have understood a
| total of two words in the entire lecture, though I could at
| least follow the written material projected on the screen.
| tekla wrote:
| > Well, most lectures just aren't very helpful. They move
| slower than if we just read the docs. This is very uni/course
| specific though
|
| You must be going to the easiest school ever.
| acheong08 wrote:
| I suppose so. 99% of what I learn is outside uni.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Looking at what you wrote about not seeing benefits of anything
| that doesn't directly contribute to your job fitness - please
| read this:
|
| https://www.experimental-history.com/p/excuse-me-but-why-are...
|
| It isn't a waste of time, I promise.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Same kids as always but so many are displaced today. Most of them
| shouldn't be in a university as they aren't particularly smart,
| curious, or interested in becoming a serious person at that
| moment.
|
| Most kids can't read serious fiction or ruminate about classical
| philosophy because they just don't have the tools to get there.
| They're disengaged because they don't want to be there but the
| alternatives are worse, or appear to be. They're escaping reality
| because they're constantly being humiliated.
|
| I don't have a solution in today's knowledge economy where being
| smart, which most people aren't, is a prerequisite to "success".
| I can criticize though as that's easy. The university system is
| not for most people. The idea that we should ensure that those
| that belong should get pathways in and not overlooked means we
| try to send everyone. And it feels like social death to many if
| you don't go.
|
| Maybe the kids are smart enough to realize college is mainly a
| bullshit hurdle to get over so they can get a bullshit job and
| that little of what they learn matters in that bullshit job. That
| a diploma is a checkbox and not an affirmation of intellectuality
| in most cases.
| Ukv wrote:
| > I am frequently asked for my PowerPoint slides, which basically
| function for me as lecture notes. It is unimaginable to me that I
| would have ever asked one of my professors for their own lecture
| notes. No, you can't have my slides.
|
| I don't feel like asking for the slides is
| unreasonable/unimaginable. Probably varies by university and
| department, but for my degree (pre-COVID) all lecturers made
| their slides available on a VLE, generally in advance of the
| lecture.
| like_any_other wrote:
| It's also much easier to pay attention if you don't have to
| frantically take notes. To focus on what an equation _means_ ,
| instead of focusing on transcribing it correctly, and then
| maybe trying to understand it later, if there's any time left,
| before the lecture moves on.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Of you summarize yourself what the professor said and write
| it by hand there are more chances you will remember it.
| like_any_other wrote:
| Absolutely true, and writing down 'cheat sheets' of such
| summaries was one of the most effective ways to learn. But
| I simply did not have the understanding yet, within 60
| seconds of being presented new material, to be able to
| write a good summary of it. And at the same time also write
| a non-summary, in the likely case that things would not be
| clear from the summary alone when reviewing. And do all of
| this before the lecture moves on to the next thing that
| needs first understanding, then transcribing, then
| summarizing.
| RhysU wrote:
| This is why one attends lectures, reads the book, takes
| notes for both, and then assembles a summary.
|
| It's called studying.
| like_any_other wrote:
| Yes. And is studying more, or less efficient, when
| lectures are spent focused on transcription, instead of
| the material?
| RhysU wrote:
| In lectures, focus on the material. When working from the
| book, you have oodles of time to transcribe. Hence, both
| modes of learning.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| For some lectures I follow the course in class. For some
| other lectures I just read the slides on which the
| lectures are based and go in depth on my own. Some other
| friends follow all the lectures. Some others just don't
| follow that much.
|
| I don't know why you provide a one method that should fit
| everyone, while everyone has a preferred way of studying
| that isn't necessarily the best approach for other people
| RhysU wrote:
| Because the lecturing professor assigned a textbook,
| making both lectures and the textbook relevant to the
| course.
|
| Also, it's at least three distinct methods! Read before
| lectures, read after lectures, read on both sides.
| Dealer's choice. Neglects recorded lectures and the
| possibilities they open up.
|
| Talking about people's preferences and studying is funny.
| Most people prefer not to study. Preferences have little
| to do with good study habits. The above approaches have
| worked for hundreds of years just fine.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Well, of course if a textbook is required to be read, you
| read it period. I was talking about different study
| methods in the bounds of what is allowed to do
| beeflet wrote:
| Yeah but depending on the pace of the lecture you might not
| even get everything down. So it's better to take some notes
| after class like this
| throw8PLTwtFe wrote:
| Typically, the issue is slides allows the speaker to present
| stuff much faster than a person can realistically write (unlike
| writing on a board), so you end up with lossy notes. The coping
| mechanism for students is therefore by writing notes on the
| slides. Slides also help you preview the lecture, though few
| people probably actually do this.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| My psych professor twenty years ago gave out the slides with
| strategic blanks in them, that way you didn't have to write
| the whole thing down, but you did need to listen at least to
| the point where you could fill in the missing bits.
| echoangle wrote:
| But why wouldn't you just give them the slides? Isn't it the
| students problem if there is stuff missing?
| throw8PLTwtFe wrote:
| It's not me who doesn't give the slides. Some people are
| just precious about their work. I personally don't think
| this type of attitude is great for a teaching professional.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > you end up with lossy notes
|
| Notes are definitionally lossy. If they weren't lossy, they'd
| be a transcript.
|
| The act of compressing a lecture into notes helps students
| learn. Merely transcribing does not imply understanding.
| ghaff wrote:
| What I find though when taking notes from a non-academic
| conference presentation is that I often don't know what the
| most salient points or compressed takeaways are in real-
| time. I don't end up with a transcript but I do end up with
| a lot of discard and I'll take pics of some slides.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Here in italy, in stem university (especially computer science)
| being given slides is a given.
|
| Some teachers record their lectures as well, although it's not
| mandatory. For some subjects I prefer following in the class,
| and for some others imho having the slides and doing on your
| own is much better than having to follow lectures. It depends.
| But at least, you have a choice
|
| Edit now that I think about it, everyone's mileage may vary
| wildly. I think I haven't been studying by taking notes in a
| lot of time. I'd rather just read the slides and try to
| understand the whys and whats behind what was explained. Some
| colleagues of mine would rather take notes or write a condensed
| version of the course material to better remember it. I guess
| ymmv a lot
| StefanBatory wrote:
| From my experience, if a lecturer doesn't give slides, there
| are two possible reasons:
|
| 1) They are not theirs and want to avoid being caught; 2) They
| believe they are the only source of truth and need to show the
| insects, I mean students, their place.
|
| Saw both of them.
|
| And if there are no lecture notes, I am not going to be more
| engaged with it. Au contrare, I will be franaticaly copying
| everything from them to my notebook and not listening to the
| lecture itself.
| rco8786 wrote:
| Yea this was the one part that puzzled me. Why would a
| professor be protective of their lecture slides? I seem to
| remember most of my professors being fine with distributing
| these. Or at least it was never a point of contention.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Yea, this one was weird to me. Most of my professors would
| automatically send out their slides after class. After all you
| just... showed them to the whole class. What's the point of
| keeping them a secret afterwards?
| sylens wrote:
| Same. My professors did this because they wanted you to not
| be spending your time and energy writing notes during class
| but instead following the lesson and asking questions.
| atribecalledqst wrote:
| When I was an undergrad (2008-2012) I don't think I even had
| any classes that were given as PowerPoint slides. If they had
| been though, I don't think I would have felt bad asking for
| them - they definitely could have helped jog my memory! Notes
| aren't always perfect...
| Raed667 wrote:
| I was in school (2011-2016) and almost all professors had a
| wiki or moodle where we could find all their slides and
| documents.
|
| I noticed that the rare few professors who didn't upload
| their powerpoints, were mostly the ones who would just recite
| the content of their slides in class (almost) word-for-word.
| winginagnain wrote:
| I don't think I ever took any lecture notes at all in the
| entirety of my CS education at Carnegie Mellon, long before
| COVID. Everything the professors taught was in slides that were
| published online, or in the best cases, full fledged PDF
| lecture notes that explained everything in detail and were
| published online.
|
| This makes it significantly easier to pay attention during
| lectures. Denying your students work that you have already done
| is ridiculous. Whether or not a student wants your lecture
| notes is orthogonal to whether they come to lecture.
| hn_user82179 wrote:
| I'm terrible at learning from powerpoints just by
| watching/listening so I would write down ppt slides word for
| word in lectures. I absolutely could never keep up with the
| lecture pace, the instructors would move on to the next slide
| too quickly. They were usually great lecturers, it's just
| inefficient to spend the extremely precious lecture time
| waiting for students to copy things down.
|
| I did finally settle on a better solution, because my
| professors all shared the ppt slides at least day-of for every
| lecture. So I downloaded the ppt onto my tablet and used a
| stylus to write my notes to each slide. It worked well for me
| notahacker wrote:
| Being given slides online and in paper form was a given when I
| went to university two decades ago, which puts the OP's "kids
| these days" rant into context[1]. You soon learned which
| lecturers added value with insights or exposition that went
| beyond the bullet points...
|
| [1]with one exception, who used an overhead projector, except
| for the time it failed when she cancelled the lecture because
| she refused to use the blackboard on the grounds of aversion to
| chalk dust. A good lecturer tbf, and I think even she supplied
| us with _blank_ subtitled lecture notes to copy her graphs onto
| nebulosa wrote:
| Some of these observations aren't particularly surprising, but
| this line really took me out of it:
|
| > Yes, I know some texts, especially in the sciences, are
| expensive. However, the books I assign are low-priced. All texts
| combined for one of my courses is between $35-$100 and they still
| don't buy them.
|
| The implication that for one course (of which they have multiple
| in a year, over four years), students can be expected to spend up
| to $100 for textbooks (and the author thinks this is low-priced!)
| is astonishing and shows a profound disconnect with the actual
| financial situation of students. Of course, many will just use
| libgen or get second-hand copies, but these things are thwarted
| by incremental releases with just enough changes to make them
| infeasible for use in the course.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| She is teaching courses that involve reading books. In her
| words: "I'm teaching Existentialism this semester. It is
| entirely primary texts--Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,
| Camus, Sartre". Five or more books plus a textbook might cost
| $100. (And yes of course all of these are on Gutenberg and
| Libgen, but the point is that the kids don't read them either
| way.)
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Setting aside Libgen (never used it, don't know anything
| about it), it's unlikely that any of those authors is
| available on Gutenberg _in a modern, critical translation_.
| Reading primary texts in their publication language was dead
| or dying even when I was a philosophy major, but still it's
| impossible to do close textual analysis without a scholarly
| translation.
|
| I know some of the early translations of e.g. Nietzche
| sometimes end up saying the opposite of what might have been
| intended, which is a downer.
| psychoslave wrote:
| I guess that anyone which, on top of being an English
| native, can read both French and German, and are confident
| that they can grasp anything from some of their most
| sybilin hermeneuticians, is really far from the average
| student, whatever their nationality.
|
| The linked text is clearly announcing it's focused on the
| average student, not the top of bottom tiers.
|
| I'm not sure about the opinion that the author implies
| about Harry Potter, but I'm confident the series is an
| easier read and still give you plenty of opportunity to
| discuss about philosophical and literacy topics.
|
| Anyway, that's definitely an interesting reading, I
| forwarded it to my wife who teach as a physician, something
| I rarely feel like relevant to do with HN posts.
| throw8PLTwtFe wrote:
| A considerate professor would allow using an older or multiple
| editions of the books, and assign appropriate readings or
| problems for multiple editions. Libgen e-books are a strictly
| better product anyways: you don't have to carry it around and
| you can annotate them without the notes being inside the book.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Honestly, that doesn't sound uncommon even for the classes I
| took 20 years ago.
|
| A single book in a non-literature class could easily go for
| more than that. CS was especially bad in this regard, for some
| reason.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Tuition at similar (second tier state) schools is going to be
| ~$6000 per semester! It goes up from there.
|
| What's going on that the students have the resources for the
| tuition but not books at 5-10% of that cost (that's a 4 course
| load with books costing $100-150 per course)?
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| Don't know how school funding operates in the US so this is a
| guess:
|
| Parents cover the fees and give the kids an allowance for the
| rest; either the kids budget poorly or the allowance fails to
| really account for just how expensive the first few weeks are
| with all the books you're expected to buy?
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| The average parent in the US can't afford an extra $12000
| per year in expenses. College students take out loans to
| pay for their education. I'm not sure what the average debt
| load is currently, but people I personally know who got
| away with a "small" student loan debt owed around $30000,
| and I've known people with >$100k student loan debt just
| from an undergraduate education.
| cykros wrote:
| Parents covering school mostly went away in the 90's
| outside of the particularly wealthy segments of society.
| Mostly student loans since then, which people hope to have
| paid off by the time they retire to avoid having their
| social security payments garnished. Joking of course;
| nobody assumes social security will still be there.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Have you seen what books cost? Not textbooks, like those from
| Pearson or something, but regular books.
|
| This guy is a philosophy professor, so if he is assigning a
| book every 1-2 weeks, in a 14-week semester, let's say that's
| like 8 books.
|
| Buying 8 books for under $100 is cheap. It does sound like he
| takes care to craft an affordable syllabus.
|
| Of course, if you are taking 5 classes a semester it's gonna
| add up, but this is really not on the egregious end of things.
| mschnell wrote:
| We used to peruse the library back in the day.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Ha I would spend a couple hours in front of the library
| copy machine at the start of the semester, and then take my
| stack to the store and get it bound myself.
| cykros wrote:
| In fairness, as a philosophy major, I realized fairly early
| on that most of what we read was out of copyright. I suppose
| if he's assigning stuff that is ABOUT what some philosophers
| wrote, it makes sense, but forgive me if I prefer just saving
| money to read Aristotle from Project Gutenberg.
|
| And sure, there is more contemporary philosophy, and it's
| great he's keeping the books affordable. But if it's anything
| early 20th century or prior, don't be so surprised people are
| going to read what's in the public domain instead.
| rchaud wrote:
| 20 years ago, I would get the book list from the professor and
| purchase the identical "international editions" of the same
| books on Ebay, shipped out from Macmillan India or a foreign
| imprint publisher. They were probably 1/3rd of the US price,
| but the content was identical.
|
| Often times, professors would allow us to purchase earlier
| editions of the book for our coursework, which were a fraction
| of the cost of the most recent edition.
|
| Worst case scenario, I could reserve the book at the school
| library, but I'd have to move fast as there'd only be a handful
| of copies available.
| tzs wrote:
| For those who want to do that today there is no need to
| bother with eBay or shipping from abroad. The publishers
| tried to stop them claiming copyright violation but the
| Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the first sale doctrine
| applies [1].
|
| Since that ruling many independent booksellers in the US
| started importing those foreign editions and selling them
| through online marketplaces such as Abe Books and Biblio.
|
| Here are some examples of the savings. Lets say you are a
| math student, and your introductory calculus is taught from
| the first volume of Apostol's Calculus, your multivariable
| calculus taught from the second volume, and you real and
| complex analysis class uses Rudin's Real and Complex
| Analysis.
|
| The US editions of those will set you back around $220 for
| the first volume of Apostol, around $140 for the second
| volume, and around $240 for Rudin.
|
| On Abe Books you can get the international editions of the
| Apostol books from a US seller for $24.39 for volume 1 and
| $23.40 for volume 2 with free shipping. There are several
| more US sellers with then in the $30-40 range.
|
| For the Rudin book $22.06 will get it from a US seller on Abe
| Books with free shipping. There are few more US sellers in
| the $35-50 range.
|
| Biblio isn't as good on these particular books. They are
| available at comparable price but only from Indian sellers
| with shipping from India.
|
| I haven't seen the international edition of Rudin but I have
| both the US and international editions of both volumes of
| Apostol and the text is the same. It is the physical form
| that differs. The US edition is hardback printed on finer
| paper. The international edition is a paperback printed on
| rougher paper and the pages are smaller.
|
| [1] Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 568 U.S. 519 (2013)
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's worse than that: many textbooks are actually subscription
| services.
| andenacitelli wrote:
| Yes, this is it. You can usually find some discounted or free
| way to get most books, but I had classes where you literally
| submitted homework through the same system you accessed the
| book through, and it was like $150.
| phren0logy wrote:
| I guess I'm on the other side of this. $30-100 is a reasonable
| price for books for a college-level course in the United
| States.
|
| Assuming this https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college
| is accurate, tuition at the mid-level state university in the
| article is probably around $10k/year. That's more than it
| should be, but why would you play $10k/year for classes then
| not buy the books?
| CivBase wrote:
| For the overwhelming majority of students, tuition is not
| paid out of pocket. It's paid with loans. They see it as an
| investment towards a career which will allow them to pay back
| those loans. For many, the weight of their debt does not sink
| in until well after college. Meanwhile, textbooks are an
| immediate cost with an immediate impact on a student's
| financial situation.
|
| I attended university in the early 2010s. After my freshman
| year I stopped buying textbooks for most classes. More than
| just their cost, I found that most textbooks really were
| optional. Most professors never even referenced them
| throughout the course. I figured I could always buy a book
| later if I found out I needed it, but that never happened.
| The few books I actually did buy after my freshman year were
| all mistakes. I have not read any of them and I had no
| trouble with their associated classes.
|
| It sounds like the professor who wrote this article actually
| incorporates the course material he assigns. Good for him.
| But in my experience that is quite rare.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| The best was when you could download the book and share a
| PDF with the class. Fuck the textbook industry, it's
| extortionate.
|
| I would, however, be thrilled to find a $35 text. The
| average cost of my upper division textbooks was closer to
| $200 each. Some courses would assign multiple books.
| znpy wrote:
| > More than just their cost, I found that most textbooks
| really were optional. Most professors never even referenced
| them throughout the course.
|
| Imho that's what makes the textbook overpriced: the
| usefulness in the course. In my academic years i've seen
| some textbook that are actually pleasant to read and that
| you could actually rely on, alone, to pass the course...
| and then so many books that where completely useless:
| either more of a reference than anything else or some
| poorly written text by the same professor holding the
| course.
|
| At some point I resorted to ligben first, and then
| bookstore later and only if the book did deliver some
| actual value.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > For the overwhelming majority of students, tuition is not
| paid out of pocket. It's paid with loans. They see it as an
| investment towards a career which will allow them to pay
| back those loans. For many, the weight of their debt does
| not sink in until well after college. Meanwhile, textbooks
| are an immediate cost with an immediate impact on a
| student's financial situation.
|
| Textbooks can equally well be paid for with college loans,
| they aren't restricted to tuition-only.
| piva00 wrote:
| > Textbooks can equally well be paid for with college
| loans, they aren't restricted to tuition-only.
|
| Making the financial problem with study costs in the USA
| even worse, more cash to buy textbooks from credit means
| higher prices that can be extracted for the books, just
| like any other good which is mostly paid through easily
| achievable loans.
| watwut wrote:
| Because it is an additional expense and fairly often you
| don't actually need it. You are paying a lot of money for
| that one chapter you will maybe have to read and whose
| content you can likely find elsewhere.
|
| Plus, the idea that everyone should buy it is bonkers. There
| are or should be libraries in school that costs $10k a year.
| Or at least, there should be used book from last year or rhat
| one book 5 friends bought together. All these would be
| financially reasonable decisions.
| donatj wrote:
| Yes, I had the exact same thought. $35 is a lot of money to
| people who aren't tenured professors or fully employed
| developers like myself now.
|
| The lack of understanding of economic realities just kinda
| stinks.
|
| It was a long time ago now, but the biggest reason I ended in a
| local two-year college instead of a four-year university was I
| simply couldn't afford the $20 application fees. I only applied
| to two schools because it was all I could afford.
| drewcoo wrote:
| $100 for books for a single course would have seemed cheap to
| me 30 years ago.
| sevensor wrote:
| I live near Big State U. The median student drops that much
| money on booze over two weeks (or one week if it's an important
| holiday like Halloween or Saint Patrick's day).
|
| What I see is that the declining interest in the life of the
| mind that was already evident a generation earlier has
| accelerated, particularly during the COVID years. I see this as
| the reversion of a historical anomaly. In the postwar era, a
| number of things converged: the GI Bill allowed a lot of
| ambitious new blood to enter the university system, competition
| with the Soviets ensured generous funding, and many the finest
| brains of a generation of Europeans relocated to the US. This
| all started to come undone in the late 1960s, when the
| counterculture made the establishment start to question the
| value of the academy, the world war 2 GIs finished their
| educations, and the cream of 1930s Europe died off. Really,
| it's surprising how long we've been able to sustain a decline
| since then.
| gurumeditations wrote:
| They've been sucking up international students from Asia
| mostly to fill in the gap just like everything else. Let
| superior countries raise them then bring them over with the
| lure of big money. It's all the US has to offer anymore is a
| chance for the select few to become part of the 1%,
| oligarchy. 300 million normal people may as well not exist
| here.
| sevensor wrote:
| From what I can tell, children of foreign elites are about
| as serious about education as students born in the US, but
| they drive luxury cars, live in fancy off campus housing,
| and find different things to do that aren't the assigned
| reading. The number of Lamborghinis in town is all out of
| proportion to the area's income.
| cudgy wrote:
| I believe the prior post is referring to first generation
| students that receive their primary education in foreign
| countries.
|
| Like I said in another post, the environment in these
| primary schools in the United States is just not set up
| for success. Their standards are low and they allow smart
| phones and distracting device devices in schools. Not to
| mention the overt focus on athletics over academics.
| However, the last point is not the biggest issue as
| that's been a part of primary education in high school in
| the US for a century at least.
| sevensor wrote:
| Meh. Lazy stereotypes. Imported students can be just as
| dumb as home grown, US-educated students can be just as
| smart as foreign, and I think the distribution is about
| the same everywhere. I think other countries have their
| own malaise, I'm just not in a good a position to
| understand the causes.
| dugmartin wrote:
| I graduated in 1992 with my undergrad in CS - my CS books were
| $100+ per class back then. I think the Dragon Book was $140.
| xtracto wrote:
| Aaah I loved the dragon book!
| casey2 wrote:
| I don't. Outdated on release.
| cudgy wrote:
| At least they have physical textbooks. Many classes now only
| provide links to a PDF document and the students still pay
| $100-$200 for the privilege. Plus, you can't recover a portion
| of the cost of the book by reselling it nor can students save
| money by buying used books.
|
| I disagree that K through 12 is not part of the problem though.
| The presence of phones in schools, especially smart phones, has
| definitely had an impact on the learning skills of students. In
| the old days, if you will, people had to pass physical pieces
| of paper around in class secretly to communicate, which was
| riskier and usually a one or two time event. Smart phones are a
| Pandora's box of distractions. I also blame schools for
| lowering their standards to accommodate the lower standards of
| the students entering their schools. The schools are simply
| passing these students down the down the river of eventual
| disappointment. There should be remedial courses and schools
| should dismiss students that are not willing or able to pass
| these courses in order to have the ability to perform at an
| acceptable level.
|
| Taking their money and providing a degree when they haven't
| actually learned the material is borderline fraud.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Pfft one of my text books isn't even a PDF-- it's a
| proprietary app that requires internet access and is 350mb.
| Doesn't allow copy and paste either of course. And I'm sure
| I'll have to pay another $60 for the license again next
| semester for the second part of the class.
| znpy wrote:
| It's your moral duty to dump that app, extract the contents
| and make a torrent out of it.
|
| I know I'll be flagged and downvoted for this but I don't
| care.
| cykros wrote:
| THAT is gross. At least when books were expensive, you knew
| you could recoup some of that cost the following year
| selling them back. It also meant you could buy them cheaper
| used. Assuming you didn't have a professor assigning their
| own texts and insisting you got the latest edition...
| anal_reactor wrote:
| At my university, every teacher published a PDF with the
| material on their website. In other to pass the exam, I was
| expected to familiarize myself with the PDF. Obviously, the PDF
| could be very long and complicated, but that's beside the
| point. I don't understand why this system is so controversial.
| kcplate wrote:
| > students can be expected to spend up to $100 for textbooks
| (and the author thinks this is low-priced!) is astonishing and
| shows a profound disconnect with the actual financial situation
| of students.
|
| Yeah well, 40 years ago that is what my textbooks cost. I was
| surprised by that quote that they were so inexpensive.
| cykros wrote:
| I wish my books were that cheap. 20 years ago. Even used they
| were well above that price.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I went to college in The 1990s, and that is low priced by
| comparison--not even adjusted for inflation, just by nominal
| prices.
| echoangle wrote:
| > All texts combined for one of my courses is between $35-$100
| and they still don't buy them.
|
| Is that considered cheap in the US? Do people not do like 5
| courses per semester?
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| Pearson make great money charging obscene amounts for books. In
| many subjects they'll have some online component so if you
| thought you could get away with using a second hand copy of
| last year's edition they'll make you have to pay for the online
| access section separately regardless.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Yes. Most textbooks retail in the ~$200 range. I remember that
| I had one class in college that had such a long list of
| recommended textbooks (on top of two required texts) that
| buying all the course materials would cost $3000 retail, and
| this was 10 years ago.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| this professor sounds like an arse:
|
| > > I am frequently asked for my PowerPoint slides, which
| basically function for me as lecture notes. It is unimaginable to
| me that I would have ever asked one of my professors for their
| own lecture notes. No, you can't have my slides.
|
| uhm, why not? smh. even if they contained _answers_ - redact them
| and share. there are plenty of legitimate reasons why someone
| would like them.
|
| anyway, more relevant to the article: get rid of guaranteed
| student loans and all of these problems will solve themselves
| imo. it's no shock people treat college like a joke when there's
| little at stake for them personally. add insult to injury with
| people trying to absolve them of bad decisions in the form of
| getting rid of the little accountability - loans - that they had.
|
| two steps to success: 1. stop forcing college on everyone. 2.
| make colleges guarantee the loans. the quality of the students
| will change, resolving the issue the article author has.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| It's a Western problem. In China students work very hard because
| they had to beat a tough competion to even be able to attend the
| University. And they know that finishing the University with good
| grades will mean a difference between a good life and a hard one.
| In South Korea it's the same.
|
| So, IMO, standards should be kept very high. There is no need
| that all people finish the University. There are plenty of jobs
| that can be done without attending an University. But the problem
| is that even for those jobs there's a degree of competence
| required and some willing to work. And there are people who fail
| at low qualification jobs. Solution? Bring some competition. Hire
| only well prepared people.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| Anything I've read about how South Korea treats its students
| makes me doubt it's the way to go.
| rchaud wrote:
| When it comes to the ChatGPT-ification of cheating, I'd say
| it's an Anglosphere problem, as it's primarily trained on
| English-language material.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| I'm going to say something really out of pocket about the
| average American student, so forgive me.
|
| Americans aren't used to having to compete. When they lose (and
| especially when they lose to foreigners) they get extremely
| resentful and behave as if something has been taken from them.
|
| I think a large part of it is an entitlement issue that's
| pretty common in our culture. But there are also cultural
| undercurrents from resentful Americans who failed to get ahead
| in life that actively denigrate the concept of education and
| the educated.
| linguae wrote:
| Maybe I'm biased because I grew up in a family where my dad
| at one point was a musician and my siblings and I all pursued
| competitive careers at one point in our lives (academia,
| acting, business, music, sports), but I don't know if
| Americans in general are averse to competition. In fact, I'd
| say Americans love competition. Americans generally love
| sports, for example.
|
| I do agree, though, that we Americans could do a better job
| at handling losing, and we also have a problem with people
| and institutions that want to win at any cost, violating
| mores and laws when they are impediments to "winning."
| dartharva wrote:
| That difference in Asian societies as against Western ones
| doesn't come from "higher standards" or whatever; it comes from
| a much more mundane reason: not doing good in school here
| literally has immediate far-reaching consequences because
| everything is scarce and up for brutal competition.
|
| In the West kids can randomly decide to drop entire years after
| high school, or even skip college altogether - because it's
| (apparently) easy to not be immediately destitute without a
| good job. In India and China children grow up witnessing how
| much of a divide that makes, and how thin the line seperating
| their fates from "respectable" to brutal poverty is. No kid
| growing in such an environment will take school lightly.
| only-one1701 wrote:
| I wonder if, as inequality increases and the social safety
| net disappears in the USA, this will change. My parents told
| me "do what you love, as long as you work hard you'll succeed
| and be fine." I did what I loved (the arts), worked my ass
| off and succeeded, and wasn't fine. Thank god I learned to
| code in the 20-teens, when competition was lower.
|
| I most certainly will transmitting a different set of values
| to my kids. Not going to go full straight A's psychopath
| because I've seen what that's done to some peers, but unless
| I win the lottery my kids will not be being told to just "do
| what they love" (unless they happen to love applied math lol)
| zifpanachr23 wrote:
| The only way to keep standards high is to cease using degrees
| solely as class indicators and stop requiring a bachelor's
| degree for the overwhelming majority of white collar jobs (that
| we all know don't need the specific knowledge from the degree
| or else the required degree would be more specific, and that we
| also know the degree doesn't indicate work ethic necessarily,
| go look at the people working much harder precisely because
| they don't have a degree, if anything the degree serves as a
| license to slack off like the upper class so).
|
| Otherwise the potential downside of not graduating with at
| least a bachelor's degree is so devastating that the population
| (who don't want to be perpetually responsible for their adult
| children that have been made unemployable in any decent
| capacity for no reason other than to make certain email job
| people feel important) will accept nothing less than a pass
| rate approaching ever closer to 100%.
|
| If you want to make education rigorous, you have to address
| that problem and then also try to address the K-12 education
| system that faces a similar but more extreme version of the
| same issue (because not being able to properly read and write
| are genuinely bad indicators for the majority of white collar
| jobs, and failing to graduate high school tends to indicate
| fundamental issues in that respect moreso than failing to
| graduate with a bachelor's, which usually just indicates
| immaturity / lack of money / boredom / a million other things
| that don't imply missing fundamental skills).
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _In China students work very hard because they had to beat a
| tough competion to even be able to attend the University_
|
| This is an unfair comparison. The equivalent of those chinese
| students do work as hard in America - they just wouldn't be
| found at OP's school, there would be in a Tier 1 school.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Who do you think worked harder in high school?
|
| A) the median university student in the USA?
|
| B) the median university student in China?
|
| Hint: in China, university admissions is based in large part
| on students's performance on the Gao Kao , a national
| entrance exam, taken at the end of high school.
| mrkeen wrote:
| God help us when those poor students graduate into the real
| world, unable to perform even the simplest metaphysics or
| epistemology!
| dml2135 wrote:
| God help us indeed
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >unable to perform even the simplest metaphysics or
| epistemology
|
| Or brain surgery, or lawyering, or designing roads and
| buildings.
|
| And what if they work at a nuclear power plant?
| mrkeen wrote:
| That's my point though.
|
| Perhaps $100 per course per semester is better spent
| elsewhere, and maybe walking out of a lecture on Dostoevsky
| is the correct thing for a human to do.
|
| Are students walking out of brain surgery classes because of
| phones?
| atribecalledqst wrote:
| I am definitely interested in how things look for STEM majors
| on average, and whether they've seen a similar decline.
| Although the article has a quote from a math professor, and
| that's certainly not a degree you get into without some level
| of dedication.
| baazaa wrote:
| "This is not an educational system problem, this is a societal
| problem. What am I supposed to do? Keep standards high and fail
| them all? That's not an option for untenured faculty who would
| like to keep their jobs. I'm a tenured full professor. I could
| probably get away with that for a while, but sooner or later the
| Dean's going to bring me in for a sit-down."
|
| Sounds like an educational system problem.
|
| I find it very odd the need to blame phones for everything. POTUS
| probably can't read a serious novel cover to cover, few of the
| senior managers at my work can, these kids are all going to pass
| college despite not being able to do it, it's a basic question of
| incentives.
| BoxFour wrote:
| As with so many modern debates, it feels like people quickly
| choose a side and then work backward--rationalizing every
| argument from that perspective without much critical thought
| beyond maybe acknowledging some surface-level issues (yes, phones
| exist and people are probably addicted to them). The author falls
| into this trap too!
|
| Spending $100 on a single course material can be a real burden
| for college students taking multiple classes per term. Sharing
| lecture slides was a basic expectation decades ago. Students were
| cheating long before ChatGPT: The response like the one about the
| UGM could've just as easily been lifted from SparkNotes.
|
| On the other hand: Maybe educational outcomes really are
| declining, but no one wants to pump the brakes because failing
| students might mean less funding. Maybe Socrates actually was
| noticing something real about generational decline--attitudes and
| norms do shift between generations; they're not locked on some
| linear path. Maybe we need to just revisit the concept of
| university as vocational school in general.
|
| We're so preoccupied with proving we're right that we lose the
| ability to honestly evaluate which changes deserve serious
| scrutiny and which ones are just part of the usual generational
| churn aside from the obviously massive ones (like phones). One
| side is wrong and stupid about all facets, my side is correct.
| kebsup wrote:
| I've finished my Bc. in computer science before AI, but even
| then, sitting through a 1.5h long lecture and reading a textbook
| was just not the way to learn.
|
| a) better quality lectures were available online - it's much
| easier to learn linear algebra from top MIT Professor than a
| random one at my university
|
| b) the text books were absolutely terrible compared to what was
| available online
|
| I can understand that 20 years ago people were captivated with
| the physical lectures because it was the only way. Today however,
| professors are competing with 3blue1brown, Khan academy, pre
| recorded lectures from top universities and many more great
| resources. Standing in front of a blackboard slowly going through
| an unintuitive math proof is just not going to cut it and people
| will get bored.
| ghaff wrote:
| I doubt many were "captivated" by large in-person lectures. But
| you didn't really have options.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| In my experience in-person lectures have been a terrible way to
| actually learn (compared to recorded ones or other ways of
| learning):
|
| 1. Lectures are often not held in front of just a handful of
| students, but hundreds, where frequent interaction and
| questioning between student and lecturer becomes practically
| impossible, awkward and socially intimidating. Sitting between
| many other students is incredibly distracting, and I've more
| than once seen students bring _binoculars_ to class, because
| they sat so far away from the blackboard!
|
| 2. Only a small fraction of lecturers are actually good at
| teaching, of being engaged and engaging, clear and concise,
| understandable and empathetic. Not to mention nice handwriting
| or powerpoint style. Being "forced" to listen to someone whose
| style of teaching you don't understand or don't vibe with
| sucks.
|
| 3. If you lose the thread in a deep in-person lecture, you
| might as well just leave. If you watch a recorded one, you can
| rewind as often as you want until you understand it.
|
| 4. Lecture hall rooms are often not the beautiful, comfortable,
| nice places you love to go to that they ought to be (but
| dilapidated, broken, uncomfortable, tight, stuffy and dirty).
|
| In these contexts, sitting in a lecture hall becomes more hell
| than heaven. And professors shouldn't expect their students to
| find their passion while having to endure this.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| >1. Lectures are often not held in front of just a handful of
| students, but hundreds, where frequent interaction and
| questioning between student and lecturer becomes practically
| impossible, awkward and socially intimidating. Sitting
| between many other students is incredibly distracting, and
| I've more than once seen students bring binoculars to class,
| because they sat so far away from the blackboard!
|
| Where on earth did you go to school?
| nothercastle wrote:
| Any big school over 10k students
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Not all learning is about being captivated. You have to eat
| your vegetables
| ihuman wrote:
| Vegetables can taste good if you cook them properly. Healthy
| food doesn't have to taste bad, and lectures don't have to be
| boring either
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| It has happened to _me_ , I don't need to look at following
| generations. I was an avid reader in my teenage years, I was
| devouring anything Crichton, Grisham, Cussler or Robin Cook were
| putting out (hardly Dostoevsky but I was an average teen).
|
| Now I devote my life to work and my 3yo daughter and when I have
| ~1h for myself on a working day (after she's gone to bed) I just
| mindlessly scroll on my phone, and when I've tried to read a book
| I just lost any kind of attention span I had and I realised that
| I've "read" a couple of pages but I wouldn't be able to say what
| they were about because my mind was elsewhere. So I end up
| reading a lot of text on any given day but never literature, it's
| either code, emails, Slack messages, technical docs or
| websites...
| mrkeen wrote:
| I had to retrain myself to read fiction for pleasure. This is
| what worked for me:
|
| Read a paragraph. If you feel like the info isn't going in,
| restart the paragraph, but this time slow down enough so you
| can sound out the words in your head. If the meaning still
| doesn't go in, restart and actually read the words aloud. If
| that still doesn't work, get some sleep and try again tomorrow.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Good advice.
| prisenco wrote:
| I've also had to "relearn" how to read after a decade of
| attention-span-killing apps.
|
| The method I used worked well but it's slow at first. Read a
| paragraph then stop and have a conversation with yourself about
| what _just_ happened. If that 's still too hard, do it every
| sentence and build up.
|
| Eventually move on to every page and eventually every chapter.
|
| Think of it like weightlifting: You were a an olympic lifter
| but you had an accident that left you immobile for years or
| even decades. Now you're getting back to it. Don't get down on
| yourself for not deadlifting like an olympian right away. Start
| with light weights and focus on form.
| nicbou wrote:
| All the progress I have made in that direction came from one
| thing: more free time. The amount I read is directly
| proportional to that.
|
| Perhaps students don't do all these things because they're busy
| as hell trying to keep up with life's endless demands.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Re: the gym
|
| I've always been quick on the weights, if you give me a workout
| plan I'll say something like "that's a great workout plan but it
| needs supersets" [1] It's been a pet peeve of mine for a long
| time that some people sit in the machines _forever_ but it 's
| steadily gotten worse. I complained to the head of the fitness
| center at my Uni two years ago about students sitting in the
| machines and scrolling on their phones.
|
| Lately I've been going to Crunch and over there it seems 90% of
| the young people are wearing Airpods; lately I've been getting
| more assertive about asking "can I cut in?" when somebody has
| been sitting in the leg curl machine for 25 minutes but today it
| involves gesturing wildly like Brain from Inspector Gadget and
| having them take the pods out before I can make the ask, at least
| they are always polite about it.
|
| It's bad enough that I picked up a copy of _Enter the Kettlebell_
| and a 35 pound kettlebell (an intimidating object right now) and
| will probably set up some TRX straps in my AV /VR/rec room. My
| fox wants me to do functional training anyway.
|
| Re: grad students
|
| I'm a non-academic with an academic background who works at a
| research university. My unit shares a kitchen with a bullpen of
| about 40 grad students so I wind up talking to them all the time.
| Pre-pandemic it seemed I could always get them to talk about what
| they were working on but this year many of them seem terribly
| inarticulate. The CSGU union saturates the area with posters that
| explain what they are doing for grad students that should be easy
| to read but I get the impression that some struggle.
|
| [1] https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness/what-is-a-superset
| DeathArrow wrote:
| If students can finish an University without being able to read
| and comprehend a book, if they can pass exams without learning
| anything, then why does the said University still exist?
|
| They just take money without teaching the students anything.
|
| In some countries the universities have to be accredited by some
| body. And they will lose their accreditation if their output is
| just people who are functionally illiterate, know nothing about a
| subject and have no qualifications.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| At many elite US universities the students now enter at a
| struggle because they have never read a novel cover to cover.
| That blew my mind when I read about it just a year or two ago. It
| explains why many younger developers simply cannot write casual
| emails at work and absolutely everything must be a time sucking
| video meeting. It's an excuse to take a nap or do something
| unrelated on a different screen.
|
| It may also explain why so many software developers now are fully
| incapable of developing software. Everything must start from the
| world's largest frameworks and be AI assisted because I guess now
| even copy/paste is too tiresome. If you need to refactor it's
| best to start over from scratch than debug.
|
| The bad news is there are fewer and fewer young candidates
| available capable of writing original software. It's the same
| problem Japan and Korea are having with regard to military
| enlistment. The population is shrinking, less interested, and
| less compatible to the minimal requirements.
|
| The good news is that with this growing competence/compatibility
| gap it gets easier and easier to identify candidates that can
| perform versus those that absolutely have no current hope.
| ben_w wrote:
| While things may be worse now with AI making source code itself
| disposable, and perhaps attention spans really are shorter (I
| wouldn't know either way, though it does sound a bit cliche for
| old people to complain about Kids These Days):
|
| Time-sucking meetings have always been a problem, the
| difference now is just that they're online and you _can_ do
| something else on another screen, rather than been stuck in a
| chair with a notepad to doodle in.
|
| One of the two worst software developers I've ever had to work
| with was heavy on the copy-paste in the early 2010s, I think
| they'd been at it for a decade by that point already. They were
| using C++ and ObjC with manual memory management (and proud of
| it!) due to a complete lack of interest in learning the better
| ways. (The other one was bad in a different way, treated me the
| way I'd treat ChatGPT).
|
| > The good news is that with this growing
| competence/compatibility gap it gets easier and easier to
| identify candidates that can perform versus those that
| absolutely have no current hope.
|
| Is it, though? AI probably interviews better than I myself do
| -- and yet, my main competitive advantage over AI (and, from
| your description, over my human competitors) is that I can
| actually focus on long-horizon tasks. Leetcode, how does
| {library de jour} perform {task}, what's the difference between
| {approach 1} and {approach 2}? That's all stuff that most of
| the LLMs can one-shot.
| ghaff wrote:
| Back when I was a product manager in the late 80s and 90s, I
| had a ton of meetings where I would often have to walk to a
| different building and sit through an hour of meeting with no
| laptop/connectivity even if only 20% was relevant. You really
| couldn't multitask.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > At many elite US universities the students now enter at a
| struggle because they have never read a novel cover to cover.
|
| Meh, who cares? My son is a freshman at a large public high
| school in suburban Chicago. Yes, it's "honors" English, but
| they read a novel cover-to-cover every 3-4 weeks. I get the
| weekly email from the school about which universities are
| visiting. Elite ones never visit, and as an Ivy League grad I
| get notified when they are in the area visiting more
| prestigious schools so I can schedule my son to go over to them
| for a visit (i.e. I know that they come visit in the area).
|
| The elite schools have made their choice. They'll discover
| their mistake later on.
| tekla wrote:
| If a visit from a Ivy League school is the difference from
| submitting a App or not, that's not really the schools
| problem.
| gurumeditations wrote:
| Elite in the economic sense. Places like Harvard are anti-
| progressive and serve to gate keep opportunity and wealth.
| runeblaze wrote:
| To be honest my interviewers couldn't sound less interested
| when I told them about my thoughts on Camus' Caligula and my
| love-hate relationship with Livy's History of Rome when I
| applied for jobs, same when I applied for PhDs.
|
| --------------
|
| Similar things happened when I try to quote Dijkstra and "Out
| of the Tarpit" during coding interviews. I then started to
| quote Uncle Bob and they start to understand more. I am not
| sure people care about reading. Mind you this was the new grad
| job market.
| voidhorse wrote:
| You're not wrong. Another part of the problem is that
| industry itself is rampantly anti-intellectual in many ways.
| I can't tell you how much of an uphill battle it can be to
| get coworkers to even acknowledge a useful idea from academia
| or read papers, even at _good_ companies.
|
| Hell, the "industry languages" are just now more broadly
| adopting good language design ideas that have been around in
| academic contexts for _decades_.
|
| I'm not sure how to do it, but we really need a return to a
| society in which intellectual curiosity and sophisticated
| debate are viewed as worthwhile--our incessant desire to just
| maximize profit as quickly as possible over anything else and
| the sharp division between "the intellectual domain" of
| academy and "the real world" of industry needs to blur and
| evaporate.
| donatj wrote:
| While I am usually pretty skeptical about this sort of thing
| complaining about "kids these days" I am genuinely unsure what is
| going on in our high schools. My niece recently graduated with a
| 4.0 GPA. We played Trivial Pursuit with her at a recent holiday
| party and she could not answer the most basic questions, and most
| egregious of all did not know who Winston Churchill was. My
| mother-in-law, her grandmother, even remarked "What are they
| teaching you in school these days?"
|
| When I was in high school, the kids graduating with 4.0's were
| much smarter than me, and frankly probably smarter than I am now
| twenty years later. I just don't think that is the case anymore.
| tekla wrote:
| Oh god, I remember when Gorbachev died, some late 20's person I
| was talking to at a party remarked something along the lines of
| "Who is that nobody?"
|
| This was a person who considered themselves a socialist.
| aoki wrote:
| In the US, it was estimated that about half of HS grads had an
| A- (3.7) average or better. That was in 2016 and was ~10%
| higher than in 1998, so one should assume that it would be
| higher now.
| mayrio wrote:
| As a college student in the past there have been few times when I
| found it worth it to purchase the course text book. The quality
| of the text books themselves have also degraded over time which
| usually end up being a copy and paste from the previous year with
| different problems.
|
| The average college student must also juggle 4 to 5 rigorous
| classes that each demand 3 to 4 hours of homework in a 24 hour
| day. It makes it very difficult to spend more than the bare
| minimum on any particular concept if you want to stay a float.
|
| I do agree that the lack of attention span the writer points out
| is a real problem. I have seen few people even have the ability
| to read a textbook cover to cover.
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| This is a fun article because while it discusses a real issue, it
| has just enough outdated views to distract people from the main
| point and focus on those.
|
| Having recently finished studies and still being in contact with
| teaching assistants today, the problem is big. Attendance going
| down, participation going down, courses and curriculum
| simplified. I already noticed a big shift after Covid and I'm
| glad I missed the ChatGPT era.
|
| Part of this problem is also because courses have (in my
| experience) rarely rewarded actual knowledge or understanding. In
| our efforts to standardise everything and come to objective
| exams, we've rewarded a culture that just intends to pass with
| the least amount of effort. Next to that are the burdens of being
| a student; if I didn't have to work most nights of the week, I'm
| sure I'd have put more effort into studying.
|
| Lectures were often boring and questions would be answered by
| referring to pages in a textbook. Maybe with recorded media, we
| should revisit the use of lectures.
|
| All in all, I don't see how academia can keep the standards high
| in current society. We'll see how it goes.
| nicbou wrote:
| Perhaps it has to do with the reason people go to university,
| and the pressures they're under.
|
| I remember being a poor student burning through my savings. I
| had no patience for humanities and anything that didn't
| directly help me get gainful employment.
|
| Years later, I love those things, mostly because I am free to
| pursue them at my own pace, without worrying about maintaining
| a high GPA, courting companies that offer internships, building
| up my portfolio, and learning the things that are actually
| related to my job. That's on top of working my way through
| school, trying to make friends in a new city, and pursuing
| happiness.
|
| I suspect that a lot of people are in the same situation,
| cutting corners to make ends meet and remember their early
| twenties as more than endless work and drudgery.
| plsbenice34 wrote:
| Agreed. Having time and a mental health status where one can
| relax and peacefully read a whole book is a luxury. Having a
| job where you can apply any knowledge from your studies is a
| luxury too. Having space in your life to care about knowledge
| and learning for its own sake is a luxury
|
| I didn't enjoy my studies because it was so stressful and i
| had to optimise for exams. I had no choice but to cut corners
| where i could. I was also forced to do many classes that i
| didnt really care about.
|
| Though i have the feeling i can't begin to imagine the life
| of these people that are addicted to their phone, they kind
| of feel like a different species to me
| nothercastle wrote:
| In the university I optimized for exam. The degree was the
| only thing that mattered. Like you now that I'm older and
| wealthier I can lean for learning sake at my pleasure and
| deep dive things I care about.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| >it has just enough outdated views to distract people
|
| Haha, yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It's great this guy
| wrote a textbook, but perhaps he should have authored a series
| of documentaries.
|
| Perhaps reading dense texts isn't actually the best way to make
| an impression on a students mind, but that's just all we had up
| until about 20 years ago.
|
| I think Khan Academy is really great because of the video
| content.
| serjester wrote:
| Agreed when the metric becomes the goal, it stops being a
| useful metric. College attendance seems to fall in that bucket.
| oceanhaiyang wrote:
| As someone who teaches in humanities many students are really
| bad at reading and writing, use ai way too much and it hurts
| them, and rarely pay attention in class.
|
| I've sat in other classes which were indeed boring but I don't
| think this is the common denominator. Undergrads are just high
| schoolers with a different title.
|
| The students from our schools foreign branch that come here for
| a semester or so are leagues beyond local students.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| A lot of people here concentrating on the peripheral details, and
| not so much on the core argument about _basic literacy._
|
| I'm not a lecturer but I have spent too much time on Threads
| recently, which is almost as bad. And two things are obvious
| about posters who are student age or thereabouts.
|
| One is that they have a timid and uncurious view of the world
| which is bizarrely ahistorical. They know about Miyazaki, because
| Ghibli and anime are nice, but they know virtually nothing about
| the history of cinema, literature, art, or music.
|
| Nothing made before around 2000 exists for them. Worse, many are
| actively hostile to it, because it's "problematic" for various
| reasons, all taken from a standard list of words like "colonial"
| and "elitist" which - having no functional knowledge of anything
| before 2000 - they don't entirely understand, but are sure they
| do.
|
| The other is that many of them are completely colonised by
| corporate ideology, and completely unaware of it. Success,
| hustle, grift, attention-farming, social media strategising,
| personal branding, and the rest - it's their core morality. Even
| if they're nominally progressive.
|
| So you get a weird kind of pseudo-morality which appears to be
| socially oriented, but is often just libertarian under a thin
| veneer.
|
| Everyone was surprised by how Gen Z voted, but when you put these
| together it's not so surprising at all.
|
| What's happening is that traditional written literacy has been
| replaced by a new kind of electronic literacy - moving images
| over text, shallow quick-hit emotional manipulation over deep
| insights, transience over permanence, and a kind of entitled
| transactional narcissism driving it all.
| 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
| I still recall (as a student) challenging the colleges' decision
| to drop calc 2 and 3 from my EE program almost 20 years ago
| because the new students couldn't pass them. I had already taken
| them and couldn't imagine how students would be able to fully
| grasp EE fundamentals without them. But the college wasn't
| hearing it. They were replaced with non-core electives.
| LorenzoGood wrote:
| Excuse me! No calculus in an EE course?
| 01jonny01 wrote:
| How did you deal with anything apart from idealised DC
| circuits?
| template_error wrote:
| As a student in the UK, admittedly at a very middle of the road
| non RG, I partially agree with this.
|
| Absolutely, the lack of engagement by my peers I see is insane.
| We have a Discord group for our cohort and the lack of basic
| problem-solving ability and engagement is disheartening. I
| especially remember during my Software Engineering class (in year
| 2, so they have had three programming classes in year one + the
| whole summer to explore), only three of my group out of eight
| actally engaged to a serious extent.
|
| I had to write a parser for a game file format in said class -
| just ASCII text. Some of the non-engaging group members couldn't
| be bothered, or maybe they were scared, to read the nice error
| message I gave for my parser. I designed it to be nice and
| readable, tells you what the issue is (e.g., "extraneous comma"
| or "unknown tile type {}") and the line and column, but I
| effectively had to be support for these people, who just could
| not read the error message.
|
| There's also a massive fear of even basic mathematical analysis
| (e.g., in an algorithms class we were analysing traditional graph
| search algorithms, not that we were asked to prove anything
| ourselves, but were shown lemmas and relations and I recall my
| cohort reeling at it).
|
| Part of this is definitely AI, most people cannot program without
| GPT, even to a basic extent.
|
| I'm not particularly intelligent, I just work and engage with my
| studies. I can't imagine just going to university and coasting
| (though the UK loan system incentivises that, but that's another
| story) I think we have too many people going to university (I
| blame Blair) because it's the societal expectation, and a loan is
| given instantaneously to anyone who applies.
|
| This may be part of just going to a mediocre university though. I
| plan to do a postgraduate, ideally at a much better university,
| hopefully my peers there will be significantly more engaged.
|
| Attendance is a big thing, and I fall into this myself. My
| university has a policy of recording all lectures, so why go? I
| know it's 'wrong', but I feel I learn more efficiently with a
| recording, and due to the lack of engagement I mentioned earlier,
| it's not like there's a seminar style where we all come having
| read a research paper or something and discuss it, or go through
| exam questions (honestly, I would love that and actually attend -
| but I doubt that many students would do the reading). It is just
| a lecture which I can just watch at home. This does hurt the
| community spirit of the university, but honestly I'm not that
| bothered.
|
| However, I completely disagree with the textbooks (though let's
| be real, if students wanted to read them - many could just pirate
| them, but they don't) section, as well as the slides. I also
| agree that note-taking is important, but to completely lose the
| original content seems unnecessary (I appreciate the argument
| that in the workplace meetings are only taken down as minutes vs
| a recording though).
| QuiEgo wrote:
| The government needs to mandate cell base stations geofence off
| service to schools during school hours, with a provision for
| first responders and school admins to turn it back on during
| emergencies.
|
| Or have cell jammers in schools.
| snapplebobapple wrote:
| anybody else read this and think "Why are you graduating these
| midwits then? This is why a university degree is useless at this
| point, it's lost all signalling value because someone who is
| awesome gets the same degree as someone functionally illiterate
| with an 8th grade writing level. The person with the 8th grade
| writing level should have an 8th grade diploma!"
|
| The problem is not the phones, k-12, etc. The problem is
| something like 38% of the workforce has a bachelor's degree and
| it probably should be more like max 25%. This guy's very average
| college is likely majority people who should not be in a college
| degree program and his college is graduating them regardless of
| failure to attain an actual education.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| It is not fair to call ChatGPT usage as cheating. It is
| reasonable for a student to use all available resources. To
| expect anything else is foolish.
|
| Also, in this day and age, expecting someone to pay $100-$200 for
| a textbook also is foolish. Educators look to be more self-
| serving than they realize.
| tasuki wrote:
| > I am frequently asked for my PowerPoint slides, which basically
| function for me as lecture notes. It is unimaginable to me that I
| would have ever asked one of my professors for their own lecture
| notes. No, you can't have my slides.
|
| Why not?
|
| Despite the disclaimer, this part made me think it actually might
| be an old man shaking a fist at clouds...
|
| > Our job is to kindle that flame, and we're trying to get that
| spark to catch, but it is getting harder and harder and we don't
| know what to do.
|
| Yes, it's a difficult job. TikTok is captivating. Good luck.
| Balgair wrote:
| Lines that stood out to me and reactions to them (oh god, I'm
| doing a react video, I hate those):
|
| > They're like me clicking through a mandatory online HR training
|
| - I mean, this whole essay then gets reflected the exact same
| upon the JDs the school has hired, right? They're thinking the
| exact same thing about you, from the legal perspective
|
| > Why buy what you aren't going to read anyway? Just google it.
|
| -Is this person telling the students to pirate? I mean, good!,
| but you should come out and just say that, I think.
|
| > Their writing skills are at the 8th-grade level
|
| -This is the average for a US adult (same with grade reading
| level). All you're saying here is that the university is
| selecting for average people.
|
| > I can't assign papers any more because I'll just get AI back,
| and there's nothing I can do to make it stop
|
| - ... then stop assigning papers? What am I missing here? Look,
| Plato bemoans that people use writing to not memorize everything
| anymore. I'm sorry that the essay that you loved as a tool for
| the mind is essentially dead (and I am too), but we must be brave
| enough to face that fact and move on.
|
| > W. V. Quine's Methods of Logic ... There is no possible way our
| students, unless they were math or computer science majors, would
| survive that class.
|
| -Funny! I took this exact same book for a class ~20 years ago
| (...oh god...). I was a STEM major then and the book is
| essentially just boolean algebra. I whizzed through it, mostly
| hungover, and all the Philosophy majors barely scraped by.
| Nothing's changed!
|
| >Chronic absenteeism.
|
| -Okay, yeah, this is a new thing to me, possibly. I skipped out
| on an entire GE class once and managed to get a high grade all
| the same. It was a frosh level class I was just taking for the GE
| credits though and I was in upperdivision so I never went as I
| already knew the material. Maybe this is something that is
| happening with them? That's the most caritable I can get though.
| I think the author has a real point here.
|
| > look to your right. Now look to your left. One of you will be
| gone by the end of the semester. Don't let it be you
|
| -I had the exact same speech given to me ~20 years ago, and it
| was true. Granted this was a physics class, no philosophy. But
| yeah, especially at the freshman level, the kids fail out of
| school or change majors a lot. That's the beans.
|
| > I'm supposed to believe that they suddenly, urgently need the
| toilet, but the reality is that they are going to look at their
| phones. They know I'll call them out on it in class, so instead
| they walk out.
|
| -Sounds reasonable to me? Also it sounds like this professor
| likes being _the professor_ more than they like teaching people.
| At that age, I 'd walk out all the time too. Like, these people
| are adults, yeah, respects must go both ways. But calling people
| out on it is, to me, kinda a jerk move.
|
| > I am frequently asked for my PowerPoint slides, which basically
| function for me as lecture notes. It is unimaginable to me that I
| would have ever asked one of my professors for their own lecture
| notes. No, you can't have my slides
|
| -What the everliving shit?! This person is an asshole? Right?
| What the fuck was the point of doing this digitally if you can't
| just endlessly copy and things for free? My company thrives on
| .ppts and those get sent around like so much spam email. Is this
| professor living in the stone age? what the hell am I missing
| here?
|
| > Last week I had an email from a student who essentially asked
| me to recap an entire week's worth of lecture material for him
| prior to yesterday's midterm
|
| -Ok yeah, no, that's totally fair. Fuck that student, they're an
| asshat.
|
| > Gambling, looking at the socials, whatever, they are not
| listening to me or participating in discussion. They are staring
| at a screen.
|
| -Okay, yeah, this is really why I wanted to 'react' at this. The
| gambling thing, the addictions. Michael Lewis ( _Moneyball_ ),
| has a recent set of articles out on the sports gambling in the
| US. TLDR: This is as bad as the opioid epidemic. If Mike Lewis is
| saying that it's as bad as pill popping, look, you should sit up
| and take action fast. It's almost entirely young men, it's nearly
| all of them, and about half of them will develop to 'problematic
| gambling' and ~1/5th to full blown 'gambling addiction'.
|
| What that means for our dear Professor here is that almost all
| your 'male students' (because of that metric alone) should be
| seen as you would look at medium-heavy opioid users, that are
| popping pills in your class right now in front of you. How would
| you treat someone that is doing drugs in your class as you teach?
| Are you going to treat them a little differently, yeah? Like,
| nearly wanting to throw them out of the classroom right there?
| Because that is more akin to what is happening than a simple
| Tiktok addiction.
|
| Look, this country has all of a sudden dug a lot of potholes in
| the road of life for it's youth. Legal weed, gambling, vapes,
| porn, AI, tinder, etc. It all adds up to a young person trying to
| navigate it all. Unfortunately, yeah, that's going to affect the
| classroom too and the person teaching it.
|
| > A missed quiz from a month ago might as well have happened in
| the Stone Age; students can't be bothered to make it up or even
| talk to me about it because they just don't care.
|
| -Yeah, that's nothing new I'd think. I imagine this professor is
| mostly bemoaning that they love their subject and school and many
| students just, well, don't. Oh, and they're addicted to their
| phones.
|
| > It's the phones, stupid. They are absolutely addicted to their
| phones.
|
| -Yes. Yes! YES! You're not going to be competing with all the
| PhDs out of your psych department that are getting paid 10-50x
| your salary now to make sure the undergrads are gambling away the
| student loan chacks and are endlessly looking at makeup ads and
| porn and the hell that is tinder. Yes! They are addicted. Treat
| them as addicts.
|
| > What am I supposed to do? Keep standards high and fail them
| all?
|
| -YES! They must learn the lesson now, or they will never get a
| job, right? This is the kind thing to do to them, not the nice
| thing, but the kind thing.
|
| > That's not an option for untenured faculty who would like to
| keep their jobs. I'm a tenured full professor. I could probably
| get away with that for a while, but sooner or later the Dean's
| going to bring me in for a sit-down. Plus, if we flunk out half
| the student body and drive the university into bankruptcy, all
| we're doing is depriving the good students of an education.
|
| -Okay, yeah, university education has become captured by the very
| same forces that have addicted your students. No, you're not
| going to deprive them of anything, it seems, they are already
| there per this essay. Yes, you're all out of a job, and so now it
| affects you and now you care? I'm not seeing why I should have a
| lot of sympathy here. You're not doing the job, the department
| isn't caring about it's non-TT personnel, let alone adjuncts, let
| alone student. It seems to me that ya'll need to give a shit
| about something other than yourself and your interests? I know
| this is a rant, so logical consistency isn't supposed to really
| be a part of this. But I'd love a follow up essay that goes into
| what they think could feasably happen to fix all this.
|
| > It's not our fault. We're doing the best we can with what we've
| been given.
|
| -Well, I'm sorry to say (as a random internet commentor with no
| skin in the game), bu it sounds like you all need to get together
| and demand to be given more or just quit.
|
| > All this might sound like an angry rant. I'm not sure. I'm not
| angry, though, not at all. I'm just sad.
|
| -Yeah man, I think that's all of us. Regroup after this semester
| and try to get the department together over dinners this summer
| and think up a better way forward. Do not do this alone, get
| allies together and make it better. The kids are worth it.
|
| > Our job is to kindle that flame, and we're trying to get that
| spark to catch, but it is getting harder and harder and we don't
| know what to do.
|
| -Yeah. Pause then. It sounds like this professor is burnt out and
| needs a break. The ax needs a sharpening.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Average person is stupid. It took the author his entire career in
| education to reach this conclusion. Congratulations.
| jt-hill wrote:
| If you can bear with me while i attempt a synthesis here, I think
| this one line captures basically the entire dynamic, but the
| author seems to seriously underweight its explanatory value.
|
| > The average student has seen college as basically transactional
| for as long as I've been doing this
|
| It is a transaction. The number of students there because they
| want to learn a subject rounds to zero. A college degree
| (especially from good old State U) serves first and foremost as a
| white-collar job permit. The students (or their
| parents/lender/state) are purchasing the permit from the
| institution. They are the customer. Anything you, the employee,
| ask of them beyond the minimum to hold up the fig leaf is a waste
| of the students' time (from their perspective) and a violation of
| the implied terms of this transaction.
| bloppe wrote:
| Sure, but not all degrees are equal. Institutions have
| reputations based on how smart / effective their graduates tend
| to be. So by making it harder for the careless ones to
| graduate, a university can enhance the value of the degree for
| those that do. Even with the transactional attitude, it would
| behoove students to want to be pushed.
| casey2 wrote:
| Yet institutions don't do this so your reasoning is faulty.
| Particularly at the "value of the degree" line. There are
| few, if any, degrees that provide value and even fewer that
| provide employable skills.
|
| Entrenched companies use this to their advantage and have
| their own recruitment pipelines.
| jt-hill wrote:
| That is true, but I don't think the students are the ones
| responsible for the second and third order effects of
| maintaining academic rigor. They're just playing the game
| they're given.
| uxp100 wrote:
| I can't find the exact citation at the moment, but I believe
| that American students were described as viewing the education
| process as transactional in a wider sense by Max Weber in 1905
| (Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism I think?)
| Nition wrote:
| I can say at least that it was a major point in Zen and the
| Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974).
| bruce511 wrote:
| You're not wrong, many students approach college as a
| vocational training facility. I'd say they do want to learn,
| but the focus is on "learning to get a job".
|
| If you're lucky (and I was) at some point you understand that
| it's not about the material, it's about the process.
|
| Research, assimilate, question, formulate, communicate.
|
| These skills, and the understanding of how to use them, are the
| real goal -the material is just there to keep your interest.
|
| Yes, obviously, if you are going into chemistry then learn
| chemistry and so on. But round out your course with other
| things. Oceanography can give you insight to computer science,
| literature can promote better communication.
|
| Alas a large number of folks will leave college and never grasp
| the real value of why they were there. That's OK. The world
| needs workers.
|
| But if you are at college now, or perhaps going soon, try and
| see beyond the next assignment. Try and see the process which
| underlies it.
|
| Most of all college is there to teach you to think. So stop
| doing for just a moment and start thinking.
|
| Once you see behind the curtain you can't unsee it. And
| ironically even if I tell you it's there, I can't _make_ you
| look. Experience doesn 't work like that.
| blandcoffee wrote:
| Do you think this might be tied to a person's financial
| situation?
|
| Grow up with a safety net, you'll enjoy the process.
|
| Grow up poor and/or with people depending on you and you
| focus on the end state?
| Clubber wrote:
| I would argue the opposite.
|
| Grow up with a safety net and you don't take it seriously.
|
| Group poor and/or with people depending on you, you
| understand the task at hand.
|
| I goofed off a lot in college until I was tired of partying
| and realized I was going nowhere; about end of Sophomore
| year. All the older folks who paid their own way sure took
| it seriously. For reference, I'm also GenX.
|
| I'm sure motivations range from what I suggested to what
| you suggested.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I'm confused with your comment, because you start here:
|
| > If you're lucky (and I was) at some point you understand
| that it's not about the material, it's about the process.
|
| > Research, assimilate, question, formulate, communicate.
|
| But then follow that with:
|
| > Alas a large number of folks will leave college and never
| grasp the real value of why they were there. That's OK. The
| world needs workers.
|
| Like... I guess it depends what precisely you mean by
| "workers" but in my mind at least, if we're thinking
| similarly, that would be white-collar office workers. And
| what you describe in the previous quoted section is, IMHO, a
| perfectly reasonable breakdown of what college is preparing
| them to do. But then the subsequent line feels like a
| criticism of the output of that.
| arcmechanica wrote:
| The process underneath is busy work to make some learning
| criteria milestone for accreditation
| flopsamjetsam wrote:
| > Research, assimilate, question, formulate, communicate.
|
| I really love this. I'll try and bear this in mind over the
| next few years.
|
| I'm a mature-aged student going for their second degree (CS
| the first time, science this time). I am loving the subject
| but it's hard at the beginning because the amount of new
| stuff I have to absorb is overwhelming. At the times when I
| have a bit of a breather -- either when I'm "getting it" or
| during mid-semester break -- I find the subject (biology)
| wonderful.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| That's part of it, but the author acknowledges that college has
| been transactional for quite a while. What has exacerbated the
| issue was COVID and the rise of extremely potent, addictive
| social media. I wouldn't be surprised if we look back on social
| media as the digital equivalent of children drinking and
| smoking weed, i.e. something that causes permanent damage to
| one's brain.
| jt-hill wrote:
| The technology may be amplifying the effects because that's
| what technology does but it is not a change to the underlying
| dynamics.
|
| "The average college student today" is not uniquely lazy or
| lacking in character. They just have better tools to respond
| to the same incentives.
|
| I'm not saying it's good - it's clearly an unsustainable
| trend, but the students are not the ones driving it, so
| they're not equipped to stop it.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| The transaction has changed a great deal though. GPA used to
| be more heavily weighted and professors used to be more
| essential for references. You might bring your transcript to
| an interview. Now, it seems to be all about projects.
| Coursework has dwindled in relevance.
| deadbabe wrote:
| That's why most students will never truly find a job - they're
| all too busy looking.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| > It is a transaction.
|
| That is a purely rational take, but people are seldom rational.
| My pet theory is that inertia is a huge reason why people
| choose college. Majority of people who go to college do it as a
| continuation of 10-12 years of continuous schooling (or
| partying). As they climb educational or social hierarchies they
| are constantly reminded that college is a next step. Thus going
| to college feels far more familiar and less scary than joining
| the workforce. Thus, going to college is a default choice for
| many.
|
| After the gut decision is made it can be wrapped into whatever
| rational argument.
| sky2224 wrote:
| As a student currently, I'll also throw in this perspective.
| The colleges themselves make it feel transactional and not
| about learning even if I'm interested in doing so.
|
| For example, I'm taking a physics course right now (electricity
| and magnetism). The concepts are difficult for me and I was
| hoping that the homework would help. So, I go to do the
| homework, but the homework is online. With the online homework
| I get five chances to get the problem correct, but there is
| zero partial credit, zero feedback, and every time I get the
| answer wrong, it negatively impacts my grade.
|
| I have no chance to make mistakes and learn. At least with
| homework that was handed out back in the day, there was at
| least the possibility of partial credit being handed out. So my
| options are going to office hours (which I try to do), go to
| tutoring hours (which conflicts with my job's work schedule),
| or go to ChatGPT and/or Chegg.
|
| Additionally, since students have been cheating, I think it
| gives professors a skewed perspective on how much time is
| actually needed to get work done, so the deadlines get moved
| up. This means I get even more pressure put on me when I'm just
| trying to learn and be a good student.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| I agree to some extent. A wild one to me is how schools will
| limit the number of classes you can take and/or pressure you
| to graduate on time even if it means choosing a major before
| you're really ready. That seems like a surefire way to kill
| any interest in exploring knowledge and replace it with a
| focus on mechanical box-checking.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> A college degree (especially from good old State U) serves
| first and foremost as a white-collar job permit._
|
| Only so long as the college doesn't devalue the credential.
|
| If I interview a few people with a CS degree from College A and
| I find they don't know the basics of programming - then the
| credential loses value; why would I bother interviewing people
| from such a college?
|
| So colleges have to balance the needs of their stakeholders -
| employers/ graduates want the credential to be a sign of
| education; and current students who want good grades and less
| work.
|
| The "implied terms of the transaction" have _always_ been that
| current students have to learn enough that they 're not
| devaluing the credential.
| garciasn wrote:
| I have interviewed prospective employees who come in with no
| academic credentials all the way through to those who have
| completed degree programs at one of the top 50 universities.
| Regardless of university, students are individuals and
| shouldn't be given more or less credit because of the name of
| the school they attended.
|
| Full. Stop.
|
| That said: plenty of big name research universities are
| housing folks who do little except study coding interviewing
| questions for FAANG and expect you to be impressed that they
| spent 9-18 months at one.
|
| As an aside: I don't care that someone is ex-Amazon; it's
| their work that will impress me, not where they worked
| previously and were presumably let go because they couldn't
| hack it.
|
| Let's not lump all students into groups simply because of the
| college they attended. I went to a regional university
| because they offered the biggest D1 athletic scholarship for
| early signing; not because I cared about anything other than
| free education. Similarly, my masters was free through my
| employer.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I don't agree personally. I went to school about 10 ago to a
| private University (nearly full ride because universities used
| to care about PSAT performance for no clear reason). My school
| was heavy on co-ops meaning it was more job outcome focused
| than most.
|
| In my opinion it was mostly a rite of passage thing. It was the
| first time I was granted independence including personal
| responsibility, a brand new social network, sex, etc.
|
| It was just adulthood with training wheels. I'm not going to
| argue that sounds like an ideal social structure but it was
| very useful to me. The raw alternative of jumping into the
| workforce probably would have led to bad outcomes even if it
| all worked out economically.
|
| The stepping stone to employment felt like it was just sort of
| assumed like finishing high school. I felt nothing getting
| either diploma.
|
| I might feel some serious existential dread if the market I was
| entering resembled the one now though.
| nzzn wrote:
| People are lazy.
|
| American students are mostly rich by any global standard and
| very, very lazy. Doesn't matter a huge amount as they don't
| matter -- they will amount to nothing anyway. The States imports
| enough talent to make up for the lacuna. In the meantime, their
| parents pump cash into what will become their Alma Maters.
|
| When I went to an Ivy League US university as a grad student I
| was astonished at the remedial nature of undergraduate courses.
| Content that students in my country mastered at 13 needed to be
| spoon-fed to US students that were 5-6 years older.
|
| Even back then almost nobody failed a course in the US. It was a
| major deal to fail someone. I came from a culture where the
| standard was absolute. No curve. Get below z% and you spent the
| Summer getting ready for a retake. Fail that, and you were out.
|
| Education was paid by the State so it wasn't a business. Profs
| could fail 20 - 40% of a class and often did.
|
| It is astonishing that a Philosophy prof is seeing this. Who the
| fuck does philosophy at Uni and can't be arsed to read the
| recommended texts?
|
| He/she is a full Prof. Almost impossible to fire. So fail the lot
| of those entitled, lazy, bums I say. Enjoy that tenure!
| immibis wrote:
| Low attention span isn't an illness. It's an adaptation to live
| in a world where information is available, even thrust at you,
| from all sides, but most of it has negative, zero, or very low
| positive value and there are no sources of consistently high
| quality.
|
| When I visit Hacker News I don't click on every link and read it.
| I read the headlines and click on the interesting ones. But I
| don't even _read_ the headlines - I skim them. I skip over "Rust
| Any part 3: we have upcasts" and go straight to the next item:
| "Everyone knows all the apps on your phone".
|
| My email inbox is the same way. Because I get all this marketing
| stuff, newsletters, mailing lists, recurring invoices (for a
| successful payment that's about as important as reading a daily
| email about a successful cron job).
|
| Why don't I unsubscribe from everything? Because _sometimes_ they
| 're interesting. So I have to skim the headlines and pick them
| out. I receive everything, then filter it. (I knew about Bitcoin
| in 2009, Talk to Transformer in early 2020, and CLIP/VQGAN in
| 2021. If only I had an ounce of business sense, though it's
| reassuring that nor do most other people)
|
| This is the wrong mode for school, where they're trying to teach
| you something specific deeply. But someone who's _only_ operated
| in this mode for their whole life isn 't going to be able to turn
| it off just for school, right?
|
| I think in the past we received information through a lot less
| channels - an unusually large amount would be two or three
| newspapers on your doorstep every day and five to ten monthly
| magazine subscriptions. And many of them had relatively limited
| scope - like magazines about gardening or weightlifting - so you
| could unsubscribe if you didn't like that topic. Reddit and
| Twitter and Instagram try to be sources of _everything_.
| rsanek wrote:
| The author says he's not "putting down" the students he's
| describing, but the codescention is spread so thickly through
| every paragraph that it's hard to believe him.
|
| I concur with the other commenters about him also being
| disconnected from costs. Textbook prices, like those of other
| expenses related to higher education, have skyrocketed over the
| last five decades. [0]
|
| [0] https://myelearningworld.com/textbook-prices-vs-inflation/
| rsanek wrote:
| > They can't sit in a seat for 50 minutes. Students routinely get
| up during a 50 minute class, sometimes just 15 minutes in, and
| leave the classroom... I've even told them to plan ahead and pee
| before class, like you tell a small child before a road trip, but
| it has no effect.
|
| These are adults. It sounds like you know they're not going to
| the bathroom, so reminding them of this (and treating them like
| children) is infantilizing and damages the relationship.
|
| I would also mention, I also have a hard time sitting still for
| 50 minutes. One of my professors used the Pomodoro method in
| class -- after 25 minutes of lecture, he would stop, tell people
| to get up, stretch, walk around, chat, whatever, before starting
| up again in 5 minutes. It was awesome and showed huge respect for
| the students. I never missed a class of his.
| flakiness wrote:
| In Japan's heyday (late 1990s), college life was described
| similarly (modulo the Internet), and it was said that American
| college students worked hard to graduate successfully. So this
| can be a symptom of the US's economic success -- such an irony.
|
| College students in today's declining Japan are working harder
| than ever before, and they're complaining about their parents'
| (now grandparents?) generation's broken understanding of the
| reality of college life.
| obscurette wrote:
| While phones and social media certainly contribute, I think that
| the main problem is elsewhere - most of young people just refuse
| to take any responsibility. I'm in my sixties now and remember
| that since first grade it was solely my responsibility to study.
| Yes, my grandmother and mother helped, reminded me things etc,
| but I wasn't allowed to say "but teacher didn't ...". It was
| sharply cut with "nobody cares, you have books and friends and
| can study yourself".
|
| Now while I was a teacher I didn't see a single student with
| parents like this. It was always teachers' fault if a kid didn't
| learn, got a bad grade, just didn't listen or behaved like an
| asshole.
| pdntspa wrote:
| This tracks with my experience in a regional state school
| business program about 15 years ago, only it has gotten
| considerably worse by the authors' description. It was horrifying
| to realize that these people would eventually become my manager,
| or worse, C-suite.
|
| Intellectualism is at all-time lows. Weep!
| treis wrote:
| How's your latin and ancient Greek?
| pdntspa wrote:
| I think you're confusing intellectualism with classical
| academics
| moojacob wrote:
| This was written by an Ivy League professor. When can we stop
| pretending Ivy League students are any better than state school
| students? So much talent at state schools being overlooked
| CognitiveLens wrote:
| You're kind of making his point - the second and third
| paragraphs are explicitly about the fact that he is not an Ivy
| League professor. Be the change you want to see in the world by
| doing the reading first.
| moojacob wrote:
| Touche. Thank you
| ffitch wrote:
| The share of adults with a higher education degree almost doubled
| during the author's teaching career. No surprise a median student
| is less capable and motivated today.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Many people see the increase in proportion of young people
| graduating college as a sign that the education system has
| improved, not that standards have been lowered.
|
| What's obvious to you isn't obvious to them :(
| OfCounsel wrote:
| Pedantically, the grandparent comment didn't say it was
| obvious, only it was unsurprising :)
| woopwoop wrote:
| > They want me to do their work for them. During the Covid
| lockdown, faculty bent over backwards in every way we knew how to
| accommodate students during an unprecedented (in our lifetimes)
| health crisis. Now students expect that as a matter of routine. I
| am frequently asked for my PowerPoint slides, which basically
| function for me as lecture notes. It is unimaginable to me that I
| would have ever asked one of my professors for their own lecture
| notes. No, you can't have my slides. Get the notes from a
| classmate. Read the book. Come to office hours for a conversation
| if you are still confused after the preceding steps. Last week I
| had an email from a student who essentially asked me to recap an
| entire week's worth of lecture material for him prior to
| yesterday's midterm. No, I'm not doing that. I'm not writing you
| a 3000-word email. Try coming to class.
|
| I dunno man. Not writing a 3000 word email is one thing, but if
| you make a power point an then don't share it electronically, it
| smells like you are cajoling students to attend your lectures in
| order to stroke your ego. These people are paying a lot of money
| to attend your course; if they feel that they would get more
| value out of looking at your power point without attending your
| lectures that is not something that should be sneered away. Both
| as an undergraduate student and a graduate TA I was always very
| put off by this kind of high-handed bullying instructors would
| engage in to juice attendance of their courses. Just teach well
| and evaluate accurately. That's what they're paying you for.
| They're not paying for you to harass them into being at some
| inconvenient place at a particular time every Monday, Wednesday,
| and Friday.
| casey2 wrote:
| It's bizarre that someone claiming to be an English teacher
| doesn't grasp why people started and stopped reading. Your role
| existed solely to legitimize the print media industry and shall
| quietly disappear with its demise. You aren't special, nothing
| you do matters. Give up.
| joshdavham wrote:
| > What has changed exactly? Chronic absenteeism. As a friend in
| Sociology put it, "Attendance is a HUGE problem--many just treat
| class as optional." Last semester across all sections, my average
| student missed two weeks of class.
|
| My brother and I graduated from university a little over 4 years
| ago and we were both top students (he studied music and I studied
| applied math). There were classes where he and I (without
| exaggeration) skipped more than 90% of the lectures.
|
| I understand that some professors view this as disrepsectful, but
| when your lectures consist of simply reading off the lecture
| notes that you're going to upload online anyway, lectures become
| a waste of time that could be better spent with more studying on
| our own.
| serjester wrote:
| Agreed. In college I would always go to the first class, see if
| the lecture was useful and probably 80% of the time I wouldn't
| go again.
|
| Although I do sympathize with many of the author's broader
| points.
| Nebasuke wrote:
| I think this is a good point. I found the following sentences
| of the article shocking:
|
| > I am frequently asked for my PowerPoint slides, which
| basically function for me as lecture notes. It is unimaginable
| to me that I would have ever asked one of my professors for
| their own lecture notes.
|
| It makes you wonder whether the lecturer actually values the
| time of the students. Having to take notes because they are not
| provided, rather than getting value from a lecture due to
| interactive participation sounds like a waste of time. This
| sounds exactly like the type of lecture I would have skipped.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I'd post that straight lecture is a crap way to teach/learn.
| And the large auditorium classes that are common at most
| state Us are fundamentally broken. Interactive discussion is
| probably much better for most students.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| The one course where I showed up to every class was a
| discussion class. It was on AI and each lecture was a 10
| minute topic intro, 30 min of group discussion and
| research, and 10 min of presentations.
|
| The courses I never attended a single class for were
| reading screenshots of a textbook.
| nothercastle wrote:
| Idk my fellow student didn't have any more insight than I
| did. Without work experience it's all theoretical
| hollandheese wrote:
| Pretty much everyone but the actual students agree that
| would be better. We can't do that since the students
| typically refuse to do the necessary prep.
| JackFr wrote:
| It is not interactive because the professor has demonstrated
| mastery of the subject matter and thoughts, ideas and
| suggestions of the students are an order of magnitude less of
| less value than that of the professors.
|
| Some subjects are conducive to the Socratic method but hard
| sciences and mathematics for instance are not. Ultimately you
| are trying to speedrun 500 years or so of discovery and
| research and while motivating problems often help, sometimes
| you just need to read the book, listen to the lectures and
| put in some effort.
| bsder wrote:
| > Having to take notes because they are not provided, rather
| than getting value from a lecture due to interactive
| participation sounds like a waste of time. This sounds
| exactly like the type of lecture I would have skipped.
|
| Erm, a philosophy "lecture" is generally more like a
| discussion session. The value isn't in the "lecture notes";
| the value is in the discussion going around the room.
|
| The goal is to personally develop an informed opinion on
| nebulous concepts.
|
| In the best ones, your opinion is in opposition, and you have
| to argue that yours is correct. And you have to examine your
| axioms to see which ones you disagree on. You read authors
| like Socrates and Aristotle not to be memorized as
| authoritative, but to understand where their arguments were
| strong and, more importantly, where they were _faulty_.
|
| The primary value is in _exercising your mind_. You can 't do
| that for "discussion" classes unless you attend the lectures.
|
| Although, _every_ student having 4+ missed classes (he said
| _2 weeks_ not _2 lectures_ ) for a discussion-based subject
| really is kind of unreasonable.
|
| Side note: Being an engineer in a class with philosophy
| majors was _fascinating_ --the sheer amount of
| misunderstanding about basic science (let alone quantum
| mechanics) was staggering. It also opens your eyes about what
| you can and cannot take for granted.
| hollandheese wrote:
| A professor's lecture notes would never be good notes for a
| student to learn from. They are simply reminders to the
| professor to talk about certain topics that they know the ins
| and outs of.
|
| Half the time my lecture notes consist of a couple of
| problems to use as examples and nothing else.
| kashunstva wrote:
| > This sounds exactly like the type of lecture I would have
| skipped.
|
| I understand that one could jump to such a conclusion; and
| I've attended more than my fair share of talks where the
| speaker over little more than I could glean from looking over
| the printouts for a few minutes.
|
| But here, can we truly come to the conclusion that the slides
| are being read verbatim, or whether they are placeholders for
| a richer discussion that comes out verbally in class? We
| obviously cannot know, but I can't say that I'd pre-commit to
| skipping before knowing more.
| mcdeltat wrote:
| Agreed, when I was at uni a few years ago, having the lecture
| slides was a handy reference EVEN when I wrote my own notes
| during lectures.
|
| One thing it helps with is for professors with their own
| special take on a subject where you have to use the exact
| right obscure method that only exists in their 20 year old
| slides and nowhere else. Or if the textbook is garbage or
| doesn't exist. When your course context is not the latest and
| greatest information, having the slides is handy for passing.
| kmoser wrote:
| I'm guessing you and your brother are both well above average,
| in which case I'd agree that you could get more out of studying
| on your own (if the material was even challenging to begin
| with).
|
| The students referred to in the article don't have the
| wherewithal to study effectively on their own; the lectures are
| their only hope for learning, assuming they were to take
| advantage of them. Also, many classes are not simply lectures,
| but an opportunity to ask questions of the teacher. By not
| coming to class, one robs themselves of that opportunity.
| cyrillite wrote:
| In my experience it's one or the other: attend all the
| lecturers and nullify the need to study more than that
| attendance and some specific exam revision if they drop hints
| or don't attend but do the readings. I think a lot of being a
| successful student is cutting through all the duplicative
| work that gets thrown your way.
| jenny91 wrote:
| Fully agree as a "top student" from probably a school similar
| to where author is a professor.
|
| I would add that reading this piece and the attitude the author
| has towards students, I doubt I would want to attend their
| class (or possibly even take it in the first place, professors
| have reputations).
| 1932812267 wrote:
| One thing that's changed in the past decade is that college
| professors are now competing against youtube. There are really
| bad lecturers in college (and also really good ones!). But now,
| when you encounter a bad one, that's okay--you can watch
| lectures online.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| How do you really know you're top students? Maybe you just got
| a pass.
| kibibyte wrote:
| I empathize with this. I went to one of those "top tier"
| universities and had a handful of classes where I regretted
| being one of the few (fewer than 10) goody good students who
| attended lecture, and subsequently fell asleep anyway. Over
| time, I realized that universities like these primarily
| prioritize faculty who can attract grant dollars over those who
| are excellent teachers.
|
| But that said, I don't believe this author is complaining that
| students generally don't attend lecture. They're complaining
| that absenteeism has increased, implying that it has increased
| substantially recently. And that this sudden increase in the
| delta is a cause for concern.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| While reading this I had an idea.
|
| First, the (widely known) problem that I thought about which
| inspired the idea: basically, how can you maintain academic
| standards for the class you are teaching, when so few of the
| students are really prepared to be successful.
|
| Sure, you can just keep the standards high/static, fight cheating
| the best you can, and fail most of the students until you get
| fired. You could try to teach all the preliminary material
| yourself, trying to make up for years of poor education, but
| that's probably too much for the time you have and wastes the
| time of students already prepared.
|
| But how about, instead, having a placement exam on Day 1? A
| qualifier, if you will. It would test a representative set of
| knowledge you should already have in order to be successful. The
| students who don't pass are dropped without judgement, and that's
| it. Nobody's time is wasted. You can move quickly through a wait-
| list if there is one, and few students will find themselves with
| a failing grade halfway through the course.
|
| Thoughts?
| hx8 wrote:
| Entry level courses are suppose to provide the perquisite
| background knowledge. You cannot take Data Structures until
| you've taken Computer Science 1 & 2. If students do not learn
| programming basics in Computer Science 1 & 2 they should be
| failed, where they can either retake the class or move to
| something that better aligns with their abilities and interest.
| The introductory classes serve to weed out the students that
| will not perform well in the department. Every department has
| these.
|
| At my university (15 years ago), less than 1/4 of the people
| that started Computer Science 1 ended up starting Data
| Structures, but over 90% of the students that started Data
| Structures graduated from the department.
|
| My thoughts? Utilize these introductory courses to set the
| standards expected from students, and expect a lot of freshmen
| to drop out. Additionally, I do put some blame on high schools
| for not teaching students fundamental skills like how to take
| good notes, how to read books, how to write sentences, and how
| to sit still for an entire lecture. If the standard that
| college students are educated to falls, then that blame belongs
| to the colleges.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| I'm thinking for intro just tell the students they are
| guaranteed a b- if they skip everything. Just acknowledge the
| transactionalism.
|
| But the entry to the next class level requires a passing
| grade on the final exam, and DON'T water that down.
|
| And of course, the exorbitant cost of college was
| unmentioned. These people are buying two new cars a year to
| go there. That uod the ante on the transactionalism
| substantially, and colleges everywhere would rather mint b+
| degrees for 250k than impose standards
| layer8 wrote:
| > trying to make up for years of poor education
|
| Poor prior knowledge is one thing. But the larger issue
| discussed in the article isn't so much lack of knowledge, but
| lack of skills (like being able to read and understand longer
| "adult" texts) and the average general attitude. You can't fix
| any of those quickly.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| Quals are a standard part of graduate school. Many MS-only
| programs don't require them, but most PhDs have done them.
| Quals work great as gatekeepers. But I think they can only work
| for small cohorts who have already self-selected into a
| challenging program and fewer students will give into the
| temptation to cheat (some will still cheat but it's a lower
| proportion). Part of the secret sauce toward graduate quals is
| that most of the time the faculty know who they are going to
| accept before you even take the test- the test results probably
| only rarely flip their opinion of their students.
|
| Quals will never be implemented at large in undergraduate mass-
| market coursework. The need for a placement exam on day one is
| supposed to be satisfied by prerequisite coursework. The fact
| that you have to pass a pre-calculus course before starting
| calculus is enforced by the school. Transfer credit from
| another school is supposed to be vetted by the registrar. And
| for the most part it is enforced, but the students still suck.
| Partly because if you struggled to get a C in pre-calculus then
| you're not actually ready for calculus, especially after a
| couple week break in the summer or winter. Plus, a decent
| portion of students cheated to pass their pre-calc class. We
| could easily raise the pre-requisite requirements to a B+ or
| better, but that won't actually work. There would be increased
| pressure to cheat, plus the alumni would stop their donations
| when their kids are forced to drop out.
|
| The same thing would happen with a qualifying exam on day one.
| Many kids would cheat, so you'll still get a bunch of
| unqualified students in your course. If you somehow managed to
| keep students from cheating you'd have so many students dropped
| on lesson two that you would break the school's course
| scheduling system every semester. Would those failing students
| need to take their prerequisite courses again, or should they
| get to try again on your qualifying exam next semester without
| any extra courses? Either way is a disaster. The school would
| absolutely not let this go on for long in any decently sized
| course.
|
| I don't know what the answer is. It's easy to say "just enforce
| the standards" but if nobody else is doing so then your efforts
| are wasted and you'll probably get fired anyway.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Love it.
| verteu wrote:
| I think the core problem is that administration would not allow
| you to do this.
|
| > What am I supposed to do? Keep standards high and fail them
| all? That's not an option for untenured faculty who would like
| to keep their jobs.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I had a professor for my systems programming class give a
| qualifier exam day 1, worth 1% of the final but you get an F if
| you fail. It was just fizzbuzz, a student failed then
| complained to the dean, so they werent allowed to do it.
| orforforof wrote:
| At the State university where I teach, literally part of our
| mission statement is to graduate every student who we admit. It
| has become a big part of the messaging from upper
| administration in the last few years.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| How do we reconcile this with needing very high test scores to
| get into even the 'ok' universities. A university that is nearby
| requires 1380 SAT to be competitive and it isn't even close to a
| name brand, maybe 90th in the US.
| LorenzoGood wrote:
| To be fair its not that hard to get a 1380 on the SAT.
| envolt wrote:
| I keep hearing from friends and seniors that Gen Z doesn't take
| accountability for their work, and the sentiments the author has
| shared in this article are dot to dot relatable. I really don't
| care that they lack grammar and prefer short words (no cap fr
| fr), low attention span is just irritating and hard to deal with.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| In case ya didn't get to the conclusion:
|
| > All this might sound like an angry rant. I'm not sure. I'm not
| angry, though, not at all. I'm just sad. One thing all faculty
| have to learn is that the students are not us. We can't expect
| them all to burn with the sacred fire we have for our
| disciplines, to see philosophy, psychology, math, physics,
| sociology or economics as the divine light of reason in a world
| of shadow. Our job is to kindle that flame, and we're trying to
| get that spark to catch, but it is getting harder and harder and
| we don't know what to do.
|
| This is a brilliant, beautiful last paragraph. This writer cares
| and is crying out for help, but sadly none will probably come.
| i000 wrote:
| It's a question of values, the students know the world does not
| value the experience or education he is providing, and they don't
| have an intrinsic interest in it. Being able to discuss Sartre
| will not get them a high paying job, but somehow that type of
| stuff is part of the liberal arts education.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| The good news for students is being "above average" appears to
| have gotten easier.
|
| The author is careful to point out he is describing "average"
| students. This implies there are still good students. That has
| not changed.
|
| The author mentions one:
|
| "Last semester I had a good student tell me, "hey you know that
| kid who sits in front of me with the laptop? Yeah, I thought you
| should know that all he does in class is gamble on his
| computer.""
| martindbp wrote:
| The whole education system and its purpose is crumbling. Not just
| the universities but all the way down to preschool. It started
| with the internet, gained steam with top notch content being
| available on YouTube, and it's properly dying with the advent of
| AI.
|
| If the purpose is to learn, you can do it better with YouTube and
| AI. If the purpose is to have fun, socialize and network, that is
| better done elsewhere, doing sports or other hobbies with other
| people. If it's babysitting you need, there are cheaper, better
| and more fun ways for the kids to spend their days. If the
| purpose is to learn a job, again, education is a terribly
| wasteful way of achieving that.
|
| Then there's the fact that we'll all soon have to come to terms
| with, which is that most people are already barely able to
| contribute value to a white collar job, and in 20 years I'm
| pretty sure that number will be down 99%.
| rrgok wrote:
| Oh well, I know I'm going to be downvoted to hell. But I always
| hated this kind of shitty questions in exams
|
| > Exam question: Describe the attitude of Dostoevsky's
| Underground Man towards acting in one's own self-interest, and
| how this is connected to his concerns about free will. Are his
| views self-contradictory?
|
| I don't know nothing about Dostoevsky. Never read any of his
| books. I don't even know when he was born or dies. I only know
| the word Dostoevsky. It can be any author or book, not specific
| to Dostoevsky. Now, coming to my hatred for the exam question:
| What the fuck am I? A telepath? How am I supposed to know what
| was happening in Dostoevsky mind when he wrote that paragraph in
| the book? Whatever is the answer the professor think is right, is
| that answer approved by Dostoevsky himself? If not, who the fuck
| the professor think he is to tell me my answer is wrong (yeah I
| know he can do whatever he wants with his exams - but you get the
| point) and not in accordance with Dostoevsky intentions? If
| Dostoevsky didn't write anything about his intentions of that
| book, what is the point of writing a book? Aren't words,
| sentences and paragraphs meant to transmit knowledge without so
| much delusional interpretations? This is all just mental
| gymnastic spouting one non sense after other without any way to
| confirm the real intention behind the author mental model.
|
| I really don't understand this type of questions. Is there a book
| explaining the mental model of the author while he wrote the book
| under study? If not, any interpretable opinion is valid as any
| other.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| The question is not asking about Dostoevsky's views, it's
| asking about the views of a character in one of Dostoevsky's
| novels. The character's views are written down in the book.
|
| Since answering the question without reading the book remains
| problematic, and apparently telepathy isn't your strong point,
| you would probably have to fall back on your reading
| comprehension skills to make progress, although the author also
| suggests using AI if that's too time consuming.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| If we are being honest, very few students go to university to
| learn and even fewer what is taught in classes.
|
| I didn't spend 60K out of intellectual curiosity. I was
| interested in a ladder to multi six figure tech jobs. The actual
| classes did nothing to get me into those. Only algorithms was
| related to that goal. Physics and chemistry certainly didn't do
| anything for me.
|
| All the things he complains about students not doing? None of
| them go on a resume. None come up in an interview and it is a
| rational response to changing incentives.
| Herring wrote:
| PISA scores for the US are fairly good and stable in Reading and
| Science, especially compared to the OECD average. It's Math that
| has taken a hit over time.
|
| https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2022-results-volum...
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Maybe it's a bad measure.
| Herring wrote:
| It would still be a million times better than anecdotes and
| ragebait.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St.
| ..
|
| > Policy-makers in most participating countries see PISA as
| an important indicator of system performance
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| I know a lot of people who work at the OECD and the place
| is a bullshit-factory.
| casey2 wrote:
| This is completely useless. They also add countries so the
| average trend is meaningless.
| mrbonner wrote:
| Where I work, we are required to write a substantial number of
| documents to "express our thoughts for leadership team clearly".
| At one point, I remember spent every single moment of my daily
| life at work to think about every word, sentence and paragraph
| that I put down in a technical document. At some point I was
| skeptical that all this effort was worthy as the whole point of
| writing is to communicate ideas. If the document was under the
| microscope for "nit bits" then we lost the original intention.
| Unless, I'm publishing a book for example.
|
| Now with LLM, I think everyone at work uses it to generate
| documents. And then, we all just use LLM to summarize the
| documents for us in a few paragraphs. The whole exercise is now a
| waste of time.
|
| Document writing culture is great but I'm starting to wonder the
| real benefits in the erabof LLM. To demonstrate this point, I
| asked my team to just create slides for the next sync up,
| something that is frowned upon in my culture. To my surprise, the
| meeting seems to be very productive with everyone engages in the
| discussion and not bogged down too much in reading for 30 minutes
| then discuss. It was just: 1) agenda for today 2) slides 3) q&a
|
| I think we cut about 50% of everyone time for that monthly
| meeting.
| Havoc wrote:
| >everyone at work uses it to generate documents. And then, we
| all just use LLM to summarize the documents for us in a few
| paragraphs.
|
| Thought that was just a tongue in cheek joke. Hope that doesn't
| become widespread...
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| It makes sense. Many reasons I write the documents conflict
| with how it will be used.
|
| I often write a ton of bloat in documentation to seem
| impressive or comprehensive. I put in my performance review
| once that I contributed over half the total pages. Nobody
| checked that I added value. They checked that I added pages.
|
| It isn't meant to be useful as I am not a meaningful
| shareholder, so I don't care if the user's time is well spent
| reading it. I work for my boss, not the user.
|
| So both sides using LLMs makes sense, as their incentives are
| different.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| It exactly matches the meme where people use LLMs to expand
| some bullet points to a full document, and then other people
| use LLMs to convert a full document to some bullet points.
|
| I think it's impossible to tell who is telling any kind of
| truth online, or who is just "vibe posting"
| gorgoiler wrote:
| > _I can't assign papers any more because I'll just get AI back,
| and there's nothing I can do to make it stop._
|
| One idea is to not ask for the papers back. When I was in
| University it was very much impressed upon me that writing papers
| was for my own benefit. All our marks came from end of year exams
| where we were essentially writing a paper in three hours under
| exam conditions.
|
| Accordingly -- and this obviously only works in a syllabus where
| grades are awarded only on exam results -- nothing says "this is
| for you not for me" more than not even asking for the papers to
| be submitted.
|
| (Our papers _were_ marked but only with hints. The marks didn't
| count and we went through each paper as a class, together, so
| could essentially mark them ourselves based on the points we did
| and did not raise.)
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Given what the author says about student behavior, this would
| only result in 99% of them failing the course.
| cbHXBY1D wrote:
| I graduated 10 years ago from a public university in the US
| (albeit one of the best ones - so everyone was your typical high
| achieving student) and all of this tracks except for the
| functional illiteracy part.
|
| Chronic absenteeism was normal. Disappearing students was normal.
| Pretending to take notes was normal. Indifference was normal. I'm
| sure all of the above has __always__ been happening.
| gizajob wrote:
| Make them hand-write essays and exams with a pen. Ideally in
| front of you. This is the only solution to receiving submitted
| LLM-fodder.
| pacbard wrote:
| The most likely explanation for this phenomenon is that there
| isn't a change in the population average for variable X, but that
| the decrease in college students' average X is due to an increase
| in population college going rates.
|
| Looking at the statistics[1], the US went from a 23.2% college
| completion rate in 1990 to 39.2% completion rate in 2022, or a
| 67% increase in college degree completions. If you assume that X
| in the population is constant over time, mechanically you will
| need to enroll and graduate students from lower percentiles of X
| in order to increase the overall college completion rate in the
| whole population.
|
| This process might be particularly acute at "lower tier"
| institutions that cannot compete with "top tier" institutions for
| top students.
|
| [1]:
| https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_104.20.a...
| scythmic_waves wrote:
| This particular professor has been teaching for 30 years. I'm
| not sure I find your explanation all that convincing in light
| of that, especially since this isn't an isolated opinion.
|
| I'm much more interested in how much the average student has
| had a phone to distract them during their lifetime. For the
| incoming 2025 class of 18 year olds, the iPhone came out the
| year they were born. So potentially 100%. I expect that plus
| the availability of LLMs is a deadly combo on an engaged
| student body.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| > I teach at a regional public university
|
| I think this is the main explanation. The median college student
| has a lower IQ now compared to 10 years ago because more people
| are going to college, and the marginal new student is below the
| college educated median.
|
| That's it, everything else is downstream. The top 100k university
| students are as studious and capable as ever before.
| grumple wrote:
| The only point I'd argue with this professor: give students your
| slides by default. In my graduate program, this is done for every
| class. As a working professional, slides are regularly shared so
| information can be reviewed later.
| snitzr wrote:
| Watch John Mulaney's standup about his college asking him for
| money. He mentions how much money it cost for him to go to school
| but yet he didn't read and just did drugs. I remember students in
| class not reading the material either when I was in college in
| the 2000s. I agree with the article, just adding how things were
| bad before and now it's worse with phones.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| As someone who teaches college students, I agree with a lot of
| this. This sums it up pretty well:
|
| > Students are less respectful of the university experience
| ---attendance, lateness, e-mails to me about nonsense, less sense
| of responsibility
|
| The most noticeable dimension for me is this one:
|
| > During the Covid lockdown, faculty bent over backwards in every
| way we knew how to accommodate students during an unprecedented
| (in our lifetimes) health crisis. Now students expect that as a
| matter of routine.
|
| In my experience, no matter what flexibility is given up front
| (e.g., drop lowest quiz score), there will always be some
| students who ask for additional accommodations. In particular
| there seems to be a common belief among students that all
| deadlines are "soft", and they should be able to turn in any
| missed work any time before the end of the term. Sometimes
| they'll expect a late penalty, but it seems like a real shock to
| many students to be told, "No, if you don't submit the assignment
| by the deadline, your score is zero."
|
| I taught a little bit online during the pandemic and initially I
| thought there were some benefits to keeping some things online,
| but now I'm not so sure. For instance, doing tests online means
| they don't take up in-class time. But the extent to which people
| seem willing to cheat or otherwise cut corners has me seriously
| considering whether I should revert to in-person paper tests.
|
| The article does veer a bit into stuff that seems a bit more
| questionable to me. Like, I can see not wanting to pay $100 for a
| textbook --- and this is especially true because students are
| often jaded by having many classes where they buy a $100 textbook
| and only need to read a few chapters, so it doesn't seem worth
| it. Likewise, it seems reasonable to me to provide the lecture
| slides, although I agree that it's annoying when students pester
| and pester to get them.
|
| My impression of students' reading and writing abilities is also
| a more positive than the article author's, although that may be
| because the school I teach at is more competitive. But it's in
| the low-level logistics (like attendance) where I see the biggest
| decline in student behavior.
|
| I should also say that in pretty much every class I teach, there
| are still a substantial number of engaged and motivated students.
| It's just that the lower bound for the standard students have for
| themselves has been lowered even more, and the average has
| dropped a bit towards that lower bound.
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