Some of these comments are retarded. if you have a crap major, of course you don’t need to spend much time in the books. I want to hear some doctors log in and make that same claim about Biology and Genetics degrees. Maybe some Physics majors can log in and tell us how easy their schooling was. If you majored in communications or education, I hope you understand that some people actually had to go to class to pass.
You’re Professor Tex. Giggity.
Med school still means remembering a shitload of things. No way around that. Business on the other hand is pretty “easy”.
I can tell you first hand electrical engineering was no joke with studying / labs / projects. It can go anywhere from 5-7 hours a day over a week averaging it out. It was a deep talent pool academically though ie - roommate went to Stanford for a masters afterwords.
I don’t think people should make it a salvation or anything. It’s just another piece to add to the puzzle to get to where you want. Fortunately for them or unfortunately for everyone else, a master’s will get someone paid more in larger corporations yet they still might actually be totally incompetent.
[quote]Zen Taco wrote:
I go to a liberal arts university, and it seems their focus (besides the science majors, such as biomedical) is less on fact memorization and more on critical thinking. At least thats what they tell us in every class.
I’m one of those that can skate through most things in school. I got by pretty easily for the first couple of years, but something clicked and I started trying. My gpa went up considerably. That being said: I feel my education in college has been more about maturing as a person, learning to teach myself, learning to think critically, and developing a work ethic with anything that I’m doing. Yet I still don’t study much. I do the work necessary, but studying is not a normal habit. I would still say that my education is completely worth it.
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Glad to hear you are learning the lessons of college.
I remember when I had a desk job and one if the guys I mentored was completely worthless as an employee. He was so focused on getting A’s in college he only took two to three classes at a time and did all of his work with other people. So when he was left to do his work AT work, he would just sit there.
He was completely surprised when I explained to him that when instructors assigned work for the students to do by themselves it was to help them develop the ability to do work by themselves, problem solve and the like. He did not learn the lessons of college.
[quote]MementoMori wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]MementoMori wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]MementoMori wrote:
I feel as if I never put in any effort into univeristy, and the feeling only grew as time went on. I just fnished my degree this past semester with a 7.9 on 10 and I do not feel as if this was an achievement or struggle or action worth praising. I finished the degree because I had the patience to do it. I don’t feel as if I ever really broke a mental sweat. It’s just something I did over the past 4 years.
I’m more proud of the full time work I did (entirely unrelated to my field) and the money I saved during school than I am about the school itself.
I handed in work knowing it wasn’t what I was capable of and got A’s anyway. I got bad mark’s too occaisonally and didn’t really mind because it showed the professor was actually paying attention.
For the record I have a Bachelor of Arts with Honours, specialization in Communications. I’m sure some will say this is why it was so easy, if I could go back I wouldn’t have taken it.[/quote]
How much do you think this was a lack of intellectual ‘pushing’ by the course/college and how much of it was your approach/expectations of the program/college?[/quote]
I did everything that was asked of me. I just feel like I wasn’t asked much. All classes overlapped and all classes discussed dated theory with next to no real world relevancy. When a few professors chose to incorporate the later I listened intently and didn’t mind what my mark was.
In group assignments if I tried to include real world ideas and applications my classmates stared blankly and demanded a quotation or a theory or a class slide that could be used for this point.
I developed this jaded perspective from what I experienced not what I expected.
For the most part I view university as an Ivory Tower that has divorced itself from reality in order to stand in judgement of it.
Of course not all professors exhibited this and I obviously don’t know your teaching style or philosophy to include you in that generalization.
[/quote]
Your experience is one reason I think college should include a wider, not narrower, set of classes. Once you get ‘trapped’ in your department/discipline, this can be a problem. Sorry that was your experience but hopefully in some years you can see more from your experience than disappointment.
I would argue that universities, at least in the US, are not divorced from reality (though some disciplines may certainly well be) but rather so hung up in the reality of getting funding (meaning meeting the agenda of those giving the money) that they have lost sight of educating. I actually think a greater disconnect could lead to better education - though many business leaders would strongly disagree.
Case in point, the ability to get outside funding in more important than ability to teach when it comes to gaining employment as tenure track jobs (based on a decade of looking at the job ads and talking to department chairs/deans/etc.)
On a different note: What do you think would have helped (generally) in your case/classes?[/quote]
Maybe that is a difference between Canada and the United States. Obviously there is still funding for Research and my University was recognized in Canada for its contributions. However, given that Post Secondary education is heavily subsidisedby the Provincial Government, the onus on results isn’t the same.
My biggest qualm with university is that I went there to get the training for a job. Not learn about how jobs destroy the environment, class structure and my soul. Maybe I was wrong to do so and should have gone to college or picked a more specific major. That could be my fault.
Another problem I find is professors do not fail students. Especially in group papers. I see students in 4th year, senior level classes with piss poor english skills. They don’t remember the subjects taught over and over and over again in my degree either (for example John Stuart Mills, Jeremy Bentham, Hedonistic Calculus, Panopticon, etc etc). I had to learn about these subjects in at LEAST 6 classes. If I mention it in a group assignment, blank stares answer me.
Professors give uniform marks to all group because they know someone in that group deserves and needs an A. If they punish the poor members of that group they’ll be signing themself up to a 2 hour debate with the “smart” student that will end in them receiving an A. Why bring that upon yourself? Just give everyone an A.
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I have had students one the course evaluation make comments that read as if they never knew what class they were taking, so I am not surprised by your comment about how even after multiple classes on a topic the students seem “blank” on the topic.
Group work is tricky to grade but there is a lot of benefits in it for the students. There are ways around giving everyone A’s but you need the right structure to do so.
I’ll tell you all something, I love my classes so I work a decent days work on my classes just so I don’t have to cram on my tests. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
I graduated with a 3.24 GPA in Accounting.
I feel like the OP describes my time division somewhat accurately, though I slept a few hours more, skipped a little more class and made up for it by doing more homework.
If the ‘lessons of college’ are non-academic, they can be learned simply by living on ones own, and therefore are not the ‘lessons of college’.
I did not enjoy my college years. Mostly because I honestly wasn’t socially mature enough to understand the hows or whys of networking. I’ve always been a loner, and spent most of my college this way, and so was relatively miserable. But with high points- I started and ran my own business, and I travelled abroad, neither of which I would have done had I not gone to college.
My major-specific classes were challenging to many, but did not become challenging to me until my junior year, At which point I began having to re-take classes and lost a scholarship. I changed my study-habits enough to once again become a B-student. Both the amount of time I spent in class and the amount of work I did (on my own and with others) went up at least a couple of hours a day, on average.
Upon graduation, I found finding work in the accounting field too arduous for serious consideration, and took a job on education just to have a job. I like my work, but I admit, I could have done it upon graduating high-school (even though I wouldn’t have been certifiable in the field).
Like many things in life, I wish I could do college over. More, I wish I had not been pressured by my parents and my finances to rush into college immediately after high school. I felt doing so did a disservice to me, though it seemed the wisest course to me and many others at the time. And, had I not gone to college when I did, I likely would be in a buddhist monastery right now instead of typing this. Its debatable on which path I would be happier.
I feel that business majors coming out of my alma mater learned as much as they did ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. I also feel that college in general is a scam, and that most undergraduates are un-or-undereducated. I work with math teachers who can’t factor polynomials, and who regularly mispell ‘slope’.
The OP seems accurate for the broad field of education, even though it doesn’t fit my particular circumstance.
I learned an enormous amount in college and I wouldn’t be able to do my job without it. The material was almost always challenging. My grades were high but I worked hard for it. I majored in math with a lot of comp sci. I took some liberal arts as electives and they were ridiculously easy.
I think you have to have some love for the subject matter to really get the most out of it.
College is a waste of time and money.
People say bullshit like it builds life skills, but that’s crap. College is a bubble - kids go there, move into a room, and they live in this little fake-world known as ‘campus’, and don’t really grow up much at all. If one’s looking to mature and get experience and whatnot, join the military or travel to a different country or volunteer with people in a completely different socio-economic class.
I got freaking A’s throughout college and did nothing of worth. Read hundreds of pages of crap I could find on the Internet in 5 seconds, had stupid ‘discussions’ with peers who are dumb as doorknobs, did million of mini quizzes and extra curricular crap, and the entire time I was thinking, “I can teach myself this stuff with a couple weeks of intense study on my own.” I felt like I was wasting my time so much that I dropped out during my junior year because I couldn’t stand the worthlessness of it. I’m making good cash now and am smarter than the majority of individuals I meet.
There’s college, and there’s education. One is a game and the other is life.
EDIT: I should clarify that college has it’s place – but it’s expanded beyond that. College is a place where people should study medicine, law, science. Everyone should learn the basics in high school. College has become a money game, and now everyone ‘has’ to go and there’s ten million BS majors that are completely and utterly WORTHLESS. Higher education has been subsidized to the point that it’s made itself a joke.
My first two years of classes were BS, basically a fast review of everything learned in high school. I don’t want to be a scientist or a doctor, so why bother going? People don’t think like that, though, they just assume college is a rule.
[quote]Squiggles wrote:
College is a waste of time and money.
People say bullshit like it builds life skills, but that’s crap. College is a bubble - kids go there, move into a room, and they live in this little fake-world known as ‘campus’, and don’t really grow up much at all. If one’s looking to mature and get experience and whatnot, join the military or travel to a different country or volunteer with people in a completely different socio-economic class.
I got freaking A’s throughout college and did nothing of worth. Read hundreds of pages of crap I could find on the Internet in 5 seconds, had stupid ‘discussions’ with peers who are dumb as doorknobs, did million of mini quizzes and extra curricular crap, and the entire time I was thinking, “I can teach myself this stuff with a couple weeks of intense study on my own.” I felt like I was wasting my time so much that I dropped out during my junior year because I couldn’t stand the worthlessness of it. I’m making good cash now and am smarter than the majority of individuals I meet.
There’s college, and there’s education. One is a game and the other is life.
EDIT: I should clarify that college has it’s place – but it’s expanded beyond that. College is a place where people should study medicine, law, science. Everyone should learn the basics in high school. College has become a money game, and now everyone ‘has’ to go and there’s ten million BS majors that are completely and utterly WORTHLESS. Higher education has been subsidized to the point that it’s made itself a joke.
My first two years of classes were BS, basically a fast review of everything learned in high school. I don’t want to be a scientist or a doctor, so why bother going? People don’t think like that, though, they just assume college is a rule.[/quote]
I loved college. I learned a ton about people and life in general. What major did you have? I didn’t need to study as much as some others…to the point that I was tutoring other people in the same classes I was taking, but I would never in a million years pretend that the Biology degree with a math minor was as easy as some of you are pretending.
It makes me wonder what all of you geniuses are doing now that you are done with that institution holding you back.
I hope it is something spectacular.
I spent much of my free time my first couple of years trying to get a record deal. I probably spent more time writing music and lyrics than I ever did studying…and I wouldn’t trade one minute of that.
No, college isn’t for everyone…but people acting like it is a waste should be blowing the hinges off the world once they get out…or else it seems like ALL TALK.
I’m in Biomedical Engineering and nothing pisses me off more then hearing the marketing people in the library complain about their stupid projects. /endrant
[quote]Squiggles wrote:
College is a waste of time and money.
People say bullshit like it builds life skills, but that’s crap. College is a bubble - kids go there, move into a room, and they live in this little fake-world known as ‘campus’, and don’t really grow up much at all. If one’s looking to mature and get experience and whatnot, join the military or travel to a different country or volunteer with people in a completely different socio-economic class.
I got freaking A’s throughout college and did nothing of worth. Read hundreds of pages of crap I could find on the Internet in 5 seconds, had stupid ‘discussions’ with peers who are dumb as doorknobs, did million of mini quizzes and extra curricular crap, and the entire time I was thinking, “I can teach myself this stuff with a couple weeks of intense study on my own.” I felt like I was wasting my time so much that I dropped out during my junior year because I couldn’t stand the worthlessness of it. I’m making good cash now and am smarter than the majority of individuals I meet.
There’s college, and there’s education. One is a game and the other is life.
EDIT: I should clarify that college has it’s place – but it’s expanded beyond that. College is a place where people should study medicine, law, science. Everyone should learn the basics in high school. College has become a money game, and now everyone ‘has’ to go and there’s ten million BS majors that are completely and utterly WORTHLESS. Higher education has been subsidized to the point that it’s made itself a joke.
My first two years of classes were BS, basically a fast review of everything learned in high school. I don’t want to be a scientist or a doctor, so why bother going? People don’t think like that, though, they just assume college is a rule.[/quote]
Curious, what was your major? What did you do besides class in college?
I learned a ton in college, in class and out, and participated in things other than class. I loved my 4 years, did not live in a bubble while there, and wouldnt change a thing about it.
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
Case in point, the ability to get outside funding in more important than ability to teach when it comes to gaining employment as tenure track jobs (based on a decade of looking at the job ads and talking to department chairs/deans/etc.)
[/quote]
As a University professor (I am as well) you should know better than anybody that Universities are profit driven. This isn’t going to change. Also the research professors do can benefit the classes that they teach and the funding that professors bring in, which for most R1/R2 universities dwarfs the total money they gain from tuition, goes towards improving computer labs, recreation facilities,etc. 50% of all research dollars I bring in gets sucked up by the university never to be seen by me…its called “overhead”
College/uni is what you make it.
I don’t know what these kids are smoking in the OP’s post, but that is NOT how I spend my day. The majority of my day is spent in class, in the gym, in the library, in the kitchen, on T-Nation (lol), and then I’ll have a few hours to kill to hang out with friends. I’m in my 5th semester of civil engineering though, it’s a joke how easy the business majors have it here at KU (no class on Fridays!)
That breakdown of an “average” day seems plausible. I know during my freshman year I had soooo much free time compared to when I was in high school. It really boils down to what you make of that free time. You could socialize for 12 odd hours of the day, or you could be productive.
Similar to ashylarry, I basically study, eat, go to class, and workout. Plus I have decided to join my schools PLing team, so that’s something else to occupy my time.
I’ve noticed a stark contrast between majors. I’m a chemistry major that spends way too much time in a lab, while my sister is a fine arts major and she has fridays off.
Hm. This is not like my experience at all. 1 hour a day of studying probably would get me through 1 class.
And 2.5 hours of class a day? wtf? are these kids taking 8 credits?
I’m at school for 5-8 hours every weekday and the only time not spent at class, lab, or doing homework is eating… and I still have a lot of shit to do outside of that
well i only go to school twice a week…9am-6pm…works out to be about 2.5hrs per day…
[quote]Otep wrote:
If the ‘lessons of college’ are non-academic, they can be learned simply by living on ones own, and therefore are not the ‘lessons of college’.
[/quote]
You are right in that you can learn these outside of college. My point is you should learn them in college, if you attend. It is part of the skill set a college degree represents.
[quote]Squiggles wrote:
College is a waste of time and money.
People say bullshit like it builds life skills, but that’s crap. College is a bubble - kids go there, move into a room, and they live in this little fake-world known as ‘campus’, and don’t really grow up much at all. If one’s looking to mature and get experience and whatnot, join the military or travel to a different country or volunteer with people in a completely different socio-economic class.
I got freaking A’s throughout college and did nothing of worth. Read hundreds of pages of crap I could find on the Internet in 5 seconds, had stupid ‘discussions’ with peers who are dumb as doorknobs, did million of mini quizzes and extra curricular crap, and the entire time I was thinking, “I can teach myself this stuff with a couple weeks of intense study on my own.” I felt like I was wasting my time so much that I dropped out during my junior year because I couldn’t stand the worthlessness of it. I’m making good cash now and am smarter than the majority of individuals I meet.
There’s college, and there’s education. One is a game and the other is life.
EDIT: I should clarify that college has it’s place – but it’s expanded beyond that. College is a place where people should study medicine, law, science. Everyone should learn the basics in high school. College has become a money game, and now everyone ‘has’ to go and there’s ten million BS majors that are completely and utterly WORTHLESS. Higher education has been subsidized to the point that it’s made itself a joke.
My first two years of classes were BS, basically a fast review of everything learned in high school. I don’t want to be a scientist or a doctor, so why bother going? People don’t think like that, though, they just assume college is a rule.[/quote]
I agree with a good deal of what you wrote. College is supposed to be a time to mature, not everyone does. There are other experiences that foster maturity outside of the college campus.
It sounds as if you learn well on your own, so you are right that the ‘average’ college class may not be best suited for you. Bear in mind when students come to college they bring with them a varied educational background and everyone must be brought to the same level in some respects through the Gen Ed. classes. For some it is repetitive, for others, brand new.
I also agree that there are many degrees that I do not understand the economic demand for them, i.e. will not help get a job beyond having a degree. That said, just because one might not see the market for the degree does not mean there is not a market for it. This is why I think a broad education is better than a very narrow one. I also agree that a rigorous high school education is enough for many jobs.