| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
 Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:20 pm Post subject: Today's undergrads generally suck... |
 |
|
and still demand and/or complain about not receiving As...
| Quote: |
Profs blast lazy first-year students
Wikipedia generation is lazy and unprepared for university's rigours, survey of faculty says
Apr 06, 2009 04:30 AM
University professors feel their first-year students are less mature, rely too much on Wikipedia and "expect success without the requisite effort," says a province-wide survey to be released today.
And guess what? In this case, many students agree with their profs.
"I think it's a fair assessment," said first-year Ryerson journalism student Annie Webber. "I'm addicted to Wikipedia."
Lina Kim, a fourth-year University of Toronto sociology student who works in the U of T's Robarts Library, agrees.
"Many students can't even ask for help. Partly, it's generational, the attitude and sense of entitlement they have," Kim said.
More than 55 per cent of Ontario's faculty and librarians surveyed believe students are less prepared for university than even three years ago. In fact, many post-secondary institutions have had to create catch-up courses to help those who are struggling... |
As one colleague I know tells his students: you have legitimate grounds to complain to the state that claims to have educated you...
TheStar.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
harlowethrombey
Joined: 17 Mar 2009
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 12:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
honestly though every generation is called 'lazy, shiftless slackers and underachievers' by the previous generation.
Our parents were hooligans for listening to Rock and Roll. THey were morally bankrupt because they (might) have had a livein girlfriend before marriage.
Every year the faculty gets a new batch of 'the laziest students ever'. And yet scientific progress is accelerating. Strange, that.
Part of getting old is thinking the kids are lazy and rude. Also, we dont understand their slang. And their music sucks. Etc.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 12:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
It's so obviously true that it's uninteresting. What we should do is send fewer people to university. The decline in quality is caused by the upsurge in quantity.
edit: I'm taking a longer view than Gopher's article: not just the last three years, maybe the last three to six decades. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
postfundie
Joined: 28 May 2004
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
| yeah this sounds like a case of the "Well back in my day we didn't..blah blah blah blah...." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 5:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
"Everything is goin' to hell in a handbasket."
"The world is going mad." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 6:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Gopher may have a point. My daughter is in college and many of her friends never go to the library, they wiki everything. I am amazed at their inability to write a simple essay. I think it is a matter of Quanity. I think a tightening of entrance requirements is needed. My daughter is depressed at how classes have to be dumbed down and the many who never even bother to read their textbook. I actually like young people, and I know some super students who go to school with my girl but they are few. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ChopChaeJoe
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
The HS kids didn't invent wiki, but it's the first thing i go to when I want some info.
Kids are smarter than us. They just don't play by our rules. yet. Then they get old. Like us. Bend over to pick something up and say,ugh!
"And these children that you spit on as they try to make their way. Are immune to your consultations..." That's all I remember from thr Breakfast Club quote of David bowie. you just might learn something...
You old farts. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:10 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
It's a tough lesson for millions of students just now arriving on campus: even if you have a high school diploma, you may not be ready for college.
In fact, a new study calculates, one-third of American college students have to enroll in remedial classes. The bill to colleges and taxpayers for trying to bring them up to speed on material they were supposed to learn in high school comes to between $2.3 billion and $2.9 billion annually... |
HuffingtonPost.com
"The Second World War began when the United States attacked Pearl Harbor with nuclear bombs and then put all the Japanese in prison camps under Hitler's approving eye."
Where do you think I might have read that sentence? How many others do you think there are out there?
Do you imagine that some history faculty might take some of them and paste them together into a document called "world history according to the undergrads" just to see how it might look? If so, how do you imagine that document might look?
Should undergrads, coming in as they are from high school with a B or better gpa, not know better...? Do you think, on the other hand, they know how to chat and text, and watch Youtube.com during lecture...? They are paying to be there, their defiant argument usually runs, they have the right to do whatever they want, like customer service, just be a good professor and give them their A so they can continue on and get into law or medical school...
Last edited by Gopher on Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:20 am; edited 3 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ChopChaeJoe
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:17 am Post subject: |
|
|
Gopher, by your vatar, you're an old man, I'm guessing between 35-60 (am i right?) The problem with average scores is that they reflect the average who take the test.
The average are always sheep. So many more take the test these days. Both the retards and the gifted. these average scores mean nothing.
think though. When I was in 5th grade, me and about 5 others in my class could work a computer. that's about 3%. Now it's, what?, 90%?
Just because you're oldwr doesn't make you better. Even if you are in neo-Confusionist korea. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
You attempt to make this about me cannot succeed. You are also wrong about my age and location.
How about commenting on the information itself? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ChopChaeJoe wrote: |
| you're an old man, I'm guessing between 35-60 (am i right?) |
I sometimes joke about me getting older (I just turned 3 , but I didn't know I now qualify as an "old man". 
edit: That's weird how an "8" and a close parentheses makes a . Never will understand these new-fangled computer doo-hickeys. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 2:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I don't think calling Gopher old is gonna work. This is an area he knows about.
Gopher,
How much of this is a function of universities becoming necessary to get ahead? If these kids have an expectation of success, and you combine that with their recognition that the university is the main avenue for providing that success, how much of this is also a problem of the university-financial complex?
There are so many for-profit universities out there that can't compete on cost, so they compete by allowing unqualified students in. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
That is a big part of it: bachelor-degree factories in public and private universities, and a range of worthless degree-granting "universities" that I will not name here.
Some people do not belong in a university. They belong in technical, vocational schools, or they just need to get a job. You should see the range in students that I see -- and I sit in a tier-one research university. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:58 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This is nothing new. Colleges say every year, since the beginning of time, that the Freshmen are not prepared.
Its like your grandparents who say they walked to school in 10 feet of snow, uphill for 5 miles everyday.
The difference between before and now is that you have ready access to information. Before the Internet, you wasted a lot of time FINDING information. Nowadays, the information is readily available. You just gotta spend the time to verify it.
When I was at University, Wikipedia was NOT accepted as a scholarly source. In fact, they would only allow 1 or 2 sources from the internet, PERIOD. You had to hall your butt to the library the old fashioned way, copy pages and site sources.
Good professors will make you do this, and good schools will have a department policy that makes students put in the effort. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 5:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Gopher wrote: |
Do you imagine that some history faculty might take some of them and paste them together into a document called "world history according to the undergrads" just to see how it might look? . |
I think that sounds like a hilarious idea. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
