I am now convinced more than ever a large number of people do NOT belong in college

[TwixVoy]

Here are some reviews I have been reading from college students writing about their college..... These are generally from the people who rate the school negatively.... part of me wonders if it is the school or the intelligence level of the student that is the problem. Most of these people rate themselves as "quite bright". The mass spelling and grammar errors are a direct cut and paste....

Not surprisingly a lot of these reviews are from random Ivy league schools I typed in. Seems a lot of spoiled rich brats are unhappy.

I often wondered during my several years at Target where these new hire managers I had to work with came from. They were completely inept, had a great deal of trouble dealing with people in a normal social manner, and were generally lazy and incompetent. They depended on those of us in management who actually worked our way up to cover for them. So arrogant because they had a Bachelors in some obscure field such as basket weaving and thought they were a great success landing in retail right after university. Now I know where they came from.

The scary thing is the fact a lot of these people will be starting off as executives or upper management at major corporations. No wonder corporate america is so screwed.


"Academics: Some find Cornell to be not as challenging as expected, or somewhere in the middle, but I thought it was overly difficult. They grade very hard, and will let you fail in a heartbeat. The alumni network is WAY overrated. I found my job completely on my own." (You mean the bastards at Cornell would actually LET YOU FAIL? No "gentleman's C"? Bastards. And you had to find a job on your own instead of getting a rich buddy to set you up?)

"This is for all the "normal" kids who are thinking about coming here. By normal I mean someone who trys to get wasted as much as possible, wants to be around hot girls, and wants to hang out with nice people. Basically Cornell is awesome academically. I really do enjoy learning all the material but I would say a lot of the tests are unfair and not representative of the lectures/readings. The girls here are so nasty and the problem is that because they are all nasty, the ones who would be average at other schools get an inflated head. i try and get wasted every night, but it is not possible. NOBODY HERE WILL BE INTERESTED IN HANGING OUT OR DOING ANYTHING DURING THE WEEK. Im in a fraternity here and i have some awesome friends, but Im still tryin to transfer. I feel like cornell ripped me off because im now trying to transfer, but i dont have great grades." (Yea, I am sure Cornell ripped you off... just wait until you get in to the real world kid. Though daddy will probably make sure you start off as an executive at Chase. If you are a "normal kid" I am scared shitless for this nations future)


"This school is a waste of money and time. You dont learn anything that you couldnt teach yourself or are expected too. Some of the teachers are helpful but not all. If you like spending time in college like you were in high school, then by all means please attend. You would be better off going to a four year college than this place. If I could get my money back I would leave this place in a heartbeat. Recently this school built on-campus housing. I am paying $1000 a month for a building that is unevenly built and look as if they were just built in a rush to get students in and we cant have any fun in them because we get yelled at." (can't have fun because we get yelled at.... is this a 5 year old?)

"this school sux my nuts it waz the worst school ever I mean wat the fuck is wrong with the people holy shit its horrible. Never go there"

"They are only dedicated to those who are dedicated to there program. After one year, I wounder when I am going to learn something that I paid for. I mean the off Major courses are just B.S. I did'nt come to learn English and Math, I came for IT " (yes, that is very obvious)

" I have been working on my core classes for over three years now and all of a sudden I recieve a phone call from the senior academic councelor while at work basically threatinging me that if I do not complete my math courses then I may or may not be able to finish my degree until I do." (Had to finish your math classes before getting the degree??? Imagine that.....)


". It was a total and complete waste of time and more so of my money. The classes were asinine. All they cared about was getting money from me, they couldn't possibly care any less if I got any education out of it. I felt as though the teachers and advisers would say anything just to keep me enrolled. They had me convinced that I was taking the right classes for what I wanted a degree for, and I (being a first-time college student) was naive enough to trust them. " (It's unfortunate you had to figure this out after dropping 50 grand)

"Do not expect help or for the employees to help you or care. The course content is composed of a lot of reading. " (A lot of reading... say it isn't so?)

"Mahmoud Selhi was the worst so called facilitator of them all. He gave me a F, because he thought I was cheating" (Yup... that will happen... don't worry when you get your executive spot at Bank of America your skills will be appreciated)

"This was a huge waste of my money. When I initially inquired about the Management program, I was told that I would be finished in 16 months. More than two years later, I am still in class. The "coursework" is a joke. I have never taken a single test, nor have I ever opened a single book." (gosh I wonder why it's taking so long)

If anyone wants to read more: http://www.studentsreview.com

I can't believe just how damn out of touch and clueless so many young people are.

[pnwmom]

1. Why are you so sure each of these individual students is to blame?

Some of them may be goof-offs, but others may have good reason for their complaints. For what colleges cost these days, I'm sure many students aren't getting their money's worth. Many classes at large universities are taught by overworked grad students, whose English skills are not as strong as they should be.

And though you resent the students for expecting help with jobs and an alumni network, that is exactly how most of these schools promote themselves, and why parents are willing to pour so much money into them. Don't blame these young adults -- blame the system.

[RadiationTherapy]

2. This OP doesn't contribute. It is a mean spirited rant about

inexperienced young people who do not express themselves well. I know it has been a long, long, time, but I am sure you were easy to criticize at that age too.

Aside from that, I work at a university and see thousands of students who do not belong in college. Unfortunately, it is the only avenue because the baby boomers scraped all they can off of our society and there is very little left for young people to build from.

[murielm99]

4. Your reply does not contribute either.

The OP blames young adults who communicate poorly. You blame baby boomers.

[RadiationTherapy]

5. Yeah, it's called irony.

The only difference being that what I said was true. People in college today trying to get a degree that they are not suited for is not because they are trying to get hired by a bunch of 20-30 year olds; it is an older group who demands the sheepskin. It is also because the entire economy has been milked dry by greedy people who were adults between the years 1980 and 2005. So my opinion may be unpopular, but it is not incorrect.

[Hannah Bell]

7. Since most boomers are struggling to stay afloat themselves, not

"milking dry" anything, your opinion is not correct.

Also, people who "were adults between the years 1980 and 2005" includes yourself, if I'm not mistaken. It certainly includes non-boomers, on both sides of the divide.

[1955doubledie]

9. Such is the perils of the "broad brush," eh?

nt

[raccoon]

32. Your post shows that convoluted thinking is not limited to the right. nt

[murielm99]

3. Some people who have trouble in college are the first

members of their families to attend college. Now there are programs that help them prepare. I think this is a great idea. I was the first person in my immediate family to finish high school, let alone attend college. I had no idea what to expect from college, and I did flounder for awhile.

Of course, my maturity level was not there either. I would have been better off waiting a couple of years. I did end up doing well. Not everyone in my position can say the same thing.

My daughter teaches online classes for the city college system of Chicago. Many of her students are the first in their family to attend college. She says that she spends a great deal of time "teaching English 101." She corrects all grammar and spelling. It takes as much time as teaching the content of her classes, music history and music appreciation. She has sympathy for the immigrant students, but she gets very tired of the others.

Her immigrant students are, for the most part, highly motivated. She gave a concert in Chicago last winter. She invited all her students, but made it clear that they would not be graded for attendance. The only ones who showed up were the immigrants.

If the students are Cornell are in another category, neither immigrants or the first in their families to attend college, what are we teaching them? Are they learning NO grammar and spelling before attending college? Maybe we need to examine how we are teaching our language and what, if anything, is being taught.

[romana]

18. Writing 101

I agree on the writing.

I recently switched jobs, from a large, metropolitan college to a small, more rural college. I was hoping the level of writing would be better, but so far I have been disappointed. I teach core courses in my discipline which include a fair amount of writing. The students don't seem to know how to edit, and often turn in what I consider first drafts. Many have significant problems with writing, and have clearly come in to college without even a basic proficiency in writing skills.

There are many reasons for these problems. Poor public school education is a huge part of it. I think the internet is somewhat to blame as well, as it promotes informal, unedited writing. I have a love-hate relationship with PowerPoint for lectures as well, and miss using the blackboard terribly some days. Along with problems with writing, students have great difficulty taking notes. They want to write everything that's on the slide word for word rather than write down the basics. But if you give them the whole side in a handout, they sit there without taking any notes. This is a problem I have yet to resolve, and I don't think I will anytime in the future.

I don't know, maybe we're all getting crotchety, but this current generation of students seem qualitatively different from students of previous decades, and I can't entirely explain why. Have we in higher education in this country failed to somehow adapt new ways of teaching that works better for these students? Are we relying on an old paradigm that simply doesn't work? Or is it, as someone in this thread suggested, that college is now the norm and often becomes a holding pattern for people who don't quite know what to do with their lives? Are students who genuinely don't belong in college being shunted there as the default?

Maybe we need to manage expectations more. A few semesters ago, prompted by an article in the New York Times, I asked my students what they thought the minimum effort was to earn a B in my class. Without exception, they all said that attending every class and doing some of the assigned reading should earn them a B. I was floored, and we had a long discussion about the gap that seems to have developed between what the students expect they are getting, and what they really are getting. I said that what they felt was worth a B wasn't worth anything if they failed the tests, and did poorly on the assignments. They felt it was quantity of work, and I argued for quality. It was an astonishing divide, and a really eye-opening discussion for me. I have been working harder to manage expectations since that discussion.

So the dilemma I face as an educator is to decide how much I am obligated to teach the basics, and what's that going to cost me in terms of the core material I need to teach them. It's tough--you want to help, but it's just overwhelming.

[murielm99]

40. Ten years ago, I was teaching computer skills classes to

middle school students. One of the classes I taught was called Study Skills.

I taught the sixth graders how to take notes. Several high school teachers came up to me and thanked me for doing that.

We published a school newspaper. I had everyone from sixth through eighth grades contribute to the paper. They had to learn editing, grammar and spelling. The students wanted their articles in the paper with bylines. They did not have their articles included until they had everything correct.

Believe it or not, those students did not hate me. Some of them thanked me when they were older.

I taught them how to tell the difference between Internet sources that were fact versus those that were opinion.

We did some fun things, too, like making videos. Some of the students made documentaries about historical figures. Others made news documentaries about things that were happening in the community. One boy put together a nice video about his favorite boy band.

I hope a few students retained the skills they learned from my classes. Maybe the best way is to incorporate these basic skills into our lesson plans, no matter what our core content is.

One of my friends teaches high school history and social studies. He found that most of his seniors could not take a map of the United States and fill in the names of the states correctly. He added some basic U.S. geography to his lessons.

He is a good guy. He registers students to vote a couple times a year. When the kids tell him that politicians are all crooks and they have no say anyway, he tells them that they can feel that way if they like. But, if everyone stops voting, we will no longer have a democracy. I like that answer. He is a Republican, but he has sent a few students to me to work with our county Democratic central committee.

Despite the roadblocks they throw in front of us, like NCLB, lack of community support, parental support and lack of money, some of us still try to teach.

[murielm99]

41. Dupe. Delete.

[historian]

6. it was s long timr ago

but when i went to british boarding school (mini concentration camps) i had read oliver twist in the original prose. There was no such thing as oliver twist for dummies, neither was the internet available for cut and paste. I had to know all the countries of the world and be able to l locate them on a map. Granted, history classes were somewhat biased towards the english point of view which is hypocritical at best, but nevertheless we learned about Greece, Rome and how they have influenced our lives to this very day. We were taken to museums once a month and were expected to write about any topic we chose that we found interesting in the museum. I must have scoured through hundreds of Encyclopedias Britannica but, although the curriculum was a bit hard for a young child, it has helped me immeasurably to understand why certain things happen, and why they are repeated time and time again throughout history.
During our meals classical music played int he background and heaven help us if we didnt know the name of the name of the composer and the piece being played (we had learned them in music class). We were taught chess, art and philosphy. Naturally the philosophy did not consist of the sayings of Plate or Socrates, but we had to debate a topic given by the teacher.
There was no such thing as TV or video games. When it was time to play i would take my toy cars outside and build roads for them and spend happily playing and pretending.
It was certainly no paradise since i am convinced that all british school teachers from that era were pedophiles since they seemed to inordinately enjoy smacking little boys on their bare bottoms and where quite lavish in doling out punishments which usually involved some physical punishment but in the long run I think it was worth it.
It is amazing to me when i hear college graduates speaking about current events or the world. they are clueless and are simply repeating what they have heard. That isnt the worst part though; it was their complete lack of intellectual curiosity about anything which was beyond the boundaries of their little worlds. We saw the consequences of that during the bush years.
Pardon my rant but it was nice to read a posting on that topic.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

14. Similar experience in Italian public schools...

now, people think I'm super-smart because I'm well rounded in a variety of subjects which, ironically, created a lot of issues for me in college (which I attended in the U.S.) when I was trying to pick a major or two. I'm not super-smart, just to be clear.

It amazes me how many people who are college graduates up to and including those with JDs (with whom I have worked often) who are totally oblivious to current events, geography and other topics which are considered to be 'common knowledge' in many other parts of the cultured world (and I'm not talking about the high-brow set, but simply knowing who Van Gogh or Mozart was, among others).

Worse yet, many people my age and younger do not even know who The Beatles were or their music, despite its influence on all else that followed them.

Sadly, some of the least knowledgeable and cultured people I've ever met (and again, this does not in any way include all people, but only those whom I have met) were graduates of some of the finest schools in the U.S. - Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Duke, UPenn, UVA, Stanford, etc.

[historian]

38. it is sad

my daughter who just finished her jd! was only a bit less ignorant than most only because i taught her at home. ive traveled extensively under conditions which i couldn't replicate today (hitch hiking in Afghanistan) but which i passed on to her. I took her to mexico, brazil, england, canada and india. She is now obsessed with travel and learning other cultures. She recently returned from vietnam where she took an elephant to the cambodian border, then a raft made of bamboo logs lashed together. All along those types of trips (which are the only way to know the people) she never once encountered an american! they are terrified of going anywhere which they are unfamiliar with and i think that is dreadful! also when she was in 6th grade a music teacher came in and asked if anyone knew who mozart was. Silence except for my dauther. He was a composer she said. And what did he write asked the teacher who was stunned someone could answer and she said eine kleine nachtumusic which i played for her once and which she loved. Her class mates were simply stunned and could not for the life of them understand why she knew such things but, and here is the rub, they couldnt see why she would even want to know such things! Sad isnt it?

[NNN0LHI]

8. College has turned into a holding pattern for people who can't find jobs

Just something to keep them busy for a few years while waiting for the economy to improve. Thats my take on it.

Don

[HughBeaumont]

11. I'm not even seeing how.

If I had no job, the LAST thing I'd be doing is considering a ridiculously expensive path to massive personal debt that's no longer the workplace guarantee it used to be.

[NNN0LHI]

28. When my youngest daughter graduated HS I told her it was either work or go to college

She was way too young to retire. I would have paid for her tuition and books at the community college near here while she still lived at home if she had wanted. But she felt the need to go to a "party" school. I couldn't afford that and I wouldn't have paid for it if I could. When my wife and I went to visit her we had to dodge all the beer and liquor bottles scattered everywhere to get into her dorm.

Now the best job she can find is babysitting. Pays the school loans back I guess. And she still makes more than her college educated husband who wears a suit to work.

Don

[marshall]

27. A few years ago we had several seniors at my university with a 0.0 average

That is Zero Point Zero. Seniors. How is that even possible? They were obviously treating the time as some sort of extended vacation--racking up either mommy and daddy's money, federal grants and loans, or veterans' benefits.

[sendero]

10. College is now the default..

... for anyone who can (more correctly their parents can) afford it - but more and more analysts think that college is not worth the price.

I'm sending my kids but then they are very very bright :) And even I am not sure they wouldnt' be better of picking an industry and getting an internship.

[niceypoo]

13. College opens a lot of doors

[FSogol]

16. +1. True, but you gotta put a lot of effort into it. The students griping

act like everything should be handed to them.

[AspenRose]

30. And that is why my husband decided, after one year, to not teach college-level

Between the students complaining about the amount of work they were given, their parents calling to complain about their kids failing, and the department heads worried about how this will affect the financial bottom line of the college (private college), he had had enough. He gave the kids every possible opportunity to succeed (weekly evening study sessions, extra credit, extended office hours, etc.), and they didn't want to take advantage of it.

Not ALL college students are like this, but it is a trend.

[niceypoo]

12. What a waste of typing

Absolutely clueless rant

[PeaceNikki]

15. Yeah. This ^

[Deja Q]

45. Seconded

[Deja Q]

44. -11111111111111111111111^42

[RedCloud]

17. They are way too many lazy ass students addicted to techie things.

The morons are text messaging during classes, shouting out and disrupting. They act like they want their poopie diapers cleaned and think faculty are supposed to remind them constantly of things so they can reinforce the "forgetting" communities to which they belong.

I once had the great pleasure of watching a marine drill sergeant dig into one of the brain dead:

"Your professor is not Jesus Christ! He cannot resurrect you from your dead ass approach to learning. You tell him you don't understand. Yet you fail to tell him you get so shit faced drunk each night you cannot even pick your head up off the table. So you are a liar and blame others for your failure to straighten up."

She was a great drill sergeant.

[CTyankee]

26. "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." nt

[varelse]

19. My sister who is in college now (in her 30's) has made similar comments

She's required to read and critique exam essays posted online, and she found this to be an appalling, eye-opening experience.

What the hell is going on in our K-12 schools?

[dugaresa]

22. don't blame the schools, it is also the individual and their own desires

all the time it is the schools that get the blame, however what about the parents who perhaps had no respect for education or even appreciation for it.

There are loads of bright people who never tapped their potential because they didn't much care for books or learning or anything.

I see that all the time.

Then there are the anomalies.

Hell my own spouse is a very bright and well educated person, however he is a very poor writer. Countless times he has me proof things for him, and every time I tell him, "if you would read more, you would find that your writing would improve" and every time he says, "I know you are right but I just don't like reading"

Meanwhile he has had a successful career in his chosen profession.

[Deja Q]

43. not as much schools as just the teachers

The perfect scapegoats.

[varelse]

48. Oh, I am aware that it's not just the schools

Our parents read to us when we were little. They limited our TV time and we had to do chores and homework before we could play or watch any TV. They made sure we ate breakfast and we all cooked and ate dinner together. All four of us, and many of our peers, could read before we entered kindergarten. Something has gone dreadfully wrong in our society. If this were just about a handful of people who have, for one reason or another, never mastered writing skills, it'd be a different story.

[dysfunctional press]

20. it's not the fault of the colleges...

it's the homelife and educational system k-12 that deserve all the blame.

[Odin2005]

21. -1. Insulting, vicious rant.

[TwilightGardener]

23. Your second smug-ass post about how you're superior to young college students

and grads. Jesus, get over your inferiority complex already.

[C_Lawyer09]

24. The Real Problem

Because of the number of college grads, and the failure of our high schools, companies like Enterprise require a BA. College is like most endeavors what you make of it. To cite an old but apt axiom, you get out what you put in. With the advent of online education and alternative ed. there is a comparative glut of college grads. Many of whom aren't the most literate. The main objective of most colleges is to make money. If a decision need to be made vis a vis quality versus quantity, quantity will win out. As a recently retired Soldier, the last four years of which was spent as a Recruiter in SW Washington state, BA or MA recipients generally fared no better on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery than did their HS educated peers or those who recieved a GED. The German education system is terrific, because it is extremely job relevant, our HS work studies programs perpetuate learning "world of work skills" like being on time! Work study at Taco Bell etc. Our community colleges are a safer bet if people want specific job skills that are directly transferable to the world of work. I'm beating the street in the current job market, and although I'm staying positive, thus far it looks like my degree and a quarter will get me a cup of coffee.

[surrealAmerican]

31. The ASVAB is an aptitude test.

It is specifically designed NOT to measure how "well educated" the test-taker may be, just like IQ tests. Your observations, in light of that, are not unexpected.

[C_Lawyer09]

36. It is an aptitude test

But aptitude for trainability, hence the most weight is placed on math and english proficiency. e.g. A college sophomore arguably should be able to read the word chaos, and figure out what half of seven and one half is, whether they express it in fraction or decimal form. If our education system was working, then there would be a quantifiable difference between those with 9, 12, 16, years of education etc. Another glaring problem this shows, is the problem with state standardized tests to measure retention. Above and beyond this there are glaring problems with learning by rote. I'm not a big proponent of the ASVAB, but if a third to one half of high school graduates cannot pass with a score of 31, then there are certainly systemic problems that need to be addressed.

[Kansas Wyatt]

25. I've already seen enough in my life...

To know that just because someone has a college degree, doesn't mean that they know their ass from a hole in the ground.

I have met college grads that have no business making decisions about anything or anyone, because they are so stupid. But hey, they can still drink like they are dropping cherries out of the crack of their ass into a martini glass at the frat party. And they know how to suck that ass all the way to the top. In other words... Fucking pathetic.

[rantormusing]

29. u should wait before throwing stones

Two core classes i had were complete rubbish. One 400 level never lectured or talked to the class. My 300 level legislative process class was easier than my 8th grade constitution exam an exact rehash. I'm using my black berry so please refrain from any grammer critiques, anyways, it has been obvious for awhile that some have a deep dislike for college students. I would like to say more, but using my phone for commenting is a pain.

[C_Lawyer09]

37. The hardest class I've ever taken

Eleventh grade History with Charles Granger. We worked out of two formal texts, and three he compiled himself. His tests contained very few multiple guess or true and false questions. He was a man who centered his life on what he taught. Conversely, I had a college instructor who wrote on an overhead at a fever pitch for six hours a week with his back to the class. You copied what he wrote, and then you were tested over the verbatim notes on Friday.

[Dreamer Tatum]

33. Maybe you should seek help for your separation issues from Target

JFC, get over it already.

[Deja Q]

46. No, don't get over it

I've observed similar idiocy - at college, at the workplace, almost everywhere.

The two morons in a class I am taking, who always whisper to each other gossip and giggle, asked the instructor something he told us EIGHT WEEKS AGO. THIS IS AN INTRO CLASS FOR FUCKING CRYING OUT LOUD. ALL THEY DO IS CHATTER AND IT IS ANNOYING. WHY DO THEY WASTE THEIR MONEY?

I'll spare the work stories for later, though one of them does refute what the OP has conveyed; I will be fair.

[ieoeja]

34. I can sympathize with those complaining about off-course classes.

The thing to remember about college is that we pay them, not the other way around. It sort of changes the dynamic. I had a superb work ethic when being paid or even when helping somebody out. But I went to college to (1) learn what I wanted or needed to learn, and (2) get a degree to get a job. As long as I learned what I wanted and needed to know, the rest was just stupid shit.

[Xenotime]

35. Education is not what it once was. It's over-rated in many areas.

[Deja Q]

47. Depends on what you're looking to get out of it.

And what's going into the course...

[rantormusing]

39. So, you're basing this off a message board?

LOL

When they make you a punching bag, it's easier for them to take your rights away, and step on you.


I went to a private school all the way up until college. Then i enrolled in a community college, and then a 4 year school. Based on what i learned, discipline, and overall difficult work i had to do to pass, i would rank from hard to easy as follows.

High school
grammar school
community college
4 year university

Teacher involvement/quality for the top three i would rank very well.

Basically, if you're well read, you can outshine most college grads. But I've never seen worse teachers than the ones i had at a regular state university. I hope Obama does well with investing in community colleges, because they are really in a position to shine. Allow them to expand and branch out, and they can really quash the problems that these overnight private mills represent.

[jpak]

42. Yup - too much edjumication is just plain fucking dangerous - keep the masses ignorant

So they won't know that Afganistan is NOT in the Middle East!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

49. And I am more convinced than ever that you do not want

people to go to college. Go read some on the right and how a FEW should be educated. You share much with them.

[Toucano]

50. This post is very helpful to me.

I have a 19 year old niece at Ball State who CONSTANTLY complains about her school.

I think about how much her mother and father have sacrificed to PUT her ass in that school and it really annoys me.

It appears that actual learning is an obstacle, not her goal.

At least I know she´s not the only one.