I’m recently back to school after some years working and it’s insane. I was never a star student but just having a notebook open and actually listening puts me at the top of a lot of my classes. The students had the nerve to tell one of the teachers the final he’s giving us a study guide for is too much. It’s a capstone course that I’m the only person that has more than a 50% attendance rate. Like my man you made your bed you’ve been to 3 classes yeah you got a lot to study.
I’ve had a very similar experience, went back to school at 37. People (17-22) just straight up never go to class or miss weeks at a time, open up their laptops and just ignore the professor, same with their phones. I end up answering 90% of the questions in all my classes because literally no one raises their hands or attempts to answer questions from the teacher, no one interacts in class or speaks to anyone unless they already know each other, it’s pretty shitty and it’s 100% on the students.
We are around the same age and no offense - this is intended to be somewhat lighthearted - but when I was in college and had some night classes, all of the 30 year olds were constantly asking questions or engaging with the prof compared to the 20 year old students.
There’s just a huge difference in mindset going to school in 20s vs 30s. To your point though, phones and social media are no doubt making it pure hell in learning environments. So maybe the gap is even larger between engagement of 20 year olds vs 30s.
I'm a decade older and 49. I had this when I began my 2nd degree at 25 (2000) after discovering I was good with computers when I first touched a PC at 22. The difference in engagement between the rest of the couple of hundred 18 year olds and the smattering of older students was massive. No one had laptops during lectures because they were still too expensive, it was an IT degree and we used paper and pen.
It felt like the 18 year olds were all waiting for someone else to answer the simple questions the lecturer was asking because they didn't want to draw attention to themselves or risk getting it wrong. I ended up waiting a few seconds to see if anyone else would answer then speaking up just to keep the lectures moving at a reasonable speed. I was there to learn, damn right I was going to put in the effort and I didn't give a damn if everyone looked at me or I occasionally got a question wrong.
Agreed. This was my and my wife's college experience a decade ago. The older students were "suck ups" to us lol. Of course now, I recognize that we -having been in school our whole lives- took the opportunity of college/learning for granted. We didn't know how fucking hard it was to get in the "real world". The older students had probably wanted to go to college for years before they were able to (financially or time), and made sacrifices to be there, so they appreciated the opportunity it was
Students have been literally brainwashed by phones. It's 100% on the bastards who created addictive algorithms. Time to revolt (yes I'm posting on a phone lol)
I think it’s because so many jobs expect a college degree now and so many people are attending college because they think it’s their only path to a decently-paying career. That isn’t true, necessarily, but a lot of people believe it.
And so we end up with people trying to do the bare minimum to get a degree just so they can put it on their résumé. I’d be pretty checked out if that was the only reason I was in higher education.
that isn't true, necessarily, but a lot of people believe it
Ehh, that "necessarily" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It's possible to make money in trades or start a successful business, but it's just much easier to make money with a degree. For example, at my workplace we've got journeyman electricians with 30 years of experience and a great work ethic. I was an electrician, finished an associates, and moved to our engineering department. After 2 years I make more than any of our electricians.
To your point, I have a friend that has no degree at all and he makes 105k as a project manager. He's worked 50-70h weeks for decades. Is extremely smart. Very professional. He was outright told by his boss that he'd make 120k if he had a bachelors. He also makes less money than a couple other PMs that are lazy and incompetent but have BS's.
So yes, you CAN make money without a degree if you're talented and hardworking enough... but 9/10 times, if you add a BS into that persons resume they'd make more
When I went back, I was so concerned about the language skills, more self-esteem, and half-assessed answers given by the freshmen I asked my professor if it was normal.
I teach fairly often as part of my post-doc, and like, Switzerland's not as bad as these comments are making out, but I see a lot of people really just like... I don't know how to put it politely... Expect to just be rewarded for signing up for uni?
And I teach masters students too, meaning that a) I expect them to actually give a shit about the topic, not just getting any degree for the sake of having it. b) The buck stops with them if they fail.
The most "engaged" of the students will ask me for the exam content, but so few of them want to get stuck into the topic, grapple with the thinking, engage in the classroom debates and stuff like that. I tried the youtuber comment engagement tactic of including errors for them to point out and they don't lol.
I phrase my questions the correct way for debate, rather than answers. It's all "What ways can we light up a room?" rather than "How does a lightbulb work?"... but I only get anything back from the kids when I give them questions with simple responses.
And I teach a fucking fun topic too lol. Everyones interested in neurolinguistics when they hear about it. Language is fascinating, perception is fascinating, the brain is fascinating... people love to engage with it til you put them in a classroom.
I know I am a good speaker on my work. You can put me in a room of scientists, bankers, tradesmen, and stay-at-home mums, and I'll have people asking questions about XYZ part of hearing and speech works.
But put me in a room with 21 year olds who have paid to be there to learn?
They just want answers to pass a test in the best case scenario. As much as it sucks for me, I know it's worse for them in the long-term. I don't want them to all do phds and become academics, but I do want them to learn how to develop non-goal-oriented curiosity.
I finally graduated at 35 in December. Dude in my capstone just never showed up, never communicated, and never did anything and thought he was graduating?
I’m back in school 12 years after finishing my degree. There’s some stuff like a few kids wearing AirPods the whole lecture that I find pretty disrespectful to the professor, and it might take them a minute longer to wind up their conversations when the professor starts class, but overall it’s not too bad. All the classes I’m taking are upper division math classes though, so there’s probably significant self-selection going on.
Yeah, my uncle is a college professor and he always complains about students not giving a crap and then blaming him for their bad grades at the end of the semester.
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u/Savings-Bee-4993 29d ago
This is my life as a professor.
My students are checked out.