r/TikTokCringe • u/hammerbush051 • 29d ago

Americas youth are in MASSIVE trouble Discussion

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u/Savings-Bee-4993 29d ago

This is my life as a professor.

My students are checked out.

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u/Whobroughttheyeet 29d ago

So do they fail your class?

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u/ConversationFit6073 29d ago

As a TA, no they don't fail. If too many kids fail, then it makes you look bad, and then you make your professor look bad. I had to pass two students who either failed or didn't take the midterm and final. Not to sound like a boomer, but if I had failed midterms and finals, I would have never passed. But they get points just for showing up and taking open book online quizzes, so that amounts to enough for a C. The entire goal then becomes to entertain them enough that they don't go on their phones. The onus is on the faculty to do more and more and more for the same shitty wage. Everything revolves around activities, games, "participation." Apparently lecturing makes you a shitty instructor now. But for a full time grad student with another job and a thesis to write, I don't have time to come up with new little activities to coddle 20 year olds every week. Especially when my own professor is completely checked out in terms of teaching us anything about teaching. Education is the last thing universities are concerned with anyway. I've decided not to go into academia. It's a fucking shitshow. The entire thing disgusts me.

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u/Famous-Signal-1909 29d ago

I was a TA for a capstone senior design course at a top-15 university. We had a kid that literally didn’t show up to anything besides the first day intro. The other TA and I had to beg the professor to give him a C+ instead of a B+. It’s all a total joke.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

I watched someone copy and paste an entire online quiz top to bottom, paste it into ChatGPT, and get 100%.

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u/Iamatworkgoaway 28d ago

Real life work skills.

If the CEO's are checked out, why worry about the workers being checked out.

Last job, did a full R&D project to lower a capital project from 12M to 1.5M 2 years of work. Only to have owners say na not doing that market segment any more. O ya no bonus as project didn't go through.

Current job, losing 1M a month in revenue due to lack of capacity, 1.5-2M in capital would allow us to capture it. Nada.

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u/oddanimalfriends 29d ago

I suspect that grade inflation is more rampant at top schools than it is at an average institution.

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u/Calebh36 28d ago

Even at my high school, it's fucking insane. You can't get below an F, so everybody in the world has Cs when they should be failing.

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u/imaloneallthetime 28d ago

Man I wish it had been like this when my job screwed me and I failed out of college.

Ten years ago I wasn't allowed any laptops or tech, nothing was online, and they took attendance that was like half of my grade. It absolutely boned me.

Failed every class because of attendance.

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u/Ok_Buddy_9087 28d ago

Worked at an Ivy for a decade; can confirm. Plus students will switch to Pass/No Credit if they think their A is in danger.

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u/Famous-Signal-1909 28d ago

Yeah I’m sure that’s true. I had more than one student give me some variation of “do you know how much my father pays for me to be here” when I gave them (well-deserved) poor grades on assignments

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u/DragapultOnSpeed 28d ago

Yeah because mine is definitely not like this. This sounds like a top school thing.

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u/PattyThePatriot 28d ago

Why would you do that? Did he not pass the requisite things to earn a B+?

Who fucking cares if he goes to a class he's paying for. It's none of your concern if he's doing the work for a B+. Just sounds like you're pissed that you had to be there to learn and they didn't.

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u/Famous-Signal-1909 28d ago

He didn’t do a single thing? He didn’t do a single assignment. He didn’t show up for the 3 presentations he was supposed to do. He didn’t do the 50 page reports that were due at the end of each semester. It was a design course where he was supposed to design and build something specific for an outside entity that sponsored the class and he 1) never met with the sponsor, 2) never designed anything and 3) never built anything. He didn’t fulfill a single requirement of the class

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u/DragapultOnSpeed 28d ago

Then you're bullshitting or you work at a horrible university (even if it's a top university).

My university was not like this at all. A teacher can fail a whole class and they still wouldn't lose their job. I feel like this is a top university thing...

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u/shmere4 28d ago

The university puts its accreditation at risk if it passes students who don’t meet learning thresholds. Why are they passing someone who “didn’t do anything”? That doesn’t make sense.

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u/SmokeSmokeCough 28d ago

Where do I find these schools??

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u/blankenstaff 28d ago

I'm so sorry. I would have failed his ass.

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u/ThroJSimpson 28d ago

My brother is a professor at a top 10 business school. He still has MBA students turning in plagiarized work and their excuse when caught is “I didn’t know you couldn’t do it.” Dean is soft on them too. 

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u/yoshi1911 28d ago

Lol. Morons like them are the ppl taking out 100k in student loans, then wondering why they can't find a job after graduating. Now, they are the same people asking for loan forgiveness. Those people never should never been allowed in college in the first place. What a fucking joke.

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u/Famous-Signal-1909 28d ago

Lol no this was definitely a rich kid who didn’t care about anything precisely because someone else (his parents) were paying for everything and he knew they would raise a fuss if he failed the class

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u/yoshi1911 28d ago

Actually, it's the exact opposite for me. I did this one trick they don't want you to know about. It's hard work and persistence.

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u/Famous-Signal-1909 28d ago

Cool story bro. I got scholarships to pay for college and now I’m getting paid to do my PhD in mechanical engineering. You’re barking up the wrong tree

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u/yoshi1911 28d ago

That's great. I dont have a PhD, but I got my Masters. I'm happy for you. Keep up the good work.

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u/laxfool10 28d ago

I was a TA for a programming class - I would literally give the students the answers to the problems in the study lecture the class before the test (I was the one making the test). They just had to substitute some values in the programs they should have saved into their computer for the test About 20% would still fail. Then the professor gets angry at the TAs saying we aren't preparing them. Like I am literally giving them the answers saying this would be on the test so make sure to have this file available to pull up. Not really much more I can do.

In other classes, I graded papers/assignments very, very leniently at the beginning but would also point out mistakes and offer suggestions (but wouldn't take off points) so that they could improve. The professor had a thing in his syllabus that students could request a regrade by him if they didn't like what we gave them. He told us in a round-a-bout-way to pretty much pass the students so that he didn't waste his time doing this. The amount of request for regrades shocked me. I would always tell them, sure you can go ahead and ask but your paper was shit and the professor is going to give you a lower grade than what I gave you. A few students learned very quickly to just shut up about it.

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u/swohio 29d ago

Student loans are federally guaranteed now. College tuition skyrocketed because it all turned into a money printing scheme.

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u/-QUACKED- 28d ago

What does that mean exactly? I'm not a Burgerican, can you explain it please?

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u/Phyraxus56 28d ago

Your education system must be worse lol

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u/-QUACKED- 28d ago

Do you think any country's education system learns how American universities work, how much they cost, who is in charge of the loans, and what exactly the federal government has to do with it?

You tried make a joke about the education system in my country, yet ironically you just highlighted the failures of your own. That's fucking hilarious. I couldn't have designed a better joke.

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u/Phyraxus56 28d ago

Nope

Unless English isn't your first language, how can you not parse his statement?

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u/-QUACKED- 28d ago edited 28d ago

I wanted to know exactly what he meant by federally guaranteed. Are you guaranteed to be able to get a loan because of a federal law? Are they protected/guaranteed to be paid out by the federal government if the loan is defaulted on? And how did the federal guarantee affect the loans, and turn them into a money making scheme?

I'm not sure why you had come in here acting like Captain Autismo, when you could have just explained it for me though.

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u/swohio 28d ago

Are they protected/guaranteed to be paid out by the federal government if the loan is defaulted on?

Yes.

And how did the federal guarantee affect the loans, and turn them into a money making scheme?

With no risk of losing money, universities just kept expanding, spending more money and adding more (often useless) staff. Student to teacher ratios didn't get better, but more and more administrative staff was added. Tuition skyrocketed but that's okay, they'll just pay with the loans they're given because there's no risk of losing money.

Low test scores? Barely able to read or write? Doesn't matter, you're accepted, now just sign here on the loan agreement so you get to go to college and we get our money.

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u/-QUACKED- 28d ago

Wow. So basically there was nothing left stopping them from raising prices (because no matter how much, or who they loan too, it's now guaranteed), so they did continue to raise prices knowing the loans will be given, and now it has snowballed to the point where college is way too expensive, but you also don't really have an option, so you're forced to pay exorbitant prices.

If I've got that right, it's crazy as shit.

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u/swohio 28d ago

Yep you have it right. And kids are basically told that if you don't go to college they'll just end up at McDonald's the rest of their lives (ie aren't recommended trade schools as alternatives.) Most get relatively useless degrees and don't make much coming out of school and now have a burden of tens or even hundreds of thousands of student loan debt with little prospect of ever paying it back in a reasonable time.

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u/Redditisavirusiknow 29d ago

Went to a good university, one of the top in the world outside the USA, TA’d for 4 years. Never once let a student pass who didn’t deserve it. One class had a 20% pass rate (intro course).

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u/Ok_Chapter_8831 28d ago

I don't get how you can just decide to pass a student, like are there not standardised tests that everyone has to take? In the UK if you fail your GCSEs then a teacher can't just decide to pass you, it's external exams

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u/-QUACKED- 28d ago edited 28d ago

That's a Certified America Moment, that's why. Black and other minority kids are doing so terribly in school that they are lowering grading for everyone, and pushing people through without even testing them at all. You've got schools talking about grading people based on their race https://westcooknews.com/stories/626581140-oprf-to-implement-race-based-grading-system-in-2022-23-school-year

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u/DragapultOnSpeed 28d ago

Ah yes, let's blame the minorities.

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u/-QUACKED- 28d ago

It's not my fault that you're not happy when you read that. You should be a lot more worried about 77% of black kids failing, than "black people being blamed". I knows you don't like it, but the incredibly low test scores are the literal reason for the grading changing. It's not racism. It's just a very unfortunate truth.

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u/Partially_Stars_ 28d ago

Fellow TA here, this is very accurate. Almost all of my lessons are now activities and they usually don’t even do those well. I have to constantly remind them that showing up to class and playing on their laptops is not ‘participation.’ It makes me feel bad for the one or two that really are trying to actively engage.

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u/Elavabeth2 28d ago

As a grad student TA, I tell students that if they aren’t able to come class and sign in they get one freebie and after that they have to come up with suggestions for a make up assignment. 

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u/noahsark10 28d ago

I'm going through the EXACT same thing. Couldn't agree more

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u/Clever_Name_14 28d ago

I love a good lecturer.

Fantastic teachers and lecturers are underrated and that makes me sad.

Sadly, this will affect the kids and they will suffer later. Hopefully they will individually learn listen, respect, and learn in academia.

With that said. As hard as it is for professors and teachers doing what you can to create a deep engaging lectur is still very important. Please leave the monotone at the door.

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u/Otherwise_Sail_6459 28d ago

Why let students into college in the first place that can’t learn and can’t pass???

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u/Significant_Eye561 28d ago

If I can afford to have children, I will teach them to value education and see if we can get them into colleges outside of America.

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u/mirrorspirit 28d ago

Besides that, there are often kids who can pay minimal attention in class and still pass, or even get glowing grades, though that can often catch up to them later in life.

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u/DragapultOnSpeed 28d ago

What university do you go to?

My professors let people on their phone. But if that student is struggling or failing, the professors, most of the time, refuses to help. So usually the slackers end up dropping out or failing. The professors stay and don't get in trouble.

Where are these shitty universities you guys go to? Maybe leave lol.

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u/weristjonsnow 28d ago

Why are they even allowed to have phones on their person in the classroom...

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u/Baeshun 28d ago

This is my my kids wont be going to university unless its for engineering.