I'm afraid you underestimate the imprudence of the youth today. A lot of them don't value their education and are amassing debt to boot.
Cam Jones Is Gone
- Thread starter TarheelHuskerFan_rivals
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I'm afraid you underestimate the imprudence of the youth today. A lot of them don't value their education and are amassing debt to boot.
I taught and worked with many HS student heading to college. They often asked what college was like. The fist thing I would say is it isn't HS. Then I proceed to tell them that most college profs don't care, it is up to you.
I wish I had a dollar for every kid that came back at semester or the first year and said something like, "wow, you were right, college isn't anything like HS, it's a lot harder and the teachers don't care. " Well duh
Had a nephew run at Nebraska and he had the same academic assistance available to him as the FB players. He was a good student and didn't need much help, think one time for a math class. Anyway, he said with the assistance provided there is no good reason to ever fail a class.
I wish I had a dollar for every kid that came back at semester or the first year and said something like, "wow, you were right, college isn't anything like HS, it's a lot harder and the teachers don't care. " Well duh
Had a nephew run at Nebraska and he had the same academic assistance available to him as the FB players. He was a good student and didn't need much help, think one time for a math class. Anyway, he said with the assistance provided there is no good reason to ever fail a class.
When I began in mid/late 70s there were a number of students in my classes who were Vietnam era vets. They did their time in the service, got out, partied a lot, worked at crap jobs, then decided to take advantage of the GI Bill to change their lives around. Talk about serious students. They sat up front, diligently took notes, asked informed questions, etc. IMHO they led the classes to be better because they set a good example.
My first two years of school, I skipped class, slept or daydreamed in class, and rarely took notes. It wasn't because I was unintelligent(32ACT). It was because I was immature, not spoiled. I left school and worked for 18 months 2 full time jobs and then went back to school. Front of every class and was truly pissed at the single 'B' I got for the remainder of my education. Some people, regardless of background, are just not ready for the independence given, and personal accountability required in college.
That's something I noticed is the people who delayed college for whatever reason were a lot more serious about it than the kids fresh out of high school.
As always...it depends. I put myself through college working for a multinational, billion dollar tech firm...50 miles from campus. My drive was at least 1 hour each way. I carried a 15-18 hour school load and worked about 30 hours a week in a normal week. The football players I knew had more time on their hands than I did.
Net/net, they too are essentially putting themselves through school and need to be serious, focused, smart, effective at time management, and driven to get it done right...compared to students who aren't putting themselves through school.
They lie to the kids basically saying they will be deadbeat losers for the rest of their lives if they don't blindly go to college fresh out of highschool.
Guidance counselors are basically just college recruiters
Guidance counselors are basically just college recruiters
I wish I could "not care," if that means expecting the students to take responsibility for their learning and judge their work based on the standard that they came to class prepared, did all the work, and gave their best effort to follow along. I don't think I will have that freedom if and until I have tenure.
The truth of the matter, at least from the perspective of someone in the humanities about to go on the job market and with considerable experience as a TA, is that non-tenured professors and instructors don't have a lot more leverage than an experienced high school teacher. They don't have to deal with all the bureaucracy of high school and parents, and of course the state is not coercing the student to stay in school and for the teacher to ensure he/she passes. But the average freshman at a state university is not all that different from the average high school senior. Teachers at both levels get students with similar levels of motivation and expectations. (Roughly, teach me something worthwhile while I sit here passively, hoping to be amused/entertained, and oh yeah, I may or may not have done the reading.)
Those students, along with the handful of truly engaged and active learners, submit teaching evaluations at the end of the year just the same. That in essence means that you have to make them the mean in the course, and tailor the course to their learning outcomes. If you don't and you end up with a class where over half the students get C's and below that they deserve, you're gonna have a hell of a time getting a job or keeping your job. (Of course, any teacher with grades that low may also need to recalibrate their expectations or revise their pedagogy.)
I think your statement definitely rings true for tenured professors, especially at research institutions. It's not that they don't care about the learning outcomes of their students. Most professors become professors because they take pride in all aspects of teaching (including, especially, whether they are teaching effectively), but whether Joe or Jill passes is not on their list of priorities. I wish I could say the same.
Sorry, didn't mean to derail to the topic, just thought I'd provide a little more context to college professors "not caring."
high school is really easy to pass...if you have a disability or anything that mimics a disability you get massive amounts of supports...it is also requires spotty attendance and football is only a single season sport in hs...in college it is a 12 hour a day job...Frost requires it...to be honest...im not sure I could have done my class load, morning practice at 6:30 or whatever, meetings later, and study at night and still survive my freshman year...
And lets not forget the professors who teach bogus classes which amount to nothing more than attempted indoctrination, while zipping in and out of that one lecture they teach, with limited office hours a week open to students who arent part of one of their pet research projects used to increase their already inflated salary. Then they push for "free" college because oh..think of the children!
Unless its a math, actual sciences, true business or firm history (not revisionist 101) course, it aint worth listening to and is a waste of money. Theres a lot better on youtube than whatever is going on in those other classes.
Having said that I largely agree that students today are acting very immature and not taking their education seriously, while refusing to understand how much money they're blowing on the monopolized theft that is "higher education".
Before anyone makes assumptions, I was deans list with two degrees. What College has become is a sham.
If more parents realized what was going on in those classes, they wouldnt be subsidizing this drivel.
And lets not forget the professors who teach bogus classes which amount to nothing more than attempted indoctrination, while zipping in and out of that one lecture they teach, with limited office hours a week open to students who arent part of one of their pet research projects used to increase their already inflated salary. Then they push for "free" college because oh..think of the children!
Unless its a math, actual sciences, true business or firm history (not revisionist 101) course, it aint worth listening to and is a waste of money. Theres a lot better on youtube than whatever is going on in those other classes.
Having said that I largely agree that students today are acting very immature and not taking their education seriously, while refusing to understand how much money they're blowing on the monopolized theft that is "higher education".
Before anyone makes assumptions, I was deans list with two degrees. What College has become is a sham.
If more parents realized what was going on in those classes, they wouldnt be subsidizing this drivel.
History, literature, art, philosophy, logic, religion, theology, psychology, sociology, architecture, etc., have no value and are not worth studying. According to you, ‘it ain’t worth listening to and is a waste of money.’ On top of that, you can find out everything you need to know about those topics on YouTube. Wonderful.
One thing my education taught me is that I have no business going around telling others what is valuable to learn and worth spending a life pursuing so long as it doesn’t harm others. I also learned that some find learning valuable for its own sake and others only instrumentally. It’s very clear where you stand, and I’ll just say that, apart from having an extremely myopic and ignorant point of view about what has value and what doesn’t, the world you describe is not recognizably human. Human beings have long cared about those things and found them valuable, or else they would not exist. That people still find them valuable is why they continue to study them in universities.
No full time professor teaches one class a week unless it is a seminar. The standard teaching load at a research university is 2/2–two classes per semester. The other half of your job is research, which you are expected to do. The standard load at a liberal arts job or community college is 4/4. Most classes meet 2-3 times per week. Office hours are standard and university policy, generally one hour per hour of the course. In general students rarely show up to office hours unless a test or paper is imminent, or to discuss a grade they received, no mater how much you encourage them to or make yourself available.
It’s hard to begin to comment on your assertion that classes are taught to ‘indoctrinate’ students. When someone begins reasoning from ad hominems it really is difficult to get one’s grip. I’ve been in the academy for some time and have never come across a professor who taught a course for that reason or with those aims in mind. I can only surmise that it’s a mistaken judgement you’ve formed stemming from your disdain of professors who teach the kinds of classes you’re incapable of seeing any value in.
You know nothing or very little about the salary these professors make if you think it is ‘inflated.’ An adjunct makes about 4K per class, no benefits. A full time instructor 30k with benefits. A beginning tenured full time professor mid 40s with benefits. A long tenured professors may make up to 100k, but that’s after 30 years of working. Don’t forget that they spent on average 6-10 years getting their PhD. Then again, since these people don’t teach anything valuable and you ain’t buying what they’re selling, I guess if they made a penny that would be too much...
Fortunately for me your experiences are not universal and your impoverished judgment about the value of these disciplines does not show them in fact to be disvaluable. I’ll just end by saying that I’ve spent over a decade of my life in academia and your view of it couldn’t be more warped and antithetical to my experiences. Lots of people are smart and clever, can get good grades, and make money in life. That doesn’t make them wise. That you feel entitled and smug enough to dismiss all of these other forms of knowledge and disciplines only shows that you like to make the judgments of a wise and learned man but in fact reason like a fool.
I think that's a lot of the reason kids don't take college seriously. High school classes are easy. Primary school is a joke, it's more like free babysitting than anything. Then when they get to college, you expect kids are going to pay attention and do their work? They spent 12 years of their lives learning how not to do those things. A lot of the problems people associate with colleges are actually problems with primary and secondary education and perhaps home and social lives growing up.
I would say you have it backwards. Most of the kids I know who had mediocre grades in high school did just fine in college. The fact that they only take 4-6 classes that meet only 2-3 times per week, make it much easier to get by with good grades. Additionally, after the first semester and a half, you pick classes that you have an interest in. So that required 4 years of math, or 4 years of English in high school are replaced by in-depth classes in your academic area of choice.'
The kids that have problems in college are those that had problems in high school and elementary school, or those that just went to school to party. But that has nothing to do with how difficult it is, or how the professor expects them to pay attention. Most college professors that I had, and my kids had, really cannot care less if you show up, do the work, or eff off in the their class, as long as you didn't disrupt or distract others.
My point was to related what I heard over and over, that the typical college professor doesn't give extra credit, notify your parents when you are not turning work in, asking you to come in after school, and many of the other typical helps provided in High School.
Don't you think it is a sad commentary how you explained the difference between a TA and tenured prof? One has the pressure to pass everyone, create a welcoming and entertaining environment while the other, not so much.
Its very ironic that you are calling me smug, Mr. "academia". Glad you have such an inflated sense of self.
And you can take that lifetime education of yours and trade it in for some common sense and reasoning, since I'm obviously talking about the mandatory enrollment and tutition for these classes which have nothing to do with the major or intended career field.
The problem isnt that YOU enjoy studying these different things. Unlike you, I'm perfectly aware and also not threatened by the fact that people think some of the stuff im interested in learning about and studying is stupid and not worth their time. I also dont care if someone chooses to go and study what interests them.
The problem is when the "academia" mandate that students take classes beyond what would be logical for their intended major or career field. This is nothing more than the colleges taking advantage of the fact that many career choices necessitate a 4 year degree or more. Couple this with rising tuition and this is a real problem.
I find it sad when colleges are literally advertising "4 year degree guarantee" to lure students. It wasnt that long ago people would shrug and think thats no big deal. But the truth is colleges are loading more courses and electives onto degree requirements.
Perhaps if so many people are wanting to learn that stuff anyway, they should simply make them bonus classes and electives should become voluntary. Maybe..,,and this is going to be crazy...degrees should be geared toward what a student is actually going to be doing in the major they've declared!?!? And all else is up to them should they choose? See its a win win, all the people clamoring to learn sociology on top of whatever they are going to do for their career can still enroll in it, and those who dont, wont. And all those who just love those electives can still opt to enjoy them, while those who simply want to learn what theyre going to be doing can do that and save some time and money taking only core classes.
(Im glad to hear that one thing you've learned in your education is that you have no business telling others what is valuable to learn. Please take that to your administration for me, and frankly the administrations of most institutions).
But you wont be for that, because you dont trust people and look down your nose at them, assuming theyre too stupid to make the right decisions and pursue their education as you would have it. You also know, but couldn't bare to admit, most people wouldn't be in those classes unless they were forced to take classes outside the core or if it was their major.
And sorry, professor, but I never said you can learn everything from youtube. I said youtube has a lot of better things to offer for the time than whatever drivel is being spouted by the professor when you are taking a class you dont want to and has nothing to do with your career. And you can go ahead and take that as it was meant, which is a generic statement. I enjoy psychology, but many don't, for instance.
Of course you dont think professors indocrinate students. Youre one of them, and you agree with their views.
To you it isnt indoctrination, since you agree and think its the way things ought to be.
If you really dont believe that there is a heavy political preference on college campuses and among professors, and that they dont take that to their classes, especially the soft disciplines, you have your head in the sand OR it proves you are in fact part of the problem.
Judging by your posting history on this very board, I wouldnt be surprised if your classes were skewed. But no, no! Not you! You are far too educated, wise, and moral.
You dont know my experiences. I had many, many professors who did just this in their classes and frankly they werent trying to hide it and had no reason to. They live in a bubble.
Last thing....entry level assistant professors made, on average, $70k a year in 2016. So you are either not as educated as you think, or lying. Which is it?
Some make 30, but thats the vast minority....but you already knew that.
And the ones making 100-500k and teaching two classes are gonna keep preachin for that "free" college.
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You don’t have to use all those words. Just say idiot professors should not flunk Husker football players. If they are good. Or even if they are not.
If Johnny Rodgers and Lawrence Phillips can play, what do grades matter?
Maurice Washington will play.
Grades? Who cares?
If Johnny Rodgers and Lawrence Phillips can play, what do grades matter?
Maurice Washington will play.
Grades? Who cares?
Come on. If a player is good, he will play. Grades or other trouble. You think Maurice Washington won’t play? Come on.
I mean that I think if a player earns a flunking grade, he should flunk.
Sounds like thats what was happening here.
I agree with your first paragraph, though my experience has been that professors do encourage students to attend office hours, or at least their TA’s office hours
.I don’t think it’s a sad commentary because I don’t think having the pressure to pass everyone makes for a good teacher or teaching environment. And I also don’t think tenure and creating a welcoming and fun environment are mutually exclusive.
It’s not like tenured professors don’t care about being good teachers and making their subject matter interesting to students. The expectations are also very different depending whether you’re teaching a class with 25 students or a class with 400, and whether you’re at a research institution or a teaching college. My remarks were with the former in mind.
The problem I was trying to convey about not having tenure is having to compromise my own standards. I agonize over whether a student should receive a B or a B- and how the grade they receive might affect my evaluations, and hence job prospects. I sometimes end up handing out B-‘s that I feel should have been C’s. I’d like to be able to just grade and not worry about that. I will probably always agonize over a student’s grade to some extent because I care that they do well and I care that I teach the material effectively.
In short, one does not need carrots or sticks to be good at one’s job, though I completely understand the desire to have them when someone does their job poorly and is immune to any repercussions. I think those cases are very rare, but the impression I get from many on this board is that they are the norm.
Sounds like the guy wanted to transfer. And had injuries. Some coach said go to class and you won’t make dumb penalties like the Colorado penalty. Huh? Reed made that penalty. If grades matter, is that another way Eichorst ruined Nebraska football?
Sorry, you don't get to portray me as smug. I'm not the one making flippant and unwarranted generalizations about a field that is not my area of expertise and telling those in that field what is and what is not important and how to run their institutions. The irony. The day I start telling chemists how to calculate moles is the day you can claim I'm the smug one.
Secondly, you were not talking about "mandatory enrollment and tuition" for electives. You were not talking about them because your post made no mention of them. You were talking about, and I quote: "Unless its a math, actual sciences, true business or firm history (not revisionist 101) course, it aint worth listening to and is a waste of money." So, you were talking about everything colleges teach except those things. See, I've gone to college long enough that I've become a good reader. Now, if you intended to talk about electives, I'd suggest being more precise with your language and qualifying your ideas more carefully. Because now that you've accused me of being dense for failing to see something you did not in fact say, I can see how that may have been what you were trying to say after all.
If now your issue is with electives, and not with the fact that, according to you everything outside of those fields has no value, then your issue is with what college administrators take to be valuable and essential to getting a degree at their institution. I'm sorry, their views on the matter differ significantly from yours. Again, you cannot help but employ bad reasons to make your point. You claim "this is nothing more than the colleges taking advantage of the fact that many career choices necessitate a 4 year degree or more." A dubious assertion of fact that could possibly be true but which you've provided no evidence to believe. Here is another way to look at it. Colleges have been around longer than employers who required 4 year degrees from them. Back then they also required students to take classes in ethics, logic, and art history before there were employers to hire them. Colleges do not exist now simply because employers prefer to hire people with 4 year degrees either. College administrators want students to take classes in ethics, logic, and art history because, for one thing, they may turn out to be applicable to their major, and because, secondly, these courses teach them skills they wouldn't learn in their major. These classes make them better critical thinkers, better at analytic reasoning, make them more creative, etc. College administrators think these skills are valuable for their own sake, hence why they make them requirements for a degree. They may also think the subject matter these fields teach is valuable for its own sake and ought to be a requirement to graduate. I can only speculate on that, but they are at least committed to the idea and pay lip service to the idea that the skills are valuable.
(You see, there is another explanation for why those classes are required. Just because you think schools think "well, we need students to make money, so we better make them take as many classes as possible so we can make money," that this is in fact their reasoning. Presenting an assertion of fact as the truth doesn't make what you say a reason to believe it. This is a consistent flaw in the views you express.)
You're right, as I said, I am not in a position to tell others what is valuable and worth learning. Just like I am not in a position to tell your son or daughter what is valuable or worth learning. College administrators are in a position to tell students what is valuable and worth learning, however. Why? They have authority over the curriculum. They get to decide what is required to get a degree from their institution. Just like you have authority over the values you teach your children, and me mine. You want colleges to be trade schools. Sorry, college administrators don't want colleges to be trade schools (at least not yet). This really isn't hard to understand when you recognize that most people who go into academia think college has value and purpose apart from teaching a person skills to go into the workforce. College administrators have bigger aims for their students than learning a trade, and as they see it those aims involve taking electives.
And yes, I admit it. Most people wouldn't take electives if they weren't required. That doesn't bother me in the least. What bothers me is if students I've taught left my class thinking it was a waste of their time. (I've never read that on an evaluation and the opposite many times.) It would also bother me if college administrators shared your view and not the view of my students. It doesn't bother me to admit the truth.
Finally, I don't look down my nose at people and I certainly don't think they're too stupid to make their own decisions. I value autonomy as much as any other human good and more than most. Again, I really wish you could make an argument or even a simple point without employing ad hominems, red herrings, or by presenting your assessment of some situation as if it is fact, as if there are no other possible explanations for X.
The fact of the matter is that you know almost nothing about me and absolutely nothing about the classes I've taught and yet you've formed an image of me as the bogeyman professor, sitting in his ivory tower terrorizing and indoctrinating his students to become vegans and Marxists, longing for free education while I enjoy my "inflated" salary. I'm sorry, I have more integrity than that. To give an example, I regularly teach a class on argumentative writing and I have the students write on the issue of whether eating animals is morally permissible. I give them the conceptual tools to approach the topic in a rigorous way, the main one being the idea of moral status. I also give them 2 pro sources and 2 con sources and I give equal attention to and motivate both sides. I tell students to pick whatever side they want and that they'll be graded on the quality of their reasons, not what I think. I'm a vegetarian and I've only had 2/46 students argue that we should become vegetarian. You're telling me that is indoctrination?
You may not have noticed, but I don't make accusations like this about you. I don't do that because I don't need to do so in order to make my point. To be honest, that is beneath me. But you aren't. Yeah, I may come off as smug to you because I say you have myopic and ignorant views, or because I say you make the judgments of a wise man but reason like a fool, but notice that what I am talking about are the ideas you express and the reasons behind them. Your problem is with my objecting to your reasons when they're bad, not me. I am not perfect and I may sometimes cross the line of criticizing only your ideas and not you, but if and when I do I am not proud of myself and don't think it has any bearing whatsoever on whether what you say is reasonable or true or whether I'm right.
PS. Your 70k figure may be accurate for assistant professors in general, but we need some context. I gave you rough numbers for those in the humanities, because those were the disciplines you didn't see any value in. A starting assistant professor in the humanities at Midland University is not making 70k. He/she is making more like 45k. The same holds for R1 schools. Professors in the humanities make less than those in math and science. See, I am both educated and not lying. It's just one of those things you probably couldn't learn from Youtube or Google unless you knew the right question to ask.
In any case, the exact numbers are besides the point. The point is whether professor salaries are inflated and whether you're in a good position to judge. If professor A teaches a 2/2 load, chairs a dissertation, serves on all the required academic committees one must participate in, publishes two papers in a year and makes 70k is her salary "inflated?" How do you decide? Can you start by telling me how many hours a week she worked on average?
When a four star kid is still available late in the process, there's always risk involved. Apparently, the kid has talent so it's too bad we're losing him, but he clearly struggled in Lincoln. He was also homesick apparently.
Frost and his staff signed him late in the process after just getting hired. A four star who is available that late usually comes with an academic, injury or character concern-- sometimes more than one. They gave a talented kid a shot and he wasn't ready for it. It was a four week recruiting process. And now Frost & Company are recruiting kids over a two year recruiting process. I don't think they will have to take as many chances on kids down the road.
And lets not forget the professors who teach bogus classes which amount to nothing more than attempted indoctrination, while zipping in and out of that one lecture they teach, with limited office hours a week open to students who arent part of one of their pet research projects used to increase their already inflated salary. Then they push for "free" college because oh..think of the children!
Unless its a math, actual sciences, true business or firm history (not revisionist 101) course, it aint worth listening to and is a waste of money. Theres a lot better on youtube than whatever is going on in those other classes.
Having said that I largely agree that students today are acting very immature and not taking their education seriously, while refusing to understand how much money they're blowing on the monopolized theft that is "higher education".
Before anyone makes assumptions, I was deans list with two degrees. What College has become is a sham.
If more parents realized what was going on in those classes, they wouldnt be subsidizing this drivel.
You are absolutely right. I did have three professors at NU who tried to indoctrinate me and my classmates. One spent much of his time in his poli sci class talking about how the rapture was coming soon and so much of what we were learning was worthless. He talked about how all the secular humanists were doomed. Another poli sci prof spent much of his time cherry picking the political philosophies of certain philosophers like Kant to try and show how liberals were destroying America. The only grade below a B+ I got in college was in his class when I stated on the final how his indoctrination didn't work and that when you actually looked at the works of the political philosophers as a whole they said just the opposite of what he claimed. Then there was the tenured English professor (a transplant from England some 20 years earlier) who came up just short of saying Hitler and the racists are right. Yep, you are correct. I really had to dodge the ultra-conservative indoctrination attempts in college. Thanks for reminding me.
As the cost of a college education continues to rise, I think it would be good advice for a lot of kids to just work for a year or two after graduating from HS, take a couple transferable classes at the local community college or enroll there full time. Maybe for some it may be a stint in the military. And then enroll at a four year institution. So many kids are not ready for the freedom and distractions that come with going away to college.
Wow, this thread really blew up into philosophies of education. I ended up getting a job as a microwave engineer that required wave theory and also signal processing, fiber optics and computer logic. The classes I had in fluid dynamics and building bridges ended up being a waste of my time. However, in college I didn't know what kind of job I would land after I graduated. If I had gotten a job cabling power to bridges or dams, I would have needed the background in statics and dynamics.
As far as my electives, while also not real applicable to my career, they came in handy. I took Psychology 101 and used some of the concepts my whole career to understand people and explain stuff to people (like "I don't think you are climbing Maslow's pyramid very well"). Besides, my elective classes were where all the girls were. I did have one philosophy professor who discriminated against me because I was a reservist with short hair. He actually called me a "baby killer" in front of the class. I dropped the class after the cut off date for paying a portion of it, but he was kind enough to backdate the drop request so it didn't cost me.
So I'm not sure whose argument I'm backing up. I guess a lot of my classes, especially the electives were "worthless" in the grand scheme of things, but in retrospect, I'm glad I took all of them, including being forced to take the electives - they rounded me out.
As far as my electives, while also not real applicable to my career, they came in handy. I took Psychology 101 and used some of the concepts my whole career to understand people and explain stuff to people (like "I don't think you are climbing Maslow's pyramid very well"). Besides, my elective classes were where all the girls were. I did have one philosophy professor who discriminated against me because I was a reservist with short hair. He actually called me a "baby killer" in front of the class. I dropped the class after the cut off date for paying a portion of it, but he was kind enough to backdate the drop request so it didn't cost me.
So I'm not sure whose argument I'm backing up. I guess a lot of my classes, especially the electives were "worthless" in the grand scheme of things, but in retrospect, I'm glad I took all of them, including being forced to take the electives - they rounded me out.
Well, from what I gather we are not in disagreement. I think you're backing me up, of course!
The sense in which you seem to think the classes were "worthless" is not inconsistent with them having value to your life. As you said, they "rounded you out" and you're glad you took them--they had value for you. You seem to be saying they were for the most part "worthless" for your career (psychology exempted), but not "worthless" to your development as a human being or citizen. Whether it should be the aim of colleges to develop well-rounded human beings or citizens as part of their curriculum is a debatable matter, and I get why this is becoming more controversial as college becomes more expensive. I'm not deaf to those concerns. I also get why it's controversial that colleges teach about values since not everyone agrees about what is valuable.
One of the main controversies driving this conversation is that I am committed to the idea that taking electives and attending college have non-instrumental value, that they're valuable for their own sake.
I admittedly have a difficult time defending this when it comes to certain electives, because I realize that not everyone has my attitude toward learning and frankly there are subjects I have little or no desire to learn. What I don't do is confuse my lack of desire to learn those things with a lack of their having value, and I object to anyone who does make that mistake. To say the former is just to say I have no interest in learning X, to say the latter is to say there are no good reasons to learn X.
Maybe you agree that these courses/subjects had non-instrumental value or maybe you don't. Your remarks about enjoying them and them rounding you out can be interpreted in either way. We are certainly in agreement that by making you more "well-rounded" these classes did some good.
Another thing I believe and which I hope would be less controversial is that when a freshman first attends college he or she hasn't figured out everything that is valuable and worth studying in life, and that exposing him or her to different ideas and subjects she could not get exposed to in high school might be worthwhile, for the reasons you stated and many others. So, again, I object to anyone who says those classes are not worth anyone's time or have no value. Apart from confusing one's desire to learn those things with whether they're valuable, one isn't even in a position to form a judgment about their value until they've taken and sincerely engaged with the subject matter.
Also, in case it isn't obvious, I don't think anyone should be discriminating against you or calling you a baby killer.
Anybody else suspect that Mr. Jones is going to wake up one morning 6 months from now and realize how good he had it at NU and how badly he screwed things up?
No, he'll transfer somewhere Academics don't matter and the coach doesn't care and be much better off.
Well, from what I gather we are not in disagreement. I think you're backing me up, of course!
The sense in which you seem to think the classes were "worthless" is not inconsistent with them having value to your life. As you said, they "rounded you out" and you're glad you took them--they had value for you. You seem to be saying they were for the most part "worthless" for your career (psychology exempted), but not "worthless" to your development as a human being or citizen. Whether it should be the aim of colleges to develop well-rounded human beings or citizens as part of their curriculum is a debatable matter, and I get why this is becoming more controversial as college becomes more expensive. I'm not deaf to those concerns. I also get why it's controversial that colleges teach about values since not everyone agrees about what is valuable.
One of the main controversies driving this conversation is that I am committed to the idea that taking electives and attending college have non-instrumental value, that they're valuable for their own sake.
I admittedly have a difficult time defending this when it comes to certain electives, because I realize that not everyone has my attitude toward learning and frankly there are subjects I have little or no desire to learn. What I don't do is confuse my lack of desire to learn those things with a lack of their having value, and I object to anyone who does make that mistake. To say the former is just to say I have no interest in learning X, to say the latter is to say there are no good reasons to learn X.
Maybe you agree that these courses/subjects had non-instrumental value or maybe you don't. Your remarks about enjoying them and them rounding you out can be interpreted in either way. We are certainly in agreement that by making you more "well-rounded" these classes did some good.
Another thing I believe and which I hope would be less controversial is that when a freshman first attends college he or she hasn't figured out everything that is valuable and worth studying in life, and that exposing him or her to different ideas and subjects she could not get exposed to in high school might be worthwhile, for the reasons you stated and many others. So, again, I object to anyone who says those classes are not worth anyone's time or have no value. Apart from confusing one's desire to learn those things with whether they're valuable, one isn't even in a position to form a judgment about their value until they've taken and sincerely engaged with the subject matter.
Also, in case it isn't obvious, I don't think anyone should be discriminating against you or calling you a baby killer.
Honestly, if I knew what I know now, I wouldn't need to go to any college classes to succeed, sans getting the CONNECTIONS to faculty/alumni that is predicated on good grades, which is the reason to go to class and kick *** in the first place.
Faculty and alumni. Those are the keys to success. If you just go to class and nothing else, college isn't worth it. Connections. That's what college is for. Most students stick their heads up their asses and neglect this crucial part of the experience.
So what happens to the other 24%? Abducted by aliens? Picked up by a twister? Sink hole? Run away with the carnival?
Isn’t there an NCAA limit of 20 hours per week? That’s like having a part time job.