I'm 19 and I think something is VERY wrong with education...

Right now I'm in college. I graduated from high school last year.

Is it just me, or is college a subsidiary of a corporation? Because quite frankly, it seems like it.

First thing is tons of people seem to be here for the wrong reasons which primarily are either

1. Hope for money... and lots of it.

2. To party. (these are people who are usually, and I hate saying this, dumb as can be and frankly have no business in higher education... same for point one sometimes)

I see commercials for higher education on TV. What's the seller? "MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! MAKE MORE MONEY! 100,000 a YEAR!" My god. Somehow I have a feeling this wasn't the case in past educated societies.

I was sitting in government the other day. This person was in his 30's-40's. Just now apparently got around to reading the constitution, and let the class know how shocked he was to find out the ability to declare war was a power delegated to congress.

We have someone else in the class who doesn't seem to understand the difference between the constitution and declaration of independence. This should have been learned in grade school.

Even in political groups lack of political understanding is massively obvious. I remember when I was volunteering for the campaign when there was talk of republicans moving the elections to another date people were running around screaming the date was set by the constitution. Every time I heard it I could only think “here are tons of people at least 40 years old who’ve never bothered to read the constitution”.

It seems education of government, art, literature, etc are no longer important. The primary goal seems to be preparing everyone for some role in a corporation.

Most people are equating education with jobs. This is another peculiarity of our education system. Education is supposed to be for it's own sake... to be a more informed citizen. Over and over in politics, there are complaints about the people who are not able to think on their own, who never gained the knowledge of deductive reasoning. Whether they go on to pursue a living in construction or plumbing, or a manager in retail, wouldn't it be an advantage to our whole nation if everyone developed and honed their thinking skills? Wouldn't we all be better off if 90% of the citizens of this country were able to debate ideas in a reasonable, knowledgeable and thoughtful manner? This is what has been happening now for decades in *MOST* countries. Instead, we have reduced higher education to being a slave of corporate interests. Reduced to a television commercials screaming "MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!".

Then there is also some bias towards those who don't go and receive their corporate education. Right now, I'm considering independent education. It seems to me my college is primarily interested in selling me to a corporation, and I have no interest in that.

I've recently taken a job at UPS. A company with a VERY effective union. I've started at $8.50/hr with a good chance of advancement and a guaranteed $1 per year pay raise every year even if I remain in my current position. Though I realize in the bush economy that could change. Management sports democratic bumper stickers, however.

I don't like having to have that attitude, but I'm sick of this perverted education system… People in higher education with NO critical thinking ability. People don't seem to understand the importance of actually thinking, and thus being able to realize the significance of what we have (and what we are losing). At least we can all watch survivor and american idol.

For example, many people I have spoken to in my college seem to be very republican and very very uninformed. Yet, they seem to know everything. When discussions come up about loss of rights no one seems to care or realize the significance of it.

Even the instructors don't seem to care very much. I have one who on a multiple choice tests uses "A. It's fun to eat tacos. B. I think it's pretty today. etc" Give away tests for those who don't want to learn.

No one seems to care about others in society. The attitude seems to be if you fail and die economically too bad. You must deserve it. Unions? Screw them. Fair wages? As long as I've got mine what does it matter? That's the attitude. When new information is presented that attitude doesn't change. After all, most people are there to learn how to be marketable to XX corporation.

Can't entirely blame them though. The education system has been almost totally adapted for people who really have no interest in education whatsoever.

Anyway, done with my rant.

Thanks for posting and with your mind and capacity for critical thinking, and acute discernment, you'll do just fine. I swear.

Bless you.

philosphy because only that class had the leisure to pursue them. We've about come full circle on that one, only the moneyed leisure class aren't particularly interested in anything but grabbing more and more of the wealth of this country away from the people who produce it.

College has become what high school used to be. If you've looked at a high school text from the turn of the last century, the difference is stark. High school graduates were well prepared for a number of professional careers. Today they are barely literate and don't even know how to make change unless a computerized cash register tells them how.

We've been robbed of so much in this country, and wealth is only one thing. We've been robbed of a future, of hope, and of a reasonable level of public education.

I don't recognize my country any more. I heartily dislike what the Repuglicans have turned it into.

And I see the kind of mentality you speak of every day. People who are either in college to make a lot of money for themselves, with little interest in bettering society. Then there's the people who just want to cruise by with mediocre grades and party all the time on their way to some hot shit corporate entry level job. These students tend to be very shallow and not very interesting in the classroom. But not all students are that way, and many colleges and universities find ways to keep such students out. Nor is there any rule that says you have to go into the private sector when you graduate. If you are at a large university, my advice to you is to find a niche of people with values similar to yours; if you can't find that where you are, then you may want to consider a transfer to someplace that is more compatible with your values.

though I think it may be difficult for any school to achieve such goals currently.

It's a mix of both young and old. Some come in thinking they know everything about a computer, then get bitch slapped. I have met a few of these people and I wondered if they even took the same entrance exam I did. I have seen these things at some local universities and it makes me wonder why I would even go blow 60k on a BA or a Masters for that matter at any of them. If I am going, I am going to learn something. Parties are okay, but not every damn day and not with ignorant people constantly surrounding you.

but you have stated something that your generation and others will have to come to grips with. Is education all about making "money"? Money is the grease that turns the wheel? Oh, it's a hard rain a gonna fall. But, for you, there is hope. Because you have also reasoned with your heart. When they go to the well to drink the cool drinks of their corporate masters and they find there is nothing there for them. Thirsty and weak, it may be too late.

Seriously, I can see you're a very bright youngster (and welcome to DU also!)

You obviously had a decent education through HS; I didn't notice one spelling or grammar error in your most excellent epistle. Be grateful for that, at least...I'm thankful every day that I enjoyed what I consider to have been an excellent public school education and my University (Tulsa) was then (early 60s) a virtual paragon of colleges. I can't offer any opinion about it these days but I think you've captured the essence of what's wrong with much of the educational system these days. Would you care to give a name, or a hint, about your school?
:D
:toast:

:-(

I had a few wonderful students each year, but the majority weren't interested in anything that the pop culture didn't approve of, and the college pandered to them.

I just got my Yale alumni magazine today (I earned my graduate degree there), and there's an article about the new president bringing "corporate values" to the campus, as if that's a good thing. I haven't read more than the first couple of paragraphs, but I don't think I'll like the rest of the article any better.

I can't stand those alumni magazines, although they *are* instructive.
I got my master's degree from my current institution en route to a PhD that I'm still working on, so I'm already on their mailing list.

It's interesting how the tone of the alumni magazine differs from that of the publications meant to be read by people on campus. Every pretense of "liberal education" goes out the window, and it's all about the great corporate values of the university, and the excellent job placement record of the business college. Oh, then there are a few little stories in the back about the cute things the faculty are doing in the college of humanities.

I guess I see their point; when the state abandons its commitment to public higher education, you have to go after the millionaire alumni. Even if their money has all the strings in the world attached.

I read a book (I think it was by Russ Bellant? but don't quote me) that at some universities, right-wing money set up those "alumni" magazines. For example, "The Spectator" from the University of Iowa was established with right-wing money.

So the magazines were established to promote the right-wing agenda. The book I read gave examples about publications at many universities setup with right-wing money. Not just my school...

The right has built a machine, just as David Brock points out. They own everything and the message is theirs. That shrill scream you hear everywhere, to the point it makes you deaf, is the right-wing nutjobs.

They're like swarming ants, or termites.

ON EDIT:
I believe the source for the book I mention above is one of the following: (sorry, I could still be wrong about my source, I read these books a couple of summers ago, and my memory is bad)

Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism
by Russ Bellant

or it might have been this book:
Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party
by Russ Bellant

Your rant gets an 'A.' (Could be a little more in depth in cause and effect, but...)

I talk about the things about which you write often in class. People get annoyed because I'm "off-topic."

In defense of the use of humorous answers in multiple-choice questions, you would be amused/shocked at how many people STILL get the questions wrong.

HS, one thing that always bugged me in school was (to be overlly succinct) the grading of papers seemed to miss a great opportunity of creating a closed-loop of improvement by giving students a chance to redo their paper taking in the points made to boost the mark up at least a part-grade if not a full one. This absence always made me feel the point was not actually to improve but to keep students within a zone. Why can't the point be to get all the students to A+ ??

Skool sux <-- look what it did to my spelling! And my grammar ain't good enough too!

I didn't start college until I was 21....5 million years ago...and yeah, there are lots of people who are there to "get a good job." There are also a lot of no-so-well-informed people there who provide amusement to those of us who are.

About the multiple guess example you gave, some teachers are just burned out on all of the idiot students they get.

My advice: raise your hand, speak out, and share your thoughts; profs really appreciate it...good ones, anyway.

Stick to your guns and keep on movin'!!! You are an asset to this country and it was a pleasure reading your words. Rant away!!

Jax

I took some classes at a local college. Most of those students were just out to get their diplomas in order to make money. Few students more difficult than they had to.
All the colleges that I considered were 4 year private liberal arts colleges, without graduate or tech degrees offered, nor "career majors" like accounting. engineering, journalism, business administration, ect. I also looked for a good incoming freshman class academically. I also read their mission statements and what they said their education was for.
I was glad to go to a college where many students actually took intermediate and advanced classses outside their major, most of the tests were essay based with good essays required to get credit, we discussed academic subjects outside of class (and just not to review for the test), and learning was actually valued.

I feel the same sentiment LoganW. Everything anymore seems more and more like it's only about the bottom line.

You are right about what you are observing. Some of it is your own growth, some is the strange dumbing down that is happening in our country the past few years. Things aren't real hopful right now, but it's best to see things as they are.
Having said all that, don't forget that the real things in life are between individuals. There are still plenty of non robots around, and you should spend as much time with the real folks as possible.
Never be bitter, keep hope alive, and always use sunblock and dental floss.

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just watch :shrug:

:D

I'm in the mood now... ;)

:eyes:

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nt

Has the little turd gotten his granite badge of dishonor yet?

Who and where is it's butt buddy? :)

I'd like to ask it why it's not in Iraq right now fighting for the führer's oil? Are they too chickenshit like their leader, do you suppose?

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just checkin'

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That's the little head icon next to their name, show on every post. When the man with the scythe has gotten to them their profile will have a shiny new tombstone in it.

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Was that supposed to be serious???

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I think I can come up with something even dumber....uh, the problem with the education system is that it's over-funded. It's all the union's fault. They should teach creation science...evolution is just a theory. Home school is the answer. Yeah, that's it. Let's abolish the public education system and make education the responsibility of the parents.

THAT'S THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's those gawd damn librulz didn't you pay attention to the fearless leaders? why do you hate amerika?

</sarcasm>

Looke like someone needs to call Orkin.

Sarcasm was detected in the subject line, but thanks for the clarification.

and you've stated the situation well.

I'm at a so-called major, research 1 institution and we've been told for the past 12 years that we need to see ourselves as entrepreneurs. A business model pervades the entire university. Some of us have jokingly suggested we don NASCAR-like clothing and sell space to corporate sponsors. Either that or sell naming rights of departments. The "Coors Light Department of English" has a certain ring to it.

They can't have a university w/out professors.

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should be named colition of the more than willing to take it in the ass every hour of every day if the republicans say to.

http://www.answers.com/coition&r=67

ain't words grand?

Oh, like maybe "The Burke Nanotechnology Center"?

We sell naming rights on our new buildings. 3 megabux gets your name on an indoor putt-putt complex....

I'm 27 and a little over a year ago graduated from a state university with a sociology degree. The questions I got asked most concerning my major (mostly from other students you might meet at say a party) is "What are you going to do with that degree?" Meaning, "How are you going to make money with that degree?"

It was always funny though when you met the "I'm premed" freshmen, saying "I'm going to be a doctor and make lots of money."... knowing that within a semester or two of their premed studies they would undoubtley switch majors being that you really need to have a true passion to be a doctor of any sort as its requires many years of college to say the least... don't even get me started on the business school people..

But, yeah, I have to agree the education system as people perceive it is not so much about making oneself more educated or a critical thinker as it is: What makes me lots of money?

I agree with the fact that education should be for its own sake--the love of learning, the desire to go into a profession for the love of it. The end all and be all of education is not to make money but to enrich your personl life and that of others -- to better understand the world and to leave it a better place.

Good Luck!

or maybe taking some time off until you feel more like being in school. Sometimes you need a break. It's also hard to stay interested in school when you are working too many hours, I found.

If you decide to stay, you might want to check with your fellow students to find out which professors are the ones from which you will learn the most before you register for your classes.

If you transfer, you may not find an ideal school, but you ought to be able to find one where you can learn enough that you are excited about being there.

You might want to relocate to a school in a small "college town." People tend to be more focused and more liberal in those environments, IMO. You can learn as much from living in that culture as from the classes.

I know you're not in college for economic opportunity, but a degree would give you more options now and in the future. You will find that jobs that used to go to HS grads require a degree now if you decide to change jobs in the future.

It's a shame our colleges are being "dumbed down" as they are.

experience and they were there to work on their socializing skills. Not a word about grades. Not too surprisingly, the first two didn't make much of their education. The first one got a low paying job and the other one was smart enough to supplement his BA with an MBA to make up for the mistake, but bitches about minorities getting free ride (Hey, maybe they took their college years seriously?)

The third was smart. She did well in college and has had a great job since.

As the old and moldy saying goes: change what you can; accept what you can't change; and always recognize the dfference between the two.

The educational system has many, many problems. But for anyone determined to use it to their advantage, it offers limitless opportunity.

Study the system. Learn its strengths and weaknesses. Don't make the childish mistake of assuming what other people should or should not know. Concentrate on yourself in that area, and the important things will fall in place. And when they do, then you will be able to actually do something about those "problems" you see today!

It's true that universities - even state supported, research 1 universities - are heavily dependent on private donors. For example, if the dean of a college wants new carpet in his office, the money must come from unrestricted donations; and, those are rare.

The problem goes deeper. At a certain university that will remain nameless, the student cafeteria charges prices well above off-campus offerings and provides food that is disappointing at best. This pattern exists because the catering firm is under contract to pay substantial sums of unrestricted money to the university.

Thus, the university has been transformed, at a deep level, from being an institution that explores ideas and educates promising students into a self-aggrandizing entity (dare I say corporate entity?) that focuses on growth at any cost. The ubiquitous retention initiatives place considerable pressure on professors to pass students that are marginal or worse.

I've tried some experiments. One semester, I gave tests that were 25 questions, multiple-choice, open book, and open note. The students had an hour and fifteen minutes to complete the "exam". The questions were all from the book, and were in sequence. Also, I dropped the lowest examination grade. With all that, 10% of the class had averages of 40% or worse. This was in a simple, undergraduate level course covering material that most junior high school level students have mastered.

Cheating is pervasive and obvious - and the administration doesn't want to hear about it.

That said, I hope you continue to pursue your degree. Not for the money; instead, focus on the nuggets you can salvage. The present situation isn't sustainable, and it will change. We - society - will need bright, capable people to carry the flame forward. Perhaps you're one of them.

It's the same thing where I'm at.

Clueless kids partying their parent's money away because they think they're SUPPOSED to be at college, and people working towards that "License to make Phat Cash".

We get a LOT of grants and money coming in from big corporations. What do they get for their money? Research. what do the Grad students doing the research for free get? a PhD. and a job with their Patrone. The system works, what?

But that's OK, because while we have kids in Business learning how to be CEO's, we have kids hoping they can make a lot of money with their future MCSW tickets fixing the societal problems their colleagues at the School of Business create.

We ought to quit calling it a "University", because nobody comes here to get a universal education anymore.

like Margaret Thatcher (the antichrist queen from hell and Ronald Reagan's "spiritual" concubine - and I use "spirital" in liue of a more apropos word) said, we're not a society. We're individuals. Men, women, and children. Families. (that's paraphrasing but it's accurate.)

If Magpie could make money out of making Soylent Sandwiches out of people, she'd have done that too.

specializing in Medieval lit. Loved studying, hated teaching, so... several careers later...

and I'm still glad I got an education. That's what I got: an education. Not vocational training.

Critical thinking is a critically important life skill best learned by wise teachers, and I'm glad I had a few when I was in school.

But Logan, you have to search them out. Don't worry so much about your classmates; worry about your relationships with your professors. Keep asking questions in class. Open a dialogue with the prof in class. Then don't be afraid to visit them during their office hours just to ask about particular point of the day's lecture or some other related subject that particularly interests you. Chances are good that they'll appreciate your passion and intelligence and will make an effort to guide you as best they can.

You should also remember that basic survey-type classes you take early in your college years have the least motivated students. As a result, some professors don't put much energy into teaching them, but they have lots to offer for classes later in a sequence of study.

Look into campus organizations that are consonant with your values, too, for fellowship, rather than classmates. Sounds to me like you'd mix better with upper-level students. I'm sure campus political organizations would welcome you.

Best of luck, and I hope you find what you're looking for and what you need.

And I echo H2Oman! Get what you can. We certainly need people like you who value education.

I'm also a college professor and we even see this attitude in our doctoral students in a field not known for making the big bucks. It's pervasive and scary. We hear and see a strong sense of entitlement - students come into our program already "knowing" what they want to know and if what we have to teach them doesn't fit within their limited world view, they dismiss us as unimportant to their future.

The battle cry of the administration is "increase credit hour production" as if we're creating widgets in a factory. And not only are we to bring in soft money to fund ourselves, we're to do it while teaching, researching, advising, attending endless, worthless meetings and lobbying for money for the copy machine.

As the parent of two elementary school kids, both of whom are quite intelligent, I see this attitude beginning early in our childrens' education. Teachers are hamstrung by unfunded federal mandates like No Child Left Behind, expect conformity over learning and worry that their school will be the next Columbine. Kids are just like the sponges in our kitchen sink-add a little water and they expand and increase their capacity. Leave them sitting dry and empty behind the faucet and they shrivel up and harden. We're left with teaching our kids how to navigate the system without losing their spirit and love of learning.

It's a damn scary slippery slope we're on.

Fight the good fight LoganW and I for one would love to have students like you in my classes!

edit for typos

Who's here to get a job and make money? Who? You? Okay, I suggest you leave right now. Drop out of college. Get someone to loan you money and open a taco truck or an auto body shop. That's how you make money. You will NEVER make money at a corporate job if you use a college degree (rather than connections) to get in.

I enjoyed reading your rant. You give me hope for the future. It's the young people on this board who constantly remind me that there are intelligent people out there. May you have much success in the future and do good in the world, as I know you will.

to do is

1. never sign up for any course taught by a Graduate Teaching Assistant. These are grad students in their field who may not have many more credits earned than you do. They also are notoriously ill-trained by departments that just don't give a damn about undergraduate instruction.

2. poke around in the departments that interest you and find out who the good people are. I'd recommend starting with the honors sections.

3. get involved with a extra-curricular group of like-minded people. What saved me was writing for the college newspaper--lots of independently minded people there usually (although that may not be true today, so much, alas).

Don't drop out. Get a degree--you can always go back later and get another one. It's doing you more good than you think it is.

Good luck.

Graduate teaching assistants are not by default bad teachers, that is a broad brush statement that just doesn't hold up. In fact the opposite is likely closer the truth. Fir instance, take this experience of a grad TA. He took over an upper-division course that had been taught by a tenured professor for years. The course had been offered once every year with an enrollment of 40 students. Within two years after the TA took over the course the University was offering four sections per year at 40 students per section. Why the dramatic increase? Because the TA was more familiar wiht the student population and the latest developments in the field. He saw an opportunity to infuse the course with new material and make it exciting. I was that TA and can provide a multitude of similar stories to further support my point.

overnight. Took a while for the moderators to catch up to them.

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````SORYY ABOUT THE SLOPPY WRITIN,.................A,,,,,,,,,,,,I THINK`````I MAY BE HAVIN A HUNTER THOMPSON MONEMYT................wwwwwoo hoo!!!!!!!!!

ngu `````````````````````````````````````````````````:hippie: :hippie:
:party: :dem:

As both a student and as an admissions employee. To some extent, there is a general trend towards students getting an education not because they want to, but because they feel they have to in order to get that good job. Still, a number of students are applying to schools with the intent to further their intellectual abilities.
I've found that faculty struggles with trying to balance the needs of the truly motivated students with the needs of the "i'm here for the degree" students. It's not an easy balance to achieve, and it leaves students complaining on both sides. If it is too easy, the motivated students are upset. Too difficult, and the degree students are upset. Truthfully, I'd rather the classes be more difficult, but I am not a professor, so it is easier for me to make suggestions from the sidelines.

I left the admissions field when it became less fun - when it was less about presenting your school to excited prospective students and more about filling increasing quota demands. The need to find a good fit for the student is, at many schools, now secondary to the need to keep admissions numbers at a certain level. That is a shame. Was it unavoidable? I can't quite say... I haven't thought it through that far.

It seems as though, more than ever, motivated students have to work a tad harder to find opportunites on campus that will challenge their intellect. I think the opportunities are there, so that is the bit of good news. I only wish we would hold all of our students up to the same rigorous standards.

Everything education is supposed to be without any career prospects to show for it.

Seriously. I have a Comp Sci degree and the only classes I actually learned anything useful from were the philosophy courses.

It seems that no philosophy major is dissatisfied with their college experience

the OP has valid points. He has great critical thinking skills. Kids in college these days aren't even prepared for the business world-believe me, I've trained them.

But I get rather tired of the meme that it is somehow evil to want to make a lot of money. Usually the way you make a lot of money is to help create new wealth that wasn't there before.

on the state of university education. You are reading into his post.

of a college or univeristy education. You can want to make a lot of money all you want, but the OP wouldn't be aware of that attitude if it wasn't take dominance over other values or causing discipline problems, etc.

Usually, only the already wealthy study the "enlightened" courses, because they already have their money. That smells of the "old money" crowd looking down their noses at the bustling energy of the people who haven't aquired wealth yet and are trying to make their own fortunes.

If having money is so unenlightening, have you taken a vow of poverty?

I wanted a good education, and I knew I'd be able to get a job because I developed critical thinking skills. I have trained business undergraduates, and there is a lack of ability to think conceptually and reason. Their inability to write a simple business document is also frightening. Give me an English major anyday.

Silverhair, you seem to repeat the anti-intellectualism, which is a common RW meme. The desire to expand one's mind and earn money is not mutually exclusive.

It also frightens me that you throw around the word elitist. Is this a subtle jab at the education-focused culture of the Northeast?

The jab is against the meme that puts the liberal arts as somehow superior to an education in the sciences or in business. That meme has an air of snobbery about it, and it does rub me very much the wrong way.

I will instantly admit that there is much wrong with our education system. Many of our schools have been dumbed down. There are indeed, many in college that have no business being there. I have no argument with those points. My gripe is with the idea that making money is not important.

That being said, I will also say that money is not everything in life either. Life must be balanced, or the wealth becomes a prison, and the owner of the money becomes a slave to his own fortune.

You spoke of business majors who could barely write. I can speak of lib arts major who were completely lost in elementary science. When I lived in Biloxi, MS, there was a charlatan who fooled the local journalists into believing that he had invented perpetual motion. Of course he didn't call it that, but it amounted to the same thing. I contacted both the TV station and the newspaper to try to explain to them how they were being duped. They were defensive. The charlatan was quite skillful and nationally, duped lots of people (No scientists) into supporting him, until Discover magazine ran an expose of his flim-flam. Then there were some embarrassed journalists.

The sciences DEMAND critical thinking, or you will not succeed at all. So does business, because if you can't understand your product and it's relationship to it's market, then your business will fail. Critical thinking is NOT found only in the lib arts. It is that kind of snobbery that I find offensive.

I was very happy with my school, Humboldt State U.

I know a lot of people who hated their schools, but I never had that problem. You just might not be a good fit with the school.

what they do is their business. what is important to you, is what you do with your education. why do you even care what these peoples motives are or interest in education are. and who are you to decide or judge them on their intent. it is their journey. worry, put the time and effort into your journey. that is where your reward will be

1. Yes, your peers are mostly vapid, shallow, people.
2. For most of your peers, college is just another step in the social status game.
3. No, most of them will not accomplish much in life other than be along for the ride.
4. Yes, their appetites override their intellect. Invariably.
5. They imagine The System wants people like themselves. It does...sort of. But not really.
6. It's the same thing all over. If you want a real education, you will have to fight and suffer for it. And attain it all on your own, really.
7. Most of them come from a society that understands itself as colonial. You're either a manager or a wage slave in that system.

You seem to know yourself well enough to know what kind of workplaces and fools you can't suffer. I suggest you look at professional schools- medicine, law, grad schools, science- for something that will let you have the mental autonomy you seem to need.