Thought provoking article - sort of BR

stever · October 2011

https://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-college-costs-20111020,0,4840452.story#tugs_story_display

As a a junior college success story this article strikes close to home. I'm a huge proponent of free education(I'm a lefty and married to a European), but part of my motivation for doing well and transferring to a good 4 year school was that my dad paid for my education and would not have tolerated me wasting his money. So so much being wasted on people who don't seem to care or who lack motivation really bothers me.

Discuss.

vanverth · October 2011

**drags soap box out from under desk**

"Ahem" Not everyone should go to college, 2 year or 4 year. There is noting wrong with trade school and while a factory worker might get phased out or we will need less middle management, plumbers and electricians will always be in need. Some days I wish I made as much as an electrician does with 18 years experience.

stever · October 2011

vanverth:
**drags soap box out from under desk**

"Ahem" Not everyone should go to college, 2 year or 4 year. There is noting wrong with trade school and while a factory worker might get phased out or we will need less middle management, plumbers and electricians will always be in need. Some days I wish I made as much as an electrician does with 18 years experience.

There's nothing soapboxish about that. I don't think it's remotely controversial to say that college isn't for everyone. I just don't understand why it's supposed to be. JC's used to be trade schools but now that there aren't that many trades anymore people are taking space and money in JC's that should be just for people who want to transfer to 4 year schools or become nurses or EMT's or something like that- they shouldn't be for people to fart around for several years after high school just to drop out.

Back in my day they called JC's "high school with ashtrays." Reckon that still applies

newbee36 · October 2011

Exactly! They wonder what the reason could be. Well, the reason is that the students don't care. My has worked at 2 community colleges. She is teaching math. She says that the majority of the students expect to get a degree without actually learning the material. Some of them even try to make her feel bad. She has heard like "are you going to fail me? Wouldn't you feel bad that I have paid for this class and now all that money will go to waste?"

In general the attitude of today's students is that the teachers are there to serve them and if they are not doing well it is the teacher's fault. They are very disrespectful towards the teachers/professors. Arghhh! This subject makes me really upset. And the parents, instead of at least looking at the possibillity that their kids are failing because they are not putting enough work, a lot of them are blaming on the professors. My sister had parents going to her office to tell her that they will complain to the dean because she is failing her son. They didn't bother to ask her what the reason was. And that same student, apparently didn't attend 50% of the lectures, didn't do 20% of the homeworks, took only half of the exams and on the other half did very very poorly!

When I was bringing a bad grade from school, my parents just made me study harder. Today it's different...

OscarQ · October 2011

newbee36:
Exactly! They wonder what the reason could be. Well, the reason is that the students don't care. My has worked at 2 community colleges. She is teaching math. She says that the majority of the students expect to get a degree without actually learning the material. Some of them even try to make her feel bad. She has heard like "are you going to fail me? Wouldn't you feel bad that I have paid for this class and now all that money will go to waste?"

I see it as generational issue - not a people taking advantage of free education issue. Have you seen this:

https://gizmodo.com/5851062/generation-x-is-sick-of-your-bullshit

(sorry, can't remember how to do a clicky on a mac). The line in here about trophies and not getting one simply for participation really hit home with me. I was no athlete as a kid so when I won something, I really won it! But I think that whole attitude is simply "my child is a very special snowflake and deserves to be treated as a special snowflake his entire life".

If you are used to being told the sun shines out your a$$ and everyone should cater to you, you're going to have a real hard wakeup call when you get to the real world. But the crazy part is that isn't happening. The helicopter parents are now continuing to helicopter throughout college and even into the corporate world. It's nuts.

I would hope that our generation of parents would have fixed this and taken it back to how it was when we were kids but it seems that we're the ones (at least those of our generation who had kids young) who perpetuated this mess.

BrideBuddies · October 2011

OscarQ:
newbee36:

Exactly! They wonder what the reason could be. Well, the reason is that the students don't care. My has worked at 2 community colleges. She is teaching math. She says that the majority of the students expect to get a degree without actually learning the material. Some of them even try to make her feel bad. She has heard like "are you going to fail me? Wouldn't you feel bad that I have paid for this class and now all that money will go to waste?"

I see it as generational issue - not a people taking advantage of free education issue. Have you seen this:

https://gizmodo.com/5851062/generation-x-is-sick-of-your-bullshit

(sorry, can't remember how to do a clicky on a mac). The line in here about trophies and not getting one simply for participation really hit home with me. I was no athlete as a kid so when I won something, I really won it! But I think that whole attitude is simply "my child is a very special snowflake and deserves to be treated as a special snowflake his entire life".

If you are used to being told the sun shines out your a$$ and everyone should cater to you, you're going to have a real hard wakeup call when you get to the real world. But the crazy part is that isn't happening. The helicopter parents are now continuing to helicopter throughout college and even into the corporate world. It's nuts.

I would hope that our generation of parents would have fixed this and taken it back to how it was when we were kids but it seems that we're the ones (at least those of our generation who had kids young) who perpetuated this mess.

stever · October 2011

OscarQ:
newbee36:
Exactly! They wonder what the reason could be. Well, the reason is that the students don't care. My has worked at 2 community colleges. She is teaching math. She says that the majority of the students expect to get a degree without actually learning the material. Some of them even try to make her feel bad. She has heard like "are you going to fail me? Wouldn't you feel bad that I have paid for this class and now all that money will go to waste?"
I see it as generational issue - not a people taking advantage of free education issue. Have you seen this:
https://gizmodo.com/5851062/generation-x-is-sick-of-your-bullshit
(sorry, can't remember how to do a clicky on a mac). The line in here about trophies and not getting one simply for participation really hit home with me. I was no athlete as a kid so when I won something, I really won it! But I think that whole attitude is simply "my child is a very special snowflake and deserves to be treated as a special snowflake his entire life".
If you are used to being told the sun shines out your a$$ and everyone should cater to you, you're going to have a real hard wakeup call when you get to the real world. But the crazy part is that isn't happening. The helicopter parents are now continuing to helicopter throughout college and even into the corporate world. It's nuts.
I would hope that our generation of parents would have fixed this and taken it back to how it was when we were kids but it seems that we're the ones (at least those of our generation who had kids young) who perpetuated this mess.

KerryHS · October 2011

I agree with all the comments about sense of entitlement and lack of effort in a lot of students and I don't think it is limited to community college kids. It's everywhere. However, not all the cc kids fall into this -- some of them are there for the first time and they are there with no support and no one to show them the way. Some of them are dropping out because of that - it is just too overwhelming when you are alone. Totally get and agree tabout the sense of entitlement, but I have seen my old nanny try so hard and just struggle her way through - with lots of starts and stops. Don't want to jump on a soapbox, but had a give a little shout out to the ones who try, but fail anyway.

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