I'm Worried...
The state of this current generation of college students and twenty-somethings scares me. Their general sense of nothing requires work, that they should get gold stars for just doing something (mind you not even well), and that they are entitled to anything they want bemoans disaster. Apparently, if they ask, whine, cry, or threaten to go to a higher up whatever they desire will materialize.
They complain for half a point, they believe Wikipedia and Google are the only way to look up anything, they won't read more than 200 to 500 words without saying it's too long, and they say that only business and medical degrees will earn them a "profit." They snicker and sneer at my PhD in history, telling me they'd never spend that kind of time and money for something without immediate gratification. Far too often, there is no passion and drive in them. Senses of entitlement are so overwhelming that its stench can kill you.
They live at home, trading material possessions in place of an education away from residence, and graduate college virtually the same person they were four years before. When a professor makes comments on essays, they exert "Well I didn't know, that shouldn't count." In response to those same comments they do not understand why they can not re-write until they get the grade they think they deserve. Or, as a student last semester tried to demand, that they can just write a paper to eradicate a semester of failing.
In college a tie for my favorite professor was Joe Britton. I would have never demanded a better score from him. If you said or wrote something particularly dumb he drew a fish on your paper. No one wanted the fish. I never got one, thank you. Hell, we all used to agonize over the ulcers before his exams and paper due dates. We knew...yet, with as beat up as I felt after my lit exams his passion still rang through. His passion for drama and Hemingway and Fitzgerald still ring through with me as I reference Hemingway and Fitzgerald in many of my nationalism and history writings (paying an in-direct homage to a professor from my youth). In my first book my co-editor needed a subject to delve into for her chapter, and conversations of Britton's class and my notes and old readings sparked her interest. I told her of the conversations, of the classes that never seemed long enough, and of the camaraderie we shared. My students demand breaks and early dismissals.
Oddly, my students tell me that I have a lot of passion but then they laugh and say they want to make money. Apparently happiness has gone to the wayside. They tell me that their parents will help them so they never have to want. Then again, eight weeks into an advertising class a student quipped "a lot goes into advertising. I think you are making this up." Eight weeks in...oiy. Some students are adorable and capable (some just outright dumb), but you have to remind yourself not everyone is cut out for grad school.
Students will tell you all kinds of things, thinking it earns points. Sadly, many aren't grad school material and others will get an MBA from a crap school because an MBA guarantees them wealth and glory. At the same time, they demand the highest scores because they have never had less and verbalizations to go to grad school automatically make them worthy in their world of all things good.
I'm worried...I worry that Britton's passion, the love of a subject I learned at Matt Schoenbachlor's lectures (who is my other favorite professor and the reason I'm a history PhD), and the joys of books will be lost in the shuffle. I hear I'm a favorite professor, but from where I stand I'm worried that knowledge is being watered down and rushed over. Critical thought is dying and intellectual discovery for the sake of it is almost perverse these days. I worry...
They complain for half a point, they believe Wikipedia and Google are the only way to look up anything, they won't read more than 200 to 500 words without saying it's too long, and they say that only business and medical degrees will earn them a "profit." They snicker and sneer at my PhD in history, telling me they'd never spend that kind of time and money for something without immediate gratification. Far too often, there is no passion and drive in them. Senses of entitlement are so overwhelming that its stench can kill you.
They live at home, trading material possessions in place of an education away from residence, and graduate college virtually the same person they were four years before. When a professor makes comments on essays, they exert "Well I didn't know, that shouldn't count." In response to those same comments they do not understand why they can not re-write until they get the grade they think they deserve. Or, as a student last semester tried to demand, that they can just write a paper to eradicate a semester of failing.
In college a tie for my favorite professor was Joe Britton. I would have never demanded a better score from him. If you said or wrote something particularly dumb he drew a fish on your paper. No one wanted the fish. I never got one, thank you. Hell, we all used to agonize over the ulcers before his exams and paper due dates. We knew...yet, with as beat up as I felt after my lit exams his passion still rang through. His passion for drama and Hemingway and Fitzgerald still ring through with me as I reference Hemingway and Fitzgerald in many of my nationalism and history writings (paying an in-direct homage to a professor from my youth). In my first book my co-editor needed a subject to delve into for her chapter, and conversations of Britton's class and my notes and old readings sparked her interest. I told her of the conversations, of the classes that never seemed long enough, and of the camaraderie we shared. My students demand breaks and early dismissals.
Oddly, my students tell me that I have a lot of passion but then they laugh and say they want to make money. Apparently happiness has gone to the wayside. They tell me that their parents will help them so they never have to want. Then again, eight weeks into an advertising class a student quipped "a lot goes into advertising. I think you are making this up." Eight weeks in...oiy. Some students are adorable and capable (some just outright dumb), but you have to remind yourself not everyone is cut out for grad school.
Students will tell you all kinds of things, thinking it earns points. Sadly, many aren't grad school material and others will get an MBA from a crap school because an MBA guarantees them wealth and glory. At the same time, they demand the highest scores because they have never had less and verbalizations to go to grad school automatically make them worthy in their world of all things good.
I'm worried...I worry that Britton's passion, the love of a subject I learned at Matt Schoenbachlor's lectures (who is my other favorite professor and the reason I'm a history PhD), and the joys of books will be lost in the shuffle. I hear I'm a favorite professor, but from where I stand I'm worried that knowledge is being watered down and rushed over. Critical thought is dying and intellectual discovery for the sake of it is almost perverse these days. I worry...
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