University Students are Afraid of Everything

https://jpminda.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/university-students-are-afraid-of-everything/

by plg • 11 years ago

150 232 11 years ago

jpminda.wordpress.com

wazoox• 11 years ago

Is it really this way? My, this civilisation really is coming to an end :)

dpcan3• 11 years ago

I love the part about students walking around in their pajamas at the library during finals week. The "puppy room" sounds utterly ridiculous.

It's been a long time, but this happened at my University too. It was just part of the relentless competition among students to make other students think THEY had it so much harder than anyone else. It was like a badge of honor to be taking a 300 level class as a freshmen, or have to study all night long, or to be starving because you had so little money.

I did the same thing.

And when you get out of college, it just transfers over to parenting.

New parents walking around in sweat pants and their hair a mess to show that they got no sleep due to the newborn. Then when you have 4 kids, you like to pack 300 lbs of kid crap around with you to show that you have WAY more kids than that new parent, or you talk about how many sports you are taking your kids to, how big your grocery bill is, or whatever. It's all so silly. I'm not sure why we seek this recognition.

I'm wondering what comes after parenting at this point... I'm assuming wealth and how we use our freedom among other empty-nesters???

EDIT:

I'd like to state that I actually don't find any problem with much of this, I just don't understand it.

When we are in college, we are facing the most challenging courses and living situations we have ever faced to this point. We are learning from books, and how to handle life's struggles.

As a new parent, having a newborn completely uproots your life, and it IS incredibly challenging. EVERYTHING has changed at this point.

Then with lots of kids, yes, it too is crazy.

From then on, I have no idea.

And the "puppy room", well, to each their own.

scott_s• 11 years ago

You are interpreting behaviors in other people (hair a mess, sweat pants, lots of stuff) as a status signal. And it may be. But it's also possible that they are not trying to signal a particular kind of status, and are just trying to cope with challenges in their life.

saint_fiasco6• 11 years ago

I may be talking out of my ass here, but I think college educated people don't have lots of kids by accident.

The challenge is purely self-inflicted, so it's natural to assume they get something out of it, and status is the most obvious motivation.

Then again, they might be one of those weird mutants who actually like children.

dpcan3• 11 years ago

I am, yes. But it's quite transparent most of the time. It's the kid with bad breath, greasy hair, and foul odor in the corner of the computer lab with a stack of books next to him that I would believe is truly stressed and finishing a project.

It's the kid who has pajamas on but still looks great, carries one book, a pen, and a coffee back and forth across the quad 6 times a day that I wonder about :)

kaa2102• 11 years ago

Folks would bring cots and blankets during Finals week while studying in the Engineering building at my university. Engineering students were not being coddled - you had to put in countless hours of study to make the grade.

dpcan3• 11 years ago

I just think it's a young person thing.

Pushing 40, if I went back to college, and all the kids were taking cots to the engineering building to sleep on while somehow getting ready for a final, I'm sure I'd have nothing to do with it. I'd push the midnight oil if I could, then I'd go home, sleep snug in my bed, and be back bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5am to get started again.

But when I was 20, I'd be there with my cot, no question.

daenney2• 11 years ago

Could someone be kind enough to edit away the shouty capitals?

plg• 11 years ago

done---sorry!!! was a lazy cut-and-paste

daenney2• 11 years ago

Much appreciated!

dudul4• 11 years ago

This is not the first post by an actual professor pointing out this phenomenon. I've observed it myself as a professional mentoring college students during internship, but my sample is way smaller than what a professor can see.

It is indeed a real problem. Everyone feels like they are entitled to be not only safe, but also "comfortable" at all time. No matter what. Nobody should judge you, nobody should disagree with you, nobody should make you feel bad about anything. This is a recipe to create highly dysfunctional adults.

Accepting conflicting opinions, facing rejection, standing for yourself without calling a twitter mob to the rescue, not seeking constant validation is part of being a functioning human being.

I'm wondering what is the agenda behind this trend. The author seems to think that it is to make sure students remain babies and stay in college as long as possible to avoid facing the real world. Could it really be something that petty? I started thinking that it could be encouraged by politicians to create a generation of babies that would feel better about dealing with a nanny-state.

dudul4• 11 years ago

I guess downvoters took my post as a micro-aggression :) Sorry I made you feel uncomfortable...

lorenzhs• 11 years ago

If I had to guess, I'd say you're being downvoted for the completely unnecessary "nanny-state" remark at the end.

Miner49er• 11 years ago

Yeah, I don't know why you were downvoted so hard. Maybe the HN mob mentality just sides with the Uni students on this one, and they don't like being exposed to your differing opinions. ;)

red_admiral• 11 years ago

I think it's more the inevitable outcome when students and teachers are forced through endless cycles of tests, evaluations and metrics - from primary school onwards.

A well-written paper on this, which I think has been discussed on HN before: http://www.systema-journal.org/article/view/314 (you can get the general idea by skipping the technical parts in Section 3).

If this theory is correct, then it has less to do with the supposed weaknesses of today's students or a deliberate political agenda to keep them from growing up - instead it's an unintended consequence of the idea that everything must be subjected to constant "scientific" numerical evaluation.

lbaskin• 11 years ago

See also "I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me" (http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid) from just a few months ago.

dataker2• 11 years ago

Might be a rare experience, but as a South American in an U.S university, I couldn't relate to many American Latinos for their neurotic concern with micro aggressions.

Jokes that would be seen as amusing in my country were taken as a personal insult and avoided at all costs. Many interesting non-latinos would gradually be excluded for no reason.

Ironically, I fostered relationships with apparently "racist white males" who were more concerned with the content of conversations than 'fighting the enemy'.

eugenekolo2• 11 years ago

From my experiences the idea of microaggression is more common in people of more suburban-like American lifestyles. As an immigrant, and friend of many different immigrants in America, the idea of anybody being offended, or taking things as a personal insult is nearly unheard of. But, people who may not know many people of different backgrounds seem to think they should be offended, and take things personally.

mercer2• 11 years ago

I agree. I've generally been part of groups that were very mixed as far as culture, sexual preference, or skin color goes, and most of our interactions went well beyond 'micro-aggression' right into overt racism, misogyny, anti-semitism, and whatnot. I've found that the more mixed the group was, the more of this kind of stuff happened and the less sensitive people seemed to be about it.

And to be clear, that's just an observation. As a white, male, highly-educated person I try to avoid judgements or too many opinions on this issue.

norea-armozel6• 11 years ago

For me, the problem is that the microaggressions that I've dealt with tend to be crude attempts to understand what it means to be transgender like asking for my old name, if I had a boyfriend or girlfriend before transitioning, and so forth. Many of the people asking the questions weren't intending to be rude, but our society has deemed one's gender identity as an immutable fact of nature (which doesn't really fit the facts neither of biology nor psychology). So, people have some default assumptions about the condition of gender which puts them in an awkward position when asking those questions which can be offensive (I've learned to deal with the situation by asking questions back to them in a more Socratic/positive manner instead of being offended) for some people.

I don't think it's too much to effort for schools and organizations to post information on what is and isn't a microaggression but I do think people who are the targets of microaggressions ought to consider a more proactive approach to correcting such social missteps.

tomp10• 11 years ago

hat it means to be transgender like asking for my old name, if I had a boyfriend or girlfriend before transitioning, and so forth
our society has deemed one's gender identity as an immutable fact of nature

Did it ever occur to you that these people were simply curious about your experience in life because it was so much unlike their own?

at-fates-hands• 11 years ago

In the immortal words of Jason Ellis, "You need to harden the fuck up."

Why is it that we're removing so much responsibility from kids these days? Or is this the end result of helicopter parents?

fredfoobar429• 11 years ago

Speaking up when someone hurts you, deliberately or otherwise, _is_ taking responsibility.

Maken2• 11 years ago

These measures doesn't encourage people to speak up, but to avoid hearing anything they don't like. That's not taking responsibility, it's avoiding even the decision of taking or not responsibility.

babygoat• 11 years ago

They're trying to make sure their kids don't look up to a truck racing, comedy rock/metal vocalist for life lessons.

peterwwillis3• 11 years ago

If you call them kids you've already removed their responsibility. Start calling college students adults and suddenly it all becomes a lot more ridiculous.

Get your shit together, adults.

jazzyk4• 11 years ago

Make no mistake, it is all by design. Counselors, puppy rooms, etc. - the "higher education" industrial complex needs to keep growing and justify the ever-increasing tuition.

I put "higher education " in quotes because it has less and less to do with education, sadly.

fredfoobar429• 11 years ago

Or, we could take women and minority students at their word about the stuff they find offensive and hurtful and treat them with a little respect.

Oh, wait, that's too much work. They're just a bunch of whiners.

Edit: Not sure if the downvotes are because people don't get this was sarcastic, or if people do.

Either way: Try listening to the people complaining instead of just brushing them off as "whiners". I hope that clears things up.

code_duck5• 11 years ago

Unfortunately, just my being a "white NT cishet male" is offensive to some people. I can neither fix that for them nor take it seriously.

fredfoobar429• 11 years ago

Have you ever thought why that is?

I'm a "white NT cishet male", as well, and at a glance, you can't tell the decent people from the awful ones. It's about behavior, and in a space where most people who look like us act like shit, it's not unreasonable to generalize a lack of trust. It's not on them to be understanding, it's on _us_. because we're in the position of privilege in this situation.

coldpie• 11 years ago

just my being a "white NT cishet male" is offensive to some people

No, it isn't. They are offended by something else about you.

kelukelugames4• 11 years ago

Have you tried not taking crazy people seriously? Stop feeling like a victim.

wan23• 11 years ago

What you just said is not a real position that anyone has (in large enough numbers to be worth talking about). The part where you don't take people seriously is the thing that is offensive. You might be confused because people talk about white males as being the only people who are in a position to completely ignore the feelings of everyone else if they choose to, as you seem to have chosen to do. But to be clear, it's not racism/sexism directed against you, it's a dislike of something that you specifically do.

Balgair2• 11 years ago

Sarcasm is best avoided online, the subtle intonations in voice are completely lost with text.

That said, there is a clarification in the article that does need to be stated. The prof is not against rape, racism, sexism, PTSD counseling, etc. Rather, they are just a new person in a long line of fuddy-duddys complaining about the youth of today. I believe the prof's gripe was against the perceived laze or lack of courage that their student's exhibit. I think this comment in particular should be expanded on by the prof:

..Most disabilities that I am asked to accommodate seem to be unspecified and are remedied by providing the students with a separate, quiet location and an extra 30 minutes to take an exam.

If the prof can start to gather some stats on that and make a real case that the students are abusing these privileges, then some change may be possible. Until then, the prof is just another old man complaining about kids on their lawn.

logfromblammo• 11 years ago

It's not that they are whiners. I'm a whiner. I complain about things that I find to be deplorable all the time.

But I also think I have a reasonable conception of what deplorableness is. And that includes persecution of nonbelievers for suspicion of heresy. Some people have founded a non-theistic religion regarding certain elements of social conduct, and its adherents act rather poorly towards those who do not share their beliefs.

They can believe what they want. But they can't force me to kneel before their altars.

Also, allow me to take a moment to endorse the use of the tilde ('~') as a "sarc mark".

~I'm sure it will catch on any day now.~

joesmo8• 11 years ago

Does it help women if we stop teaching law students about rape law? If you're defending the students in this piece, you're defending ending teaching law altogether as some students are offended by the word 'violation,' as in 'violation of the law.' You're defending infinite stupidity.

fredfoobar429• 11 years ago

And if you can cite a real female law student who is actually offended by the idea of learning about rape law, or even the word "violation," you might possibly have the vaguest sense of something possibly resembling a point if you happen to be looking at it from the right angle.

jazzyk4• 11 years ago

So, you cannot possibly offend white males? In your world, apparently only women and minorities have the right to be offended.

a_bonobo3• 11 years ago

Are there actually any numbers for this supposed infantilization? It seems to me that the number of people complaining about unis being not PC enough is relatively equal to the number of people complaining about the first group. (edit: had a logical mistake here)

Sometimes very small, very loud groups can be perceived by outsiders to be more influential than they actually are.

There some to be some more mix-ups in this rant:

According to some universities, these counsellors provide “customer support”.

This is more an indictment of the sad state of student/university relationship - you pay so much, you're a customer, not a student.

Final exam time at many large universities is when this infantilization really comes out. Students will literally walk around in public wearing their sleeping clothes and sweats. They nap in the library or in the hallway of academic buildings during normal work hours

That's not infantilization, that's just laziness and a short way to the dorm. Sleeping in a university during "normal work hours" (gasp!) has been normal for decades.

Education is not trauma

Maybe it didn't use to be a trauma - but in the time of more and more focus on grades and GPAs, forced student competition, "career days", CV polishing courses, mandatory unpaid internships, i.e., ageneral shift from the university as a place that creates politically mature citizens to a place that churns out better trained cogs for companies, education may have become trauma.

fredfoobar429• 11 years ago

Sleeping in a university during "normal work hours" (gasp!) has been normal for decades.

Seriously. There's a reason campuses have lounges and quiet areas, and it's not just so you can sit and do homework during your downtime.

mcphage4• 11 years ago

Are there actually any numbers for this supposed infantilization? It seems to me that the number of people complaining about unis being not PC enough is relatively equal to the number of people complaining about the first group.

Isn't this the same response we hear every time someone else speaks out about this? "This is just the work of a few bad eggs. If this was a widespread problem, why aren't we hearing about more of it?" Which, yeah, the first few times people have made this complaint, I agreed with. But it has started to ring hollow.

Sometimes very small, very loud groups can be perceived by outsiders

I don't think the author here is an outsider—they're a professor at a university where this is happening.

a_bonobo3• 11 years ago

I can see your first point, but I still have to see yet any quantification (a shift in questionnaire answers towards more "PC" over the decades, for example), until then I remain unconvinced.

Most cases in the author's article have to do with other universities - about the author's university, he complains about "counselors" (again, I think that's a financial incentive for the university - "customer support", happy customers study longer therefore pay more, special customers for groups who normally don't study -> more students from that group -> more money), and people in pajamas, which isn't really a problem that I can understand.

Now that I've re-read it, it's a bit weird that a psychologist writes a sentence like this:

It seems that Harvard students, for whom the average grade is A- need more help.

If you're expected to have an average of A- by your peers, teachers and professors of other universities then I'd expect the pressure to be enormous, of course you'll see more problems with mental health!

I must ensure that every every disability is accommodated.

The poor man!

RodericDay• 11 years ago

How has it started to ring hollow? The last time we had a similar piece, that Vox article with a prof complaining about "liberal academia scaring him", he wasn't countered with mere notions that he was inflating a non-issue, but actual counter-factuals regarding his exact claims (ie: that discussions of abortion were stifled by "liberals", for example).

I don't think there's any topic that's more "Pro-Skub" vs "Anti-Skub" in the entire internet than "Outrage Culture" vs. "People outraged at Outrage Culture".

PaulHoule• 11 years ago

There is a pair of selfish memes here. "PC" is a meme and so is the attack on PC.

For a bunch of reasons it is not feasible for people to talk about or expect any actions about the real problems they face (for instance, the cost of college, all of the ways the 'meritocracy' falls short that aren't connected with race and gender).

(Oddly, for all the talk about race-class-gender, you never hear about class because a lot of history got forgotten in the 1960s. For instance, you hear about anti-semitism, but you don't hear that the Klu Klux Klan was an equal opportunity hate group at the peak of it's influence which hated irish people and italians, as well as blacks and jewish people.)

powertower• 11 years ago

You might find these amusing -

http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/26/prof-corrects-minority-stu...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/17/stevenson-co...

Balgair2• 11 years ago

"Most disabilities that I am asked to accommodate seem to be unspecified and are remedied by providing the students with a separate, quiet location and an extra 30 minutes to take an exam."

This is where the prof can actually start to pull some numbers out to back up his observations. Measuring the number of disabilities that are assuaged by having an unfair advantage over the class curve and comparing that to GPA may actually change things. Until then, expect the prof to continue to bitch.

mbrutsch• 11 years ago

Sometimes very small, very loud groups can be perceived by outsiders to be more influential than they actually are.

In my very personal experience, their volume gives them enough influence to cause trouble, regardless of their size. "Reactionary politics" are a way of life now, thanks to instant global communication.

Coding_Cat• 11 years ago

They nap in the library or in the hallway of academic buildings during normal work hours

As a student: "They (working people) nap in their beds or on the couch during crunch-time and study-hours!"

And while I don't do it myself ot that degree, I also wouldn't call lax-personal care during finals laziness. It's just a different social convention which doesn't hurt anyone.

jleyank• 11 years ago

a_bonobo wrote "Maybe it didn't use to be a trauma - but in the time of more and more focus on grades and GPAs, forced student competition, "career days", CV polishing courses, mandatory unpaid internships, i.e., ageneral shift from the university as a place that creates politically mature citizens to a place that churns out better trained cogs for companies, education may have become trauma."

While mandatory unpaid internships seems to be a new development, pretty much everything else existed in the 70's and 80's when I did my 8-year gig. All of the Pre-XXX students were totally grade oriented, with some engaging in lab sabotage to drag down the competition. Parents during HS recruiting were told the majors with the highest GPA for the Pre-Laws. The only advantage of all those bloody Pre-XXX students were that the courses not on their tracks were quite small and TA'ing paid the bills for grad school.

Boomer parents are (properly?) criticized for cocooning their kids. Maybe this makes them less able to handle the "toss into the deep end" that college can represent. I figured it out, with the more-senior undergrads being fonts of wisdom (in non-major classes, dorm RA's and just those on the halls).

I wasn't that amazing or rare. I did well in some courses, got slaughtered in others. Science majors were <3.0 departmental averages so my 2.87 didn't look so bad, what with all those advanced/small courses. I also learned by my 4th year that if I studied Su-Th I could goof off F-Sa with a clear conscience. And man, was I pissed at the non-science folks who had half the hours/week in classes...

dcole29293• 11 years ago

It's not the same at all. This stuff has always been around but the difference is it used to only apply to a small subset. If you want to go pre law or med yeah get ready for hell. If you want to work at a newspaper or in marketing it was a much easier time. Nowadays unless you're in tech good luck finding a job remotely related to your major if you don't have a resume packed full of extracurriculars and experience.

There is also way more competition. The college population is triple the size it was in the 80's. Meanwhile the job market continues to shrink in many ways. Maybe kids should be getting different degrees but at 17 it's not surprising they don't know journalism isn't a great degree to have.

icegreentea• 11 years ago

The prof might be groping around a real core issue, but he really picked some unfortunately example. I'm just going to pile on his exam time example really hard.

Ok, you tell a bunch of young adults that what they do over the next 2-4 weeks is super important. They will put effort into something, and the end result is a number, and the higher the number, the better chances they have at getting what they want in life (later). And no one will ever give a shit about what happens over those next few weeks except the number. Well, then you'd actually be a total dummy not to ruthlessly optimize for that number. Dress like shit? Why not. Take adderall? Why not. Sleep whenever you get a chance? Why not.

Maybe university students are a bit too sensitive about things (I actually agree with that statement). But many (most?) university courses are designed such that a student can typically get what they need (a big number at the end of it) by applying the bare minimal amount of effort outside of certain crunch times, and then dropping all other aspects of life during crunch times. If I can get good marks by sacrificing ~4 weeks of my life (and frankly looking like complete shit) per term, while letting me still go out and hang out and have fun and get drunk and laid and high for the rest of the term - hell, why not. It's not like your missing out - everyone else makes the same calculations. You're not going to be able to hang out with your friends during exams anyways.

maxxxxx• 11 years ago

Maybe it didn't use to be a trauma - but in the time of more and more focus on grades and GPAs, forced student competition, "career days", CV polishing courses, mandatory unpaid internships, i.e., ageneral shift from the university as a place that creates politically mature citizens to a place that churns out better trained cogs for companies, education may have become trauma.

This together with high tuition fees makes school a high pressure place. When I went to school in the 80s there wasn't this constant pressure students have now.

shenanigoat• 11 years ago

Perhaps your definition of trauma is vastly different than the more commonly accepted definition. IMO, the points you made illustrate that modern education is challenging, definitely not trauma.

mc322• 11 years ago

Talk to kids in China, India, Japan, Korea, etc. about focus on grades and the tremendous pressure of getting into prestigious schools. They have pressure.

Students in North America have it easy compared to them. Are students in East and south Asia just harder than their north American counterparts?

btbuildem• 11 years ago

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

talmand14• 11 years ago

I think this older classic is far more relevant: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110759/

qntty3• 11 years ago

The author of this post seems to be on another planet. For example, the "play, dog, music, and other therapy" that he is disapproves of comprises maybe 0.05% of the experience of final exams for students (that is, a student might stop to pet a puppy for 5 minutes at some point during finals). The rest of the experience is almost entirely unchanged. He paints it as if it comprises 50% of the experience, like students look forward to exams so they can pet puppies.

talmand14• 11 years ago

It's a growing trend though. Plus, based on news accounts, these are the vocal minority groups that affect a great deal of people's day-to-day campus life. For instance, they chase off speakers that don't care to hear nor want anyone else to hear.

qntty3• 11 years ago

The only trend that seems to really be growing to me is the willingness of people to sympathize with marginalized groups of people. This is not based on some out-there notions that all people should be comfortable all the time. An idea like that would never survive, except in the minds of a small number of extremeists. The overall trend, toward a society that is more willing to make accommodations for those who need them most, is actually positive. You won't see people who write these sorts of articles praising the big picture though. They are only interested in criticizing cases where it goes too far, but people taking an idea too far is not a new phenomenon. As people learn to grapple with changing social norms, I don't see any reason to think that cases like these will tend to go away, and we will be left with positive change.

cryoshon2• 11 years ago

"“In my day” (I’m old now, my day was the late 80s early 90s), you visited the registrar’s office. A financial aid office. The bursars office. I felt like an adult, making decisions and finding things out for myself… But now there are counsellors for everything. Counsellors. As if the very act of registering for a class is traumatic event for which the student needs counselling. According to some universities, these counsellors provide “customer support”. That’s Ohio State’s term, not mine."

Wow, this feels really out of place. When I was in school from 2006-2011, there was definitively no feelings of being an adult permitted. The university encouraged parents to make any kind of financial aid / money related decisions, and encouraged leaving the students out of it. There were counselors for their use, if they were needed. Definitely agree with the gist of the author. On the other hand, people have been complaining about the weakness of the youth since Socrates, so I'm not sure that this article is signal rather than noise.

As far as exams being stressful, I'd say it's fine to give students a break and let them handle the stress however it helps. For most, it's their first exposure to "serious" evaluation of their work, and it is a bit daunting because their decisions are ineffable once made. Of course, the stress-mitigation strategies that the students learn during this time period are essential to their growth-- this isn't focused on enough, IMO. After being in the workforce for a while, exam time seems more like a vacation from stress rather than a stressful time to me. I wish that I had been able to pet a nice puppy during exam time.

I also wish that there were a "phase 2" of college to be taken after 5-10 years in the workforce. The education of having to provide for yourself imparts a lot of discipline and enthusiasm that I really could have used as a student. I could probably get eight bachelors' degrees in the time it took me to get two the first time around. College was a step in the maturation process for me-- a step that was a bit too small as a result of some of my mother institution's decisions.

In summary, colleges certainly coddle the students, and the students are eager to be coddled. But don't be too bitter: the students deserve their youth, too.

enjo• 11 years ago

I don't think the author is complaining about the weakness of youth, but rather the weakness of the adults running the asylum.

herge• 11 years ago

The education of having to provide for yourself imparts a lot of discipline and enthusiasm

I think you have it backwards. Higher learning should impart on you the discipline and enthusiasm you need for the workforce, and not the other way around.

cryoshon2• 11 years ago

I agree that it should, but it doesn't.

jazzyk4• 11 years ago

To be young, IMO, is to question the status quo, be politically active (protest in the streets, if need be), come up with intellectually disruptive ideas, try new things, etc.

The current generation is mostly politically apathetic, obsessing instead over silly things like being offended by law textbooks containing words like "rape" and "violate".

Helicopter parenting is to blame, no question.

Terr_• 11 years ago

The university encouraged parents to make any kind of financial aid / money related decisions, and encouraged leaving the students out of it.

I wonder if that has more to do with financial/economic changes (rather than cultural ones) particularly when you look at how tuition has changed in terms of amount and how loans are handled and by whom.

comrh4• 11 years ago

He repeats the phase that college is not trauma but ignores that during the college phase of young adult lives many mental health issues arise in an environment without the only support system a child usually knows, their family.

Suicide is the leading cause of death[1] for college students and this guy is going to criticize the addition of resources to help handle stress? It just reads like ignorance.

1: http://news.virginia.edu/content/more-us-college-students-di...

talmand14• 11 years ago

Funny, I didn't read anything in the article about him complaining over suicide prevention counseling. I believe you are taking what he's saying and pushing too far to prove some point that no one brought up.

lprubin• 11 years ago

Some of the measures the OP is railing against can help stop students from needing suicide prevention counseling, counseling which is not 100% successful. If we can help reduce the number of students who even contemplate suicide, I'd say that's a noble goal.

And I personally think the point is very relevant. OP says students are coddled and campus stress isn't a big deal. GP brings up statistics showing that campus stress IS a big deal because it can lead to suicide. Seem very relevant to me.

saint_fiasco6• 11 years ago

Suicide prevention counselling should be one of the last lines of defence, not the first.

Reducing stress is an overall better policy, as long as it doesn't get in the way of receiving an actual education. I think that's an important conversation to have.

comrh4• 11 years ago

I said "this guy is going to criticize the addition of resources to help handle stress". Not "this guy wants to stop suicide counseling!!!".

mbeattie• 11 years ago

sounds familiar

http://www.theonion.com/article/parents-dedicate-new-college...

Maken2• 11 years ago

“God forbid any of you, in your years at this institution, are ever confronted with an opinion you do not share. But if you are, you will have a refuge on this campus.”

Being able to maintain a discussion and arguing in favor of your own point of view is no longer a remotely important skill?

tangent128• 11 years ago

Be advised that's an Onion article.

cafard• 11 years ago

"They nap in the library or in the hallway of academic buildings during normal work hours."

Wimps! In my day you sat in the back row of the classroom and slept while the lecture went on.

andrewmu• 11 years ago

I was once voted class representative because I happened to fall asleep at the front while it was being decided.

sandworm1013• 11 years ago

Law Students at a proper Law School /= "University Students"

Law students are both sensitive and not. I remember many times students crying while we discussed cases of rape, child murder and domestic violence. As one prof pointed out: "We have over 100 people in the room. Statistically speaking we must have many rape victims, and more than a few perpetrators."

Students cried, but they certainly did not suggest that topics not be taught. Students at professional schools (law/medicine etc) have committed to a profession with a known body of knowledge developed over hundreds, arguably thousands of years. They would not want that very expensive education to be curtailed for the very modern concept that is political correctness.

jamiek88• 11 years ago

Well you say that but then you get Maternal Fetal Medicine specialists suing to opt out of learning how to perform safe abortions because of their political beliefs.

I am less bothered by them choosing not to do them once qualified than not even learning how to do it. There are times when an emergency abortion can save a woman's life and sure it's not likely there's no one around to do it in 2015 USA but what about in an emergency? A power cut after hurricane etc?

Several of my wife's colleagues have done this. It shocks me.

rhino369• 11 years ago

I graduated lawschool only 2 years ago, has it really changed to the point where people would cry in class? I did go to a school that required work experience, so the class was mostly above 24, maybe that made it different.

sandworm1013• 11 years ago

I graduated 10+ years ago.

The first tears I remember appeared in the first couple crimlaw lectures. I won't go into the facts, but it was a discussion of Keeler (2 Cal.3d 619) that ramped up the emotions for some.

Take any law class. A hundred adults in their mid twenties in one room. That's fifty females. Chances are that at least one of them is pregnant, probably more than one. And there are plenty of parents of both genders. Nobody thinks less of them for being a little more emotional than the norm when forced to addresses certain cases. Nor would they expect the curriculum to be altered.

unavoidable• 11 years ago

Yet at my law school, there was an unspoken rule in our criminal law classes that the exams would never have a fact pattern invoking sexual assault, for the obvious reasons. Perhaps the truth is always more nuanced than what is being said here.

sandworm1013• 11 years ago

After one assignment that involving stadiums, there was an unwritten rule at my school that exams would not rely on students knowing anything about american baseball teams.

kelukelugames4• 11 years ago

Maybe we have overcorrected but things were pretty shitty back in the author's day. In the 90's, awful comments against gays and Asian people appeared often as "jokes" in mainstream media. And media guides how people act.

I don't like the term micro-aggressions. It should just be called tactlessness or rudeness. For example, coworkers at my last job made jokes about cops pulling over and harassing in front of black employees. Best case that's insensitive. Worst case that's some dogwhistle bullshit.

On the flip side, people got reported to HR for saying the "s" word. Yes, shit. I think the line is somewhere in the middle. All of us need to be a little bit more aware and a little bit less touchy.

matt-attack2• 11 years ago

The article was really about much more benign PC stuff like:

by some campus guidelines, it is a microaggression to ask an Asian American or Latino American “Where were you born?,” because this implies that he or she is not a real American.

Some Asians would find this policy racist as it presumes that all Asians are American Asian.

kelukelugames4• 11 years ago

You are right, some of his points are over-corrections to the less harmful things. He doesn't recognize that most of the polices are not in place to just fix the smaller stuff. I don't think we should coddle our students either but there are definitely a lot of shitty behavior on campus.

For example, look at these black face parties.

http://www.thegloss.com/2014/10/17/culture/dear-white-people...

As for "where were you born", that's a long discussion. But I do want to say as an Asian American, I'm okay with it sometimes and sometimes not. Some people are curious, while others genuinely think I must be a foreigner. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive but it's hard not to be when I live in a country when co workers randomly ask me questions about chopsticks and internment camps.

omouse• 11 years ago

I've heard the word "gay" used as an insulting term at my job a few times now in the last 6 months. The last time I heard that was...online from 13 year olds playing Call of Duty. It's definitely nice to be in environments where all these racist, homophobic terms and insults and "jokes" are no longer around.

pavel_lishin2• 11 years ago

Which "s word"?

kelukelugames4• 11 years ago

sh*t. ;)

vasilipupkin• 11 years ago

I think part of the problem is culture has changed. A joke that is racist or homophobic that would have been considered hilarious 30 - 40 years ago may simply not considered all that funny anymore. It may still be that PC culture is going too far, but I think it's not the whole story

danharaj12• 11 years ago

The attitude I'm detecting here is this: A University is an institution, and how dare its constituents feel like they have the right to determine its culture and how it accommodates them. Students must bow to professors. They must accept the diseased puritan work ethic that infects American culture at all levels, whose main political forces are conservatism and other reactionary politics. If you are suffering, it's your fault and no one owes you any consideration. Crush the individual because the institution, the society, the culture owes them nothing.

This is an authoritarian reaction. People in power complaining that they are losing their power, their place in a hierarchy that places the student body as subordinate to them.

How about this as an alternative point of view: University Students demand respect and a supportive environment. Professors balk at the idea of treating them like there is any merit to their opinions on how they should be treated; reduce them to disparaging caricatures.

lkozma• 11 years ago

The attitude of the prof you are detecting might be as you say. However, the "infantilization" described in the article (if indeed real) does not necessarily signal that students are gaining more power in matters of importance, it could even hint at the opposite. Think of how some companies offer foosball tables and allow all sorts of goofiness instead of money/stake in the company/vacation, etc.

danharaj12• 11 years ago

I think this is a good observation. I would much, much prefer students to be radical than simply to bargain with the powers that be. Universities are transforming at breathtaking speed in how they are organized and commodified. Professors are losing not only their authority, but their leadership as educators. I would not mind the end of authority, but universities being led by profit and administration is bad, too. The only reasonable course is for students and professors to radicalize and support each other, and for the role of professors to be based on natural leadership, not on power established through hierarchy (the enforcement of which always reduces to implied violence).

But I think that's out of scope.

danharaj12• 11 years ago

As a follow-up, there is a massive lack of empathy in the attitude expressed by the author.

How does anyone know what others are feeling, except when they tell us what they're feeling? This article isn't about how university students are acting like children. It's painting university students as children in order to dismiss their behavior. If you actually wanted to know what university students are doing and why, you'd talk to them. Instead, this article is condescending, patronizing, and (ironically) infantilizing.

To give no trust is to get no trust. If you don't trust university students to act as adults with their own autonomy who can make the best decisions for themselves, which includes effecting the environment and social structures that benefit them most, then, congratulations, you're an authoritarian and have just discarded the basic tenets of liberalism, right libertarianism, left libertarianism (i.e. anarchism), communism, and socialism. After eradicating most post-enlightenment ideas of how to treat people as human beings, what are you left with?

I reiterate: If you treat someone like a child, you're not engaging them. You are dismissing them. And if you treat someone like a child in order to justify a hierarchy and power structure above them, it is very, very clear what historical examples you are following.

fleitz5• 11 years ago

" If you don't trust university students to act as adults with their own autonomy who can make the best decisions for themselves, which includes effecting the environment and social structures that benefit them most, then, congratulations, you're an authoritarian and have just discarded the basic tenets of liberalism, right libertarianism, left libertarianism (i.e. anarchism), communism, and socialism. After eradicating most post-enlightenment ideas of how to treat people as human beings, what are you left with?"

Not really, many horrible governments have been democratically elected, don't you think it's a good thing that the north told the south that they don't have the right to decide what's good for them? Do you not feel that it's good that the 'free world' told Russia & Germany what is good for them?

There are many example through history of one people telling another that they don't know what's good for them and it being regarded later as a good thing.

m0dc• 11 years ago

The professor's attitude that you're talking about is perfectly valid - as is your own (opposite) attitude. The tension is a result of modern universities being dual-purpose.

On one hand, the university is supposed to be a crucible where difficult problems are confronted, hard work is accomplished by making sacrifices, and mature professionals are forged through years of dedicated effort. On the other hand, it's also the students' home and living space for several years, and it should provide the comfortable and low-stress lifestyle that most adults need to be mentally healthy.

Inflated tuition costs and degree commoditization have lead universities to adopt a "customer is always right" attitude, bringing the two purposes directly in contention in an attempt to please everyone.

The solution is probably somewhere in between. There's a place for puppy rooms, and a place for strict educational standards - but the two shouldn't mix.

joesmo8• 11 years ago

So you're saying we should bow down to these students, and we should stop teaching law students about rape law and not even use the word "violation" in terms of law to bow down to students' incredibly stupid wishes? Why not just abolish universities altogether? Hell, why not abolish laws and all of society while we're at it. Since it no longer matters that we're teaching students anything at all, only that they have a "supportive environment." What a load of shit.

danharaj12• 11 years ago

How would we abolish universities? If universities are voluntary gatherings of professors and students transformed into cultural institutions that persist longer than any teacher-student relationship, then they are going to exist and the only way you could prevent it is through force. Authoritarian much?

You seem to be incredibly enraged at the idea of freedom of association: The liberty to associate with other people or not on your own terms.

It turns out that universities act as loci of power in the larger hierarchy of our society: Universities confer status and distinction, legitimize skillsets, and some act as hubs of commingling for people who belong to the ruling class. Students need to go to university in order to participate in society as dignified individuals. That is what is at stake here, and your anger is merely anxiety at the idea of an institution of power falling into the hands of powerless people. You would rather they degrade themselves in order to receive a piece of paper that says they are good enough to be respectable parts of modern society.

I trust university students. There are two reasons to go to university: To go into debt so you can get a professional job, and to learn. I trust university students to transform universities in a way that benefits them most. I do not trust the powers that be to do anything but degrade universities into businesses for profit that hold individual legitimacy for ransom, or propaganda centers for the prevailing power structures that shape our society.

If professors want to teach, they ought to lead, not bludgeon students with the authority granted to them by institutional forces. Unquestionable authority is a tumor in any healthy society. When it pervades the system, society itself is terribly ill.

AcerbicZero• 11 years ago

I was disillusioned with the college experience almost as soon as I began. I started college in 2007 after ~14 months deployed to Iraq, so it was a significant culture shock to be dropped into such a coddling environment.

Having to talk to three different people, and sit down for meetings, just to get the authorization to schedule my classes drove me crazy, while wasting time with mandatory "awareness" (alcohol, sex, whatever) classes made me question the point of it all.

In the end I chalked it all up to me being a bitter old 21 year old freshman, and took the opportunity to talk my way out of as many silly requirements as I could.

I do feel a bit vindicated seeing others take notice of how emotionally vulnerable college students have let themselves become, but I still hope there is a solution which fosters an environment of growth and challenge without going too far in either direction.

cmiles74• 11 years ago

If this is a real problem, addressing it at the college level seems far, far too late. Also, while the author hammers on their point that "education is not trauma", I am not inclined to agree without giving it more thought.

All I have is anecdotes but they are troubling. A couple of weeks ago I spoke with a second grader who was brought to tears at the thought of upcoming testing (state required assessment). My immediate thought was something along the lines of "Just do the best you can", but the question remains: where was this anxiety coming from: parents, teachers, both? In this case, education was very clearly trauma for this individual.

Perhaps the "helicopter parents" are doing more harm than good, that seems likely. At the same time, perhaps round after round of assessment testing is hurting as well. And universities seeking to coddle their students, perhaps to keep them "happy customers" but also to keep them ignorant of their overall costs.

In any case, it's not entirely clear that "education is not trauma", this article itself seems to contradict that thesis.

danharaj12• 11 years ago

Education absolutely is trauma in a hierarchical society. The whole point of education is to beat children into the mold that fits society's expectations and needs, not their own. You can't expect anything else out of institutions based on domination and authority.

Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens' main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I've read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.
In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to. The most important thing was to stay on the premises. While there, the authorities fed you, prevented overt violence, and made some effort to teach you something. But beyond that they didn't want to have too much to do with the kids. Like prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us to ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we created was barbaric.

- Paul Graham, Why Nerds are Unpopular

tomp10• 11 years ago

The whole point of education is to beat children into the mold that fits society's expectations and needs, not their own.

I'm not sure I agree. I think I grew up as an emotionally mature, successful (so far), yet quite unusual person, despite having been schooled for a long time and acing most of the formal requirements of the institutions.

My parents always said, "trust us, you need to go to school" even though I didn't want to (I mean, obviously, I had a computer and games and a compiler!), but now I agree with them - back then, I couldn't imagine the perspective, breath, width, emotional maturity and social development that further years of schooling would give me, and I couldn't appreciate the extent to which schooling, vocation and other long-term choices that we make (or are guided towards) as completely inexperienced adolescents will shape the future 60-80 years of my life (I'm only about 10 years down the road so far, but the signs and directions are much more obvious now).

Sure, some amount of authority is necessary, but that's mainly because people, especially children, will otherwise go for short-term pleasure without thinking about the longer term. But saying that school molds children in any way is quite a stretch in my opinion - a better way of putting it would be that it shows them different possibilities and enables them to be better informed before choosing which direction to take in life.

wmt• 11 years ago

Education is not traumatic for people who can cope with failure, but can be devastating for those who have not learned how to deal with. Handling negative emotions like rage, fear, failure, regret, envy or disappointment are basic skills we normally learn as kids through all kinds of positive and negative experiences. By trying different approaches a child can learn e.g. that failing just means you'll need to work more to succeed, instead of more counterproductive defences like sour grapes or that you were cheated.

It is unfortunate that some parents inadvertently hurt their kids by either not allowing them to learn to deal with negative emotions, or even worse, teaching them ideas like "it's okay that you failed the test, I know you did your best"

netcan4• 11 years ago

Calling some of this infantilization is kind of sad.

Walking around in slippers and napping wherever is a consequence of freedom from social conventions, or at least an environment where social conventions are anomalous and rapidly changing. So is promiscuity, once called free love. These are things that universities have always been havens for. Others things (puppy rooms) are experimental, also an artifact of a nonconformist and liberal environment.

Students and academics have more license to be quirky and eccentric than lawyers and soccer moms. That's a good thing.

I also cringe when I here about PC student audiences that can't tolerate stand up comedy. It all feels like a part of the recreational righteous rage, liking to be right and pointing at the kid that said the C-word.

OTOH, it's also a side effect of effective social movements that take place at universities. If I look back at social movements that universities played major roles in, I don't think they've been bad. Attitudes towards queers and trannies have changed so much in my lifetime. Amazingly. There is tremendous support and solidarity from the public. It's a breathtaking rise in collective conscience. If I'm going to be yelled at by 19 year olds for saying "tranny" but we get to a point where transexuals can work and live normally, homosexuals can have families…. I'll take it.

Part of the way that is achieved intolerance towards "assholes," homophobes, xenophobes, sexists. Students, being young and insufferable spray that all around. Long term though, it sticks mostly where it should.

But yea, I agree. Young people are annoying.

madaxe_again• 11 years ago

If we are to be truly tolerant, we must tolerate intolerance.

danharaj12• 11 years ago

The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

- Karl Popper

rimantas• 11 years ago

Nope, intolerance is the one thing that cannot be tolertated. Karl Popper: "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

danharaj12• 11 years ago

Attitudes towards queers and trannies have changed so much in my lifetime.

T* is a slur that is too often the last thing a woman hears before she is brutally murdered.

dandanisaur• 11 years ago

To add to this, i've quoted a detailed definition.

"the term "tranny" is used as a dehumanizing slur to describe transgender individuals and is oftentimes the last word someone hears before they are brutally attacked. Similar to the anti-gay F-word, the term "tranny" is commonly used to humiliate and degrade transgender individuals."

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lance-bass/why-we-shouldnt-use...

netcan4• 11 years ago

So is 'Jew'. When people hate you, your name is a hateful slur even if its what you call yourself. You can't win this game. You also can't win the game of arguing that a word isn't hateful so I guess I shouldn't be commenting back.

thecyborganizer• 11 years ago

Attitudes towards queers and trannies have changed so much in my lifetime.

"Tranny" is a vicious slur against trans people, on par with "faggot" for a gay person or "nigger" for a black person. Please edit your post.

Roboprog• 11 years ago

Seriously? Maybe you are trolling, to reinforce the point of the article. Otherwise, in context, I think using those words helped make the point of the attitude shift over time.

netcan4• 11 years ago

I was making a point, please consider the context and intent.

hueving3• 11 years ago

Your post is triggering me. Please add trigger warnings before you use those words.

tomp10• 11 years ago

Seriously? Now even words can be vicious? Almost as stupid as calling them "micro-aggressions" when nobody is hurt.

joesmo8• 11 years ago

None of the campus movements that brought about any change was created by students afraid of words, though. Quite the opposite. These students aren't standing up for anything except their own inability to understand comedy, irony, and other non-straightforward ways of expression that they should have learned before they even got in high school. In other words, the only thing these students are standing up for now is their own stupidity. And the only thing that's changed from the past is the adults who know better are now letting it happen instead of telling the students to shut up with their stupidity. Thus, no comedians on campus. Because humor is one of those ways of expressing oneself described above.

mc322• 11 years ago

I dont think its sad to call some of the described behaviors and accommodations infantilization.

Higher ed is there to educate, prepare and provide networking and access to the job market. Very few people go with the end goal of learning for learning's sake. People attend higher ed as a vehicle to a better economic future. As such, coddling and comforting and extending parental protection institutionally does a disservice to people growing up and getting ready for the cold world out there which awaits all.

The world is by nature wild and unsanitized. I understand the need to want and bring about a better more civilized, if less natural world, but I don't think suppressing reality is the way to subjugate reality to our form.

smcg• 11 years ago

perhaps if students had more viable career paths besides college there would be less pressure to succeed in college. as-is, dropping out of college is practically a career death sentence.

guelo• 11 years ago

It's so hard being an asshole these days.

dcole29293• 11 years ago

I graduated a year ago and this whole entire article just pissed me off. At the very beginning I was with the author. As a student you don't get to decide what you learn. Either take the class or don't but you can't expect a teacher to not use certain terminology for fear of offending someone.

Where this went off the rails is well pretty much everything after that. The author admits to it but you really can't compare college today with college in the 80's and 90's. They are two completely different beasts. Students walk around in pajamas all day during finals week because they are fucking tired. Finals are hard, comprehensive, and exhausting. That's always been true, but the difference is now you have finals on top of the 8 million extracurriculars you have to be involved in to actually get a job after graduation. Oh and that job that you have to work in order to you know actually pay for that 40K/year piece of paper. No one is working at the bookstore anymore and paying tuition with that.

Are you really complaining about making religious exceptions? If college is supposed to prepare you for the real world, guess what there I'm probably not working on a day of religious observance if I can help it. How ironic is it that a teacher of psychology is complaining about welcome events, recommended by psychologist as helping students adjust to a new environment? School is not a warzone but it can be traumatic for the unprepared. The amount of pressure you have being placed on kids today is utterly incomparable to what you may have dealt with in the past. It's great that you have been teaching for 12 years. Personally I spent 4 of my 5 years in uni working in student life as an RA in the dorms watching group of freshman after group of freshman get absolutely clobbered by their first and often second (where you get the sleeping in the library group) set of finals. HS doesn't prepare kids for college anymore That's not their fault, that's the system. Yet college can be such a high pressure environment that one bad finals week can literally derail the rest of your college career. It is not unusual for a kid to be sat down and "asked" to change majors or leave altogether after bombing a final. Not even the class but just the final.

And as far as the counselors? Having ~75% more people in college than in the 80's tends to make the old system a bit unwieldy. Maybe you enjoyed going from department to department to get basic information but it was a stupid system then that unfortunately still exists now at most places. All counselors do is give you a single person to talk to when you're inevitable sent back to some place you've already been. Counselors suck but actually making sure you on track to get your degree on time is not the simple process it used to be. Is there really something wrong with someone 17-22 having a resource on hand to make sure they aren't making what could very well end up being a 40K mistake if they have to stay an extra year because they took Bio A instead of Bio I (yes that has happened). Most adults have accountants for that same reason.

There are so many things wrong with the system and the authors choice, because it's the in-vogue thing to do, is blame the spoiled kids. The Ivy Leagues are not representative of all college, or even most colleges. And if this is the authors attitude he's part of the reasons kids need the many services available to them. I wish more students would take advantage of the services he mentions so I could stop seeing news of kids killing themselves over college so often.

End Rant

jpm342• 11 years ago

As the original author of this post, I see your point. I don't mean to be blaming students...more so the admin in a sometimes desperate attempt to recruit and retain more and more (paying) customers. I worry that the whole system is unstable...I think things are more stressful compared to when I was an undergrad. I sometimes think we (faculty, admin, both) are making things worse in an attempt to make it better.

dcole29293• 11 years ago

I understand where you're coming from, and even agree with some of your view. The system in unstable, and I don't know that every policy school administrations put in place help. But I don't think you used very good examples. School is way to PC, but a lot of that is for good reason, even it get's applied unreasonably sometimes.

Honestly though, it just touched a nerve with me. Millenials, as I'm sure every generation before us, has become the it thing to bash. And I feel as though most of the people doing the critiquing skim over the fact that the world we grew up in is fundamentally different than that of our parents, and their parents. The basic assumptions that older people make don't apply for us. We are the first generation pretty much since this country was founded who's job prospects are worst than our parents. Most of our parents will benefit at least something from Social Security. We will never see a dime. We are the largest, most educated generation ever but also the most in debt and most under-employed (people who want a job but can't get one).

Part of all this is just life. But what makes it worse is that people keep characterizing us as lazy, and entitled for wanting the things we've been told all our life we'll get, if we work hard. Due to no fault of our own, the American Dream or whatever that means if pretty much not an option for most of us, and yet people are surprised we started making a decisions without that goal in mind. If I have to work til the day I die, and most likely I will, shouldn't I try to work somewhere that is as fun as I can find. If that means swings, puppies, and playpits is that a bad thing?

Rhapso• 11 years ago

It is not something we really consider, but it is worth pointing out: Education IS Trauma. Pedagogy focuses on minimizing the trauma, but learning new things that violate preconceptions is both physically and mentally stressful.

When you challenge somebody's core beliefs, their bodies respond as if you are trying to kill them. Challenging less strongly held beliefs is less stressful.

I'm going into teaching a security class, and this is strongly in my mind. Most people have a lot of strongly held false beliefs about how secure they are, and what the information they do leak could be used for.

cgearhart• 11 years ago

The biggest error I see in the entire line of argument is that it assumes the author's experience to be generalizable. They might as well have said, "The system worked well for me. I didn't need any of these changes that are happening, so we should stop them. They're weakening our children because reasons." I can't take any of this seriously without any data to show there is a problem and not just complaints that amount to "I don't like how PC students are today."

As if the very act of registering for a class is traumatic event for which the student needs counselling.

Clearly the author didn't go to a high-demand program at an impacted state school. "If you don't register for 12 units, your financial aid package will be revoked and you'll have to reapply for admission next term." Field Sciences, here I come! (True story.)

reader5000• 11 years ago

The university itself is a massive infantilization, evolved primarily to financially exploit young adults.

Does anybody really think that smart young adults could not maximize their potential out in the real world earning actual money, learning on the go.

The university rips young people out of reality for four more years to pamper them like babies and deprive them of reality in the name of "education"; as if listening to lectures from middle aged adults has some sort of magical revelatory power that living life does not.

sjg007• 11 years ago

It gives you a chance to develop your mind and opportunity to reach jobs that a regular high school education does not prepare you for.

dataker2• 11 years ago

The only jobs you need a college education are the ones that are highly technical, leaning towards Academia.

Most engineers and analysts could learn on the job or with specializations(no longer than a few months).

joesmo8• 11 years ago

"The article in The Atlantic that inspired my blog post/rant suggests that this may ultimately be damaging for education and mental health care."

No shit. It's the universities' responsibility to teach children and prepare them for the "real world." They're failing because they're afraid of liability when they're charging 40-60k a year per head? That's insane. How about they take responsibility for their actions and start teaching our children. How about the universities (the adults) stand up in this case and the the students (the children) to shut up and sit down and listen. Do these kids feel offended? Oh, boo hoo. They'll get over it.

Otherwise, to put it bluntly, we're going to end up with a whole lot of useless pussies ruining our economy and way of life because they're too scared of some words to do anything even remotely useful.

fleitz5• 11 years ago

To be fair universities generally teach adults, not children.

joesmo8• 11 years ago

Exactly. Now they're bowing down to the demands of children (who are likely to be over 18, but still children) and that's the problem.

jpm342• 11 years ago

As the author of the original post, I do want to say that I'm not opposed to accommodations and work hard to make sure students are able to master the content in my courses. I'm cool with puppy rooms even... I wrote this as a morning rant. These are just my observations as a mid career professional. There is just so much of this. The crux of the problem, if there is one, is the corporatization of the university experience. I wrote an earlier post about grade inflation that touched on this too...

peterwwillis3• 11 years ago

You'll notice that this kind of thing only happens in groups where people can support each other's ideas, regardless of how ridiculous. Tea Partiers who scream about getting rid of immigrants. Green Peace activists who scream about getting rid of all uses of oil. Vegans who scream when someone cooks meat near them. Non-smokers who scream if they have to inhale cigarette smoke for 10 seconds.

There's always an in-group that validates perceived threats to the individual and amplifies the concern and the response until it reaches a fever pitch, and it remains there as long as the support base is there.

If it weren't for the fact that somebody has to pay their salaries, professors could ignore this behavior. Sadly, the academics are going to have to bend if they want to keep their jobs. It's the same in every other subculture; the mob gets their way as long as you are beholden to them for something.

lmartel• 11 years ago

Whenever someone makes a point by listing groups of people, they always have to sneak in a pet issue. Looks like for you it's smoking!

You say "non-smokers" but you mean "normal, default people." Smokers are the delusional in-group, slowly murdering themselves and those around them with a remarkably unfun drug. You're welcome to do whatever you want to your own body but keep it away from others. Imagine what you just said, applied to any other substance! Non-drinkers who have to drink my beer for 10 seconds? Celiac-diseasers who have to eat my bread for 10 seconds?

peterwwillis3• 11 years ago

Well no, I don't have a "pet issue". And it's ridiculous to compare inhaling cigarette smoke to pouring beer down someone's throat or feeding gluten to a gluten-intolerant person. They're all wildly different examples with completely different consequences.

If you force beer down an alcoholic's throat they may relapse. If they're gluten-intolerant they could have a severe reaction. And obviously feeding bread to a gluten-intolerant person will have a serious negative reaction. Inhaling cigarette smoke isn't going to put you in the hospital or send you on a cigarette-smoking binge, nor affect your health any worse than walking around downtown LA would.

typon• 11 years ago

This guy seems awfully offended by sweatpants. Practice what you preach.

Torgo2• 11 years ago

Much of this is the natural outcome of near-complete deference to expressions of offense, and declarations of identity. It was a totally predictable outcome, it was warned about way ahead of time, it happened.

mariojv• 11 years ago

Having to change academic material that isn't overtly racist/homophobic/xenophobic/transphobic/etc because students feel uncomfortable about it seems silly, but I don't think there's anything wrong with a student bringing up (respectfully) why something makes them uncomfortable within the class, especially in a diverse environment with students from all over the world.

I don't think that's necessarily what the author is talking about. However, this part in particular was troubling:

"Then there are offices to help students with anything that could possibly upset them (I suppose to ensure that they remain enrolled snd thus paying fees and tuition). My university, like most, has offices for diversity, indigenous student support, sexual orientation, even a mental health office specifically for international students, etc. As a professor, I am frequently asked to make academic accommodations for every religion and every possible religious holiday that might conflict with assignment. I must ensure that every every disability is accommodated."

What's wrong with providing institutional support to students with different backgrounds and disabilities? Complaining about student support groups, accommodating disabilities or recognizing non-Christian religious holidays is a a bit over the top. It's anecdotal, but I had an indigenous friend living in the unofficial LGBT-targeted co-op that committed suicide during his last year of college. If having another support system in place that targeted his needs would have saved him, I don't care how "infantilizing" it would have been. If it can be managed, it's better to have too much support than tragedies like that.

I don't understand why the author feels the need to conflate political correctness with resources that, at least theoretically, make universities less stressful, less homogeneous, and more accessible. If it's something that interferes with academics, that's a completely different concern.

Plus, who wouldn't want a puppy room? I wish my workplace had one of those. :)

hypersoar2• 11 years ago

" My university, like most, has offices for diversity, indigenous student support, sexual orientation, even a mental health office specifically for international students, etc. As a professor, I am frequently asked to make academic accommodations for every religion and every possible religious holiday that might conflict with assignment. I must ensure that every every disability is accommodated. Most disabilities that I am asked to accommodate seem to be unspecified and are remedied by providing the students with a separate, quiet location and an extra 30 minutes to take an exam.

“In my day” (I’m old now, my day was the late 80s early 90s), you visited the registrar’s office. A financial aid office. The bursars office. I felt like an adult, making decisions and finding things out for myself… But now there are counsellors for everything."

I can only imagine how frustrating it is when minority, non-straight, disabled, non-dudes explain the challenges the face that maybe straight white dudes haven't experienced, only to have those straight white dudes write articles like this completely dismissing all of that after basically not listening. Yeah, I'm sure things were just swell for you back "in your day". But has it occurred to you that it was less swell for other people in ways that should be addressed? It certainly doesn't seem to have for this author.

Also, in the above quote, it seems like he resisted a pretty strong urge to put scare quotes around "disabilities". Because there's no way to tell when these people have not immediately-visible disabilities, except for when they're literally fucking telling you.

There might be kernels of legitimate concerns in this post. But, like in the many basically-identical blog posts and comments written by many, it's all rolled into an incoherent mash of "College kids today, they can't take a joke, with their trigger warnings and talk about microaggressions, their `disabilities' and whatnot. They need to toughen up, because back in my day we didn't need puppies."

k__• 11 years ago

Money Quote:

"professional comedians face increasing difficulty in playing colleges and universities because they cannot do offensive jokes"

The more I learned about sexism, racism etc. I the less I liked the currently famous comedians.

jazzyk4• 11 years ago

I don't particularly like the sweatpants and the puppy rooms, etc. but I can live with it - they will grow out of it over time.

What I am much more worried about are two things:

1. More students are joining the constantly-offended-by-everything, humorless killjoy crowd.

2. They appear to be mostly uninterested in politics. But they should be interested in political change, given the bleak future that they face (with mountains of debt, etc). Quite a contrast to the politically-active 60s or 70s.

rl3• 11 years ago

I know how it feels to have a death in family when there is an important assignment.

Is he implying students should not be excused on the basis of such an event, merely so they can complete their assignment?

It's worth noting that in BUD/S, if there's a death in a trainee's family, they're usually excused and rolled back to a new class upon return, giving them the opportunity to complete their current phase of training.

If universities think they should be harsher in this regard than some of the toughest military training on the planet, then that's simply deplorable.

fapjacks2• 11 years ago

This is the case virtually military-wide, including infantry units in active combat. I received Red Cross notices twice while on orders (once in an army school, once in Iraq), and leadership scrambles to accommodate soldiers during these events. Army (and other military) leadership doesn't mess around with Red Cross messages or a soldier's mail.

faithfone• 11 years ago

Micro-aggressions? Sounds like twitter for insults.

collegiatecomp• 11 years ago

Not really. Insults would fall under the category of aggression. A micro-aggression would be anything that isn't inherently insulting. Like the author's example of an American student who asks someone where they are from with the intention of implying that the person being asked is not a "true American." The author's intention was to show that sometimes people will turn something intended to be innocent into an act of aggression.

analognoise• 11 years ago

College didn't used to be terrifying - the middle class existed and the cost was much lower.

I'd need a puppy break too with what the kids have on the line today.

cLeEOGPw• 11 years ago

This thread probably has one of the longest and least valuable comments in this site

norea-armozel6• 11 years ago

On the matter of microaggressions I think the author doesn't use good examples for them.

For example, telling someone they speak good English in a situation where you're both native speakers is a microaggression. Asking where they're from or where they grew up isn't a microaggression.

Another good example of a microaggression would be to ask someone if their hair is natural (as I've seen commonly asked of African American women). Or if you're transgender (like myself) the common microaggression is to ask for one's "real" name (as if the legally designated name isn't sufficient).

It's not much to ask to figure out what is and isn't a microaggression, really. I hate the word since it doesn't best describe the behavior but the nature of it is very real.

University Students are Afraid of Everything

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