Why College is Frustrating

http://chris.smeder.com/essays/1_college.htm

by csmeder • 17 years ago

6 19 17 years ago

chris.smeder.com

pjw1187• 17 years ago

I could not agree more. At my university there was suppose to be a place for undergraduates to research and work together, but sadly the unviersity turned it into a conference room. Most of my friends in CS that are terrible programmers were simply never taught the proper way to program or even remotely how to tackle a problem. Its sad to tutor other students and they understand the problem but they have no idea where to start or how to implement a solution. I think CS programs should definately teach how to problem solve as opposed to just finish the project for the grade. My parents enforced good study habits in me and it is apparent in my friends/roommates that did not have it instilled in them. If universities did teach students how to study and manage time I am sure a lot of the "bad" students would be right on up there. Lastly I also find it very hard to believe how many crappy professors are still allowed to teach. In fact I had one professor in a basic studies class say "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT ME! CALL ME AN ASSHOLE! IM TENURE! I DON'T CARE!". I've also had professors that simply cannot teach at all. You could look around the room and see blank stairs on everyones face and yet the professor just keeps on going...

mquander• 17 years ago

Can you please proofread your writing, or at least run a spellchecker on it, before presenting it to the world? There are multiple spelling and grammatical errors in each paragraph, and it's pretty much completely distracting.

csmeder5• 17 years ago

Sorry, I wrote it in vim with no spell check. I have now fixed the spelling errors. Grammar is one of those basics that I have never learned. I will try to look it over again.

rcfox• 17 years ago

Doesn't vim have ispell support?

xenoterracide• 17 years ago

More than Handwriting I think they should teach shorthand for note taking.

dill_day• 17 years ago

"Yes, I am saying colleges should teach study habits, time management and hand writing."

I agree these are good things, but shouldn't they be taught before college?

csmeder5• 17 years ago

In my experience most of the time they are not. You either win the parent lottery or don't. Many college students are missing the basics. It's embarrassing, possibly confusing but true.

drewcrawford• 17 years ago

Colleges shouldn't cater to the bottom of the barrel. People who haven't learned basic time management, how to study, etc., after 12 years of formal education shouldn't be enrolled.

ATM I'm incredibly frustrated with worthless gen-ed classes that take up way too much of my time from working on cool and challenging things.

blahedo• 17 years ago

Well, some colleges do just what you say---teaching writing and study skills to the students who need it. But in my experience, a lot of the students have been taught study skills in the past, but it never stuck because they didn't really need them yet... and in those cases getting a bad or mediocre grade really is just the swift kick they need.

As for reinventing the wheel, are you suggesting that the professors should try to grab someone else's slides and lectures and teach from them? I promise that this does not work very well. Aside from being drier and less engaging to read someone else's stuff, it means that they aren't tailored to the prof and to the class. And a good chalkboard lecture beats slides any day, anyhow.

csmeder5• 17 years ago

I'm not sure what the solution is. I do know I would have preferred something similar to http://www.lynda.com for maybe 30% of my classes with access to tutors and study groups. At least 30% of my classes we taught very poorly and high quality videos would have been an improvement.

lleger• 17 years ago

I agree with that college is frustrating, although I disagree that the problem lies within lack of facilities or failure to teach proper study techniques or handwriting skills. Rather I think the pervasive problem with contemporary pedagogy is that it has turned, largely, into an enterprising, profiteering business. With that shift, educational institutions switched their focus from graduating good, prepared students to focusing on obtaining large grants for research projects—research projects that bring in far more than a student's tuition.

Also, I think it's worth mentioning that one basic that everyone should be taught is grammar. Not to be a jerk here, but you'd be more effective in communicating your point if it wasn't littered with grammatical errors.

csmeder5• 17 years ago

"Also, I think it's worth mentioning that one basic that everyone should be taught is grammar. Not to be a jerk here, but you'd be more effective in communicating your point if it wasn't littered with grammatical errors."

Your not being a jerk. I agree. I think I might need to buy "Eats, Shoots & Leaves". This is the first essay/blog I have submitted to the world and it is helping me remember my grammar sucks.

jseliger• 17 years ago

So far, this article and all the comments here are missing the main point, which isn't identifying the problem; a gazillion people in the Chronicle of Higher Education have said virtually the same thing at various times.

The real problem is solving the problem, which requires changing the incentives that drive professors. At the moment, hiring and tenure decisions at virtually all universities (and all the big ones you've heard of) are made mostly on research and publication. Teaching simply doesn't count for much. Therefore, the people who succeed in getting hired and getting tenured optimize for what they're being judged on: research and publication. Teaching is secondary.

Once you've realized this incentive problem, the question becomes, "How do you change the incentives?" I have no good answers for that, but it's the real question you should be asking if you're genuinely interested.

(EDIT: And, by the way, I'm a grad student at a big public school. I get to hear about this kind of stuff all the time.)

barry-cotter• 17 years ago

Proposal: Debundle teaching and research (and while I'm asking for the moon, certification as well.)

Most university lecturers are there to do research, teaching is a sideline. Some people genuinely like teaching, among them some of the research productive. But optimising for two things at once will not give as good results on either measure as optimising separately.

I don't hold out much hope here given that the main purpose of elite colleges for undergrads is status by association with prestige, which comes from the research productive. Teaching excellence is strictly a sideline.

potatolicious• 17 years ago

Do we really want to change the incentives? One of the most (read: only) compelling things I found about college was being close to people who did "real work". These were professors and researchers at the very bleeding edge of their field - and I got a front row seat to interact, learn from, and observe their work. I think that, in the end, is part of the college experience.

In high school I was often frustrated, since it was far too easy to "max out" the knowledge of my teachers, and certainly none of them were working experts in their respective fields. This never happened in university - I have never, to date, been able to get to a point where I'm thinking well ahead of the prof, or even close.

patio11• 17 years ago

I don't know what kind of college you were at, but it may have an organization with a euphemistic name that suggests it is not engaged in teaching remedial skills which teaches remedial skills. Ours was the Academic Resource Center, I think. I don't know if we had anyone who specialized in teaching hand writing, largely because I don't think hand writing was a deliverable anywhere in school, but we certainly taught study habits, time management, and the math students should have learned in high school.

csmeder5• 17 years ago

The reason I said hand writing is important is that it helps with situations such as:

- 4 page long differential equations

- 4 page long physics problems

- physics lab (note book)

- taking readable notes quickly

My guess is that hand writing is a lot more important to ones ability to work effectively than most people realize. I could be wrong.

Feynman• 17 years ago

Article aside, I really dig the format of your blog. It's refreshing to see straight text without 5000 "promote-me" buttons and misc other bullshit.

theprodigy• 17 years ago

Who cares if college is frustrating. Stop being a victim. I had the worse teachers, but I did whatever it took to get an A. I didn't care if the teacher didn't have an interesting teaching style i put that aside and tried to learn the material he/she taught. In college, you need the "superficial" good grades just to get your foot in the door.I was autodidactic and learned all the things that really interested me in college on my own. People need to stop being wimps and try harder.

Why College is Frustrating

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