Professors say today's college kids really ARE dumber and lazier

This past fall, I was scaling the bleachers to cover a football game on a Friday night. Overheard this exchange while stuck in a human traffic jam, a conversation between a high school girl and what appeared to be her friend's mom:

"I didn't realize we had to write an essay to apply to college!"

"What did you write about?"

"I don't know. I just had my mom do it!"

People wonder why colleges like standardized tests so much? Because it is the one and only time that your ass is in a chair with no lifeline. I think we would be astounded by how much parents do instead of children.

 

And not just parents, but also assistance from the internet and other "sources", technology has made it far easier to cheat on anything done outside a controlled and monitored testing environment.

People like to bash standardized tests, but that's the only time we can be assured the kid is both doing his own work and being graded on objective grounds.

 

When I go back to my college and speak to journalism classes, I try to make it clear that if they're going to have any chance at all, they have to have a full experience under their arm before they start -- college paper or college radio station, hopefully some professional part-time work, definitely an internship or two.

I'm just wondering. Do we still have a lot of kids coming out with absolutely NO experience who are clueless enough to think they can walk into a job in the journalism field? I mean, I'm sure they still are out there. I'm just wondering if it's more or less prevalent than, say, 30 years ago.

 

I knew kids in school who did almost no work for the school media and didn't have any internships who thought they would waltz out of school and get good jobs. One kid, who hadn't done anything (and this was our senior year), told me that he was going to look into working for the LA Times.

 

Re: student evaluations, I just read some of mine from the last year on Ratemyprofessors.com and had to share this little gem from an undergraduate ... "I've taken 175 credit hours and this guy is the second-worst I've ever had."

Hmmmmmm, 175 credit hours, huh? Thinking of Belushi in Animal House: "Seven years of college wasted."

Re: standardized tests. It may be true that they're largely unbiased when taken by "domestic" students, but more and more we are refusing to accept GMATs or GREs that were taken overseas. I had an international student last semester who couldn't do basic algebra, but on her GMAT, taken in her country, she somehow managed to score at the 95th percentile on the quantitative portion. Methinks she already had a good understanding of the upside of outsourcing.

 

I've seen plenty of them. And that's got to mean one of two things -- either the college is not bringing the message across at all, or the message is being delivered and it's just not registering with the student.

I've known quite a few students who believed that membership in one of the journalistic organizations, like SDX, was more important than joining your college paper.

 

My guess is they exist in every single discipline, not limited at all to journalism.

My best friend in college would regale us with stories about how his business major would permit him to buy a Corvette, Harley, and Ford F150 upon graduation.

I have a friend who was downright furious when he struggled to get a job out of law school. He said that employers didn't care about "how good a lawyer you were going to be," only, "what school you went to and your grades."

"Did you get good grades?" "Mediocre."
"Did you try out for law review?" "No."
"Did you work your 1L summer?" "No."
"Did you work at your law school's public interest clinic?" "No."
"Moot court competition?" "No."

Sigh.

 

I graduated less than five years ago. Out of all of the journalism majors I know from my school, the only ones with journalism jobs are those who held sports editor, news editor, managing editor or EIC positions at the college paper... and/or freelanced for the local daily. And even most of the former editors either went back to school for something else, got a job in the other side of their double-major or are in PR. If I could put a number on it, maybe 5 percent of the people who graduated with me as JOU majors have gigs in journalism. Maybe that's generous, maybe there are a few more who finally found something.

And to answer your question, there are plenty. But I figure most journalism programs require students to put in at least a full year, if not two, working for the college paper. I was required to do at least three years at the paper and an internship. So most graduates do have SOME experience. The problem is what they make of it.

 

Wrong. There are many ways to cheat on standardized tests, starting with sending someone to take it in your place.

I don't know that kids these days are lazier. EVERYONE says that about the generation behind them. What is different is that the American economy punishes laziness (or lack of connections to make up for your laziness) much more than it used to.

 

I work for a media affairs/ pubic relations firm and handle hiring. while not journalism, it is communications. Right now, it is mind numbing how bad some of the resumes I get...just graduated seniors with no experience, no internships, mediocre grades, work history is part time summers at The Gap, a study abroad program in a tropical climate, and a member of a sorority. I'd say four out of five are unqualified for the company...and we are not big.

 

I know it was a study rather than just stating an opinion, but it still strikes me as being a bit of a poor craftsmen blaming his materials -- in this case the professors blaming the students they have to work with.

I think the point about a higher percentage of kids getting into college lowering the overall academic ability of college students has some merit. I'm just not fond of teachers at any level blaming the students entirely for a lack of achievement. Good teachers look for what they can do better when a student struggles, too.

The emphasis on standardized testing is only going to make things worse. Teachers will be forced to spend more and more time teaching to the test rather than helping students to develop critical thinking and other skills they need to succeed.

 

I was talking narrowly about college admissions offices. Bob notes that it is possible to cheat on the SAT. Granted. Derrick Rose did it. But it has to be pretty damned difficult. And I imagine that the number who do it and somehow succeed are so miniscule as to be irrelevant. It seems like it's much, much easier to just study for the damned thing than to jump through all of the hoops that it would take to cheat for a score.

Until someone comes up with a better way, it is the best existing antidote for parents writing essays and doing h.s. homework, puffed-up "volunteer" work, dozens of "Honor" Societies at every high school, grade inflation, etc., etc., etc.