Students who take Personal Responsibility are likely to Succeed, over Entitled Ones

Jovialis

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I agree with this article, that students should not be entitled to believe that their success is dependent on their professors. Rather, it is dependent upon their own ability to cope with challenges that are presented to them. During college, I had some professors that were unable to even speak English clearly, like in the case of many math courses. So I had to take it upon myself to study the material so I could pass the course. For rigorous courses, a 3 hour class is not a sufficient amount of time for students to learn everything they will need in order to understand the material. Thus they will need to possess good studying methods. I recall an accelerated summer course I took in biology, which was very difficult. The professor had not even given us an outline to go by. Rather he said the material for the test would be in the chapters. Thus I needed to read each chapter multiple times, and assume what would be the most salient parts that would be tested on. Being capable of autodidactic learning is an important attribute to possess if one is expected to succeed. It is no surprise to me that people with a sense of entitlement in regards to academic learning, are usually failures. While those that rely less on their professor’s ability to teach them, are more likely to succeed. There’s no hand-holding like this in the real world.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...02/increase-student-success-reducing-academic
 
I had professors like that too. While I agree with your point of view, the professors shouldn't be getting paid and have tenure for appearing on the first day, saying this is the textbook, the final is on the entire text, and classes will be for enrichment.

I was like WHAT???

Thankfully, he didn't take attendance, so I didn't bother to go. It was Intro to Psychology. I just basically outlined the entire book. More than half the class failed because they couldn't or wouldn't do the same.

Another bizarre one was a Classics Course on ancient Greek plays. You basically had to memorize all of them because the exam was quotes from the plays. You had to say which character, in which story, by which playwright. Of course, many of the plays are treatments of the same story. I never got the point of the exam. How did it test anything important. Anyway, thankfully, I have a good memory, and I just stayed awake for 48 hours before the exam and read the plays over and over again.

What a nightmare university was in some ways. It wasn't harder than my prep school; it's just that you were at the whim of the professors, and some of them were total jerks.

Nowadays, students would probably protest in the face of exams like this.
 
I had professors like that too. While I agree with your point of view, the professors shouldn't be getting paid and have tenure for appearing on the first day, saying this is the textbook, the final is on the entire text, and classes will be for enrichment.

I was like WHAT???

Thankfully, he didn't take attendance, so I didn't bother to go. It was Intro to Psychology. I just basically outlined the entire book. More than half the class failed because they couldn't or wouldn't do the same.

Another bizarre one was a Classics Course on ancient Greek plays. You basically had to memorize all of them because the exam was quotes from the plays. You had to say which character, in which story, by which playwright. Of course, many of the plays are treatments of the same story. I never got the point of the exam. How did it test anything important. Anyway, thankfully, I have a good memory, and I just stayed awake for 48 hours before the exam and read the plays over and over again.

What a nightmare university was in some ways. It wasn't harder than my prep school; it's just that you were at the whim of the professors, and some of them were total jerks.

Nowadays, students would probably protest in the face of exams like this.

It's true, some professors really abuse their tenured position, and put little effort into being real educators. Some are terrible people, that have no business working in an academic setting.

I also really disliked professors that refused to give anything higher than an A-, no matter what. That always got under my skin.
 
I once had a class on World War II in Europe, and the professor actually tested us on how many tanks and planes were used in specific battles. It was absolutely ridiculous. I'm sure if you asked the authors of the textbook, they wouldn't be able to say off the top of their heads.
 
I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but I graduated from art school a few years ago and I’ve noticed 100% of the students who did not react well to critiques in the classroom (thought their designs were already perfect before critique and took the critiques as personal attacks), still don’t have jobs working in their field. The students who were always actively seeking critiques and would use the critiques to grow and get better have found jobs working in their field. I think the correlation is obvious.
 
College is different depending on your age at attendance. I did my undergraduate immediately after high school (in USA) and just accepted poor teaching because I wasn't aware I had a choice. I didn't go back for my Masters until I was in my 30s and in the middle of a successful career. I was much more demanding of my professors during the latter (not only was I older, but I, not my parents, was paying for it). Perhaps the difference was that it was a private school and most of the other students were "mature" as well, but the professors listened and work hard to meet our expectations. Perhaps everyone should take a break before going to college to mature . . .

Critiques can be difficult and it's easy to feel you're being attacked. Juju, your comments remind me of the play & movie "Educating Rita." A professor tries to sugar-coat his evaluation of Rita's essay. She retorts that she doesn't want that, "if it's c**p, tell me it's c**p," then she can start over again and get better.
 
College is different depending on your age at attendance. I did my undergraduate immediately after high school (in USA) and just accepted poor teaching because I wasn't aware I had a choice. I didn't go back for my Masters until I was in my 30s and in the middle of a successful career. I was much more demanding of my professors during the latter (not only was I older, but I, not my parents, was paying for it). Perhaps the difference was that it was a private school and most of the other students were "mature" as well, but the professors listened and work hard to meet our expectations. Perhaps everyone should take a break before going to college to mature . . .

Critiques can be difficult and it's easy to feel you're being attacked. Juju, your comments remind me of the play & movie "Educating Rita." A professor tries to sugar-coat his evaluation of Rita's essay. She retorts that she doesn't want that, "if it's c**p, tell me it's c**p," then she can start over again and get better.

That is true, I used to think that perhaps my professors were trying to make us learn responsibility, and teach ourselves. But most of these people that go into education are lazy, ineffectual morons. The quality of education in the United States is pretty bad. The best teacher I've ever had was myself.
 
That is true, I used to think that perhaps my professors were trying to make us learn responsibility, and teach ourselves. But most of these people that go into education are lazy, ineffectual morons. The quality of education in the United States is pretty bad. The best teacher I've ever had was myself.

Part of the problem is the tenure system. Then there's the fact that all the administration cares about is whether you publish, so there's no incentive in colleges/universities to be a good teacher.

On the first day of class my Intro to Psychology professor held up the textbook, all 500 and some pages of it, and said the midterm and final will be on this. During classes I'll discuss current research. Attend or not. I don't take attendance.

Great, so what did we need him for?

My Intro to the Greek Classics professor told us the final exam would be 50 quotes from the plays, poetry, etc. we had read. In each case we had to write the title, who authored it, which character was speaking, and what it meant.

Problem is, of course, that many of the plays, in particular, have the same characters over and over again. He didn't tell us this until the last week. One hundred percent of the grade was the final. I crammed for that damn thing for two days. Lots of people failed or got terrible grades. What precisely had his function been? He said he wanted to make sure we read each and every word. That's fine, but in some ways it was a test of memory, like a mini IQ test. How much real learning went on for most people?
 
That is true, I used to think that perhaps my professors were trying to make us learn responsibility, and teach ourselves. But most of these people that go into education are lazy, ineffectual morons. The quality of education in the United States is pretty bad. The best teacher I've ever had was myself.

While it may be true in some (many?) cases, I don't want to believe that educators are lazy or stupid. And I don't think anyone goes into a profession wanting to do a poor job. I suspect that everyone believes they're doing at least an adequate job. Don't we all think we're above average?

The problem, as alluded to above, is that our reward system for college teachers is flawed. I'm not sure what the better system is (giving raises/tenure to the most popular professors is clearly wrong), but it must involve students and learning, not written output (which is often without merit and never read).
 
I agree with this statement, because students who take responsibility become more disciplined and learn to work with people, this is a useful skill for each of us. Essay writing is also a useful skill; you can do your essay by visiting our website www.paperial.com. I think it will be useful for you, so you are a student.
 
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I think intellegent people, are more likely to be successful regardless of education. I know college drop outs that are very well-to-do. Luck is also an important factor. But the intellegence to know when to seize and see through an oppurtunity is highly important. Nevertheless, having that piece of paper makes things a lot easier. Though people should only be willing to take out loans, if it is for a practical degree that will provide them a stable career.
 

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