College Daze - A good argument for a gap year

Parent Cafe
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<p>College</a> Daze - Forbes.com</p>

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[quote]
On My Mind
College Daze
Charles Murray 08.07.08, 6:00 PM ET
Forbes Magazine dated September 01, 2008</p>

<p>Instead of helping high school grads grow up, colleges prolong childhood.
College is not all it's cracked up to be. Dumbed-down courses, flaky majors and grade inflation have conspired to make the letters B.A. close to meaningless. But another problem with today's colleges is more insidious: They are no longer a good place for young people to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Today's colleges are structured to prolong adolescence, not to midwife maturity.</p>

<p>Once upon a time college was a halfway house for practicing how to be a grown-up. Students couldn't count on the dean of students to make allowances for adolescent misbehavior. If they wanted to avoid getting kicked out, they had to weigh the potential consequences of their actions, just as in adult life. The student-teacher relationship was more distant and less nurturing than in high school, and more like the employee-supervisor relationship awaiting them after graduation. Students had to accept that they no longer got hugs for trying hard. If they didn't get the job done, they were flunked with as little ceremony as they would be fired by an employer.</p>

<p>This apprenticeship in adulthood has been gutted.</p>

<p>The light workload alone can make college today a joke. The most recent data say that students self-report only about 14 hours per week spent studying (the true figure is presumably lower). The definition of "weekend" has sprawled to the point that, as a Duke administrator put it, "We've run out of classroom space between 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday."</p>

<p>The demanding professor is close to being extinct. Due dates for papers are commonly extended when the student just can't get it done by then. Many professors permit quizzes or even final exams to be made up if missed--missed not because of an emergency at home or a fever of 104, but just, sort of, like, missed. At many schools student evaluations of professors are now systematically collected and used as part of the tenure decision process. Warm and sympathetic is in. Strict and demanding is out.</p>

<p>Professors are under pressure to accommodate students even when it comes to right and wrong answers. Talk to any college teacher and you will hear bemused accounts of encounters with students who think that the teacher's criticisms of their work are "just your opinion," no more valid than the student's opinion, as well as stories of students who make serious trouble for teachers who refuse to adjust their grades.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, colleges today take pride in making life at college as warm and comfy as life with Mom and Dad. It used to be that the girls had housemothers to do bed checks and the guys might have a proctor living on the dorm corridor, and otherwise students were on their own. No longer. Colleges now have large bureaucracies of "res life staff" ("res" for residential) charged with responding to any scrape that our little darlings might suffer. Barrett Seaman, whose book Binge is the indispensable guide to this new college world, found that his alma mater, Hamilton (1,700 students), now has 26 full-time people to manage student issues that in the 1960s were handled by only 3. Hamilton is not exceptional.</p>

<p>And so this heretical thought for parents of high school students nearing graduation: If you want your child to grow up responsible and independent, sequester the college tuition money. Encourage your child to join the military, work abroad as a volunteer for some worthy cause or just move to a different city, get a real job and support himself for a few years.</p>

<p>There's no intellectual loss in delaying college. On the contrary, your child will probably gain from the wait. Plato and Tolstoy were not writing for kids. The real danger lies in raising children who reach their 20s still thinking like children. The years after high school are for learning how to be a grown-up. Today's colleges are terrible places to do it.

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<p>Yikes! While I agree with some of the arguments here, some are ridiculous. It seems to me like the author wants to see everything in the worst possible light. Every college student obviously parties extensively, misses classes and tests constantly, and is cared for so much that if they have a bad day they are immediately taken care of, and any problems are fixed. </p>

<p>As an RA, the section on the Res Life staff really annoys me. The purpose is to make sure that learning happens outside of the classroom instead of just inside it. Bed checks are no longer the most important aspect to a student’s dorm life. I also think that student issues, especially problems with depression, disorders, and other issues certainly warrant intervention and more staffing. It seems strange that the same media is willing to yell continuously at schools for not doing enough before and after to prevent the tragedy at Virginia Tech, are willing to make fun of the efforts that are being made to prevent such things from happening again.</p>

<p>Which is not to say that I don’t think that gap years can be amazing and beneficial- I just am annoyed at another article trying to prove that we are the most spoiled generation in America.</p>

3

<p>I have to agree, for the most part with Murray. College does prolong adolescence. Many colleges have done away with Friday classes altogether.
Students no longer take 8 am classes.
For all the partying and binge drinking that goes on, I wonder what the purpose of an RA is after orientation. Perhaps they help with roommate squabbles - these exist because most college kids have never had to share a room or even a bathroom.
If the little darlings need more money they don’t work - they borrow. If they still don’t have enough for Cancun - they borrow more.</p>

<p>Of course - none of this applies to my children.</p>

<p>I am not sure a gap year will fix it. Many kids who take a gap year still are tied to the apron strings. Bank balance low? Call Mom and Dad.</p>

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<p>Man, not my kid’s school, classes 5 days a week, no make ups on Ochem exams, no deadline extensions, no hand-holding at all.</p>

<p>Send 'em to the big flagship (ex: Berkeley/UCLA) and the kids will handle everything,maybe this is more an LAC thing, I’ll let you know after the fall term for DD3 going off to a small school!</p>

5

<p>Hmmm. I just don’t see that much difference between my kids’ generation and my own when it comes to college maturity. In some ways, it was more of a protected bubble in my time, as campus populations are much more diverse now than they were then, and the world is smaller and more competitive. I went to college in the early seventies, nearly 40 years ago now, and we were famous for perpetuating our childhood- the original flower children ;)</p>

<p>I do think for those going on to grad school, a gap year or two after college is an excellent idea. Let the graduates work for a year or two and support themselves as young adults before committing themselves to several more years of schooling.</p>

<p>The author suggests having our kids get a real job and “support themselves for a few years,” right out of high school. I’m not sure there are that many jobs where young people can make a living wage, especially in Los Angeles, with neither a college education nor relevant work experience.</p>

<p>I do think it can be a good idea for kids who don’t seem ready for another four years of college, for various reasons. But to say colleges coddle more now than ever, I just don’t buy it.</p>

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<p>Disagree with the article. I wouldn’t let a smart teen waste a year of their mind in a totally boring job, the only kind they are qualified for as a HS grad. The military, especially now, is too risky as well. Of course, this was published in a business, not an intellectual magazine… consider the source. Not worth any more time.</p>

7

<p>These days, college is meant to prolong adolescence. It’s the de facto route right after high school for most, an extension of it; a holding tank for teens without skills in a country that confuses education for trade. </p>

<p>The problem isn’t nurturing colleges (which are few and far inbetween, State university isn’t afraid to flunk anyone out). The problem is America’s credential fetish and its terrible public education system – the root causes of the lower standards at American universities. There are just too many kids in college that don’t need to be there, and even more than don’t want to be there. Up high school standards so that employers can rest assured that prospective employees can actually read, write and do algebra. Bring back the apprenticeship. Stop forcing higher education down everyone’s throat. Most people just want the skills necessary to get good jobs, not a half-assed liberal arts education and tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt.</p>

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<p>This sounds like the rantings of some bitter guy with an ax to grind who hasn’t set foot on a college campus in years, and has some deluded idea of what it’s like to be a student.</p>

<p>In fact, if a student had handed in that article, I know of any number of professors who would mark it up as “vague”, “sparsely sourced”, or any number of logical fallacies. But I’m sure that his opinion is just as valid as theirs.</p>

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<p>When My husband taught at emory in the 80’s I assure you that he heard just as many lame excuses for not coming to class or for missing an exam as there are now…this is not a well researched letter. Kids are coming to college much more prepared, taking much more rigorous hs. classes and often complete not one but two degrees.</p>

10

<p>Aw come on guys - we know the article is not talking about my children or yours - I have a hard and fast 4 years and you are out rule.</p>

<p>But seriously, look at their peers - kids who never would have gone to college straight from high school 30 years ago are plunging into higher education - many are just not ready. They may be smart enough but they have other issues in their lives: non supportive parents, finances, a love for party etc. If you can’t see any of your kids friends in this article then you aren’t looking hard enough.</p>

<p>Many of these kids would do well to take a year off and work. My college freshman had the best job this past summer - working in the dietary dept of a very large hospital. She worked in the assembly line - her peer workers were mostly women supporting families and many were pregnant. She gained an appreciation of why she is attending college and life from “the other side”.
Personally, I wouldn’t have cared if she had done this for a year or two.
My nephew, who is very bright, never held a job in high school - his parents were divorced and he wanted to attend an expensive photography school. After high school he took a job in a factory for one year - it was and he will tell you the best thing he could have done. He is now finishing is BS at Tufts through the Museum of Fine Arts. His parents help him but don’t hold his hand - he is getting a fine intellectual experience and living the dream.</p>

<p>I went to a public university and most of my peers paid their way - if we couldn’t afford the dorm we didn’t take out private loans we crammed into apartments or houses. Most of us graduated on time - the draft was over and the incentive to stay in school avoiding it was over. We cringed over 8 am classes but classes were held on Fridays. Some schools have completely eliminated Friday classes - since attendance is so low.</p>

<p>By the way - attending college is business. For those who don’t have a college trust fund - economics should and must play a role.</p>

11

<p>I agree with it with the proviso that it depends on the school. Not all schools have done away with Friday classes. But because this article was written for a business magazine, it makes me wonder what businesses are finding in new workers that prompted this article. A while back I also read an article on how some of the Fortune 500 companies were starting etiquette programs for young, up-and-coming execs because they couldn’t take them to eat with a client and not embarrass the company. This seems to be in reaction to the type of employee they seem to be getting.</p>