D has little use for people who think school is a competition or want to compare grades. What’s the UR vibe?
UR is definitely very collaborative! Students often work on classwork and study together and genuinely want each other to succeed (it also helps that there are almost no classes that are graded on a “curve” where only x number of people can receive an A. In fact, I’m not aware of any such classes).
Thanks!
It’s also healthy to grow strength at working independently as well. In my company I see so many interns and new grads that have no idea how to work on a project by themselves. I think in the 90’s many schools developed a “group work” curriculum and you can now see it’s results with the younger millennial. Collaboration is great, but there has to be balance. It’s refreshing to work with someone who knows how to work independently, make decisions and be pro-active during the life of a project.
Sort of on and sort of off topic, but, every time the “is this school culture collaborative?” question comes up, I have NEVER seen the response be, no, this is competitive and the students work against each other. The question comes up fairly often, here and on college tours, and the response is always the same.
So. Is this 1. a term that has lost all meaning, 2. a buzzword, or, 3. are ALL college cultures collaborative and it’s a non-question at this point?
PS I have been on a lot of college tours and my D17 even more, the question really does always come up.
@nopoto457 Not everything is group work; I’d say the majority of my assignments are individual assignments (excluding things like labs, which I have a lot of as a CS major). A lot of classes, more humanities, but also in STEM, are also discussion-based, which results in a very collaborative and non-competitive feeling environment. I meant more in the sense of helping each other understand homework and classwork, study for tests, understand the material, etc, within the honor code, of course (some profs don’t allow collaboration on homework or require you to disclose who you discussed the assignment with). Personally, I don’t really like group assignments, but mainly that’s because I have an insane schedule, so it’s hard to find meeting times where I can be there, and I feel that’s unfair to my group mates.
@JenJenJenJen I can’t speak for every major or school, but that isn’t the case at all schools. Schools that have impacted majors or too many pre-meds may weed out people, make it so you have to have a super high GPA to get into your major, etc. In that case, where there’s more people trying to get through a program than there are spots, it can create a competitive environment. I feel, though, that schools are trying to become more collaborative, and get rid of these problems.
I don’t want to derail this thread, so I’ll just say that those scenarios don’t apply to UR.
The student guide at Haverford said it was almost bad manners to discuss grades. He didn’t know how any of his classmates were doing. Wholly collaborative.
The environment - especially in the sciences - is very collaborative. The benefit of small classes is the students all know each other by sophomore/junior year and it’s a lot easier to work and ask for help from people you are acquainted with. Professors also encourage group studying.